A/N: This is definitely the chapter which I have edited and looked over the most. I wanted it to be a harsh crescendo into the core tragedy of this installment. I hope it comes off as gut-wrenchingly beautiful as I envisioned it, and moreover I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 3

Destiny Looked Like The Blade In Your Hand

When the sun rose the next day they were already an hour into riding to the next temple. The temple where this hungry odyssey between Dahlia and Cara had begun, where two Mord-Sith found strength with one another, and where they had torn each other apart. This was where they would find Cara, Kahlan was absolutely certain of it. It had to be the place, lest her dwindling hope would burn into ash and be subject to the winds of chance.

Dark clouds began to gather above them and soon there was a heavy downpour of rain. Kahlan could barely see Raina riding in front of her, yet no one called for a stop. They all knew that if they did not get to the temple as fast as they could, the Cara they would find may not be the Cara they knew. As the temple became larger in view it looked like any of the other temples that they had searched through: tall, dark, cylindrical. These temples were truly beacons of fear for the D'Haran people. They were the ominous places where D'Haran daughters went to die and become something better. The place where soft little girls became hardened killers. The place where Cara had become Cara but had lost her sweetness in the process.

"This is it," Kahlan said confidently, although Ask could see that her aura quaked at those words. They all silently and individually steeled themselves for what may lie ahead, then dismounted their horses. It would prove to be impossible to imagine the reality that would spill out before them.

"I'll stay outside to secure the perimeter," Zedd announced, taking their horses to the stable beside the temple for shelter. Raina nodded and stayed behind with him, for though the powers of a wizard could be easily turned on him by a Mord-Sith, at least this one was on his side.

Kahlan, Ask, and Berdine entered the temple with the utmost caution. This time it was open, no need for magic or brute force. Like they were welcomed guests it had simply opened with a push. Unlike the other temples, the torches leading up the winding staircase were lit and the narrow hallway smelled of freshly struck matches. Someone was living here. Kahlan removed her daggers from her boots and carefully crept up the long flight of stairs. Berdine had her agiel in her left hand, wary of what she would find. Ask followed closely behind, keeping their eyes peeled for anything and everything. One false move, one slip up, and they could all be dead.

They had entered the lair of the dragon, who had no intentions of parting with any of her treasure hoard.

"I'll check here," Berdine whispered to Kahlan, then ducked into the dungeon on the second floor. Kahlan had no desire to search for Cara in the dark, damp dungeons where pets were kept. She was certain that she would not find a listless and obedient Cara there.

Kahlan moved up the stairs and came to a door with the warm light of candles soaking through the crack beneath it. Her boots scraped the stone steps and her hands gripped her daggers through the sweat that had begun to form on her palms. The anticipation struck her and left her motionless. Trying to look for some kind of strength, Kahlan turned behind her and saw no one.

"Ask?" she whispered, but only the sound of the howling, storming wind and the harsh, pelting rain. A bolt of lightning came, light exploding through the small, narrow window in the hallway.

"Kahlan?" came a voice, low and gravelly, full of presentness. A voice that Kahlan felt like she had not heard in centuries. It was the voice that had brought her back to life, the voice that belonged to someone she had been searching for her whole life, and without a second thought she pushed the door open.

It was Cara, her green eyes bright. The Mord-Sith stood with both agiels in her hands and gripped them like her life depended on it. Cara's hair was tied back into a short braid, there was a deep cut on her cheek and a bruise flowering on her neck. Her eyes remained on Kahlan as a small smile cracked across her face. It did not reach her eyes, and she did not move when Kahlan ran to envelope Cara in a hug, daggers still in hand.

"Cara," Kahlan breathed. "Cara, you're safe."

Cara held tightly to her twin agiels, feeling the cold certainty of destiny rushing through her veins. There was the otherworldly screaming of the agiel and a pulse of pain in Kahlan's side below her ribcage. Kahlan's hand shot down to grip the offending agiel without thinking, the action bringing herself even more pain. The Mother Confessor sunk to her knees and watched as Cara's simple smile became a self-satisfied sneer.

"Cara?" Kahlan managed, gasping as Cara's agiel released her. Cara said nothing, instead she took a fistful of Kahlan's dark hair and yanked her head back to reveal her soft chest and neck. The perfect place for her agiel to dig into. Kahlan shrieked in pain, her mind still racing in disbelief. Cara was trying to kill her.

"Cara, stop!" Kahlan cried out, but Cara was unrelenting. There was a malice in her body language that Kahlan had never seen before, yet she knew it was a shadow that had been ever beneath the surface. This darkness within Cara had been a part of her long before Kahlan had arrived.

Kahlan managed to kick Cara's legs out from under her and gain the upper hand, pulling Cara into a headlock and wrestling her to the floor. Cara was a step ahead of her, twisting her head to the side and biting the inside of Kahlan's arm, forcing Kahlan to reflexively release her grip on the Mord-Sith. Cara used the opportunity to bring both agiels to Kahlan's stomach, the Confessor howling in pain.

The rain hit the roof of the temple harder, thunder cracked outside.

Kahlan resisted the instinct to use her daggers for fear of severely wounding Cara—the bite of the agiels hurt beyond human imagining, but a dagger's teeth meant blood, meant severed arteries, meant hasty medical attention. Kahlan could withstand the pain of the agiels for as long as she had breath if it meant protecting Cara. Kahlan hit the bottom of Cara's jaw with the heel of her palm, which gave her an opening to roll away and get to her feet. Cara scrambled up as well, she was breathing hard although they were only minutes into fighting. The training she had undergone had taken a toll on her once astonishing physical endurance. Kahlan knew that the Mord-Sith would fight until she collapsed, and she was sure that she herself would give out far before that point. This would have to become a fight which Kahlan would have to overcome her instincts to win.

"Cara, look at me," Kahlan breathed, her hands up in front of her as if it would stop Cara. "It's me, it's Kahlan. It's me, byrd."

"I have to kill you," Cara said flatly, a tone Kahlan had never heard before. Despite the unfeeling cold that stopped Kahlan in her tracks, Cara was betrayed by a single tear that welled up in her left eye. A tear that told Kahlan that Cara, her Cara, not this amalgamation of automated pain, was still there buried deep inside her.

"What are you talking about?" Kahlan asked, but Cara was no longer in the mood for conversation. A clap of thunder cracked outside the window. The Mord-Sith broke into a dead run and connected with Kahlan, using her body to slam Kahlan into the stone wall behind her. Kahlan gasped as her vision came to her in between dark spots.

"You made me weak. You ruined me!" Cara growled. The Confessor brought her elbow down hard on Cara's back, right where her neck met her shoulders, but the Mord-Sith did not seem to feel it. Cara was a machine. When Richard had been trained, Kahlan's compassion and love had reached out for him and turned the tides Denna had set into motion. But she could not find Cara, she was beneath the ocean, so deep that Kahlan could not follow her there. A cold, wet fear dropped into the pit of Kahlan's stomach. This was not like their mesmerizing sparring match in Westland where each move was more complicated yet equivalent to the last. This was a brawl for their lives. This was a fight for Cara's morality.

Kahlan felt the agiel at her belly again, and she knew that once Cara's agiels found purchase in her sternum it would be over. Cara wrestled her to the ground but Kahlan resisted her with every inch of strength she had. The Mord-Sith pushed both her agiels into Kahlan's back, right on her spine, and Kahlan croaked out a horrible scream. The pain was becoming unbearable.

Cara did not flinch at her old lover's cries of suffering like she might have once, for she had become accustomed to Kahlan's screams; Dahlia had made sure of that. Instead, she forcefully took Kahlan's arm and turned her over. Cara raised up her agiels to plunge them into Kahlan's chest, the place where the power of her agiels would make the Mother Confessor convulse as her perfect blue eyes withered into darkness, and the hurt in Cara would be finally healed. There would be no more weakness left within her. She would become darkness and be at peace.

Kahlan gripped her dagger in her hand and knew what she must do. There was no bringing Cara back like this, not with that wild look in her eyes. Kahlan remembered the words from the false Mother Confessor: we will spend our lives starving. She couldn't bring Cara back. She had failed. Yet Kahlan knew she could not bring herself to kill the one she loved. Instead, she met her with a dagger to her thigh, plunging it deep into the muscle there with a frantic warrior's cry on her lips. The dagger that she had once given to Zedd, both of them fearful of a Mord-Sith in their midst. Was this the destiny of the blade, to kill Cara? It was enough to throw Cara off her rhythm and drop her agiels to hang on her wrists by their thin, gold chains. Kahlan felt her spine tingle as Cara looked down at her thigh and started to hum with satisfaction, as if she enjoyed it. Kahlan steadied herself, this was exactly what she needed to wrap her legs around Cara's hips and roll her over. In this moment of role reversal, Kahlan took Cara's head and bashed it over and over and over into the hard floor of the temple.

At first, Cara grinned when the hot, gooey pain surged through her. It was rapturous to feel something new. It was delicious to be alive. But it was too much for her weakened body to handle and although she tried to regain her upper hand, it was not enough. She drove her agiel into Kahlan's side, racking immense pain through her body. It was getting more difficult to resist the power of the agiel, but through the tortured screams of pain, Kahlan punched her harder. Over, and over, and over, until her knuckles began to bleed and she was sure she had broken her hand.

"I will kill you!" Cara wheezed through her battered face. She said it with all the suffering she had ever endured. With her eyes brimming with both tears and reluctant conviction, Kahlan drove her other dagger into Cara's opposite leg. The blood deliciously flowed down Cara's thigh until her eyes fluttered closed.

"I will kill you… Kahlan."

There was something thick and wet on Kahlan's hands when Berdine rushed into the room. Kahlan had no idea how long she had been straddling Cara's prone form. It was Cara's blood on her hands. Kahlan did not hear her own shriek of terror, but she felt Berdine's hurried arms pull her off Cara's broken body. Kahlan's hands flew to her mouth as she watched a naked Ask run past to press his hands to the gushing wounds on Cara's legs. Kahlan had the passing thought to inquire why Ask was bare, but it was all too much. He lifted Cara's heavy head up into his lap and whispered down to her. Kahlan felt the blood from her hands, the same hands which enslaved men and beat Cara, smear on her cheeks like warpaint as Berdine pulled her into a tight embrace. The Mother Confessor could hear Berdine try to calm her down, but her voice was years away.

"Kahlan, breathe," Berdine told her gently, and Kahlan realized she had been gasping for air.

"She… I…" Kahlan stuttered, unable to collect her thoughts. The horrific visage of Cara's limp body, blood gushing from her legs as Ask tried to hold the daggers steady, was like all the terrors of the world colliding.

"Cara!" Kahlan shouted, but the Mord-Sith did not respond. She shouted Cara's name until Berdine clasped her hand over Kahlan's mouth and forced her muffled cries to dissipate. "Cara, I love you."

"She's still alive," Ask cried out, blood soaking his torso.

Kahlan's heart beat faster and she felt Berdine grasping at her arms, telling her to get up, to get up, to get up. Kahlan obliged, watching aimlessly as Ask picked Cara up and carried her out to Zedd. Kahlan could have sworn that Cara's beautiful green eyes fluttered open just a bit at her words. So she shouted for Cara over and over until Ask carried her down the stairs and into unknown darkness.

—

Cara did not rouse for two days. Kahlan had begun to worry when her breathing became so shallow that it was difficult to determine if she was breathing at all. Zedd had managed to patch up her more damaging leg wounds with old fashion sewing thread and needle rather than magic because it seemed that Cara was involuntarily blocking the spells Zedd attempted to cast on her legs. The Mord-Sith had come to a few times and immediately tried to throw herself at Kahlan, but Berdine and Raina had restrained her until she fell back into unconsciousness once more. The longer Cara was awake it became apparent that Dahlia had truly broken her, which wounded Kahlan's heart more than anything.

It was the dead of night when Kahlan suddenly awoke. There was no intruder, no owl, no lizard that had skittered over her sleeping form. Only the inconstant moon and the wind rustling the trees overhead. Even Berdine, who was on watch, was far from her bedroll. Kahlan turned to see Cara sleeping on her back, something she never did. Her face was bruised, a tear on her cheek sewn up with black thread by Zedd. Hopefully, it would not scar. And yet Kahlan wondered if Cara would even care. Although the Mord-Sith was well-aware of her above average beauty, she never seemed concerned with the scars which covered her back like constellations in the night sky. Would Cara see it as a badge of honor, or a horror of the past?

All Kahlan wanted to do was reach out to Cara, to hold her in her arms, and to love her. She wanted to breathe in the scent of leather which she had inextricably connected to Cara, although she was certain that Raina and Berdine smelled the same. However, there was a growing tightness in her chest whenever she looked at Cara. It had not been Dahlia who had put her in this state, although the Mord-Sith was largely to blame for all of this. It had been Kahlan who had driven daggers into Cara's thighs. It had been Kahlan who had rocked Cara's head into the stone over and over. The more Kahlan's thoughts drifted to the not so distant night where Cara had attacked her, the more she felt like she needed to upheave the contents of her stomach.

"What are we going to do with her?" Zedd asked, noticing that Kahlan was wide awake. He himself had not been able to sleep much. As she sat up to look at Zedd, Kahlan's stony countenance was illuminated in the fickle flames. "The influence she is under is not magical, it's mental. I cannot do anything for her."

"We're going to heal her," Kahlan said, her voice firm and insistent. "She can overcome this sickness."

"I'm not sure it's a sickness we're dealing with, dear one. I fear this is the core of Cara, her true nature. It's been beaten back into her. We have no idea of the true extent of the damage done to her," Zedd admitted gently, sitting beside Kahlan and putting a hand on her shoulder. Kahlan did not react, instead she continued to look into the greedy flames of the dying campfire. She tried to imagine a life without Cara but could not. This Mord-Sith, born and trained to be her sworn enemy, was now someone she would rather die without having. Kahlan craved Cara's touch, her words, her gaze, like an oasis in a desert. Never had anyone made Kahlan so hungry, so starving for what she could not have.

"Then I will fix her myself, Zedd," Kahlan said impatiently, standing up and removing Zedd's hand from her shoulder. "We're not leaving her like this. This is not who she is, not anymore."

Zedd sighed and rested his head in his hands wearily while Kahlan escaped to the woods. Kahlan felt her Confessor's mask slipping as she hurried into the thicket near where they had made camp. She could have sworn the trees were leaning in over her, towering atop her head like angry gods. The rocks that built up to the nearby cliff overseeing the woods grew larger and rumbled with the might of an earthquake. It was false, merely panicked illusions that grew from her frustration and agony, but Kahlan could not help but let a mangled sob rip from her gut. She sank to her knees and held her shoulders tightly, like Cara would have done if she were here. If she were truly here. Cara would heal, of that Kahlan was certain. What she could not be certain of, however, was if the version of Cara she had fallen in love with would return.

—

They had decided to travel for two weeks to a home in the mountains which Berdine knew of. The surprisingly large, wooden, moss covered structure looked as if it had been abandoned for the winter, but Berdine knew under precisely which rock the spare key was hidden and took no time to swing open the doors and reveal the beautiful interior. They had left Cara in her makeshift stretcher attached to Kahlan's horse while they investigated the premises. Light, gentle snow had just begun to fall— they had made it into the mountains in time for the world to fall into a freeze and smell of death. The mountains lining the eastern coast of D'Hara were not nearly as tall as the Rang'Shada range, but it climbed to a high enough altitude which garnered a firm sense of remoteness and isolation. They were, so it seemed, safe from Darken Rahl for the time being.

"Bring her in," Berdine called to Ask, who had been standing guard beside Cara's unconscious form. They carefully threaded their lean, muscled arms under Cara's knees and back, lifting her with a softness that betrayed their feelings toward the Mord-Sith. The gray-eyed, concerned glances at Cara's closed eyes did not escape Berdine, who was leaning on the doorframe with her arms crossed. Her leathers creaked as she was forced to move sideways to accommodate the pair as they entered the cabin.

"How do you know about this place? I didn't think Mord-Sith owned property," Ask inquired, adjusting Cara's limp body in their arms. Her head rested on his chest as if she loved them, as if she were comfortable enough to rely on someone else for comfort.

"It's my uncle's summer home," Berdine said calmly. Ask's eyebrows perked up in confusion.

"So, we're breaking in?"

"No. He knows I come here. I take Raina to this house every summer, there's a lake not far from here that's perfect for swimming."

"But you're—"

"A Mord-Sith, undeserving of forgiveness or familial bonds outside her Sisters of the Agiel?" Berdine countered with a tone that challenged any further, cruel questioning.

"Upstairs, or down?" Ask said, nodding as Berdine pointed to the second floor. Wordlessly, the Slide took the old, wooden steps up to the second floor of the home, which was just as wide and open as the bottom. They had never seen a home like this, perhaps Berdine's uncle was an architect of some sort. It did not look like a D'Haran home, which was usually small with many closed rooms. Instead, there were simply two floors, a large fire pit on the ground floor, and two doors entering and leaving the house. Ask found Kahlan adjusting Cara's bedroll on the second floor.

"May I?" they asked, and Kahlan obliged them with a mere nod. As they passed by Kahlan, Ask's shoulder gently brushed hers and got a taste of her aura. It was vibrating and an awful yellow color. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Kahlan deflected, watching like a hawk as Ask slipped Cara into bed and pulled a blanket over her. "We should get her out of her leathers at some point. I'm sure they're not comfortable."

"She sleeps in them all the time," Ask said. Kahlan looked up at him with sharp, blue eyes that told him he had made a mistake.

"If we want her to stop acting like a blood-hunting Mord-Sith, she needs to get out of her leathers," Kahlan declared, her voice cold and unfeeling. "But we'll let her rest for now, it's been a difficult journey. My horse is not the smoothest traveler."

"I'm sure she enjoyed being tossed around," Ask said, which brought forth an unexpected, short burst of laughter from Kahlan. She tried to contain it by pressing a hand to her mouth, but it did nothing to stifle the giggles that roared from her. Ask's plush lips curled up into a smile and they laughed low.

"She has to be all right… surely?" Kahlan asked, her blue eyes beginning to water from the laughter. It brought a great sense of brevity to their conversation.

"She's Cara. Of course she will," Ask said, through a smile which hid all the nervousness he had ever felt in his life. Cara had a large, healing bruise on the side of her face from where Kahlan had repeatedly punched her. Her eye had only just begun to heal from the broken blood vessels which had turned the whites of her left eye crimson. Amidst all her pain and brokenness, Cara was still effervescent. She was the most divine creature Ask had ever laid eyes on. Perhaps that was why, even though he knew she didn't love him, even though he knew that tiny letter on the windowsill was not for him, he had stayed by her side all this time. Ask could worship someone like Cara for the rest of his days. Perhaps he would.

—

"Berdine," came a hoarse whisper from Cara's room. Berdine had been sitting on the stairs in view of Cara, unable to sleep that night. She took no time in stepping closer and seeing what was the matter with Cara.

"Yes, love?"

"Come closer."

"I'm right here, Cara," Berdine said, sliding her hand into Cara's. She noticed that the grip was uneven, and when she looked down, she saw that there was half a stub where her middle finger should be.

"You know the Mord-Sith as well as I," Cara said, a statement to which Berdine required no sequitur. Berdine tried not to let her eyes well up with tears of empathy. Cara was hurting, deeply. It was a long, quiet moment before Cara spoke again, her words rising up in the air like smoke. "Berdine, I want you to end my life."

"What?"

"I want you to fight me and then kill me," Cara said, her tone less even the second time around. "It would be an honor to die by your agiel. You fight well."

"I'm not going to fight you like this," Berdine told her with a scoff. "And I certainly won't be killing you, after all the work we've done to save your ungrateful hide."

"I don't want to die here," Cara said, and for the first time in a long time her eyes began to tear up. "I don't deserve to die old and toothless in bed."

"You are not old, nor are you toothless."

"It feels as though I am," Cara said, her voice very small. "Berdine… please."

"Don't be daft. Look at you, you can barely stand on your own to piss. You would be a worthless sparring partner as you are," Berdine snorted, shaking her head and turning to leave. In her damaged state, Cara was being more unreasonable than usual. Berdine stood up to leave, the old floorboards creaking beneath her as they supported her weight. She took a few steps to the door then heard a thunk followed by a sliding noise, like a body being dragged across the floor.

It was Cara, belly first to the ground, golden hair covering her face. She grunted with the effort of pushing herself up by her strong arms yet being weighed down by her healing legs. The deep wounds left by Kahlan's daggers pulsed with pain, new blood seeping out and staining the fresh, white bandages applied mere hours ago. Berdine rolled her eyes and scoffed at Cara.

"Really? Cara, please, for everything in the Creator's Light, get back into bed," Berdine chastised, tutting and bending down at the knees to lift Cara up by the armpits and drag her back into bed. When she picked up Cara's head, however, the battered Mord-Sith's impossibly verdant eyes were slick with tears. More than all the grievous wounds she had nursed on Cara's body, more than the sorry state they found her in with blood on the stone floor and her head nearly bashed in, Berdine was shaken by this visage. Berdine had always imagined it would be a cold day in the Underworld when Cara burst into hysterics in front of her.

Instead of throwing her into bed, Berdine pulled Cara into her arms and sat behind her. She squeezed the blonde tight as she felt Cara's sobs racking her chest. Cara did not stop her, did not fight her for one inch of dominance. She simply wished to be held, to be embraced.

"I failed," Cara mustered the will to say, tears streaking down her cheeks. "I couldn't kill the Mother Confessor. And now I will die in this bed."

"Kahlan," Berdine whispered in her ear. "You couldn't kill Kahlan. And thank the Creator you couldn't. But more than that, you will not die. Not here. You are going to die righteously, with an agiel in one hand and a heart in the other. Even with all the ills you have caused, you deserve to die in the holiest of fashions, like a D'Haran. Like a Mord-Sith."

—

Zedd had derived a herbal tea from the memories of his training as a young wizard, which was forced down Cara's throat twice a day to ease her rage. Still caught up in the throes of her breaking, all Cara wished to do was spout acerbic insults and throw the bowls and cutlery which were provided for her to eat with at any offending aid. It was on one such afternoon when she had mellowed after her tea that Raina was able to sit beside her. Cara had a much better time dealing with Raina and Berdine than with Kahlan or Ask.

"Hey, Ripper," Raina said, approaching Cara's bedroll slowly. The blonde lifted her green eyes, looked Raina up and down, and closed them again. It was a name they had used back in the old days, when everything was easier. When it was not such a moral crime to be Mord-Sith. "Can I sit beside you?"

"You all do whatever you want anyhow," Cara murmured, generally displeased as ever. Raina took that as a confident step forward and quickly jumped into bed with Cara. She made sure to get under the covers and cuddle into Cara in the way she knew the blonde enjoyed but would never say she did. Besides Berdine, Raina had always liked Cara the most. There was something about Cara's cruel simplicity in all things that Raina found delightfully refreshing.

"Talk to me, Cara," Raina said, her brown eyes big and endearing. The blonde's patience melted under Raina's unrelenting kindness, she was sure that Raina was never meant to be a Mord-Sith. On the field, however, Raina's body told a different story.

"I want to know where Dahlia is."

"We told you already, we don't know," Raina said. "Ask fought with her to try and capture her, but she got the best of them. She left you, Cara."

"That's ridiculous. She wouldn't leave me," Cara said, folding her arms over her chest. Raina's hand rose to tuck a wily piece of hair behind Cara's ear. She did not resist. "She wouldn't leave me. We're meant to be together."

"What about Kahlan?" Raina asked softly. Cara barely glanced her way before responding.

"I'm supposed to kill her. Once I heal and get out of this damned bed, and once you stop fighting me, I will kill her."

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why do you need to kill her?"

"Dahlia told me that Lord Rahl wanted me to."

"Why should we do what he says?" Raina asked. "You had your taste of freedom and now you're crawling back to him? He's awful, Cara. He's done terrible things to this country, and he has let the most vile things happen to us. He's done vile things to us."

"That's not true."

"He would not have unleashed Dahlia on you if he loved you, Ripper. And Dahlia would not have beaten you within an inch of your life if she loved you. Love is not pain, Cara. It doesn't have to be. Berdine and I don't hurt each other, we never have. You can have that too. You do have that, with Kahlan," Raina professed, her hands finding Cara's and squeezing. They were cold, as they always were. Cara's teeth clenched together before she mustered the courage to speak from the heart.

"I don't know any other way to be. I don't remember what it was like before I…" Cara said, her voice wavering for a brief moment. Going into herself like this ached like a once-sprained ankle, the pain was dull and throbbing. "It hurts to think about Kahlan. It hurts so much that all I want to do is kill her. I want to tear out her image and burn it. If I could just get out of this goddamned bed, I could—"

"Killing Kahlan will only leave you with regret. Dahlia has infected you with the same poison you've injected into hundreds of others. She's forced you to hate Kahlan, but that's not true. You don't hate Kahlan, you love Kahlan," Raina challenged softly, her warm brown eyes tracking Cara's every inflection, every facial tic. Anything that would reveal some flicker of recognition.

"I don't love Kahlan. I don't love anyone."

"Not even me?" Raina said with a demonstrable pout on her face for good measure. Cara remained unphased.

"I don't think I have ever loved anyone. Not even you. Not even Dahlia."