part xii

i was searching for shadows instead of searching for you

In the enormous, white bed that she used to share with her husband, Kahlan Amnell woke up alone. Her hands went into her hair and gripped it in exhaustion before she even opened her eyes. There was nothing good that could come of seeing what she did not wish to see—an empty space where Cara should have been.

Richard, she corrected herself quickly in her mind. Kahlan could not shake the Mord-Sith, even in the early morning.

It had been four days since the Mord-Sith had told her of their decision, that they would in fact take hold of D'Hara together. Disappointingly, it had been Rikka that had informed her of the choice, and while Rikka was a great ally, she was not the particular sort of blonde Mord-Sith Kahlan had wanted to see. They had decided that the Mother Confessor could stay at the People's Palace; she had been forced to give up her home in Aydindril, and she had been married to their Lord Rahl, after all. Kahlan felt a shaky sense of relief at the idea that she would have a home, even after all the unrest.

Although Kahlan wished she could rid herself of the burden of awkwardly interacting with Cara each day, trying to make eye contact or small talk with someone so cold and emotionless, she also dreaded returning to her seat of power. The more she thought about the entire situation, their stint up in the mountains, the revolution in Altur'Rang, the sheer size of the Imperial Order, the less confident she felt in assuming any sort of throne.

Why must it always be her making these decisions? Where was anyone else?

Kahlan was alone again without a friend, like she had been for so many years. Growing up a Confessor was a lonely way to live, and she had lost her dear sister and the rest of the Confessors only a year and a half ago. These were the only people she could rely on, who would touch her without fear, who would love her more than she loved herself.

Richard had become that support for her almost instantly. It was destiny that brought them together, they were Seeker and Confessor, but it had always been more than that. It just seemed right, despite everything that tried to tear them apart. Kahlan had been intimate for the first time in her life with Richard, she had married Richard, she had tried for a child with Richard, she had been nursed back to health after a terrible loss by Richard. This man who she had met only a year ago had changed her world for the better. He had gone into the heart of his enemy and lost his life trying to protect her health.

It was not being followed by Richard's ghost that frightened her about what she had done with Cara. It was a hard world they lived in and no one was expected to survive the life she and Richard had led for long. Wars, magic, spells, curses, it was all bound to have caught up with them at some point. It was why Richard had not struggled as he lay dying—he knew that, at some point, his luck would run out. Even a hero could have a hole put through his shield. Kahlan was still a fairly young woman, not nearly twenty five, and she deserved love in the remainder of her life.

It was just so right, so sweet, so good to hold Cara. The way that Cara's lips felt on hers was more than any kiss she'd ever had with Richard. In all those deep, dark nights they spoke of things she and Richard had never known about each other. Cara had held her and wiped the blood away. Kahlan and Cara had told each other where they had been.

"My strength is not contingent on your weakness. I do not see you as a threat to my own power; I see you as a companion to it."

Companions. That was what they were. Kahlan knew that there was so much more to the word but it just felt so right. Kahlan and Cara were like a sword and shield; they were meant to be used together even when they were so different. Cara never left, Cara never felt as though she was better than Kahlan. Even when Cara could have left her and gone instead with her Lord Rahl, she had stayed by Kahlan's side.

Yet, Kahlan had done everything to push her away, like she always did. The truth was so vastly more terrifying than any garbled lie she could conjure. To care for someone this much was horrifying.

If she lost Cara too, what would she become?

Kahlan pulled the warm blanket over her head and drifted back into a restless sleep. While she wished there were no more palace staff, she felt too badly to fire them outright. She had told them not to touch her room, nor to knock on her door. She wanted to stay in her bedroom, undisturbed, as long as she wanted. If she possessed such power, Kahlan would grow roots into the mattress and never leave; this bed would be a wonderful place to grow old and toothless.

—

"Dragons? You're expecting me to believe that—"

"You are so thick-headed sometimes, Cara, honestly. I don't understand why you're being—"

Following the sound of the arguing voices in hopes of catching some quarreling Mord-Sith before words inevitably ripped into a fist fight, Kahlan curiously turned the corner to a dead-end hallway, which spilled out into a courtyard, to see Berdine and Cara arguing. The Mord-Sith looked surprised to see Kahlan, their eyes immediately gravitating towards the familiar sword hilt peeking up over her back.

"In order to bring about a new D'Hara, we need dragons."

Kahlan was now just as confused as Cara was. She crossed her arms, then undid the action as soon as she saw that she was, in fact, mirroring Cara's position.

"Dragons were an old symbol of D'Hara until Panis and Darken Rahl nearly hunted them to extinction," Cara added begrudgingly. "Berdine thinks that someone needs to speak to the dragons and create an alliance with them. The people won't just trust Mord-Sith without reason. We terrify them."

"The amiable dragons would only speak with Richard," Kahlan said, to which both Mord-Sith nodded.

"Which is why I thought to send you, Mother Confessor," Berdine told her. "And to assert our new power, we're sending Mistress Cara with you."

If looks could kill, Berdine would be dead a thousand times over by Cara's hand.

"Then we'll go to the dragons, if that's what it takes," Kahlan said rather quickly, to the surprise of Berdine and Cara. "When shall we leave?"

"If you want to stand a chance against the Imperial Order, you'll go as soon as we can get a carriage."

Kahlan looked at Cara for a moment but instead of taking flight, her heart sank as the Mord-Sith's bright, blue eyes failed to meet hers. Cara departed with a nod and a reluctant but obedient grunt, both knowing full well that Berdine was rather unrelenting in her verdicts.

"Berdine, I need to speak with you for a moment," Kahlan said, catching the Mord-Sith's arm before she had the chance to leave. "I was looking for you, but not to talk about dragons. I want you to have the sword."

"The Sword of Truth?" Berdine asked incredulously. "Kahlan… I can't. I shouldn't."

"You always said that you were his personal bodyguard," Kahlan said with a small smirk, to which both women shared a short huff of laughter. "And his favorite Mord-Sith."

"I was not the one allowed to galavant around the world with him," Berdine noted. "It would have done me some good to get out of here, even for a short while."

"I don't want to carry ghosts either. That's why I need you to take his sword, Berdine," Kahlan said as unwarranted tears welled up in her eyes. She fumbled with the buckle and released the baldric from her shoulder, grabbing the sheathed sword with two hands and holding it out to Berdine. "I used this sword to kill my husband. I used this sword to kill Richard Rahl. It's so… evil in my hands."

Berdine shook her head and instead of taking the sword for herself, she gently pulled Kahlan's hand up onto the handle, forcing her to grasp it. Immediately, all Kahlan could feel was sorrow as the sword called out desperately for its master. All the pain and heartache of watching Richard die right before her eyes. It swallowed up her throat and set her hands to shaking. But Berdine was there to steady her.

"Let the pain drive you," Berdine told Kahlan in a voice from deep down in her belly. "Let it seep into your bones and suck all of the sadness from them. Let it curl up against you in your bed. Let it use you as a weapon. Get angry, get belligerent, and then you'll know how to truly live without him. Pain means that you are alive."

"Do you hate me for what I did?" Kahlan managed, choked up by the overwhelming guilt of what she did.

"No, I could never hate you. You loved him just as much as we did."

That was almost worse than being hated. To be excused for her actions was a knife to the belly.

"Do you ever think you'll find someone like Raina again?"

"No, but that's not the point," Berdine told her, tears in her eyes too. It was so odd to see a Mord-Sith cry. "I don't want to find Raina again. To lose the love of my life was more than enough only once. I don't want to do it again. Looking for her would be like looking for a shadow. It's not the real thing, and it never will be. If I ever find love again, I wish for it to be a brand new love."

Kahlan nodded and squeezed Berdine's hand, wondering all the while if she would ever stop looking to shadows for comfort.

—

It was the smallest carriage that Kahlan had ever ridden in. She had to admit that although she did not feel like the queenly, high maintenance type, Kahlan did find herself enjoying some comforts that came with her title. One of which included not having to ride on a horse anymore. What made the wagon so tiny was that Kahlan was nearly on top of Cara. Any closeness was like agony with the Mord-Sith, for they had not had a real conversation since they stayed with the Karnor.

"The weather, it's… warm," Kahlan said in a low voice. Her chin was propped up on her hand as she stared absently out the window.

"Since when have you cared about the weather, Mother Confessor?" Cara asked, trying her hardest not to look at Kahlan.

"Don't call me that."

"Sure."

Kahlan rolled her eyes and went back to staring out the window. The carriage rolled over a sizable pothole in the road and sent Kahlan out of her seat and suddenly her hands were steadying themselves on Cara's lap, her fingers gripping the Mord-Sith's strong thighs. Kahlan held herself there for a moment as Cara was absolutely silent. The tension was so thick it could be cut by a blade's edge.

Kahlan was up and back in her own seat before Cara could even part her lips to say a word. Kahlan gripped her own knees tightly and hoped that the ride would end soon.

There was the sound of a felled tree, splintering at the base, then falling down to the forest floor. Neither battle-hardened woman moved an inch, but when it happened again the carriage ceased its stride. The wood was silent for a moment. Carefully, Kahlan slid open the small window to glance outside at whatever horror was waiting for them.

"What do you see?" Cara said in a low voice. A dark, quick figure flashed across their field of view, followed by the carriage driver's howl of pain.

The air crackled with the anticipation of a fight as Cara nearly ripped her way out of the carriage. Kahlan felt her chest filling up with that vicious sensation of fear, yet all of it was assuaged by the absurd desire to do anything but sit in a throne room and make awful decisions. During all those war-mongering months in the mountains, Kahlan's tongue had learned the taste of blood and her stomach had grown accustomed to its coppery finish.

More than that, however, Kahlan felt such a wonderful swelling in her chest when she watched Cara snap into action. There was something so feral yet so refined about the Mord-Sith. Her violence was always within arm's reach, swimming just below the surface. Cara did not shy away from these violent parts of herself, nor did she act as though it were divine providence.

But when they both hurtled out of the carriage, battle-ready, there was nothing to greet them but the stinking remains of their poor driver, the guts torn from his belly still steaming with warmth. Cara pulled out her dead agiel and poked it only once before Kahlan tsked and pushed the Mord-Sith's hand away.

"It's still here, we just can't see it," Kahlan murmured. "It may be watching us and waiting for a distraction."

"A miriswith, all the way up here?"

"Perhaps, or perhaps not. There are things far more terrifying than beasts in these woods."

The hidden beast, great and terrible, came at Cara with all the might in the world; no amount of small wonders could have ceased its stride. It pummeled through the forest, crashing through trees and ripping up dirt under its paws all in an effort to destroy these two women. Its eyes were so impossibly black, like a starless night, unlike any creature she had ever seen.

Kahlan turned to warn Cara of the inevitable habit which would do nothing but serve as a distraction. In the worst case of mindlessness, before Kahlan could speak a word, Cara grasped the cold handle of her agiel and held it at the ready. The fear struck her like a bolt of lightning. Kahlan could see it in her eyes, smell it in the air, tasted it in her own mouth. Cara's fear was her fear. Cara's sorrow was her sorrow. And as Kahlan looked into the Mord-Sith's eyes all she saw was relief for not having been subjected to the uselessness of old age. There was not a shred of self-preservation in Cara's eyes—that had been beaten out of her so long ago.

There had to be something that could be done to save Cara Mason. Something that should have been done twenty-odd years ago.

The Sword of Truth felt hot on Kahlan's back, and as if driven by birthright, her hand came up over her shoulder to take the handle. It all came rushing back to her in bleeding gasps— the visions of Richard, in his terribly final hour, unable to do anything at all.

How quickly she had forgotten what it was like to decide who lived and who died.

In the interim as Kahlan saw all of her misdeeds splay out before her, Cara's whole, fiendish form was lunging towards her, all muscle and loyalty. With one hand she steadied herself on Kahlan's shoulder and with the other she freed the Sword of Truth from its miserable sleep. The ring of the steel sounded so different in Cara's hands.

Kahlan could only watch as Cara brought the sword in front of her in a brillant arc. The Sword of Truth gleamed with rage, but Cara was using the sword to save Kahlan, not for her own defense. Kahlan's heart caught in her throat as Cara took a side step just as the beast hurled itself towards them. She drove the sharpened edges clean through the leg of the beast as it raced past, once on the left, once on the right. There was a whine, and the beast collapsed on the ground, its chest heaving, it's arms struggling to hold it up to charge at them again.

"Get up, Kahlan," Cara ordered. Kahlan did not oblige, too lost within herself.

Why was Cara shouting at her? When did Cara learn how to use a sword so deftly?

"Get up, Kahlan. Get up right now. Don't leave me here alone," Cara called again, her head turning to the side and her braid falling over her shoulder. Cara looked like Death, like Fear, like Blood. Cara was an incarnation of everything Kahlan could not be. Kahlan could no longer separate her violence from her evils.

Kahlan took a deep breath as she stared straight into Cara's eyes, curled her fingers into the moss beneath her, and rose to her feet. She had to get up, for Cara. She had to move forward, for Cara. She could not leave her companion here all alone, after all they had been through together. Even if all Kahlan wanted to do was lie here and waste away instead of ever making another decision again, today she would choose love.

"I'll finish this. Collect our things from the carriage," Cara told her, and all Kahlan could do was nod and do as she was told. The screams of the creature were far too much to handle now, all she could picture was Richard.

"Come on, we'll have to walk the rest of the way. It freed the horses," Cara said, squatting down so she was eye level with Kahlan as they packed. "Are you with me?"

"I'm with you, Cara," Kahlan told her, the life coming back to her voice. "You almost died back there. I should have used the sword, I should have saved you—"

"I didn't die. That's all that matters, now," Cara said, squeezing Kahlan's shoulder once before rising to her feet and searching for a direction to head into. "Do not pity a Mord-Sith, we are always looking to die for the ones we love."