A/N: AN from the future! The story really kicks up after the third chapter and this story is the first in the Lost in the Arms of Destiny Saga. I hope you enjoy the ride.
Entire story has been revamped and the added scenes are at the end of chapters 1 & 10 if you've read up to 12 and are rereading.
"It'd be a shame if you fell flat on your face and cracked your head open on my floor."
Cara shot the woman in the doorway a look, stood anyway. Took the few steps to the wall and leaned her shoulder against it, crossed her arms. Green eyes never left the woman. She stood a few inches shorter than Cara, dressed plainly, and had the physique of a hard worker. "Strange. No one's ever brought me to their home to kill them."
The woman smiled humorlessly and rubbed her hands on a towel. "You were injured." She vaguely gestured toward Cara. "Your braid was cut."
"Who are you?"
She leaned against the doorframe, mimicking Cara's posture. "You've been here three days."
Cara's eyes narrowed. "What, no guards to put me in jail?"
The woman turned, and walked away. "You should bathe. Lunch will be ready soon."
Cara ignored the brief darkness in her vision as she pushed off the wall and strode after the woman. She found her in the kitchen, gathering a few pots. All too comfortable for someone not just with a Mord'Sith, but with Cara. A desire to correct that filled her, but she knew if she started, she'd get carried away. Indulge herself. A smile formed on Cara's face.
She didn't turn. "I visited the tailor when I was certain you wouldn't die in your sleep."
The blonde crossed her arms to keep from strangling her host. "What does that have to do with me?"
"Mord'Sith aren't celebrated in most places. A new set of leather like your uniform should be ready by midday but it won't draw more attention than you already do." She chuckled. "The food should be done by the time I get back."
"And what do you get out of this?"
The woman turned and, hands on hips, glared at Cara. She actually glared. "You angered Mord'Sith into leaving you for death so I'm hoping you'll kill them. Dead Mord'Sith don't kidnap our daughters." Her expression hardened, as she stared off, seeing what wasn't there. "The day I found you, I was looking for my friend's daughter. She's like my own. Those damned Mord'Sith must've come after they were done with you. They took at least ten girls." She glared at Cara, challenge in her eyes. "If you're going to kill me, do it."
The blonde walked away to explore the house and called over her shoulder, "You're not worth my time." But someone else was. Someone whose blood would run like rivers, who would beg her for death. And she wouldn't give it for a while. She had all the time in the world.
"Here we are," the woman said cheerfully. She set out bowls and eyed Cara much like a mother does her daughter. "It suits you."
Cara merely readjusted a bit of leather, sat. "You kept the color." Yet the cut was different, dipping toward her breasts and of a freer design. It felt strange. Cara reached for an agile that wasn't there.
"If you don't like it, go to a tailor yourself." She sat across the table in silence. The soup steamed. Finally, the woman asked, "Are you?"
Cara didn't make a noise, didn't look up, just swirled the soup around.
She ate a spoonful of soup. "It's not poisonous." She didn't seem the least bit bothered that Cara never took her eyes off her, even as she began to eat the soup herself. At this point, the woman acted as if she and Cara were friends, hardly minding her. It only assured Cara that the woman lacked proper sense. "Are you going after them?"
"The last thing they'll know is my agiel." Well, after she claimed one.
She raised a cup. "Then this is to you." The Mord'Sith stared at her a moment and didn't smile, but she took a sip herself. "My name's Icela."
Cara continued to eat her soup. Icela did the same, not pursuing Cara's name. At last, some kind of peace. The blonde thought she'd have to beat the woman into silence for a while. She could be useful, though. In bed. Cara smirked.
When they finished, Icela cleared the table. "I don't believe you need directions to the Temple?"
The blonde sauntered out. Green eyes sighted the mountain she noticed earlier and followed the path leading to a small town. She clenched and unclenched a fist as she walked, preferring to go straight instead of detour around the town, despite the feelings of its inhabitants. Perhaps it would've been wiser to go around, but in reality, anything with sense wouldn't bother her. As for things without sense, well, she'd kill them.
"We have to help them, Richard."
Cara was striding down a road on the edge of town when she heard the name. Upon seeing him, she veered to the entrance of a shop and ignored the looks she got as she focused on the two. A Confessor and Richard, the Seeker. The reason Darken Rahl didn't walk among the living. The reason her Sisters left her for dead. Beside him stood the leader of a D'Haran squad. Cara's hot temper almost spiked when some man came at her, cursing her very existence. She casually dodged the rather pathetic swing and shoved him into the shop, hissing for him to be quiet.
"Kahlan, we don't know where the Temple is. Even if we follow them, they're three days ahead of us and we'd be at their front door."
The Confessor—Kahlan Amnell, of all Confessors—put her hands on her hips and looked around as if hoping for patience. "The Mord'Sith kidnapped their daughters, Richard. You know what's going to happen to them."
Cara tilted her head a bit as a cold smile started to come over her face. There stood opportunity itself, in the form of two people she should consider enemies and kill mercilessly. But Cara always saw beyond the immediate. Well, almost always.
Richard sighed and rubbed his temple. "I'm not saying we shouldn't help, I just want a plan. Otherwise we'd be throwing away lives."
"My Lord, we'll follow you to the Underworld," intoned the squad leader, prompting a roll of Cara's eyes.
"We won't waste lives, though."
Really, they were being ridiculous and wasting time. Cara's time. She approached with casual disregard. The leader moved between her and Richard, drawing his weapon as Kahlan did the same. Cara, however, merely stopped a short distance away and crossed her arms.
"Mord'Sith!"
Cara eyed the obviously very observant man with disdain. But she didn't get to think on it long because the Confessor moved, purpose lacing her small but proud steps, looking every inch a queen about to give judgment. Exciting. "A soon to be dead Mord'Sith."
Cara didn't move. Instead, she smiled.
Something flickered in the Confessor's eyes and her stride lengthened.
Richard rushed forward, catching Kahlan's arm. He dropped it when she looked at him, stepping back, but managed to keep his voice strong. Barely. "This is Cara, the one who helped me defeat Rahl." His eyes flicked between them.
Kahlan focused her cold stare on Richard a moment longer and Cara didn't miss the fact that he averted his eyes. Then her gaze fell on Cara. "Are you expecting the Mother Confessor to trust a Mord'Sith?"
Asserting her title? Cara would've thought it a product of fear from anyone else. But challenge? Cara enjoyed challenge.
"No, I'm asking you to trust me."
Blue eyes held Cara's. "If you so much as twitch, I will kill you."
Cara raised a lazy eyebrow. "You're assuming you can touch me, Confessor."
"I can touch you whenever I please."
"If it pleases me."
Kahlan's head tilted and her brow furrowed slightly. Her lips parted as if she couldn't find the words to capture whatever she wanted to convey, but Richard's voice cut the silence. "Help us get into the Temple?"
Cara smirked, ignoring the look the Confessor gave her. "Only if you help me kill them all."
He burst into the most isolated room of the Exalted Palace, wild in place of his normally cool demeanor. He fidgeted with a dark ring on his finger. In this moment, he had no care for the massive windows overlooking mountains sweeping across the landscape, or the impressive bookshelves taking up entire walls, or the ornate desk made of dark stone. He barely managed to refrain from kicking the toe of his boot against the beautiful carpet awash with deep blues and purples.
The hooded figure slowly turned from a window.
"I know the knowledge is yours."
The response was not immediate, but the hood shifted back enough to show their pale face and it seemed as if carved from marble for its stillness and sharp features. At last, their voice rolled out like soft thunder overlapping itself. "Duskuun, you must not walk this path."
His hand sent his black hair into disarray as he looked around desperately, as if trying to find reason. Eventually, his dark eyes settled onto the eyeless holes in his friend's face. "There was a ripple in Time. A ripple. It was unaccounted for, and from someone breaking out of a role written in stone. It has to be him. Tell me it's him."
The eyeless figured sighed.
Fragile hope shined in the abyss of Duskuun's eyes. "I've waited thousands of years."
A/N: The last section uses "their" for the character because they have no gender... It gets explained later and makes total sense, I swear.