Zed was off trying to track something good to eat for dinner while Richard and Kahlan were setting up camp and gathering wood for their fire that night. Kahlan had just finished setting up the wood the way Richard had shown her the first night they were in the forest and was now getting out the pot for their dinner, provided Zed brought something back this time. Richard was working on a temporary shelter, they had found a nice clearing that had not been used in a while so they decided to spend a few days this time and try to catch up on sleep.
"Richard?" Kahlan called to get his attention. "Hmm?" he answered to show he was listening. "I have something to tell you. It may change the way you feel about me but after the last few days… well I think you need to know now is all." He stopped to look at her. She buckled under the gazed of his wonderful eyes, now with their full attention on her. "If you tell me there is someone else in your life Kahlan, well I may just collapse right here." She gave a weak smile, "No Richard there is no one else," he grinned "but you may want to sit as this might be just as bad." He stopped smiling and sat looking up at her as she walked over and sat next to him, the tears forming in her eyes but not quite falling yet.
Her voice cracked as she started "I know you have heard people call me confessor and you have seen me use my power but there is more to it, a lot more. The day we met, before I knew you were the seeker and you helped me fight Darken Rhals men, well almost from the moment you picked up that stick to help I wanted to be a normal person, I wanted to be just some woman you were helping, saving. I knew I would do anything to protect you, even if I was protecting you from myself." Richard was staring very hard into her eyes trying to read what she wasn't telling him. "What do you mean even from yourself?" Kahlan shook her head, "just please let me finish before I can't. later that day when I saw you with Zed and found out that you were the seeker, you were the one I was looking for the reason my sister died to help me get here the reason I had come to Westland, I fell in love with you," Richard puffed up, smiled and started to say something but Kahlan cut him off, "It made me so sad because I knew I could never have you, never be with the man I loved. A confessors' life is a very lonely one. Let me ask you something Richard what do you know about my power as a confessor, about what it is that I can do? What have you learned by watching me use it the few time I have had to?" She looked at him, a steady stream of tears were running down her face now.
Richard thought about the times he had seen her use her gift, "well they all do whatever you ask them to they seem almost mindless I guess, but I can't really last long can it I mean even Zeds spells have a duration before they run out. It goes away right?" Kahlan shook her head again "no Richard it doesn't wear off. What I do it last as long as the person is alive. My power is ever present even now talking to you it is coursing through my body. I can feel it every moment of my waking hours. I have to be in control of it always or it could affect anyone I touch.
"I am also not just any confessor, Richard, I have a title among the people of the midlands I am known as mother confessor. I am head of the confessor order. When a confessor, any normal confessor uses their power it can take them anywhere from a few days to a week to regain their control of the energy, some of the stronger ones can use it again in a day. To be mother confessor you must be the strongest in the order, I can use my power again in a little more than two hours after I use it." She watched him take this all in. "As for what my power does, I can control a persons' love or more specifically I take away all their other emotions and leave them with only their love for me. They are stripped of their soul and are little more than slaves. Because of their love for me I can make them do anything I wish. If I wanted to I could tell them to die and they would fall over dead, because to them the idea of disappointing me is worse not living. If I were to ever lose control while touching you… If we were to ever be together you would become my slave and I could never live with that. I couldn't live knowing that I had done that to the only man I do and ever will love."
She brought her knees to chest and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to be as small as she felt, and cried. Richard watched her for a while. In an attempt to comfort her he reached for her but at his touch she shrank away again. He put his arms on his knees and just watched her not sure if he could talk at all. "Don't I get a choice in this?" he managed to say thought it was little more than a whisper, barely audible. She looked up at him, at Richard, her Richard. "What?" she choked out. "Me, Don't I get to say how I feel?"