Cara had to admit, it felt wonderful to be clean again.

She scraped her fingertips against her scalp, working the soap into the cropped and tanged blond mop that was her hair. It was still too short to braid, and therefore got into all kinds of knots while riding. The sharp pull and tug as she raked her fingers through it felt kind of nice, though.

It was also nice to be alone, in this secluded little part of the stream, with no one watching her and no one expecting things from her.

The Confessor had kept her word since their talk three days before, and hadn't badgered Cara about her feelings for Leo. The Mord-Sith had felt eyes on her, though, searching blue eyes that turned away quickly when they were caught. And that was almost as annoying as the talking. Something had to be done about this. She was no toddler that needed constant observation or coddling. It was almost downright disrespectful. She was a Mord-Sith.

There was a rustling outside, and light footsteps. Cara lunged for her Agiel, muscles locked in anticipation of finally maybe being able to strike back, water droplets showering the stone around her as she surged up from the water...

"Cara! It's just me."

Cara sagged, more disappointed than relieved. She dropped her Agiel back among her leather. "Wonderful. Are you following me now?"

"Am I not allowed to search for a place to have a bath when I want one?"

Cara tried to keep her annoyance to herself, but some of it must have showed on her face. "Have at it, then."

Kahlan looked a little sad as she sat on a rock and began unlacing her boots. "I know we haven't gotten onto the best of terms, Cara. And I know you've never liked me much. But we both want the same thing - for Richard to be safe. We could try to be a little more friendly, for his sake."

Cara wrung her hair out roughly, squeezing a curtain of water from it. "I never said I didn't like you, Mother Confessor. I merely stated that its irritating that you seem to think the death of a man I happened to make love to should bother me. I have made love to many men. Many of them are now dead. I even killed some of them. I am Mord-Sith. I don't fear death; it causes me no discomfort."

"It's not the death itself I thought would bother you. It's the loss of someone who made you laugh. Someone who made you happy." Kahlan was setting her stockings aside and standing, loosening her corset.

Cara turned away from Kahlan and looked at the rocky ground around the water. It was hard, rough, jagged. Pitted. Marred by time and continual pounding of something stronger and more mighty than itself. Changing but never breaking away. Like me, she thought savagely. "There are other things that can make me happy." What kind of answer was that?

"I'm glad, Cara. I really am."

She sounded sincere. Cara also detected a note of pity in her smooth voice. She couldn't handle that. Pity was one thing she couldn't handle.

She pulled herself out of the water. "I'll see you back at camp, Mother Confessor."

XXX

Cara took second watch that night. It felt like she had barely been asleep ten minutes when Richard gently shook her shoulder.

"I'll take your watch, if you want." He whispered when he saw the reluctance in her eyes. "I'm not tired at all."

"Neither am I." Cara said defensively, and forced herself into a sitting position. Zedd was snoring loudly across the dying embers of the campfire. Kahlan's soft breathing was almost unheard over the trill of cicadas in the grass.

"Alright. Good night, then." Richard knew better than to argue.

"Goodnight, Seeker."

Cara stood, stretching her arms towards the sky. It was a warm night. The moon was full and hovered in the mist of stars high above her head. She paced just outside the clearing they were camped in, her booted feet making no noise in the undergrowth.

For the first time since his death, she really thought about what had happened with Leo. The reason Cara kept pushing against Kahlan's attempts at a heart-to-heart wasn't because she didn't want to talk about her feelings - well, she didn't, but that wasn't the reason - it was because she really didn't have feelings. His death didn't bother her any more than any other death would. Why was that? The Confessor was right, he had made her laugh. So why didn't she miss him?

Dear spirits, now I'm wondering why I'm not a blubbering mess because someone died. Cara thought with disgust. What's happening to me?

And then there was this strange nagging feeling. Like there was something she was missing, something she didn't understand completely. Almost like she had forgotten something, but she couldn't remember what she had forgotten. She wasn't missing anything. Mord-Sith didn't miss things.

She had to stop thinking so hard about everything. Before meeting the Seeker things had been simple, and everything had always turned out alright. She just needed to make things that simple again.

She settled down on a dead log for her watch, her eyes and ears sharp, her Agiel at the ready. Finally, something else that had been bothering her crossed her mind.

Why couldn't she get the image of the Mother Confessor's sincere, warm smile out of her mind?

XXX

Kahlan Amnell had a dream that night.

It was frightening, how clear-cut and real the scene around her was. Green fire spurted from jagged crevices in the dry, parched ground. Naked bodies twisted and writhed in agony around her, but she couldn't help them. A dark fear stole into her heart.

She was dreaming of the underworld.

Just above her, in the shadows of a row of stone pillars, she was drawn to a certain form. His black hair brushed his broad shoulders, clothed in rich red robes, and his gait was purposeful. Determined.

Darken Rahl.

Kahlan seemed to float up to him, above the scalding fires and the agonized bodies. She followed him down a rocky path, floating above and behind him.

He was striding down into a pit, a pit of dark, inky tendrils, that seemed to spread and almost emerge from the dark depths before snapping back to their shadowy source. Kahlan didn't want to follow him. Every fiber of her being seemed to hold her back, fight against whatever was drawing her forward. But the strange tug seemed to win out, and she followed Rahl deep into the pit.

"My Lord, I know what to do. I can fix my mistakes." Rahl said humbly, with no preamble. Rahl? Humble? Dear spirits, where was she?

"Your former attempts have been thwarted. Why is this one any different?"

The voice was huge. Icy cold, swelling into the darkness and chilling Kahlan right to her sleeping body, beside the dying campfire.

Darken Rahl bowed his head and seemed to ignore the criticism. "My Lord, this is full-proof."

"I'm listening."

"I want Cara. Cara Masen. As a baneling."

There was a long pause in which Kahlan's shock seemed minuscule. "The Mord-Sith?"

"The best of them, My Lord."

"Hm. Alright, Rahl. Have your Mord-Sith. I'll take care of it." The icy, deep laughter radiated to the pit of Kahlan's spirit.

She jolted awake with a gasp. Cara's hand was an inch away from her shoulder. The Mord-Sith appeared coolly surprised. "It's your watch. Nightmare?"

Kahlan felt cold. She felt her lower lip shaking, saw her hands trembling. "I... I..."

"I'll take your watch, if you do-"

"No!" Kahlan said loudly, cutting Cara off. "Go to sleep. I'll take my watch."

Cara looked Kahlan up and down. "Alright. Goodnight, Mother Confessor."

Kahlan stood. "G-Goodnight, Cara." She took her knife from her pack, beside her sleeping bag.

Cara gave Kahlan one last odd look before settling into a comfortable position.

Kahlan sat shakily on the log just outside the clearing that Cara had just vacated. She had had such dreams before, and they had come true. Would this also come to be?

Cara. Cara a baneling. To do that, she would have to be killed.

And that made Kahlan feel a panic that was almost suffocating.

She wouldn't let it happen. If she had to breathe down Cara's neck until the Keeper was sealed into his prison again, she would. Cara would not become a baneling if she had anything to say about it.