A/N: This chapter takes place in the "Reckoning" AU. I took a little liberty with the timeline. The Embracing Chains trailer is now up on my profile page.
Love
-Present Day-
"And then Lord Rahl transformed us into hawks, and I led my Sisters to you, Jennsen's words our guide."
"We know what happened to you, Cara," Kahlan snapped, face taut. Softening, she looked at Jennsen. "But what happened to you?"
Skittish, Jennsen leaned into Cara, turning wide, trusting eyes on the Mord'Sith's face.
Cara gently stroked Jennsen's cheek, heart sinking like a stone. Looking down at her broken doll, she said the words she knew Jennsen needed to hear.
"Everything will be alright."
-In the 23rd year of the reign of Lord Darken Rahl-
"Jennsen."
Sitting alone in the middle of Cara's large bed, Jennsen looked up, hunching in on herself when she recognized Dahlia.
"Put on your gown. You are to go to the People's Palace, to live with your brother."
A cautious joy thrumming through her veins, Jennsen rose to do as bidden. "Will my mistress meet me there?"
Eyes oddly bright in the light of the guttering candles, Dahlia said simply, "No."
Her heart suddenly pounding in her chest, Jennsen quailed, "Then I will wait for her to come get me."
It was not quite a question, too uncertain to be a command. She waited for her punishment for daring to defy a Mord'Sith. In seconds she would feel the gloved fist on her cheek, the hard boot in her spine.
But it didn't come.
Instead, Dahlia moved to the window, surveying the grounds below. She opened her mouth, but did not speak. Her tongue flicked out, wetting the corner of her lips as she cleared her throat.
Jennsen watched all of this, holding herself completely still. Her life had come to depend on noticing every detail of the Mord'Sith, absorbing every nuance, on her ability to gauge their moods when Cara was not there to protect her.
"Cara isn't coming back," Dahlia murmured, her voice without the hard edge that usually cut its way across Jennsen's ears. It was uncharacteristically rough, a drastic change from the smooth tones that Mistress Dahlia used to both savage and soothe.
But not the roughness of rage.
Sorrow.
"Then she is at the palace, attending Lord Rahl," Jennsen said as reality fell from beneath her feet, deliberately misunderstanding Dahlia's meaning.
"No," Dahlia repeated as Jennsen moved closer, "Cara is not coming back."
Taking careful sidling steps with a wary eye on the Mord'Sith, Jennsen finally reached the window to stand next to the woman she feared.
It wasn't until she heard the tiniest of exhalations, a small catch of breath that she turned to face Dahlia fully.
And realized she was crying.
"Cara's not coming back," she said, voice ringing hollow in her ears. The words were a stone to her heart, a jagged shard of rock in her breast.
Tears welling, too numb to feel them, Jennsen sank to her knees, limbs trembling.
Dahlia placed her hand on Jennsen's shoulder.
"You leave for the palace at first light."
Jennsen nodded, and covered Dahlia's hand with her own.
It was all her fault.
-In the 24th year of the reign of Lord Darken Rahl-
"Brother, you sent for me?" Jennsen curtsied, one perfectly curled hair falling against her cheek.
Darken took in her appearance, approving of the deep violet gown his sister wore. Cara had trained her well. Jennsen's eagerness to please the Lord Rahl had transformed her into a lady of quality in little more than a year.
Darken turned his thoughts from Cara.
"Queen Kahlan is with child."
Jennsen smiled, her face lighting in a way he did not often witness. "That's wonderful news, brother! My congratulations."
"Yes," Darken said dryly, his lips twitching as he thought of the Confessor child that would soon be his to raise. "Sister, I have a task for you."
"Yes?" she rose from her curtsy, eager to serve the only master she had left.
He beckoned her with two fingers, eyes tracking her as she approached and settled herself on one of the armrests of his throne. He took her hands, nails ghosting along her palms.
"Stay close to the queen. She is... being with child makes her erratic. Think how remorseful she would be should harm come to herself. Or another." He looked up, locking blue eyes to blue eyes in an electric gaze. "Or worst of all, my child."
Jennsen swore at once, swore on her life, her fevered declarations ringing through the hall.
She vowed to care for her brother's child, to protect it from any that would cause harm.
Even its mother.
-In the 25th year of the reign of Lord Darken Rahl-
"You have spent time with them?"
Jennsen smiled, "It's as you thought, brother. Kahlan comes to love your son the longer they are together. It is not an act. I think he is safe from her."
"And they do not suspect you?"
"No, brother. Kahlan thinks me a prisoner. She does not know of my love for you," Jennsen grasped Darken's hand, pressing it to her lips to kiss his knuckles. His insignia ring was cold against her skin. "The things she speaks of…"
Distractedly, barely noticing her adoration, Darken replied "It is of no import what she speaks of, so long as she does not speak of it to Nicholas."
His eyes said differently to those that could read them.
"I'll keep watching, brother," Jennsen promised, stroking a soft white hand down his face.
She so hated to see him hurt.
-In the 35th year of the reign of Lord Darken Rahl-
"Nicholas!" Jennsen cried, her soft slippers sliding on the stone flagons of the floor.
She had been abed when Kahlan was caught, had just received news of her poor nephew's almost murder.
Her brother had been right, to have her watch Kahlan all these years.
She skidded past General Egremont, at first noticing nothing about him beyond that he was there - not even his naked sword. She had eyes only for the boy she had dedicated her life to protecting.
"Nicholas, you're safe!" Kneeling, Jennsen pulled her nephew to her breast, kissing his cheeks. "You must have been so frightened," she cooed to him, eyes shut in relief at finding him unharmed.
She hoped her brother had dealt with Kahlan as painfully and mercilessly as Kahlan had liked to claim he was.
"Aunt," Nicholas said in that quiet, calm way of his. "You're spotting my tunic."
And so she was, her tears leaving oblong dark spots on his blue silk.
"I'm sorry, little prince," she half laughed, opening her eyes.
Only to fall into horror.
Her brother. Her beautiful brother, lying in a pool of red.
"Nicholas, what?" she gaped, pushing the boy's face into her neck to shield him from the sight.
"Kahlan, did she?" But no.
Kahlan was already dead.
Shaking with shock, Jennsen turned away from the grisly image of her brother laid low, a nightmare that would pound through her heart with every pulse of her blood.
Now she noticed Egremont's sword. Now she saw that it dripped with blood.
"Traitor!" she spat, lip curling into a sneer. She put herself between Egremont and Nicholas, sprawled on her knees. She would keep her vow to her brother, though it meant her death.
"No, aunt," a quiet voice said in her ear as a small, hard hand gripped her throat.
Slowly and gently, she was made to face her nephew, his grip on her throat tighter, stronger, than she thought the boy capable of.
His eyes swirled black, and she felt nothing.
"Swear to me."
Jennsen had been taught to obey her mistress, had been trained to revere Lord Rahl. She had given herself over to that life, had come to love the woman that took her from the path those many years ago.
Had come to love the brother that lay dead.
He was the only Lord Rahl she would ever swear to.
Nicholas saw the refusal in her face before she had a chance to voice it. She had just opened her mouth to curse him to the Keeper when Egremont's sword cut off her words, the steel slicing through her final utterance to lodge betwixt her teeth in a great fount of blood.
"Have I pleased you, master?" the old soldier asked the boy.
"You have pleased me very much."
-In the 56th year of the reign of Lord Nicholas Rahl-
Lying next to the Seeker in this strange time that must never happen, Cara was surprised to feel relief.
It was a small thing, or a large thing she had thought small. In the temple where her Sisters met their end, exterminated by the very lord they were meant to serve, she had found Triana.
There was a fracture in the bone of the skull. A fracture Cara had caused herself when she punished Triana for her treatment of Jennsen.
Jennsen.
There had been no skeletons in slave collars.
It was a small hope, or a large hope that her favorite pet had not met such a bloody end.
She was too soft for that. She didn't deserve it.
Cara was surprised at the feeling of peace that knowledge gave her. Her Dahlia must have died in battle at one of the other temples. That was the way and fate of the Mord'Sith. It was the death Dahlia would have wanted.
But her Jennsen deserved something gentler.
Cara didn't know when she had begun to think of Jennsen as hers. Yes, of course Jennsen was her pet, her slave.
But she was also her Jennsen. Just as Dahlia was hers.
-l-
The next morning they reached the People's Palace.
It was a hollow ruin, a face without teeth, an empty skull.
They came across only one inhabitant, an old witch woman who spoke to the Seeker of prophecy and plans.
Cara had eyes only for the royal tombs.
There lay the Seeker's Confessor, taken by Cara's lord as his wife. Lord Rahl's effigy was not a good likeness.
But it was the smaller tomb behind his that drew her attention. She stood, rooted in place, unwilling to move, but she knew.
Entombed in marble lay her Jennsen, acknowledged as a royal.
It did not seem right for her face to be so solemn, for her hair to be so pale, even in stone.
Her effigy was not a good likeness either.
Tensing her jaw, Cara looked over at the Seeker, agreeing to his insane scheme to reverse history, to stop this "Master Nicholas."
Her eyes strayed back to Jennsen's cold stone face.