As they walked back to the center of town, Anna purposefully strode ahead of them.

Kahlan watched her go. She wasn't surprised that Anna had caught the eye of the D'Haran viceroy. Anna was young and pretty. And spirited. She'd used the only weapons she had, her looks and charm, to lull him into complacency in order to find her brother.

Now that they knew the truth, she'd do whatever she had to do to overthrow the viceroy's rule over Hartland. Even if it meant having to endure his odious attentions.

Kahlan understood the extent of Anna's sacrifice far better than the men ever would.

After all, she'd had to masquerade as a lady of the evening for them to get through the guards at the Boundary.

And as a Confessor, she'd long ago resigned herself to taking a mate who had no honor. Her own father had been a member of the Dragon Corps, Confessed in battle by her mother, while Dennee's mate, Finn, had been an assassin sent to kill her.

She'd always known she could only be with a man who would never truly love her, whose sole purpose was to reproduce the next line of Confessors.

The thought was so distasteful, and she'd dreaded it. There was no giving and receiving with the Confessed, and that made even the most intimate of acts lonely and impersonal. So she'd shut it out of her mind, put it off for as long as she could, while Confessors younger than her settled on mates and did their duty.

No, she couldn't find it in herself to hate Anna. Quite the contrary, in fact. She felt a strong sense of solidarity with her.

It pained her to admit it, but Anna was exactly the kind of woman Richard should be with.

Anna could give him everything he wanted. She could make him happy.

Had coming back to Hartland made him realize that?

Though he'd tried to hide it from her, the affection he had for Anna was obvious.

The dull ache in her heart sharpened.

If you truly love him, you should let him go, a little voice in the back of her mind scolded her. Don't you want him to be happy? You know that he can never have that with you.

She knew that, but it was no use. No matter how many logical arguments her mind came up with, her heart simply refused to accept them.

And so she just couldn't stop herself from asking questions she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answers to, because she needed to know the truth.

(To be continued in Chapter 6...)