Terry Goodkind - Wizard's First Rule

The pain made Richard scream at the top of his lungs.

Denna stepped between them, snatching the Agiel from Princess Violet’s hand. “Enough! You will kill him if you use the Agiel in that way.”

“Thank you, Mistress Denna,” he panted. He felt a peculiar affection for her, at the way she stepped to his defense.

Princess Violet took a step back, her face a picture of bad temper. “I don’t care if I kill him!”

Denna’s voice was cool and authoritative. “Well, I do. He is too valuable to waste in this manner.” Denna was clearly the one in charge around here. Not the Princess, not even the Queen. Denna was an agent of Darken Rahl.

Princess Violet glared at him. “My mother says that Confessor Kahlan will come back and that we’ll have a surprise for her the next time she comes here. I just want you to know because my mother said you’ll be dead by then. My mother says I get to decide what to do to her. First, I’m going to cut off her hair.” Her hands were in fists, her face red. “Then I’m going to let all the guards rape her, every one! Then I’m going to put her in the dungeon for a few years so they’ll have someone to play with! Then when I get tired of hurting her, I’ll have her head chopped off and put it on a pole where I can watch it rot!”

Richard actually felt sorry for the little Princess. The sadness for her came over him in a wave. At that feeling, he was surprised to feel the thing in him that had come awake rise up.

Princess Violet squeezed her eyes shut and stuck her tongue out far as she could.

It was like a red flag.

The strength of the awakened power exploded through him.

When his boot came up under her jaw he could feel it shatter like a crystal goblet on a stone floor. The impact of the blow lifted the Princess into the air. Her own teeth severed her tongue before they, too, shattered. She landed on her back, a good distance away, trying to scream through the gushing blood.

Denna’s eyes snapped to him. For an instant, he saw fear pass across them. Richard had no idea how he was able to what he had done, why the magic hadn’t stopped him, and from the look on Denna’s face, he knew he shouldn’t have been able to do it.

“I warned her before,” Richard said, holding Denna’s glare. “Promise made. Promise kept.” He smiled. “Thank you, Mistress Denna, for saving my life. I owe you.”

She stared at him a moment before her expression turned dark. She stalked out of the room. He watched the Princess writhing on the floor as he hung in the shackles.

“Turn over, Violet, or you’ll drown in your own blood. Turn over!”

The Princess managed to flip herself over, a red pool spreading under her. Men appeared in a rush, tending to her. Denna watched. They lifted her carefully, carrying her away. He could hear their urgent voices fading, disappearing down the hall.

And then he was alone with Denna.

The strap hinges creaked as she pushed the door closed with one long-nailed finger. Richard had learned over the last few days that Denna truly did have a perverse kindness to her. He had learned to interpret the way she used the Agiel, to interpret her mood through it. Sometimes when she was hurting him he could tell she was holding back out of a twisted caring for him. He knew it was insane, but he understood that there were times she felt she was sharing her feelings for him by doing her worst. He knew, too, that tonight she was going to do her worst.

She stood by the door, watching him. Her voice was soft. “You are a very rare person, Richard Cypher. Master Rahl warned me about you. Warned me to take care—that the prophecies speak of you.” She walked slowly, her boots echoing her steps on the stone, to stand in front of him, close. She looked into his eyes, a slight wrinkle to her brow. Her breath on his face was quicker than normal. “That was quite extraordinary,” she whispered. “Thoroughly exciting.” Her eyes searched his face hungrily. “I have decided,” she said breathlessly, “to have you as my mate.”

Richard hung from the chains, helpless against this madness. He didn’t know what the power was that had risen up in him, or how to call it back. He tried. It did not come.

Denna seemed to be in the grip of something he didn’t understand, as if she were trying to summon the courage to do something, fearing it, yet anxiously wanting it. Her breathing was quickening, her chest heaving, as she looked into his eyes. Incredulous, he saw something the ugliness of her cruelty had never let him see before: she was attractive. Breathtakingly, stunningly, attractive. He thought he must be losing his mind.

Shocked, and strangely worried, Richard watched as she slowly put the Agiel between her teeth. He could tell by the way her pupils suddenly expanded that it was hurting her. Her skin paled. She inhaled sharply, trembling the slightest bit. Denna put her fingers into the back of his hair and held his head. Slowly she brought her lips to his. She kissed him deeply, passionately, sharing the shattering pain of the Agiel with him. With her tongue, she held it between their tips. Her kiss was savage, bestial, as she twisted against him.

Every fiber of his being burned with the torture. His gasp sucked the air from her lungs, hers did the same to him. He could get no breath but hers, she none but his. The pain made him forget everything but her. It marauded through his mind. He knew by the sounds she was making that she was feeling the same agony as he. Her fingers in his hair tightened into fists from the pain. She moaned in suffering. Her muscles tightened with it. It raged through the both of them.

Without comprehending why, he found himself kissing her back just as passionately, just as savagely. The pain was altering his perception of everything. He had never kissed anyone with this kind of lust. Desperately, he wanted her to stop. Desperately, he didn’t.

The strange power awakened again. He tried to reach for it, grasp for it, hold on to it. But it slipped from him and was gone.

The pain was overwhelming him as Denna crushed her lips to his, the Agiel between them, their teeth grating together. She pressed her body to his, hooked a leg around his, clung to him. Her cries of anguish were growing more desperate. He ached to hold her.

As he was about to lose consciousness, she pulled away from him, still gripping his hair in her fists. Tears ran from her eyes as she looked into his, not two inches away. She rolled the Agiel into her mouth with her tongue and held it there with her teeth as she shook with the pain, as if to show him she was stronger than he. Her hand came slowly and took away the Agiel as her eyes rolled back in her head. She gasped for air.

Her brow wrinkled together. Tears from the pain, and from something else, flooded from her eyes. She gave him a kiss. The tenderness, the gentleness, of it, shocked him.

“We are bonded,” she whispered intimately. “Bonded in the pain of the Agiel. I am sorry, Richard.” She brushed his cheek with trembling fingers, the glaze of pain still in her eyes. “Sorry for what I will do to you. You are my mate for life.”

Richard was stunned by the compassion in her voice. “Please, Mistress Denna. Please let me go. Or at least help me stop Darken Rahl. I promise you, I will willingly be your mate for life, if you help me stop him. I swear on my life, if you help me, I will stay without the magic holding me. Forever.”

She put a hand to his chest, to steady herself as she recovered. “Do you think I do not understand what I am doing to you?” Her eyes had an empty gloss to them. “Your training and service will last for mere weeks, before you die. The training of a Mord-Sith lasts for years. Everything I do to you, and more, has been done to me, a thousand times over. A Mord-Sith must know her Agiel better than she knows herself. My first trainer took me for his mate when I was fifteen, after he had trained me since I was twelve. There is no way I could ever live up to his cruelty, or his ability to keep a person on the cusp between life and death. He trained me until I was eighteen, when I killed him. For that, I was punished with the Agiel every day for the next two years. This Agiel. The very same one I use on you was the one used to train me. It was presented to me when I was proclaimed Mord-Sith. I live for nothing else but to use it.”