Gain

Darken watched Cara sleep. They had camped against a sheer cliff's edge, the terrain becoming mountainous and rocky with pocket valleys the closer they got to D'Hara. The backdrop of granite meant that no one could approach them from behind.

In the violent chaos the Midlands had become, every advantage helped.

Gazing at Cara, idly admiring the way she filled out her leathers, Darken mused on his plans for D'Hara. He would first need to ascertain who among the D'Harans would follow him, and who could be coerced into it. The Mord'Sith were fiercely loyal, and would be even more so when they saw Cara had returned to his side.

Where Cara led, her Sisters followed.

Whether they liked it or not.

Unaware of the look of fondness on his face, Darken reached out to tuck some of Cara's hair behind her ear. It was an awkward length now, long enough to get in the way but still too short to wear in the proper style of the Mord'Sith.

It was another thing that set her apart from other Mord'Sith. Darken liked it.

She frowned in her sleep, little wrinkles appearing on her brow. He traced her lips, marveling that it did not wake her. A rabbit jumping through the underbrush was enough to start her from sleep, Agiel in hand, yet when he touched her…some part of her recognized him as safe.

It meant a great deal.

He trailed his fingertips down her neck to the leather strap that held the amulet of their son's bones at her throat. He let his hand rest there on the tough red strap, not daring to touch Nicholas' bones.

He didn't think of all that he had lost. It was not a habit he liked to indulge in. He preferred to think of his conquests, his victories, the things he had gained.

When ruler of D'Hara, he had gained riches and territories. He had gained enemies. At the time he had not thought Cara a gain. She was simply Cara, a Mord'Sith who would serve him forever.

Nicholas had been a threat, a small creature that would grow large and threaten to take all that was Darken's. He was a problem that was easily dealt with.

No remorse. Not then, at any rate.

Only after his death in a fiery explosion of green had Darken come to understand the things that were truly worth having.

Power meant remembrance, a mark on the world none could erase.

But it did not matter in the underworld.

His former subjects pulled his statues down, some lamented the loss of stability.

But none had actually mourned him. None of them missed Darken.

Not even Cara.

Any laments were for Lord Rahl the king, not the man.

No one waited to greet him in the underworld.

Not even his mother.

He had not tried to find her.

He had returned to life determined to earn a place in the Creator's light, to become a hero the people would follow.

He had gained things that no one ever thought he would have. Things he had not known he wanted.

A brother. A lover. A friend. A son.

The friend was gone. The son walked the gardens of the spirit world.

When he had died again, for the fourth time, he had been mourned by his brother and his lover.

Something Panis Rahl had always thought an impossibility.

He wasn't alone in that assumption.

What do you know about love?

How many times had Kahlan Amnell spat those words at him?

He had been given life once more, one last chance to do it right, get the things he wanted.

He wanted Cara. Forever.

The more he thought of it, the more he found a life without her unacceptable.

It didn't matter why. He found that the reason why had stopped mattering so much to him. All that mattered was that he needed her.

The desire was no less powerful for not having a name.

Cara's eyelids flickered, her mouth turning downwards as her troubles haunted her dreams.

Darken was afraid. He was horribly afraid of losing Cara to death, to his brother, to the protocol and politics inherit to ruling a country. A Mord'Sith had never been queen.

Did he want her to be queen?

Most of all he feared losing her to a crime he had committed before he understood what it was that he was depriving them of.

Nicholas had forgiven him.

But he did not think Cara ever could.

Darken extended one finger, touching the bones of his son.

She could never know.