She would never be able to live with herself if the only way to save those children was to sacrifice her love, and she refused.

"How could we not? Even if it would kill us, how could we not? But how could the good spirits demand such a price?"

Kahlan suddenly remembered Denna's spirit taking the Keeper's mark from Richard, and freely choosing to go in Richard's place to eternal torment at the Keeper's hands. That it turned out that Denna didn't have to face that fate didn't matter; she thought that she would, and had sacrificed her soul in the place of one she loved.

The branches of a nearby maple tree clacked together in the gentle breeze. Kahlan could hear the flags atop Shota's palace snapping in the wind. The air tasted of spring. The grasses were a bright, new green. Life was beginning to bud all around. Kahlan's heart felt like dead ashes.

"Then I will tell you one other thing," Shota said, as if from a great distance. Kahlan listened from the bottom of a well of despair. "You have not heard the last message from the winds. You will receive one more, involving the moon. This will be the consequential communion.

"Do not ignore it, nor dismiss it. Your future, Richard's future, and the future of all those innocent people will hinge on this event. Both of you must use all you have learned in order to comprehend the chance you will be offered." "Chance? Chance for what?"

Shota's gaze riveted Kahlan. "The chance to carry out your most solemn duty. The chance to save all the innocent lives of those who depend upon you to do what they cannot." "How soon?" "I only know it will not be long."

Kahlan nodded. She wondered why she wasn't crying. It seemed as if this was the most devastating personal tragedy she could imagine-losing Richard-and yet, she wasn't crying. She guessed she would, but not now, not here.

Kahlan stared at the table. "Shota, you would try to stop us from having a child, wouldn't you? A boy child?" "Yes."

"You would try to kill our son, if we had one, wouldn't you?" "Yes."

"Then how do I know that this isn't just some plot on your part to prevent us from having a child?" "You will have to judge the truth of my words with your own mind and heart."

Kahlan remembered the dying boy's words, and the prophecy. Somehow, she had known all along that she would never marry Richard. It was all just an impossible dream.

When she was young, Kahlan had asked her mother about growing up and having a love. a husband, a home. Her mother had stood before her, beautiful, radiant. statuesque, but wearing her Confessors face. Confessors don't have love, Kahlan. They have duty. Richard was born a war wizard. He had been born for a purpose. Duty. She watched the breeze roll a few of the crumbs from the table. "I believe you," Kahlan whispered. "I wish I didn't, but I do. You're telling me the truth." There was nothing else to say. Kahlan stood. She had to lock her knees to stay upright on her trembling legs. She tried to remember where the sliph's well was, but she couldn't seem to make her mind work. "Thank you for the tea," she heard herself say. "It was lovely." If Shota answered, Kahlan didn't hear it.

"Shota?" Kahlan grasped the back of the chair to steady herself. "Could you point me in the right direction? I can't seem to remember. ."

Shota was there, taking her arm. "I will walk partway with you, child," Shota said in a soft, compassionate voice, "so you may find your way."

They walked the road in silence. Kahlan tried to find cheer in the warm spring morning. It was still so cold in Aydindril. It had been snowing when she left. Still, she couldn't find any cheer in the fine day.

As they climbed the stone steps cut into the cliff, Kahlan fought to regain a sense of purpose. If she and Richard could somehow save all those people from the plague, it would be a wonderful thing. Most wouldn't care about the sacrifice they made, but that wouldn't lessen the relief she would feel in the sound of a child's laughter, or the sight of a mother's joy in her child's safety.

There would still be things to live for. She could fill the void with the happiness to be seen in the eyes of her people. She would have done something no other could do. She and Richard would have stopped Jagang from harming all those people.

Near the top of the cliff, Kahlan paused at a turn in the steps and looked out at Agaden Reach. It truly was a beautiful place, this valley nestled among the peaks of jagged mountains.

She remembered that the Keeper had sent a wizard and a screeling to kill Shota. Shota had barely escaped with her life. She had vowed to regain her home.

"I'm glad you got your home back. I'm glad for you, Shota. I really am. Agaden Reach belongs to you." "Thank you. Mother Confessor."

Kahlan looked to the witch woman's almond eyes. "What did you do to the wizard who chased you out?"

"What I said I would do. I tied him up by his thumbs, and I skinned him alive. I sat back and watched as his magic bled from his skinless carcass." She turned and gestured back down into the green valley. "I covered the seat of my throne with his hide."

Kahlan remembered that that was precisely what Shota had promised to do. It was small wonder that even wizards rarely dared to enter Agaden Reach; Shota was more than a match for a wizard. One wizard, at least, had learned that lesson too late.

"I can't say I blame you-the Keeper sending him to kill you and all. If the Keeper had gotten you, well, I know how much you feared that."

"I owe you and Richard a debt. Richard prevented the Keeper from having us all."

'I'm glad the wizard didn't send you to the Keeper, Shota." Kahlan really meant it. She still knew Shota was dangerous, but the witch woman seemed also to have a compassion that Kahlan hadn't expected.

"Do you know what he said to me, this wizard?" Shota asked. "He said he forgave me. Can you believe it? He granted me forgiveness. And then he begged mine."

The wind carried some of Kahlan's hair across her face. She pulled it back. "Seems a strange thing for him to say, considering."

"The Wizard's Fourth Rule, he called it. He said that there was magic in forgiveness, in the Fourth Rule. Magic to heal. In forgiveness you grant, and more so in the forgiveness you receive."

"I guess the Keeper's minion would say anything to try to get away with what he had done, and to get away from you. I can understand you not being in the mood to forgive him."

Light seemed to vanish into the ageless depths of Shota's eyes. "He forgot to place the word 'sincere' before 'forgiveness. »

CHAPTER 42

Kahlan watched the witch woman disappear back into the gloomy forest. Vines hanging down from craggy branches reached out to touch their mistress as she passed, while tendrils and roots stretched up to brush her leg. She vanished into a shroud of mist. Unseen creatures called in low whistles and clicks from the direction she had gone.

Kahlan turned back to the moss-covered boulder Shota had shown her and, just beyond, found the sliph's well. The silver face of the sliph rose from beyond the round, stone wall, to watch as Kahlan approached. Kahlan almost wished the sliph hadn't come, as if somehow, if Kahlan couldn't get back, none of the things she had learned would come to pass.

How was she going to look into Richard's eyes and not scream in anguish? How was she ever going to be able to go on? How would she find the will to live? "Do you wish to travel?" the sliph asked. "No, but I must."

The sliph frowned, as if well puzzled. "If you wish to travel, I will be ready." Kahlan sank to the ground, put her back to the sliph's well, and folded her legs under herself. Was she to give up this easily? Was she to submit meekly to the fates? She didn't have a choice. Think of the solution, not the problem.