Taking it Back
Kahlan woke from a strange dream, in which she wore leather and killed the dead.
She felt troubled, and at once remembered the reason—Richard was gone, trying to find Jennsen.
But soon he would return, and they would be a happy family—she and Richard, Jennsen, Zedd, (incredible as it seemed) Darken Rahl—and her baby. Their daughter.
Grow, grow, Kahlan thought, touching her middle. She sent the happiest thoughts she could muster, to nurture her child. Richard's daughter.
Later, when Richard was gone, taken from Kahlan as swiftly and surely as if he were dead, and the blonde woman lay unconscious on the ground, as she helped Zedd tie her to a tree (a woman she'd never met—Kahlan couldn't imagine what fate she now helped doom this Cara Mason to), Kahlan wished she could take it back.
Don't grow, don't be real, don't be—
Richard was gone.
Kahlan was a Confessor—always, she had believed she would raise her daughters alone, with only the Confessed to be her babysitters.
But she had found Richard—she'd found hope.
And she couldn't do this alone.