Terry Goodkind: Temple of the Winds

“You must be dreaming,” Cara said.

His gaze shifted to the Mord-Sith. “Dreaming? Maybe you’re dreaming. Maybe I’m your worst nightmare.”

“I don’t have nightmares,” Cara said. “I give them.”

“Really?” he taunted. “In that ridiculous outfit? What are you pretending to be, anyway? Maybe you’re dressed like that to scare the birds away from the spring planting?”

Kahlan realized that the man didn’t know what a Mord-Sith was, but she wondered how she could ever have thought he looked hardly more than a boy; his demeanor was one of age and experience. This was no boy. The air crackled with peril. Remarkably, Cara only smiled.

Kahlan’s breathing stilled when she realized the man was standing, and she couldn’t recall seeing him come to his feet.

His gaze shifted, and one of the lamps went dark. The remaining lamp cast harsh, flickering light against one side of his face, letting the other side hide in shadow, but, for Kahlan, that act had brought his nature, his true threat, out of the shadows.

This man commanded the gift.

Her resolve to spare a possible innocent unnecessary violence evaporated with the heat of need to protect Richard. This man had been given a chance; now he was going to confess all he knew—he was going to confess it to a Confessor.

She had but to touch him, and it would be over.

Kahlan had walked among the thousands of corpses of innocent people slaughtered by the Order. When she had seen the women and children in Ebinissia, butchered at Jagang’s command, she had sworn undying vengeance against the Imperial Order. This man had proven himself to be part of the Imperial Order, and the enemy of free people. He did the dream walker’s bidding.

She focused on the familiar flush of magic deep within herself, always at the ready. A Confessor’s magic wasn’t released so much as her restraint on it was simply withdrawn. The act was faster even than thought. It was the lightning of instinct.

No Confessor enjoyed using her power to destroy a person’s mind, but unlike some Confessors, Kahlan didn’t hate what she did, what she was born to; it was simply part of who she was. She didn’t maliciously use what she was given, but used her magic to protect others. She was at peace with herself, with what she was and what she could do.

Richard was the first to see her for herself, and care about her despite her power. He didn’t irrationally fear the unknown, fear what she was. Instead, he had come to know her, and to love her, Confessor’s power and all. For that reason only, he could be with her without her power destroying him when they shared their love.

She intended to use that power, now, to protect Richard, and for that reason it was as close as she ever came to valuing her ability. She had but to touch this man and the threat would be eliminated. Retribution was at hand for a willing minion of Emperor Jagang.

Keeping her gaze firmly fixed on the man, Kahlan held up an admonishing finger to Cara. “He’s mine. Leave this to me.”

But when his squinting gaze sought the remaining lamp, Cara swept between them. The air cracked as she backhanded him with her armored glove. Kahlan nearly screamed in rage at the interference.

Sprawled across the carpet, the man sat up, looking genuinely surprised. Blood ran down his chin from a split in his lower lip. His look changed to genuine displeasure.

Cara towered over him. “What is your name?” Kahlan couldn’t believe that Cara, who had always professed to fear magic, seemed to be deliberately provoking a man who had just shown his command of it.

He rolled away from her and into a crouch. His eyes were on Kahlan, but he spoke to Cara. “I don’t have time for court buffoons.”

With a smile, his gaze flicked to the lamp. The room plunged into darkness.

Kahlan dove for the spot on the floor where he hunkered. She had but to touch him and it would be over.

She caught only air before hitting the empty floor. In the pitch black, she wasn’t sure which way he had darted. She snatched wildly, trying to net a part of him. She needed but to touch him, and even his thick clothes wouldn’t protect him. She seized an arm, and only an instant before releasing her power realized that it was the leather Cara wore.

“Where are you!” Cara growled. “You can’t get away. Give it up.”

Kahlan scrambled across the carpet. Power or not, they needed light, or they were going to be in a great deal of trouble. She found the bookcase against the wall and felt along its lower ledge until she saw a faint sliver of light coming from beneath the door. Men were banging on the other side, calling out, wanting to know if there was trouble.

Her fingers skimmed up the edge of the molded stile of the door, toward the handle, as she lurched to her feet. She stepped on the hem of her dress and tripped, stumbling forward, landing on her elbows with a bone-jarring thud.

Something heavy smashed into the door where she had almost stood a moment before, and crashed down onto her back. The man laughed in the darkness. As she flailed to shove the thing off, her arms whacked painfully against the sharp edges of the stretcher bars of a chair’s legs. She grappled an upholstered armrest and rolled the chair off to the side.

Kahlan heard the air driven from Cara’s lungs with a grunt as she slammed into a bookcase on the other side of the room. The men on the other side of the door pounded into it, trying to break it down. The door wasn’t budging.

As books across the room were still tumbling and thudding to the floor, Kahlan sprang up and groped for the handle. Her knuckles struck the cold metal of the lever. She slapped her hand over it.

With a shriek, she was thrown back from a sudden flash and landed on her bottom. Like sparks from a flaming log struck with a poker, a shower of flashes from the handle filled the air. Her fingers stung and tingled from touching the shield. Small wonder the men couldn’t open the door. As she regained her feet, recovering from the shock, Kahlan could see again by the flickering sparkles of light that still slowly drifted toward the floor.

Suddenly Cara could see, too. She snatched a book and flung it at the man near the center of the small room. He ducked into a squat.

Quick as a slap, Cara spun, catching him off guard. The air resounded with a hard thud as her boot nailed his jaw. The blow drove him backward. Kahlan took aim to leap for him before all the sparks extinguished and it went dark again.

“You die first!” he railed in rage at Cara. “I’ll have no more of your trifling interference! You’ll taste my power!”

The air at his fingertips lit with glimmering flashes as he leveled his full attention on Cara. Kahlan had to deal with the threat now, before anything else went wrong.

But before she could leap for him, his curled fingers twitched up. With a contemptuous sneer, he thrust one hand toward Cara.

Kahlan expected Cara to be the one on the floor next. Instead, the young man crumpled with a cry. He tried to stand, but collapsed with a shriek, hugging himself as if he had been stabbed in the gut. The room went black again.

Kahlan reached for the door lever, taking a chance that whatever Cara had done to him had broken his shield. Wincing against the pain she feared might still be waiting, she seized the handle. The shield was gone. Relieved, she twisted the lever and yanked the door open. Light from behind the crowd of soldiers pierced into the dark room. Confounded faces peered in.

Kahlan didn’t need a roomful of men getting themselves killed while trying to save her from things they didn’t understand. She shoved the closest man back.

“He has the gift! Stay out!” She knew that D’Harans feared magic. They depended on the Lord Rahl to fight magic. They were the steel against steel, they often said, and Lord Rahl was supposed to be the magic against magic. “Give me a lamp!”