Zedd snatched up his bag of herbs and potions, grabbed Richard's sleeve, and said, "Come with me, my boy. I may need you." Richard insisted he could be of no help, but when Zedd had his mind set on something he could make stone seem malleable by comparison. As Zedd shoved him out the door, he said, "You never know, Richard, you might even learn something."

Elayne's husband, Henry, was off with a crew cutting ice for the inns and, because of the weather, hadn't returned yet from his deliveries to nearby towns. There were several women in the house, but they were all in with Elayne. Zedd told Richard to make himself busy tending the fire and heating some water, and that he was likely to be a while.

Richard sat in the cold kitchen, sweat running down his scalp, while he listened to the most horrifying screams he had ever heard. There were muffled words of comfort from the midwife and the other women, but mostly there were the screams. He stoked the fire, melting snow in a big kettle to give himself an excuse to go outside. He told himself that Elayne and Henry might need more wood, what with a new baby and all, so he cut and chopped a good-sized pile. It did no good; he could still hear Elayne's screams. It wasn't the way they put voice to pain, but the way they were seared with panic that made Richard's heart hammer.

Richard knew Elayne was going to die. A midwife wouldn't have come for Zedd unless there was serious trouble. Richard had never seen a dead person; he didn't want the first to be Elayne. He remembered her laughter when she had taught him to dance. His face had been red the whole time, but she pretended not to notice.

And then, while he sat at the table, staring off, thinking the world was a very terrible place indeed, there was a last scream, more agonizing than the rest, that sent a shiver down his spine. It died out in forlorn misery. He squeezed his eyes shut, in the dragging silence, damming in the tears.

Digging a grave in the frozen ground was going to be near to impossible, but he promised himself that he would do it for Elayne. He didn't want them to keep her frozen body in the undertakers' shed until spring. He was strong. He would do it if it took him a month. She had taught him to dance.

The door to the bedroom squeaked opened, and Zedd shuffled out carrying something. "Richard, come here." He handed over a gory mess with tiny arms and legs. "Wash him gently."

"What? How do I do that?" Richard stammered.

"In warm water!" Zedd bellowed. "Bags, my boy, you did heat water, didn't you?" Richard pointed with his chin. "Not too hot, now. Just lukewarm. Then swaddle him in those blankets and bring him back into the bedroom."

"But Zedd… the women. They should do it. Not me! Dear spirits, can't the women do it?"

Zedd, his white hair in disarray, peered at him with one eye. "If I wanted the women to do it, my boy, I wouldn't have asked you, now would I?"

In a flurry of robes, he was off. The door to the bedroom banged closed. Richard was afraid to move for fear he would crush the little thing. It was so tiny he could hardly believe it was real. And then something happened — Richard began to grin. This was a person, a spirit, new to the world. He was beholding magic.

When he took the bathed and blanketed marvel into the bedroom, he was moved to tears to see that Elayne was very much alive. His trembling legs were hardly able to hold him.

"Elayne, you sure can dance" was the only thing he could think to say. "How did you manage to do such a wondrous thing?" The women around the bed stared at him as if he were daft.

Elayne smiled through her exhaustion. "Someday you can teach Bradley to dance, bright eyes." She held her hands out. Her grin grew as Richard gently put her child into her arms.

"Well, my boy, seems you figured it out after all." Zedd lifted an eyebrow. "Learn anything?"

Bradley must be ten by now, and called him Uncle Richard.

As he listened to the quiet, returning from the memories, Richard thought about what Cara had said.

"Yes, you will," He told her at last in a gentle tone. "Even if I have to command it, you will. I want you to feel the wonder of a new life, a new spirit, in your arms, so that you can feel magic other than that Agiel at your wrist. You will bathe him, and swaddle him, and burp him, so that you will know your tender care is needed in this world, and that I would trust my own child in that care. You will make foolish sounds to him, so that you can laugh with joy at the hope for the future, and perhaps forget that you have killed people in the past.

"If you can understand none of the rest, I hope you can understand at least this much of my reasons for what I must do."

He relaxed back in the chair, letting his muscles slacken for the first time in hours. The hush seemed to hum around him. He thought about Kahlan, and let his mind drift.

Cara whispered through tight lips and tears: a soft sound almost lost in the huge room and its tomblike silence, "If you get yourself killed trying to rule the world, I will personally break every bone in your body."

Richard felt his cheeks tighten with a smile. The darkness behind his eyelids swirled with dark plumes of color.

He was acutely aware of the chair around him: the Mother Confessor's chair, Kahlan's chair. From it she had ruled the Midlands alliance. He could feel the eyes of the first Mother Confessor and her wizard glaring down at him as he sat in the hallowed place after having demanded the surrender of the Midlands and the end of an alliance that they had forged to be the foundation for an everlasting peace.

He had came into this war fighting for the cause of the Midlands. He now commanded his former enemy, and had placed his sword at the throats of his allies.

In one day, he had turned the world upside down.

Richard knew he was breaking the alliance for the right reasons, but he agonized about what Kahlan was going to think. She loved him, and would understand, he told himself. She had to.

Dear spirits, what was Zedd going to think?

His arms rested heavily where Kahlan's had. He imagined her arms around him, now, as they had been the night before in that place between worlds. He didn't think he had ever been that happy in his whole life, or felt so loved.

He thought he could hear someone telling him he should find a bed, but he was already asleep.

CHAPTER 17

Despite returning to find several thousand brutish D'Haran troops surrounding his palace, Tobias was in a good mood. Things were turning out splendidly — not the way he had originally planned that morning, but splendidly nonetheless. The D'Harans made no effort to hinder his entrance, but warned him that he had better not come out again that night.

Their effrontery was galling, but he was more interested in the old woman Ettore was preparing than in the D'Harans' lack of protocol. He had questions and was impatient for the answers. She would be ready to give them by now; Ettore was well practiced at his craft. Even though this was the first time he had been trusted to handle the preparations for a questioning without a more experienced brother overseeing his hand, that hand had already proven to be talented and steady at the task. Ettore was more than ready for the responsibility.

Tobias shook the snow from his cape onto the ruby and gold carpet, not bothering to clean his boots before he marched across the spotless anteroom toward the corridors leading to the stairs. The wide halls were lit by cut-glass lamps hung before polished silver reflectors that sent wavering rays of light dancing over the gilt woodwork. Crimson-caped guards patrolling the palace touched fingertips to their foreheads as they bowed, Tobias didn't trouble himself with returning the salutes.