A/N: This part of this long labor of love has been in my head for a while. I have been eager to write it ever since I began the second installment, so I hope you enjoy it. This will probably be the final installment in this sequence, but honestly who knows.

Critical discourse and engagement are allowed. I love talking about Legend of the Seeker.

Chapter 1

Liminality

Cara screamed herself awake again. She heard the chains above her rattle as the nightmare consumed her, her entire body shaking with the rage of it. Kahlan's head on a pike, Zedd's intestines spilled out on the ground, blood pouring from Ask's lips. All of their eyes were trained on Cara, begging her to stop, pleading with her to relent. She had been the one to kill them, she always had. Like a premonition, a prophecy, she was certain it would come to pass. But when she woke, she was chained up again, her body battered beyond reckoning. It was getting harder and harder to open her swollen eyes each day. It was becoming difficult to think straight through all the pain. Thoughts that were not entirely her own were common these days.

Even Mord-Sith had a limit to how much pain they could endure. Cara was unable to count days for lack of consistent sunlight and long bouts of unconsciousness, but she could judge from the impatient way Dahlia beat her that she had been locked in fetters for far longer than the normal breaking period. Cara surmised that Dahlia was not trying to fully break her, for then she would not be useful as a Mord-Sith. She could not become a plaything, it would ruin everything about her that was desirable, beneficial. If she became Dahlia's slave, it would take a year or more to put her back together again. Dahlia wanted a quick turnaround, Cara could tell by the more than vicious beatings that there was a time constraint on what the Mord-Sith wanted from her.

Cara heard two voices whispering outside the door, but she could not discern whether it was Raina and Dahlia, or someone new. Raina had come up a few times to beat her, but she cried and apologized every time, so Dahlia had most likely sent her away. Raina had held her face and kissed her deeply, saying that Dahlia and Lord Rahl had threatened to kill Berdine if she did not comply. Although Cara was in a world of pain she could not blame Raina—she felt that if she were as weak as Raina and she could not fight her way out, she would do the same for Kahlan.

Kahlan. That was all Cara could think about. Flashes of beautiful, blue eyes to combat Dahlia's cold ones. A flourish of a white dress stained with blood from battle. The shift of her hair to reveal the soft tops of her breasts. A gentle smile, a show of teeth. The way her breath hitched when she came for Cara for the very first time. The unwinding woman. The stalwart woman. Her woman.

"Cara," Dahlia called, slapping Cara's face softly at first. "Cara." When the blonde failed to respond, Dahlia's face twisted up and she punched Cara across the face. Fresh blood slipped out from a twice-opened cut on her face. In lieu of a verbal response, which would have appealed to Dahlia much more, Cara spit blood down her chin and let it dribble there. Her aquamarine eyes, surprisingly lucid today, stared straight at Dahlia.

"You have a guest," Dahlia said, stepping back to reveal a red-robed Richard Rahl. For a moment, she could have sworn it was Darken Rahl standing there instead.

"Oh Cara," Richard murmured, stepping forward to rake his eyes down the Mord-Sith's naked, bruised form. "It's such a shame this has to be done to you. This could have been easier, you know," he assured her in a voice that one would use to calm down a feral animal. His hand brushed down her cheek, his fingertips were the gentlest sensation she'd felt in weeks, and Cara almost caught herself enjoying it.

"Richard… why?" Cara asked, her voice low and gravely. It hurt to speak, and the hurt was no longer as manageable as it once was. Cara felt so much like the little girl from Stowecroft who she never got to see grow up. The agiel had taken any semblance of a normal life from her long ago. And now it was taking it once again. What a fool she had been to believe in what Kahlan said, to believe that a place where the sun sets was real.

"We don't have to play this game anymore, Cara," Richard said, pursing his lips and lightly pressing his hand on Cara's throat. "You know who I am. Tell me who I am."

Cara looked deep into Richard's eyes. The brown, kind eyes who had saved herself and her sisters from ruin in the future. She looked down at his lips and saw the warm smile that had led her down a path of righteousness. Richard was the one who had vouched for her and trusted her when Kahlan hadn't been ready for her.

But he wasn't there. Someone else hid behind those eyes, and as his hand hit her throat again like it had in his study, Cara suddenly realized why she had gone so deep within herself and not fought back. Unlike Richard, who allowed her to constantly question him, she had been trained to never challenge the man before her. She had been told that whatever he said, she must obey, no matter the personal cost. There was no personal cost for Mord-Sith, they were broken to the obedience of one master.

"Darken Rahl," Cara purred, feeling her heart drop to her stomach but did not let it show. Instead, a self satisfied smirk pulled at her full lips, which were cracked and flakey with dehydration and swift punches to her face. She had no idea how this was possible, but she knew that it was the only explanation for the way Richard had been treating her. The throne of D'Hara changes its ruler, but Cara knew that Richard Cypher was much stronger than that. His goodness should have been able to endure the terrible and brutal history of Rahls.

"Good girl," he murmured, squeezing Cara's throat so he could watch her choke for a moment. Cara held on as long as she could, but eventually her body betrayed her and began to thrash about. Her eyes rested on Dahlia, who for all the world looked stern and stable, but Cara could see the twitch in her hand that betrayed her cool exterior. Darken Rahl let go of her and Cara sucked in a deep breath, feeling the rush of adrenaline give her a second wind.

"What do you want?" Cara asked, and Rahl pursed his lips. "Why am I here?"

"Because you belong to me, Cara. You always have," Rahl told her, a hint of bemusement lilting the end of his sentence. "You have been poisoned by the Mother Confessor, she's taken you and made you a disgusting little weakling."

"Why do you care what I become?" Cara said, wondering if she should have denied the allegations, but her head was throbbing. "I won't serve you, I don't serve anyone."

"That's precisely the problem. You were born to serve. Made to serve. You cannot hide who you are, especially not from the Mother Confessor," Rahl told her. Dahlia stepped forward and whispered something into his ear, her lips brushing against his jaw, and he smiled a cunning smile. "Kahlan. You cannot hide from Kahlan. She knows what you are."

"That's not true," Cara told him. "I don't need to prove myself to you."

"That's all you do. You had to prove yourself to the Seeker to be useful. And you have to prove yourself to Kahlan to be useful to her. Did it ever occur to you that no one trusts you but me and your sisters?"

"My sisters," Cara started with a potent venom in her voice, "left me for dead."

"As is the Mord-Sith way. They were doing what was best for you, Cara," Darken Rahl told her quietly, his face mere inches from hers. Cara felt her heart beat faster out of fear the closer he became, remembering what it was like the last time he was so near to her. When he called her to his quarters late at night and asked her if she knew that a Mord-Sith was meant to serve her Lord Rahl in every way.

"I don't have to follow you to be Mord-Sith," Cara said gently. Then, as if what she was about to do would not rain hellfire down upon her, Cara reared her head back and cracked it down on his. She grunted and saw black spots in her vision, however was pleased to see that Rahl had stumbled back a few steps as a consequence to her risky act. Rahl stood there holding his fingertips to his forehead, his expression morphing into one of anger. A cold rage whispered through his glare, and for a moment Cara expected him to hit her, or scream at her, or choke her again. Perhaps he would choke her so hard that she would not have to worry about the next time he would put his hands on her.

"You insolent little cunt," Rahl seethed, circling around her like a vulture does a carcass. "I gave you everything; a better life, a purpose, your strength. You were nothing but the soft, little daughter of an idiot farmer before I found you. And you would have stayed a dullard if I hadn't rescued you."

"Nobody," Cara breathed out, still stunned from her maneuver. "Rescued me."

At that, Cara felt a punch to the back of her skull and her head involuntarily whipped forward. Darken Rahl was in front of her in a flash, yanking her back by the hair and holding her still as Dahlia plunged an agiel into her belly. Cara shook against the pain, not able to look away as Darken Rahl held her gaze. Dahlia released, and Darken Rahl nodded for her to do it again. Without warning, Rahl plunged his lips onto hers, Cara immediately sent into a scream of horror as she writhed against him, wanting to escape. Dahlia let the agiel howl on her skin, purple veins crawling further and further up Cara's ribs, as Rahl deepened the kiss. He held Cara still as his tongue slipped into her mouth. It was getting more difficult for Cara to keep things straight; was this Richard, or Darken Rahl?

"If you don't break, I won't kill you, as you so clearly wish. I will torture you and keep you as my pet. You'll be forced to watch yourself melt into my obedient servant. So you have two options—submit, or live as a slave," Rahl hissed, running a hand down her breasts, brushing a hand over her nipples, and down to her core where he squeezed and gave a good, hard slap. Cara whimpered out in pain, her swollen eyes shutting and causing even more suffering. Dahlia stood motionless, unable to look away from the torture she was forced to witness. It was different, somehow, when it was Lord Rahl's hands instead of hers.

As Darken Rahl, who perhaps was Richard Rahl, turned and walked out the door, Dahlia shut it behind him. She approached the wheel mechanism that attached to Cara's chains and pulled it toward her, lowering her so her feet could touch the ground. It had been days since Cara had felt anything beneath her feet.

"Cara… Cara, look at me. I am the one who knows who you are. Not even Lord Rahl truly knows you. I have seen the deepest parts of you. Don't break, Cara. Choose," Dahlia whispered, getting on her knees and planting unexpectedly gentle kisses on the area she had just aggravated. Cara was silent as Dahlia's lips pressed sweetly to her burning skin, her tongue peeking out to lick the affected area. Dahlia's hands snaked around to squeeze Cara's generous ass, eliciting a small hiss from the blonde Mord-Sith.

"It doesn't have to be this way. You can remember who you really are. You don't have to keep hurting," Dahlia said in what almost sounded like a pleading tone. "Rahl has bigger plans if you don't submit soon. Plans that will hurt you more than I have." Somehow, the sick part of Cara's brain did not believe this could get any worse. "Cara, don't drift away."

"Let me die," Cara breathed, her green eyes bloodshot as she stared at Dahlia's pristine countenance. "I'm of no use to you like this. You have already stripped me of my honor."

"No, you're not. That's why I'm going to make you better," Dahlia smiled sweetly, a tear welling up in her eye. "You're going to believe me soon, my heart. You will. You will earn your honor back. You will be Mord-Sith once more."

—

Years could have gone by and Cara would have been none the wiser. Each day seemed longer than the one before it, and somehow Dahlia managed to bring fresh wounds to places Cara hadn't ever known could hurt so badly. Cara tried to hold onto the images of her loved ones, but she felt them slipping away. Ask had the wrong nose all of a sudden, and the wrong colored eyes. Kahlan looked more like a specter than a person.

What had their voices sounded like, before all the pain had taken them away from her?

"You'll be pleased to know that your disrespect and stubbornness has not paid off in the way you anticipated," Dahlia said as she came into the room. Cara could tell from the lack of sun and the lit torches that it was nighttime. Cara cracked open her eyes, which had begun to settle down from the swelling and were now just blacked, and stared incredulously at Dahlia. Without a reply, Dahlia kept her countenance and body still before she continued. "We have captured the Mother Confessor. Raina has been training her."

"You're lying," Cara scoffed, and for the first time in a long time she felt like herself, even if it was a fleeting surge of venom. Dahlia raised an eyebrow and unsheathed a white agiel, the peculiar hue of the terrifying weapon immediately catching Cara's eye. She had seen nothing like it in all her years; there were white leathers, but not white agiels. Besides, each agiel was meant for a specific Mord-Sith, excluding the one which Cara had taken from Triana. There was no getting a new agiel, a Mord-Sith earns and keeps her agiel. And, unless the world had truly turned upside down, Dahlia had the same, blood red agiel that she did.

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you," Dahlia smirked. She plucked at each finger of her glove and slowly peeled it off, then took the white agiel in her other hand and pressed it to her skin. Instantly, Cara heard Kahlan's voice cry out wordlessly. It was a sound Cara had only heard once, when Kahlan had returned from the Underworld, and it felt so real. Suddenly all the wounds on her body became alight with searing pain, and the world around her drifted away slowly, slowly.

"No…" Cara trailed off, and as her mind tried to grip what was happening, Dahlia came closer. "No, no…"

"We have to, my love," Dahlia whispered, pushing back a lock of Cara's sweat soaked, blonde hair behind her ear. She absolutely reeked, but bathing her was not an option. Not yet. She wasn't ready for the warm, soothing water. Someone as stalwart as Cara had to be broken beyond recognition in order to comply. The troublesome thing about Mord-Sith was that once they were trained, they loved the pain. They knew what it took to break someone. To re-break a Mord-Sith took a considerable amount of effort and cunning. But Cara was far too important to simply kill. In place of mercy there would be an odyssey of pain, which would bring Cara back in all her tactful, merciless, ravenous glory. "You know we have to."

"Please, Dahlia," Cara begged, trying to find some small flicker of the woman who loved her once, of the little girl who had held her hand through the pain, but there was only Dahlia, holding Cara by the lower back and thrusting the tip of the agiel into her belly. Cara felt a scream claw out of her throat, all she could hear was Kahlan begging for her life, begging for Cara to stop. As if Cara was the one torturing her.

"Don't plead with me. You're the one killing her," Dahlia murmured in Cara's ear. "She's a strong one, but not for long. She's already weakening. It's quite a pity to see the Mother Confessor like that. You could stop this, Cara."

"She… it's not real…"

"I wouldn't be so sure, my love. You know precisely how it should sound," Dahlia told her, raising up the agiel to press lightly to Cara's cheek. Cara screeched in pain. Dahlia had noticed that in the last month she hadn't held back her cries anymore, she simply unloaded the pain into the air. Cara, always cold and calculated, had lost the ability to restrain herself from her primal core. "You're doing this to her, Cara. You alone are causing her pain."

Cara did not know what to believe. It was so hard to think, so hard to understand, so hard to breathe anymore. She barely slept, barely ate, barely drank. The only touches were Dahlia taking her off and putting her onto the chains, and of the no longer delicious agiel.

"You truly are a monster, Cara," Dahlia told her. "You won't even save yourself, much less save her. You'd rather let her be punished for your mistakes? For your failings? Do you even love her?"

"I…"

"Say you'll come back to me, to us, and all this will stop. We'll let Kahlan go. She'll be able to live in happiness, and you'll never have to face what you have done," Dahlia told her, cupping Cara's jaw with her hand. She could see Cara slipping from consciousness and decided to twist the knife, ramming the agiel into Cara's neck. Her eyes shot open and she could barely manage more than a pathetic choking sound.

This was still the woman she loved, no matter how battered and weak. Dahlia knew that Cara would live through this pain, and that it would become her. Make Cara clean. Make Cara hers.

"No," Cara gasped as soon as Dahlia took away the agiel. Dahlia's face twisted up in anger, a red sheen coming over her vision. She could not hear Cara begging her to stop as she plunged the agiel into her over and over, nor when she grabbed Cara's neck and choked her for almost too long. Dahlia screamed wordlessly like a petulant child who had not gotten a promised toy.

"How dare you say no to me. I made you. I am the only one who knows you," Dahlia hissed, releasing Cara from her handcuffs and letting her crumple to the floor. "Go ahead, get up. Get up and fight me like a Mord-Sith."

Cara grunted with effort as she rolled herself onto her stomach. Everything hurt, but it would hurt worse if she let Dahlia continue. The pain was overwhelming as she pushed herself up with her good arm, then fell flat on her face once again. Dahlia took her by the armpit and pulled her up onto her feet.

"You've always been so selfish, Cara," Dahlia told her. Cara felt light headed as Dahlia yanked her upright, the world was fuzzy and soft around her. "So selfish and so stubborn."

Cara had stopped caring about what happened to her days ago, but as Dahlia dragged her down the spiral staircase to the wet, cold dungeon, there was a noticeable shift in her demeanor. Dahlia was suddenly quieter than usual, and all Cara could hear was her legs scraping across the stone floor. No taunting, no small chuckles to herself. Dahlia tossed her across the floor with ease and locked the wooden door behind her.

In the absence of the usual, one-sided banter which Dahlia engaged in, there were instead small, scratching noises all around her. Then a squeak, and another, and another. Something dark and tiny scurried across the floor. Cara instantly sat up even though it made her head spin.

"You're so set in your old ways, I found some old friends for you," Dahlia said through the small opening at the top of the door. "This time, you won't have an agiel. You'll just have to consider whether you want to live like an animal, or like a Mord-Sith."

Cara bit down on her bottom lip and tried not to scream as a rat came toward her. She knew that was exactly what Dahlia wanted, but then one crawled up her back, its long, hairless tail thumping on her torn back. Their little claws dug into her as she remembered what it was like to be scared for the first time. When she was given the choice to either kill or be killed. The lessons were so much easier when she was young, when everything was black or white. Now Cara had gotten a taste of what it was like to be human, and that was difficult to let go of. But as the rats tried to nibble at her toes, against all the pain and trauma Cara had suffered the past months, it wasn't a surprise when she took one of the rats, held it in her hands, and shakily tried to crush it between them. But when she did, it only bit down hard on the skin between her thumb and index finger. She was too weak to destroy even a rat.

—

"I could kill you right now," Kahlan told him, her fists balled up at her sides. "Berdine won't stop me. Why are you so calm?"

"Because I still have one piece left to play against you, Mother Confessor," Richard assured her, the confidence in his tone was haunting. "Once I kill you, the Keeper has a chance to succeed. With yourself and the Seeker dead, he can finally succeed, and I can be safe forever. I can live forever."

The certainty with which Richard had uttered this took all the words out of Kahlan's mouth for an instant. Her mind raced as she searched for the answer to his riddle. Rahl must have seen this slight hesitation as her head spun, because his once beautiful lips snuck up into a sneer. He had the upper hand, even with Kahlan's grip on his throat.

"You can't confess me, and killing me will destroy Richard. Is that really what you want, Mother Confessor? To ruin the man you once called a lover?" Rahl purred, taking a step back and out of Kahlan's reach. "And if you kill me, you'll never find Cara."

"I know where she is," Berdine interjected, her voice colder than it had ever been. The sting of betrayal had hit Berdine hard in these few but illuminating moments. "But he's right. Killing him will get us nowhere."

"But keeping him alive is a risk," Zedd answered. "Darken Rahl is a wily creature, it does not take much for him to crawl into the cracks made by chaos and create a home from himself. He's done it in the Underworld, and he's done it now in our Richard."

"Decisions, decisions," Rahl smiled. "But you're hesitating, Kahlan. Your compassion will be your end, someday."

A light erupted from Rahl, so bright and blinding that Kahlan covered her face to shield her eyes from the forceful magic. It whipped her dark hair back into a winded frenzy, and there was a loud thunderous sound like those that heralded a storm. When the light died and the room became tolerable again, Rahl was gone.

"No!" Ask screamed, running towards the place where Rahl had been. Berdine caught them and held their lean body back as they threw themselves into a rage. "Where is she, Berdine?"

"I know where she is," the Mord-Sith assured him, her tone wavering slightly. Now, Raina's desperate touches a few weeks ago were becoming clearer in meaning. She should have known that something was terribly wrong. "I know where she is, but we need to go now. I have no idea where Rahl has gone, but we need to choose between Raina and Cara, or the Midlands."

"I've already made the choice. Lead the way."

This time, Zedd and Ask did not try to stop Kahlan from forcing them to ride all day and all night. They all held fast to their saddles and rode through the exhaustion and hunger, they rode with fear at their backs. Kahlan never would have imagined that she would be the one to save Cara. Cara was supposed to be made of the sternest stuff, cunning and creative and cruel. Cara was supposed to be merciless, ruthless, almost to a fault. Cara was the first face who she'd seen after going to the Underworld and back, and she was the last face she saw when the world was made right again. If Kahlan had any useful powers as the Mother Confessor, she hoped that they would let Cara's face be the last she saw before she died. It shook her to think that way; as a Confessor her life was predetermined, she would take a mate and no matter how much they loved each other, they must be confessed. But with Cara, all of that could be different. It could be the truest thing in her life.

"Kahlan, we're here," Berdine shouted from her horse, the declaration forced Kahlan to yank the horse reins to a full stop. Her horse bayed in discomfort but obeyed. Kahlan could not dismount her horse fast enough, Ask and Berdine close behind her. The snow crunched beneath her boots as she marched to the tall, eerie Mord-Sith temple. It was at a temple like this where Cara lost her humanity and her capacity for a normal life. Whatever was happening to her, Kahlan would not let her lose it again.

"Kahlan, wait—" Berdine called out, but Kahlan was beyond patience. She threw open the large, iron door with little resistance. There were no lit torches because it was daytime. There were no signs of life, either; not the harsh clicks of the Mord-Sith heeled boot, nor the unearthly scream of the agiel. It could mean that Cara was all right, or it could point to something far more insidious. By the time Berdine and Ask caught up to her, Kahlan was already ascending the spiral staircase. Each room leading off the never-ending stair was empty and cold.

"She may be at the top," Berdine said, standing closely behind Kahlan. Berdine attempted to inject even the smallest dose of practical hesitance into her tone. She did not wish to alarm Kahlan if she were correct in fearing what had been done to Raina and Cara, but she was a Mord-Sith, and she had seen the darkest parts of people and knew especially what her sisters were capable of. Kahlan did not seem to understand because she forged on without a word, running to the top of the temple and pushing on the door, which stuck and did not move. On the other side they could hear muffled struggling, and fear struck Kahlan's heart like a lightning bolt.

"Cara?" Kahlan cried out, banging her open palms on the door like they were the gates of Heaven disallowing her entrance.

—

There was a banging at the door when Cara came to again. She was alone, chained up to the ceiling once again. The sweat drooled hungrily down her battered skin and stung her open, inviting wounds. Cara did not so much as wince, she did not possess the energy to react at all. Her head lolled to the side as the banging came again. It was insistent, feverish, bordering on desperate. Something inside Cara sparked, and through the throbbing, burning pain which had consumed all her emotions, hope came out in a horse whisper.

"Kahlan?"

—

With Ask's help, they battered down the door until the lock gave way and the hinges wheezed. The wooden door swung open and without the stern barrier Kahlan stumbled forward. She was met with a bare room. No body hung from the ceiling, no agiels shouted into the open room. The early winter sun, weak and white, filtered in from the skylight as if it was just any other day. Berdine rushed forward, and that was when Kahlan noticed the body in the corner. It was the small Mord-Sith, her hands tied to her feet with an expert knot, cloth stuffed into her mouth.

"It's all right, hush-hush," Berdine assured her frantically, checking for wounds while she untied Raina. The other Mord-Sith was generally unscathed, nothing more than a few abrasions on her face.

"Dahlia has Cara. She's training her," Raina spat out as soon as the cloth was removed from her mouth. "They took her to another temple, but I don't know which."

"Why did they leave you here?" Kahlan asked, her eyes trained on Raina.

"I kept defying Dahlia," Raina coughed through a dry mouth. "I wouldn't keep silent while she trained."

"How long have you been here?" Berdine asked, her hands expertly untying the rope from Raina's hands and ankles.

"Three days. They could be anywhere by now," Raina told her. "And with the Boundary down, they have nothing stopping them."

"I don't see why they would leave D'Hara. Did Dahlia…" Ask began, trailing off, lost in terrible thoughts.

"No, not yet. Cara has been surprisingly steeled."

"What do you mean? It's Cara."

Berdine and Raina looked at each other as Raina sat up, free of her bonds. They spoke a silent language to each other, unsure if they should share with Kahlan and Ask.

"Dahlia has been training Cara for about three months. That is completely unheard of," Berdine said at last. "It normally takes about two weeks to train someone, and three or four to break a girl into a Mord-Sith. The few records of re-breaking a Mord-Sith have not lasted for longer than a week or two, maybe a month. The pain is so easy to fall back into. So for Cara to have lasted this long…"

"Dahlia is furious with her," Raina added. "It was getting worse and worse, I had to step in. I was afraid…" Rainia looked to Berdine again. "That she'd kill Cara."

"Why didn't she kill you?" Kahlan asked, not out of malice, but out of confusion. Raina shook her head.

"Mord-Sith don't kill each other. It's our code."

"So even if Cara upsets Dahlia to no end, she won't kill her?"

"We can hope."

"Good," Kahlan smiled, to Ask's surprise. They wondered, for a moment, if Kahlan had gone insane. "Any odds are odds in Cara's favor. She doesn't know how to lose, it's not in her blood."

—

"You dare call out her name?" Dahlia said with a cold fury. Cara closed her eyes and was met with an onrush of pain at the base of her spine. A howl came from what sounded just like Kahlan's voice and Cara's heart dropped. She just wanted it to end. She wanted it all to end. Her weary mind could not fathom a world in which she could survive after this. It was beginning to get hard to live without the pain.

"I'm sorry," Cara breathed, and the pain subsided. The screaming stopped.

"Good girl," Dahlia murmured. "Do we need to do this today? Are you going to keep being good?"

"Yes," Cara murmured, no confidence in her voice, only obedience. Dahlia smiled, cupped Cara's cheek, and kissed her deeply. Cara did not resist.