"Please... Richard, let me go," Kahlan pleads through the pain of the agiel that the Seeker has ran across her side. He acts as though he does not hear her as he caresses her side again with the agiel. The touch of the weapon, though soft compared to the way the Confessor has seen Cara use it on their enemies, is an agonising torture for her and she desperately wants Richard to stop before more of her ribs are broken. "Stop, please."

A faint smile crosses the Seeker's face as he stares lovingly at the pained expression on Kahlan's face. "She can never love you like I do," he whispers as he grazes her side again.

Kahlan lets out a hoarse cry as she feels the snap of another rib. Mercifully, the agiel is taken away from her side and she pants as she greedily takes air into her lungs. 'Dying is better than this torture,' she thinks to herself as she tries to calm her breathing to keep herself from passing out. "Richard stop this now. You are not yourself."

"It is you who are not yourself!" he shouts as he presses the agiel into her stomach. "I love you but you go behind my back to be with that bitch!" Richard withdraws the weapon from her abdomen and begins pacing. "I thought once I killed her, you would go back to normal. I know they are masters of seduction, but I never realised how far her talons were stuck into you. I should have seen what was going on behind my back but..." he trails off as he turns towards the door leading to the cell they were in. "Ah, we have a visitor," he states with a manic grin. The tinkling of bells echo down the stone corridor and reverberate off the walls. "Maybe I didn't finish her off," he thinks aloud with a thoughtful expression on his countenance. "Well, I should go rectify that!" He exclaims brightly as he unsheathes his sword and stalks out the door.

A tear trails down Kahlan's face as she thinks of a wounded Cara coming to her defence. "Dear Spirits, please protect her. Or, just please let it be some wild animal who thought there was food about. Please don't let her die," she mutters aloud before sobbing at the thought of Cara dying at the hand's of a madman. A groan escapes her throat as the pressure of her sobs causes the pain in her side to flare.

After a few moments without the sound of fighting permeating the silent void, Kahlan calms down. 'Hopefully, the spirits listened to me and it is nothing more than a poor animal that was caught in his trap,' she muses as she steadies her breathing, though she can no longer take a full breath of air into her lungs. 'I have to think of a way to get out of here before Richard kills me.'

She glances about the room, desperately looking for something... anything to help her out of the chains that keep her hands pinned to the wall above her head. 'Nothing,' she thinks as she huffs. Kahlan moves her hands slightly and feels the pins and needles sensation in the tips of her fingers. 'This is hopeless,' she thinks morbidly as she tries to work the circulation back into her hands. 'Even if I could get free, I still can not use my power to keep him from harming me or worse.'

At once, the Confessor hears footsteps heading back towards the dungeon. Voices echo off the walls and she tries to single out the owners.

"I'm telling you, Zed, she isn't herself." She hears Richard say as he stands outside the door. "I am really glad to see you here."

"I am just glad I made it in time," Zed says to his grandson. "After seeing what those brutes had done to Cara, I was worried that you and Kahlan would not have made it out alive either."

Kahlan's heart sinks at the wizard's words. 'He doesn't know what happened,' she thinks as she strains against the chains again. 'Richard has lied to him!'

"It was a close one, Zed; but at least Kahlan and I were able to escape somewhat intact," Richard states. "But I think you may need to take a look at Kahlan though, ever since the banelings attacked us at camp, she hasn't been right. She kept trying to attack me."

"Attack you?" the wizard inquires curiously. "Why in the Creator's name would she do such a thing?"

"I don't know, but she keeps babbling incoherently and tries to attack me. I had to restrain her the last time she attacked," Richard says regretfully and slowly opens the door to the cell. "That was the injury to my shoulder-blade. She took her dagger and stabbed me. Can you take a look at it?"

"Of course, my boy!" Zed exclaims as he enters the room. "But first I need to check on Kahlan to see if maybe one of the banelings may have hit her on the head. Your shoulder can wait for the time being, but if her brain is bleeding, she may not have much time."

"Sure," Richard says with a smile as he enters the room behind his grandfather. "I just hope you made it in time. By the way, how did you know where to find us? There wasn't exactly time for me to leave you a note or anything."

Zed quickly schools his face from showing the horror he feels as he looks upon Kahlan bruised and battered face. He knows he has to be prepared to act his ass off in order to keep Richard occupied until Cara comes to help him. The wizard smiles softly at Richard, though he wishes he could use wizard's fire to blast his grandson into the Keeper's embrace. "Magic, my boy!" he exclaims as he pats the Seeker softly on his good shoulder. "When I saw what had happened, I quickly grabbed something of yours and created a spell that would lead me to you.

"I was worried that I would not make it in time, but it seems that I have," he says as he glances over at Kahlan and gives her a sly wink that Richard did not see.

Unbeknownst to Richard, Kahlan was listening to every single word that was spoken and only one thing stood out more than any other. 'Zed's lying!' she thinks happily as she continues to listen in on the conversation. 'If I ever thought that knowing when someone was lying was a punishment, I wish I could take the thought back,' she muses as she tries to keep calm. 'He is not here for Richard! He's here for me and Cara is alive!'

Before she could dwell any longer in her happiness, Richard's voice breaks the small silence that had invaded a few seconds before. "Well, whatever you did, I am surely grateful," Richard says as he sits down on the chair beside the table in the middle of the room and places his sword on top of it. "I thought I would never see you again."

"And I thought I would never see you either, Richard," Zed says with a smile as he looks lovingly at his grandson. "Now before we finish our reunion, let me take a look at Kahlan's injuries."

Richard shakes his head slowly as he lets out a shaky breath. "I wish I had gotten to them sooner," he says with a sigh. "By the time I reached them, Cara was dead and Kahlan was barely hanging on. I killed the rest of the banelings myself and then carried her out of there. I guess she thought I was one of them, because when she finally came to, she buried her dagger into my back. I barely made it to this ruin before nearly passing out from blood loss.

"Luckily, I was able to find this agiel and cauterise the wound before I lost anymore blood."

"Luck always seems to be by your side, my boy," Zed states jovially before turning his attention back on the Mother Confessor. "Now, has any other banelings tried to attack while you have been holed up in here?"

"No, why?" Richard asks, rising slowly from the chair and looking towards the door.

"I just wanted to make sure no one was going to interrupt me while I heal Kahlan. Healing her body is one thing, but trying to heal her brain will be harder; and if I have any interruptions..." he shakes his head slowly. "We might lose her entirely."

"I will make sure you have no interruptions, Zed," Richard states hurriedly as he grabs his sword and races out the room. "I will reset the traps so we can have an advanced warning, in case someone does try to come after us."

The door closes with a slam behind the Seeker and Zed listens as he grandson's boots echo down the hall. The old man takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. "Oh my dear, I am so sorry he did this to you."

Kahlan tries to smile but cringes at the pain. "I knew you were lying to him," she whispers as a tear trails down her cheek.

"Try not to speak," Zed whispers softly as he takes another breath. "You have a lot of injuries, but the most grievous ones are your ribs and your jaw."

"I am sorry I hurt him," she continues, ignoring the wizard's instructions. "I just fell in love with Cara."

"I know, my dear," he replies softly as he reaches for her hands and uses his magic to unlock her wrists from the wall. He helps ease the Mother Confessor down to the floor so she could be more comfortable. "Now, I will need you to relax as much as possible and try not to move. I am going to heal you."

She nods her head slowly as darkness creeps to the edges of her vision. She feels herself sinking into the darkness. A darkness so welcoming, she greets it like an old friend and longs to stay within its company forever.

Fight.

The word sounds foreign to her at first and she pauses briefly in her head-long rush into the dark oblivion that is before her. 'That voice sounds familiar,' she thinks hazily as she continues more slowly towards the darkness that is nearly within her reach.

Fight, Kahlan!

The voice is much stronger now and she realises that it's a voice that she has longed to hear since she was with the person earlier in the evening. 'Cara,' she muses to herself as she turns away from the crepuscular void and stares longingly at the path she had previously crossed. 'Cara.'

Please don't give up, Kahlan! You have to fight!

She glances once more at the void before her and cringes in horror as she realises that it has taken shape and is staring back at her with blood-red eyes. "You can never escape my grasp, Kahlan," a deep voice growls from the pitch. "And once you leave the land of the living, I can torment you for the rest of your life."

The Mother Confessor turns from the eyes and races back towards the ever increasing light and the voice of the one person in the Midlands she longed to see. "Cara," she repeats over and over like a mantra as the light before her becomes brighter and brighter. A loud growl roars behind her as she steps into the luminous glow and embraces the warmth of the its rays. She takes a deep breath and sighs as she feels cool air flow through her lungs, making her feel as weightless as the air she had breathed in.

"Wake up, Kahlan," Zed pleads as he stares down at the fully-healed body of the Mother Confessor. It had been a standard healing session, as routine as any of the thousands of times he has healed other people before; but he knew as well as any other wizard that it takes the person themselves to finish the healing process.

He had tried to follow Kahlan's spirit down the tangled web of pain in which she housed within her, but he dared not travel any further. She was heading to the abyss that resides within all of us and was threatening to cross over to the other side. Zed coaxed her to leave it and to come back through towards the light, but her spirit was frightened by what Richard had done to her and Cara. The wizard understood her fears; he was horrified at what his grandson had done to both women.

He was about to give up. As he turns around to look away from Kahlan, she takes in a deep shuddering breath. "Kahlan!" he exclaims softly as he lifts her head up from the cold, hard stone and runs a rough calloused hand across her freshly healed skin.

"Zed?" she asks hoarsely as her eyes flicker open briefly.

"Yes, my dear?"

"Where's Cara?" she asks as she allows her eyes to stay open and stares up at the wizard's tear-streaked cheeks.

"I am glad to have you back," he says softly as he wraps his arms around her shoulders and hugs her to his chest.

"I am glad to be back, Zed," Kahlan replies softly as she feels her eyes tear up. "Please, is she alright?"

"She is, my dear," the wizard states with a smile that slowly fades. "And Cara is coming... Richard will not know what will hit him when she does arrive."