"Dear spirits," Kahlan said. "What's going on?" She glanced about. We're running out of time. Adie, stay with the Sisters. I hope to be back soon."

"I can get the Rada'Han off," Verna called out, but too late. Kahlan had already dashed away into the shadows.

Verna took Adie's arm. "Come on. I'll take you to some of the other Sisters behind the wall. One of them will get that thing off you while I go inside."

Verna's heart pounded as she slipped through the halls inside the prophet's compound after leaving Adie with the others. As she moved deeper into the dark halls, she braced herself for the possibility that Warren was dead. She didn't know what they had done to him, or if they had decided to simply eliminate him. She didn't think she could endure it if she were to find his body.

No. Jagang wanted a prophet to help him with the books. Ann had warned her, what seemed ages ago, to get him away at once.

The thought entered her mind that maybe Ann wanted her to get Warren away to keep the Sisters of the Dark from killing him because he knew too much. She put the troubling thoughts from her mind as she scanned the halls for any sign that a Sister of the Dark might have slipped into the building to hide from the battle.

Before the door to the prophet's apartments, Verna took a deep breath, and then moved into the inner hall, through the layers of shields that had kept Nathan a prisoner in the place for near to a thousand years, and now kept Warren.

She breached the inner door into the gloom. The far double doors to the prophet's small garden stood open, letting in the warm night air and a shaft of moonlight. A candle on a side table was lit, but provided little illumination.

Verna's heart pounded as she saw someone rise from a chair.

"Warren?"

"Verna!" He rushed forward. "Thank the Creator you escaped!"

Verna felt a clutch of dismay as her hopes and longings sparked her old fears. She retreated from the brink. She shook a finger at him. "What kind of foolishness was that, sending me your dacra! Why didn't you use it and save yourself — to escape! That was reckless sending it to me. What if something had happened? You already had it, and you let it out of your hands! What were you thinking?"

He smiled. "I'm glad to see you, too, Verna."

Verna dammed up her feelings behind a gruff reply. "Answer my question."

"Well, first of all, I've never used a dacra, and worried I might do something wrong, and then we would lose our only chance. Secondly, I have this collar around my neck, and unless I get it off, I can't get through the shields. I feared that if I couldn't get Leoma to take it off, if she would rather die than do it, then it would all be for naught.

"Third," he said, taking a tentative step toward her, "if only one of us was to have a chance to get away, I wanted it to be you."

Verna stared at him a long moment, a lump rising in her throat. She could help herself no longer and threw her arms around his neck.

"Warren, I love you. I mean I really truly love you."

He embraced her tenderly. "You have no idea how long I dreamed of hearing you say those words, Verna. I love you, too."

"What about my wrinkles?"

He smiled a sweet, warm, glowing Warren smile. "Someday, when you get wrinkles, I'll love them, too."

For that, and everything else, she let herself go and kissed him.

A small knot of crimson-caped men burst around the corner, intent on killing him. He spun into them, kicking one in the knee as he brought his knife up into the gut of a second. Before their swords could block him, he had cut another's throat and broken a nose with an elbow.

Richard was livid — lost in the thundering rage of the magic storming through him.

Even though the sword wasn't with him, the magic was still his; he was the true Seeker of Truth, and was bonded irrevocably to its magic. It coursed through him with lethal vengeance. The prophecies had named him fuer grissa ost drauka, High D'Haran for the bringer of death, and he moved now like its shadow. He understood the words, now, as they had been written.

He whirled through the men of the Blood of the Fold as if they were mere statues, toppling before a ruinous wind.

In a moment, all was silent again.

Richard panted in rage as he stood over the bodies, wishing they were Sisters of the Dark instead of their minions. He wanted those five.

They had told him where Kahlan had been held, but when he arrived, she was gone. Smoke still hung in the air from the battle. The room had been raked by what looked to be the furor of magic unleashed. He had found the bodies of Brogan, Galtero, and a woman he didn't recognize.

Kahlan, if she had been there, might have escaped, but he was frantic with apprehension that she had been spirited away by the Sisters, that she was still a captive, and that they would hurt her, or worse yet, that they would give her to Jagang. He had to find her.

He needed to get his hands on a Sister of the Dark so he could make her talk.

Around the palace grounds, a confusing battle raged. It appeared to Richard that the Blood of the Fold had turned on everyone in the palace. He had seen dead guards, dead cleaning staff, and dead Sisters.

He had also seen a great many dead of the Blood. The Sisters of the Dark scythed them down mercilessly. Richard had seen one charge of near to a hundred men cu! down in an instant by one Sister. He had also seen a relentless charge of men from all directions overrun another Sister. They tore her apart like a pack of dogs at a fox.

When he reached the sister who had cut down the attack, she had vanished, and so he was looking for another. One of them was going to tell him where Kahlan was. If he had to kill every Sister of the Dark at the palace, one of them was going to talk.

Two Blood of the Fold caught sight of him and came up the path at a dead run. Richard waited. Their swords caught only air. He took them down with his knife almost without thinking about it, and was moving again before the second man had finished pitching face-first to the ground.

He had lost track of the number of the Blood of the Fold he had killed since the battle had begun. He ripped through them only if they attacked him; he wasn't able to avoid all the soldiers he saw. If they came at him, it was by their choice, not his. It wasn't them he wanted — it was a Sister.

Near a wall, Richard hugged the moon shadows beneath a clump of aromatic, spreading witch hazels as he moved toward one of the covered walkways. He flattened against a pilaster in the wall as he saw a shape dart from the walkway. As it approached he could tell by the flow of hair and the shape that it was a woman.

At last, he had a Sister.

When he stepped out in front of her, he saw a the flash of a blade slashing toward him. He knew that every Sister carried a dacra; it was probably that, rather than a knife. He also knew how deadly a dacra was, and how skilled they were with the weapon. He dared not take the hazard lightly.

Richard whipped his leg around, kicking the dacra from her hand. He would have broken her jaw so she couldn't cry out for help, but he needed her to be able to talk. If he was fast enough, she would raise no alarm.

He caught her wrist, sprang up behind her back, snatched her other fist as she brought it up to hit him, and clamped her wrists together with one hand. He swept his knife arm around her throat and with a yank, toppled back. As he landed on his back, with her atop his chest, he hooked his legs over hers to keep her from kicking him. She was pinned and helpless in a heartbeat.

He pressed the blade to her throat. "I'm in a very bad mood," he said through gritted teeth. "If you don't tell me where the Mother Confessor is, you are going to die."

She panted, catching her breath. "You are about to slit her throat, Richard."