Chapter Three: Good morning, Nicci...
Quotes:
"It was all over in a matter of seconds, but those seconds made the difference." –5,5 X-Men 2, novelization by Chris Claremont
"But it wasn't a consolation." –5,5 A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahiri
"No more love." –5,5 Flight by Shirley Ann Grau
"She stopped her headlong rush and stared at the man." –5,5 Cursed by Mel Odom
"Why a mirror?" –5,5 Traveling with the Dead by Barbara Hambly
The Morning After
For one blessed moment after she opened her eyes, all Nicci's ghosts were gone. She breathed deeply, and pulled herself up on her elbows, and then to a sitting position, the red silk sheet falling to her waist and exposing her bare torso.
Nicci ran her hands through her long blonde hair, leaning her head back. Only when she felt the hand grip her wrist did her eyes fly open again, locking at once on his in the mirror in front of the bed.
Why a mirror? Nicci thought, bemused, and then she dragged the power up from within herself and hurled it at him, a mere bundle of energy as raw as her nerve endings.
His hand tightened on her wrist convulsively, and she felt him gathering his own power (her power, she thought possessively—Richard had given it to her of his own free will). It was a frantic flurry, without words or sense to ground the magic. It was all over in a matter of seconds, but those seconds made the difference: Nicci felt the icy bite of the knife into her wrist, and then a numbing chill that stole up through her veins.
She watched him collect her blood in the mirror. Saw his fingers where he had touched her were burned by the raw nimbus of her power. But it wasn't a consolation.
"I hate you," she said weakly. Let him think she was already nearly unconscious. She had made him drop his guard before. Last night…
Looking back, it had probably been a mistake. But she needed something to burn the sour taste of Richard and Kahlan's epic 'true love' from her mouth. And he needn't think he had her beat.
It wasn't that Nicci wasn't going down without a fight. She'd been there. No. She just wasn't going down.
"What, no more 'love'?" he teased. He let go of her and Nicci slumped back against the pillows. Her blood was staining his sheets—of course. No wonder D'Hara's official color was red.
"Last night wasn't love," said Nicci. "Love is a myth."
"I quite agree," he purred, now stirring his own blood in with hers. He'd reopened the cut on his arm she'd given him last night. Nicci watched, languidly at first, and then with increasing interest and alarm.
No more time to pretend; Nicci touched the fingers of her uninjured arm to the deep gash in her wrist and whispered the Creator's blessing she'd learnt when she was no more than an innocent Novice. It had never worked in those days, but now, with a whisper of power through her, skin to skin, it closed the wound. She was no longer in danger of bleeding to death.
Nicci didn't waste time on relief. She reached forward just as he began the crescendo that would finish the spell. Their hands touched the bowl of mixed blood at the same moment, and they yanked it toward themselves. Predictably, it shattered and blood splattered everywhere, drenching them both.
At this critical moment, one of the Mord'Sith ran into her lord's room, out of breath. "My Lord, the witch sensed a disturbance—" she stopped her headlong rush and stared at the man. "My Lord?"
Nicci—naked as the erstwhile Lord Rahl beside her, drenched in blood—literal, no longer only figurative, how fitting—sank back on the pillows again and started to laugh.
