Chapter 4

Who Are You Without The Suffering?

Kahlan brought the axe down on the small piece of wood, splintering it right down the center. She had become quite deft at it ever since Cara had stopped chopping wood. The axe felt heavy in her grip as she lifted it once more, slicing the wood into two more pieces. Kahlan bent down to collect the cut wood, adding it to the wheelbarrow which was stacked rather precariously. Her hands had become rough with this manual labor over the last few weeks, her thumbs were now calloused where they had formerly been soft. Cara had always pushed her aside to do the lifting and cutting and hunting, so now that she had assumed a large portion of the Mord-Sith's duties, Kahlan harbored a newfound respect.

Kahlan pushed her heavy green cloak off her shoulders to adjust her body heat despite the wind which blew a frigid gust around her. Beads of sweat scampered down her temples and into her dark, thick hair and were immediately frozen by the frosty breath of this D'Haran winter. Taking the quickly dropping temperature as her cue to move, Kahlan struggled a bit to lift the wheelbarrow by the handles. Thankfully, Raina had offered her nice, leather gloves to Kahlan, and now she knew why Cara rarely took hers off. It was easy to grip the handles with the purchase of the supple, red leather. Kahlan took great pains to push the wheelbarrow through the crunchy, day-old snow which came up to the middle of her shins, but she knew her physique and endurance would be better for it. It reminded her of how Cara used to train back in Westland.

"We're getting cold in here, Mother Confessor," Ask called out from the cozy refuge of the mountain home. Kahlan pursed her lips and set to pushing harder, getting the wheelbarrow fairly close to the side of the house before dropping it in defeat.

"Says the man who has been tucked inside the warm house all afternoon," Kahlan scoffed as she picked up as much wood as she could carry and headed inside. She sighed in relief at the coziness, and upon seeing the almost dying fire in the middle of the common area she hurried over and threw the wood down. The flames ate at the new wood hungrily. Cara was sitting on the opposite side of the fireplace, which sat within the floor and spread out at least seven feet by three feet wide. Enough to heat a home, to house a small D'Haran family. A wool blanket shrouding her shoulders and making her appear like a queen from the ancient days of D'Hara.

"You're… downstairs," Kahlan said, not knowing what else to say. Ask stood in the doorway, watching on with curiosity.

"Yes," Cara answered, looking into the flickering orange and yellow flames instead of Kahlan's face. It pained her to gaze upon Kahlan these days.

"How are you feeling?"

"Why do you care?"

"I always care how you're feeling."

Cara stayed intentionally silent, and the lack of exchange cut Kahlan deeper than that night in the Mord-Sith temple. It reminded Kahlan of those old days, when she and Cara were constantly at each other's throats in an attempt to vie for power. Kahlan would have never imagined that together they would become unstoppable. Kahlan moved toward Cara despite the tinge of panic she felt as she remembered what it was like to see that feral beast that lived within Cara coming right at her.

These hauntings did not cease Kahlan's stride toward the seated Mord-Sith, nor did it stop her from sitting near her. Kahlan folded her legs underneath her and watched Cara closely. The fading and growing light cast dark shadows on her beautiful features, and Kahlan could see now that her surface wounds had healed. The bandages were off her legs, which was a good sign as well. Kahlan had secretly been nursing Cara back to health whenever she was asleep because when she was awake, so was the hatred which Dahlia had beaten into her. Cara had stopped trying to kill her, in fact she had not laid a hand on Kahlan for a long time. The more she healed, the more she seemed to have settled.

"What happened to your finger?" Kahlan asked. The nub on Cara's hand had been eating away at her for some time. It had not been there before, but Kahlan could not bring herself to put the pieces together. Cara felt a cold drip run down her chest, suddenly she was nervous to speak to Kahlan. Her mind was ripped back to that night when Dahlia had marked her territory and claimed her prize.

"I want you to put your past into this finger, my heart. All the weakness, all the pain, everything. And then I'm going to set you free. Don't flinch. Tell me when you're ready."

With a confidence she had not embodied for months, Cara lifted her head and stared directly into Kahlan's eyes.

"Most Mord-Sith like to take a prize from their pets. Denna would take weapons, Berdine would take letters. Dahlia takes body parts."

Kahlan felt a bile rise in her throat as her eyes glued to Cara, waiting for a grin that would tell her she was joking. Not a sly head tilt nor a curve of the lips came to her rescue— Cara was dead serious.

"Does it hurt?" Kahlan asked gently before she was sure she wanted an answer. Cara's eyes dropped down to her hand, holding it out and inspecting it as if it held the response.

"I remember a time when I wasn't like this. When everything didn't hurt. But you're hurting me, Kahlan. I'm supposed to kill you and I can't even bring myself to that place of violence any longer."

"Do you want to kill me?"

"Is there wool in your ears, Kahlan?"

"Wanting to kill me and being meant to kill me are a world of difference," Kahlan remarked with a resolve she did not know she was capable of. "So which is it? When you look into that dark, troubled heart of yours, Cara Mason, what is the answer?" Kahlan asked ardently. Cara's throat felt dry, something fluttered in her chest like a confused insect. Before she could try to revolt, Kahlan pulled out a small, well-folded piece of parchment and held it up to her.

I LOVE YOU

"You wrote this and left it in your room at the People's Palace," Kahlan told her, trying to bite back the rage in her belly; rage not for Cara, but for what had been done to Cara. "I think you know the difference. I think you know where you belong. I give to you, I don't take from you. I'm not asking you to stop being a Mord-Sith because it made you the woman I fell in love with. But Dahlia has asked you to stop being human, to stop feeling, to stop loving. She doesn't love you for who you are, she loves you for who she wishes you to be."

"Love makes you weak. I don't need love from Dahlia or from you," Cara said quickly after, pulling the gray, wool blanket tighter around herself. Kahlan felt a cold rush shake through her but did not let it show.

"I don't think love doesn't make you weak, Cara. I think it's just the scariest thing in the world, and I think you are afraid of the unseen parts of yourself. I think you are terrified to have a good life, because if you're not suffering, then who are you?"

Cara did not speak for quite a while, but before Kahlan could fear that she had gone too far, Cara said something that made her blood boil.

"I did not ask to be loved. I did not ask for you to burst into my life and berate me so."

"Yet here you are, loved," Kahlan said matter-of-factly. Her eyes were a cold blue, even in the whispering light of the fireplace. "And I know you love me, or at least that you did love me. You never said the words, but you showed me."

A small, flickering light within Cara told her to say anything which would appease the woman before her. She remembered what it was like to topple Kahlan in that quiet field all the way across the world, to hold her down in the sunshine and want nothing more than to kiss her, to fall into her, and to never leave. Cara's eyes dropped down to the note in Kahlan's hand, the note she had written and at one time believed. When she thought of Dahlia, there was nothing but a bottomless pit, devoid of light, that she could fall into for years and years and never hit the floor.

"Do you still believe in what you wrote?" Kahlan said, holding up the note to her again. Cara felt uneasy, like a rabbit caught in a trap. Her eyes flitted from the note to Kahlan's lips as if they would part and absolve her of every horrible thing she had ever done. The longer she spent here with Kahlan, the more those hazy memories of the temple became tangible.

"I don't know what love is."

Kahlan surprised herself as she stood up and tossed the paper to Cara. "Throw it in the fire, tear it into pieces, give it to someone else. I don't care. The Cara I love is no coward." With that, Kahlan made haste to open the door leading to the back of the house. She pulled her green cloak around her as tears welled up in her eyes, as the wind blew her hair. There was nothing before her but deep valleys covered in white snow, no birdsongs or rustling animals. There was no war, no fallen boundary, no Darken Rahl, no tears in the veil. Just friends, and Cara.

Kahlan should have been content, but truthfully the revelation terrified her. If Cara was no longer Cara, then what had she worked so hard to protect? What was any of this for if no one in this world loved her the way Cara had? Kahlan had abandoned Aydindril and the Midlands and left its legs spread open for D'Hara all to save this woman, for this failed redemption of a Mord-Sith. But deep down, no matter how angry she became, Kahlan knew that Cara was not just another Mord-Sith.

Inside, the fire crackled. Cara held the note in her hand, rubbing her thumb over the soft expanse. Silently, she formed the words with her full lips, training herself to say the words she knew she had once believed in.

I love you.

I love you.

"I love you," Cara said, her voice flat and unfeeling. It did not even sound like her, like the old Cara. But she said it all the same.

—

Sunlight shone in through the windows of the mountain home, bringing a few eyes to blink open only to flutter down into resumed sleep. Kahlan woke to Raina's hand sleepily reaching out to touch her hair, to which the Confessor smiled and gently removed the Mord-Sith's fingers from her long, dark tresses. When Kahlan turned back to her side her bleary eyes found Cara on her bedroll in the far corner of the room. The rest of the group had resided to sleep together downstairs, leaving Cara upstairs to her own devices. As much as they wanted to help her, this new Cara was more difficult to deal with than even the old one had been. But there she was, in all her unconscious glory, her lips parted slightly as gasps of sleep came shallow from her mouth. Her golden hair shrouded her countenance, seeing as she often liked to sleep on her stomach. Today was no different. It seemed that Kahlan was destined to be bewitched by Cara, even in silence, even in indifference.

Cara opened her eyes and was met with Kahlan's long stare. In this early moment of quiet she said nothing, instead simply staring back. Who was this woman to her? Was she an enemy, was she a friend, was she something more? Cara felt a hunger deep down in her core which told her to get closer, get closer, get closer until she was suffocated by Kahlan and stuffed down inside of herself so she could not scream. Cara wanted to be obliterated, for her vision to darken, and Kahlan was to be her executor. Cara wanted her blood to pool out onto the floor and leave her completely. Perhaps then she would feel alive.

Kahlan's thin lips curled into a hopeful smile. She remembered those mornings in Westland when they would wake across the bed from each other. Kahlan would groan as Cara threaded herself into her sleepy embrace, but Kahlan would always happily bring Cara to her breast and inhale the sweet scent of her hair. Of her skin. And she would do the best she could to touch Cara in the ways she craved to be touched before the full spectrum of her deadly powers got the best of them. Kahlan wondered if she would ever see one such morning again.

"Cara," Ask groaned as he raised up his hands to rub the sleep from his eyes. "You came all the way down here to snuggle with us?"

"Mord-Sith do not snuggle, idiot," Cara grumbled, turning her head away from the pair and letting her back rise and fall with a calming breath. Kahlan bit the bottom of her lip, and Ask turned to her and rested his head on her shoulder. Both tried not to laugh in spite of the situation to preserve her dignity. But it had been so difficult to stay stern that this one bout of comedy had Kahlan and Ask bursting at the seams. Cara seemed to pick up on this and sat up on her bedroll, her yellow hair a bundle of straw on her head.

"I'll go start the fire," Kahlan said, not entirely comfortable with inhabiting the same space as Cara. Since their conversation two days ago they had not spoken nor looked each other in the eye. Now, it seemed that Cara wished to cause her pain by plopping herself in front of Kahlan's path. The Confessor drifted over to the fire pit in the middle of the room and sighed when she realized there was no kindling or tinder inside. "I'll have to go foraging."

"I'll go," Ask said. "You chopped the firewood, it's the least I can do."

"I'll go with them," Cara offered, struggling to get herself up onto her sore legs. It must have been a long, arduous trek down the stairs. However, Cara's resolve was stronger than the pain that dug into her muscles, and the more she used them, she knew the better they would perform. Surely she would be back to running after evil in a few weeks.

Ask's gray eyes flitted nervously to Kahlan, who gave them a solemn nod. In order to incorporate Cara back into their lives, to show her the goodness still in the world, they would have to bring her along with them. Even if it meant being alone with a temperamental Mord-Sith who was still unsure if she would like to fight for good or for evil.

"Come on then," Ask told her, rubbing the sleep from their eyes and walking over to Cara. They wrapped an arm around her middle, which Cara promptly rejected, yanking herself away from their embrace. Ask sighed and walked ahead, holding the door open as Cara ambled outside. It was a brisk, snowy morning in the mountains. Ask had brought two cloaks outside with them, the black one for him, the white one for Cara. They draped the white cloak around Cara's shoulders to shield her from the harsh cold.

"I haven't felt a D'Haran winter in some time," Cara muttered, looking up to the sky. The snow fell down around her, light flakes that embedded themselves in her hair. It was still, and for the first time in weeks she felt all the thoughts float away into the sun. For the first time in a long time, she felt at peace.

"Come on, we don't have time for dallying," Ask called out, the fur which lined his dark cloak catching snowflakes. Cara huffed and slowly caught up to him as he began to bend over and find small sticks for the fire. "I assume you're feeling up to walking, now?"

"You won't have to empty a bedpan for me anymore," Cara said flatly.

"How are you feeling otherwise?"

"Like Kahlan beat the daylights out of me."

"I mean within yourself, Cara. How are you feeling?"

Cara chewed her bottom lip, unsure of whether or not to open up to Ask. The last few days had been uncertain, more so than any in the last few months. If she were to confess her true feelings, would that make her weak?

"Confused. Nothing makes sense anymore," Cara told them after a long time, her voice low and rocky. So long in fact that Ask had already gotten too far away to have a conversation and was forced to walk closer to hear the Mord-Sith. "Before I met Richard, everything made sense. I was Mord-Sith, and that was good. That was right. But then I was forced to question everything I have ever known. And then I met Kahlan, the one person who I should not have gotten so close to. The one person who could undoubtedly destroy me with a single touch. The woman who challenges me to be more than I am, more than I am capable of being."

"She made you a better person," Ask told her. "She showed you a different life, and you took it."

"I did. But then Dahlia… she showed me what it is like to be powerful again."

"I don't think you truly believe that," Ask told her, a steely look in his eye as he faced Cara. "I think love terrifies you, Cara. We all know what pain feels like, especially Mord-Sith. You will always know the agony of your agiels. But love? It rips you apart. It's ugly, it's unrequited. And I don't think you've really ever had it outside of Kahlan."

Cara felt a chill strike her that had nothing to do with the cold, winter winds. Ask spoke with such a clarity that their words drove into Cara like a knife. It was then that Cara was fully aware of her aching, hungry heart. It did not crave Dahlia like she thought, nor did it crave the pain brought by the agiel. Even now, Dahlia's words were swirling away into nothingness. Her body felt light, felt free. When her emerald eyes fell on the impossibly orange horizon, all Cara could see was Kahlan waving her forward, bidding her to come along. Kahlan had taught her that it was safe to be human, to be raw, to be alive. Pain did not make her alive, it had nearly killed her.

"I don't want to lose her."

"Then stop being such a selfish dolt and go love her while you still have time," Ask said, their gray eyes glistening with tears. Cara did not love them, but Ask still loved her. And if she needed Kahlan to be content, to be healed, Ask would do anything to get her there.

Cara felt as though she should run to Kahlan, burst open the door, and scream the words at the top of her lungs.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

But she did not. The conflicted Mord-Sith stayed out in the cold, finding tiny branches alongside Ask, and thought about all she had done and will do until her fingertips froze and Ask hurried them both inside. His hands on her shoulders felt like they grounded her to the truth, a pleasing sensation compared to the harshness of her wounds, of her agiels, of her heart. Cara would make things right, she had to, lest she live forever in this world between worlds, stuck on this bridge between who she was and who she could be.

—

When they crossed the threshold into the house, Kahlan was sitting beside the fireplace and had been waiting for the kindling. Kahlan's white dress was suddenly brighter now, gathered around her legs and showing just a bit of her black boots. Where the daggers, with their intricate hand design which graced the pommel, stuck out and reminded Cara of her healing injuries. Flashes of memory flooded her mind one after another, of her atop Kahlan, holding her agiel high as if she intended to use it on her lover. The primal rage which sought to vilify itself in the form of destroying the one person who had truly seen her came surging back. But Cara did not think in the way Dahlia wanted her to. No amount of harm to Kahlan would bring her peace. There was no distance she could put between herself and Kahlan to heal the injuries inside her bleeding form.

Cara's green eyes met Kahlan's blue ones. In them she saw everything she could be. The woman, not the Mord-Sith, nor the broken little girl who had been wronged so many times. Cara had spent her whole life searching for the right person while loving the wrong ones, just as Kahlan had. Kahlan's eyes searched Cara's face for an answer; was Cara sizing her up for a fight, or was she looking for something to say?

"Cara?"

"I should want to kill you. We should be enemies of the most ardent sort. I should make you despise me."

Kahlan's ice blue eyes stayed trained on Cara's expressionless countenance. Like a pond, the surface was still, but there were living creatures underneath. Fish wriggling about, laying their eggs in the soft mud, a turtle's head breaching the surface every so often only to sink down and release little air bubbles. Kahlan knew all those creatures by name. She knew that in the deepest parts of Cara, there were words which Kahlan desperately wished to hear. Words that would explode upon impact. Words that would make Kahlan follow Cara to the ends of the earth.

"Kill me, then," Kahlan said without a second thought. She expertly slid one of her daggers from her boot and held it out grip first for Cara to take. "I'll give you a good fight, but I think you'll win, even wounded like you are."

"What?"

"You heard me," Kahlan said, rising and still holding out the weapon, her eyes becoming glassy with tears. "Kill me, Cara."

Cara stood frozen, her emerald eyes flitted from the blade to Kahlan's eyes. The tip to Kahlan's lips. This was a woman she knew, once. Perhaps she knew her still. Cara heard Dahlia's voice in her head intermingled with the phantom pains of the agiel. She was always telling her what to do, how to be, who to be. Cara felt as though she would never be complete, never be whole, unless she killed that part of her which craved the Confessor. She had to strangle any inch of desire for that which was not meant for her. It was not only written in the stars that Kahlan and Cara were not meant to be, it was within their blood. A single touch from Kahlan's hand, even a brush of the shoulder, and Cara would be obliterated.

Cara took the dagger. She held it in her hand like it was a precious jewel. Kahlan's breath hitched in surprise, however she remained still. Kahlan did not wish to die, but she did not wish to live in this liminal hell with Cara, either. She could not thrive in this endless dance between hatred and love. With the hope that Cara did in fact possess this multiplicative magic, Kahlan knew in her still-hopeful heart that she and Cara were meant to be. That it was written in the stars that they were destined to love and be loved by one another. If Cara took even one step with the dagger in hand, Kahlan would deftly disarm her and leave on the next wagon to Aydindril.

"Well?" Kahlan said, interrupting both their lines of thought. "Will you do it?"

Cara answered not with words, but with action. She let the dagger drop from her hand, turning and exiting to the staircase as it clattered to the floor. Devoid of blood, devoid of terror, devoid of conviction. Kahlan sank to her knees, a horrible sob racking her chest as Cara disappeared to the upper level of the house. As she had heard so many times before, in between breaths and glances Kahlan heard I love you. Ask could only stand there, their eyes mercilessly stuck on Kahlan, wondering if these women would ever have a taste of what it would be like to be ordinary people.

—

Cara came for her in the evening. The full moon shone into the house, illuminating the place where Kahlan lay with a cold, white light. She wore only a shirt that barely covered her ass, having assimilated to Raina and Berdine's propensity to sleep practically naked. Still, Kahlan looked like an angel, lying there for all the world to see. Sprawled out, unencumbered by the weighty thoughts in her mind, Kahlan looked effervescent.

Cara could not stop thinking about the day before, of Kahlan's call to action.

Kill me, she had said.

The Cara I love is no coward, she had said.

And she was right. Kahlan always had the right words. But there was something hidden behind thick glass that Cara could not get to on her own. A part of herself which had been partitioned away for many years. This small, negotiable section of Cara's heart which desired affection of the traditional sort. Not of agiels in between her thighs, but of a pair of hands holding her own. Even if they would slow her down, Cara felt a sense of belonging in Kahlan's embrace. She felt held. She felt seen. It was all she had really wanted in her life, to be known by her true name. Cara had sought this out with Dahlia, but Dahlia did not want her, she wanted a machine. A weapon. A knife to whet and etch her name into its blade. Dahlia wanted Cara to sink back down into that place where there was nothing but malice and agony.

It was no longer love between Cara and Dahlia; it was betrayal.

Cara sat up and watched Kahlan sleep for what felt like hours. Ask's bedroll was significantly closer than she expected it to be, his hand lolling out as if it were reaching sleepily for Kahlan's. Cara bit her bottom lip, jealous of Ask for the first time. She had seen the way they held Kahlan in the night, and the easy way Kahlan submitted to their touch. Cara found herself hungry for Kahlan's touch in a way she had not been in many months. Slowly, as if she were approaching a frightened animal, Cara rose to her feet and tiptoed over Ask's prone form and knelt beside Kahlan. She watched as the Confessor's chest rose and fell with a deep breath. Cara wished so badly for the opportunity to pour herself into this woman.

"Kahlan," Cara whispered. Kahlan did not stir. "Kahlan," she spoke again with a light squeeze of Kahlan's shoulder. The Confessor rose, her eyes fluttering open, narrowing in confusion when she saw the blonde over her.

"I see you," Cara said, her tone firm and demanding. Kahlan looked on with confusion that muddled her beautiful features.

"Are you all right?"

"I see you, Kahlan. You are everything I am not, and that is why I need you by my side. I want to be good. I want to feel. I don't want to be in pain anymore. I want to live, Kahlan. I want to live."

Kahlan watched Cara's lips as she spoke. The glory of the candor which echoed in her words was enough to yank the Confessor out of her own hardened heart. In these last few weeks she had been forced to imagine a reality where Cara did not pull through. She had to brace herself for a world in which she had truly lost Cara to the pain of the agiel and the agony of her past. Instead, Cara had risen to the occasion and said precisely what Kahlan needed to hear to believe in their love once more.

Without thinking, Kahlan pulled the Mord-Sith down onto the floor with her and into a tight embrace. Cara felt her heart flutter, all of her senses came alight, and her skin felt as though it had one-thousand needles prickling through.

But she was alive— she was alive— she was alive.

Like it had before, this love did not need to be shouted from the mountaintops. It did not come as a surprise. Cara and Kahlan had loved each other for centuries, it seemed. And now Cara finally understood that when love arrives, you open the door wide.

"Just tell me you love me," Kahlan whispered in her ear, her lips grazing the cartilage ever so slightly. "You've told me in so many other ways, but I just want to hear the words. Tell me the words."

"I love you, Kahlan Amnell. I have always loved you," Cara breathed, a small tear running down her cheek. The words tasted like honey in her mouth. She was far from healed and even farther from saved, but holding on to Kahlan gave her something to believe in.

"I love you too, Cara Mason. Don't leave me, not again. Stay with me," Kahlan said, tugging Cara closer so she was laying beside her. Cara felt rigid against her for a moment, but when Kahlan planted a small kiss on her neck, she practically melted into her embrace. Kahlan could feel the surge of Cara's magic, that polarizing force that once felt ominous felt now like destiny, like all the powers of the world coming together and screaming— yes you can, yes you can, yes you should.

It was here, Cara thought to herself, that she wished to spend the rest of her days. Even if she died old and toothless in bed. Even if she was stripped of every honor she had earned. It was only Kahlan's eyes seeing her for who she truly was that mattered.