Kahlan couldn't seem to fall asleep tonight. They had been walking longer than usual the past few days in order to make up ground, knowing the walk to Graten tel Hesfia would be long. The further down the Boundary they got, the more rifts seemed to be opening in the ground. There were dead horses, overturned carriages, and ripped up bodies strewn across the landscape. These were a constant reminder of how little margin for error they really had- they couldn't afford to waste more time trying to find the Stone. Kahlan hoped, as they all did, that the Stone wasn't too far.

But that wasn't exactly why she couldn't fall asleep. Kahlan was laying on her side looking out at Cara, who was keeping watch. Each time she moved, Kahlan didn't want to close her eyes. She was entranced by the way Cara paced back and forth with an incomparable amount of confidence. It was as if a dragon could jump out from the woods and she would have the same, unbothered look on her face. Kahlan knew that she was steady, but not like Cara. Kahlan didn't want to admit it, but with Richard gone she felt safest around Cara.

Kahlan found herself wanting to know so much more about Cara. She had been a key judge on the trial in Stowecroft, but Kahlan knew that Cara's childhood was not the most telling part of the Mord-Sith. There was much that Kahlan knew about Richard, and even Zedd, but Cara was a tightly closed book. With a padlock for good measure. And a key that had been long since thrown into a lake. It would be a lie to say that Kahlan wasn't interested in cracking a little bit of Cara's hard exterior.

Wrapping herself in a grey blanket, Kahlan stood up and walked next to Cara. "I can't sleep," she said, which earned a nod from Cara. "Anything dangerous?"

"There has been this owl that won't stop hooting," Cara answered after a few moments of pause.

"Surely a Mord-Sith can handle a hooting owl," Kahlan chided. Cara looked at her and then looked back out into the dark forest.

"With enough rocks," Cara answered plainly. It made Kahlan let out a short, stifled laugh. "Go ahead, you can laugh. I'm funny."

"You're just… yourself. Always. And I appreciate that," Kahlan told her. "I have spent my whole life, and now will as Mother Confessor, trying to appease others. Trying to be fair, to not make people even more afraid of me. But you don't care about any of that. You don't care about trying to be my friend. You didn't care about telling me that you killed my sister and nephew. You are loyal to yourself."

Cara exhaled before trying to speak, but Kahlan shook her head and looked into her eyes. "You don't have to explain yourself. It was a compliment." Cara nodded and closed her lips again. Kahlan's face began to get hot, her body tingled, and all she wanted to do was reach out and hold Cara. She wanted it more than anything she had ever wanted in her entire life. Kahlan imagined Cara would flinch away from her touch, then in another idealized flash she squeezed Kahlan's hand in return. The touch of a Confessor was often seen as a death sentence to many, and Cara was no exception.

"Who was your first love?" Kahlan asked instead, withholding her urge to reach out to Cara. The Mord-Sith looked at her incredulously. "Too challenging a question?"

"No."

There was a long, stifling silence between the two women. Cara never shared, but Kahlan was asking, and well, what was the consequence now? What was the point of being an impenetrable wall if it meant sitting in silence, eating in silence, and walking in silence for days on end? Perhaps, just this once, she would reach out when Kahlan offered a hand.

"It was my friend, Dahlia. We grew up together as both children and as Mord-Sith. We spent many years together," Cara told her quickly.

"What happened?" Kahlan asked, which made Cara look down at the ground.

"We were always different," Cara began, Kahlan's blue eyes transfixed on her. "Dahlia became… jealous. Then, I was enlisted in Darken Rahl's personal guard, she stayed at our temple. I never heard from her again."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Cara," Kahlan said, reaching out to place a hand on Cara's shoulder. The Mord-Sith didn't move, and Kahlan felt that polarizing force between her hand and Cara's skin once again.

"And?" Cara asked pointedly. Kahlan was confused. "What about yours?"

"Oh… Richard," Kahlan answered quickly. Cara rolled her eyes.

"I'm not lying. No one has ever really let me in as much as he did. He was the only one who has never been afraid of my powers, that was until he learned about them. But when I met him that day in Heartland, when I was being cornered by the quad, he just saw me as a woman. Not a Confessor. I learned early on that even making friends was hopeless for me. As an adult people are more sensible, but when your mother tells you to stay away from the Confessor, you listen." Kahlan felt like she had divulged too much for a moment, but then Cara nodded.

"So you're also a little fucked up," Cara told her, which made Kahlan smile.

"Yes, just a little."

It was seven days later that they finally reached the furthest gate through the Boundary into D'Hara. Graten tel Hesfia was not something to marvel at. The once rounded, black marble gate was nearly half its intended size. The opening was scarcely taller than Zedd, who would have to bend down as he walked so as to not touch the Boundary. There was nothing around the gate, but Cara still wanted to look around. She was never convinced that they were safe, and especially since Richard had asked her to defend Kahlan, Cara was doubly cautious.

"We should go as quickly as we can, who knows how long the boundary is going to stay open. It looks like it could fall apart at any second," Kahlan called out.

"I'm just making sure that there is nothing dangerous before we go through a long tunnel to the Underworl-" Cara shouted as she tripped and fell.

"What did you fall on?" Zedd asked, looking confused.

Cara looked down at her feet to find a piece of metal sticking up out of the ground. It looked like a breastplate from a piece of armor. It was wedged deep into the earth, but the part that breached the surface looked practically brand new. Confused, Cara stood up and reached down to touch it.

Suddenly, the ground beneath her began to vibrate. The armor sunk into the ground like it was being sucked through a straw, and Cara looked at Kahlan and Zedd with an expression that didn't seem to be one that was neither placid nor free of caution.

From the ground an armored hand shot up, bringing clumps of wet earth with it. The hand dung its fingers into the ground before bringing another hand up to the surface. The hands dragged themselves out of the earth and grass, following was a metal helmet, shoulder plates, a fully armored torso, and legs. The legs bent at an unseemly angle, seeming to be able to rotate without warning and arch up to support the dragging body like a spider. The armored thing pulled itself to its feet with the power of its legs and stood at a slightly bent angle, like it was tilted and didn't know it. Cara already had her agiels out, but Kahlan waited for something else to happen.

Whatever it was began rumbling, the metal of the armor clinking together, and it spoke with a resonant, gravelly voice. Kahlan couldn't recognize the language. Before she could ask Zedd, Cara lunged forward and kicked it in the head. The horned helmet fell to the ground, but nothing was inside it. Kahlan could see down the armor, and nothing was there. The green light from the boundary that glinted off the impossibly polished armor was sinister in hue.

The suit of armor's hand shot sideways and grabbed Cara by the neck. She drove her agiels into it's armpit to no avail- it didn't even flinch. Instead, it tightened the grip on Cara's neck, forcing her to sputter and wheeze.

"Cara!" Kahlan shouted. Fear shook through her. They were always having close calls with death, but every time the panic felt brand new.

"Thos vardus or'tras Graten tel Hesfia," the armor growled, a repeat of the phrase it had called out before. Kahlan had no idea what was going on, but she didn't intend to leave Cara to die. The confessor drew her daggers and ran forward, kicking the suit hard in the knee. It's leg gave way and it kneeled for a moment, allowing Cara to remove herself from it's grip and twist it's arm backward. It didn't seem to reflect any pain, but the leg was immobilized for a moment.

"The-" Cara breathed, grabbing at her throat like she was still being choked. "The-"

"What, Cara?" Kahlan cried, confused as she ducked a sweeping arm from the suit of armor. "What?"

"Sword," Cara choked out, pointing to Kahlan. Of course- the Sword of Truth could cut through anything. Kahlan grabbed the hilt and slid the sword out from its scabbard on her back, the metal ringing out. It didn't glow in her hands as it did in Richard's, but she could still feel the power radiating from the sword.

Wasting no time, Kahlan drove the Sword of Truth through the belly of the suit. The suit's hand wrapped around the sword before it stopped and went limp. The armor fell to the ground in segments, rusting away in seconds to become corroded hunks of metal. It was as though years went by in the blink of an eye.

Kahlan stood there in shock for a moment before looking over at Cara. Her throat was bruising already, blood streaming down to her collarbone from the spiked gloves of the creature. Instinctively, Kahlan took Cara by the arm.

"Cara, sit down," Kahlan said, and Cara started to shake her head and hold her throat. "Cara, you can barely speak. Sit down for Creator's sake."

Cara begrudgingly obliged, sitting on the ground with Kahlan as she used a bandage to dab the blood from the Mord-Sith's neck. Zedd hurried over and got on his knees, assessing the damage as well.

"Let me," Zedd told Kahlan, taking her hand away from Cara's neck before hovering his hands over her neck. With a few careful, magical words, the bruising and cuts on Cara's neck vanished, leaving only a memory of pain. Cara's chest rose quickly with a sudden, full breath, and then she nodded in thanks to Zedd.

"You will not pass through the Gate of Hesfia," Cara said after a moment, making Zedd and Kahlan look at her with worry. "That's what he said… he was speaking in D'Haran."

"A loyalty spell, I should have guessed that," Zedd smirked, and now Kahlan and Cara were the ones looking at him curiously. "A loyalty spell can bind anything to it's master's will, much like confession. It could be an animal, a person, or in this case, an immortal suit of armor. It must have been bound to Hesfia long ago. We just didn't know it's code word," Zedd smiled, getting up and pulling Kahlan up with him. Cara got up just fine on her own, as she wanted.

"At least now we can get through the Boundary unharmed, mostly," Kahlan noted. She put the Sword of Truth back into its scabbard and looked towards the crumbled gate. "Can you fix the gate, Zedd?"

"I'm afraid not. If I use magic on the Boundary, the Keeper will feel it like a spider feeling a disturbance in its web. We'll just have to hope it doesn't come down on us while we're passing through."

"We've been through worse," Cara told them both before walking towards the gate. Kahlan was about to ask her if she was all right to move forward, but that clearly was her answer.

Fate took a breath- that was a close call. Prophecy smiled, wrapped her arms around Fate, and asked her to come to bed. It had been a long day, but she always knew that everything would work out in her favor.