Blood of the Fold

"I chose you, Verna, because you were far down on the list, and because, all in all, you are quite unremarkable. I doubted you were one of them. You are a person of little note. I'm sure Grace and Elizabeth made their way to the top of the list because whoever directs the Sisters of the Dark considered them expendable. I direct the Sisters of the Light. I chose you for the same reason.

"There are Sisters who are valuable to our cause; I could not risk one of them on such a task. The boy may prove a value to us, but he is not as important as other matters at the palace. It was simply an opportunity I thought to take.

"If there had been trouble, and none of you made it back, well, I'm sure you can understand that a general would not want to lose his best troops on a low-priority mission."

Verna turned the book over on the table and put her face in her hands. There was no doubt — it was Prelate Annalina who had the other journey book. She was alive, as probably was Nathan.

She glanced to the little fire burning in the bowl. The hurt of those words bumed in her chest. Reluctantly, with trembling fingers, she turned the book back over, and read on.

Verna, I know that those words must have broken your heart to hear. I do know that it broke my heart to say them, because they were not true. It must seem to you that you are being used in a nefarious way. It is wrong to lie, but it is worse to let the wicked triumph because you adhere to the truth at the expense of good sense. If the Sisters of the Dark were to ask me what my plans were, I would lie. To do otherwise is to allow wickedness to triumph.

I will now tell you the truth, realizing that you have no reason to believe that this time, my words are true, but I believe in your intelligence and know that if you weigh my words, you will be able to see the truth in them.

The true reason I chose you to go after Richard is because of all the Sisters, you were the one I trusted with the fate of the world. You know, now, the battle Richard won against the Keeper. Without him, we would have all been lost to the world of the dead. A low-priority mission it was not. It was the most important journey any Sister had ever been sent on. I trusted only you.

Over three hundred years before you were born, Nathan warned me of the danger to the world of life. Five hundred years before Richard was born, Nathan and I knew that a war wizard would come into this world. The prophecies told us some of what must be accomplished. The challenge was unlike any we have faced before.

When Richard was bom, Nathan and I traveled by ship, around the great barrier, to the New World. We recovered a book of magic from the Wizard's Keep in Aydindril to keep it out of Darken Rahl's hands and gave the book to Richard's stepfather, securing his promise that he would make Richard learn it. Only through such trials, and events in his life at his home, could this young man be forged into the kind of person with the wits to stop the first threat, Darken Rahl, his real father, and later restore the balance to the world of life. He is perhaps the most important person born in the last three thousand years.

Richard is the war wizard who wilt lead us in the final battle. The prophecies tell us this, but not whether we will prevail. This is a now a battle for mankind. Our only chance was to make sure, above all else, that he was not tainted in his training as a man. In this battle, magic is needed, but heart must rule it.

I sent you to bring him to the palace because you were the only one I could trust to accomplish the task. I knew your heart and soul, and I knew you were no Sister of the Dark.

I'm sure you are now wondering how I could let you search for him for more than twenty years when I knew where he was all the time. I also could have waited, and sent you after him when he was grown, and at last revealed his whereabouts when he triggered his gift. I am shamed to admit that I was using you, too, much as I used Richard.

For the challenges that lie ahead, I needed to teach you things you could not learn at the Palace of the Prophets, while Richard grew and learned some of the essential things he required. I needed you to be able to use your wits, and not the reams of rules that the Sisters at the palace thrive on. I had to let you develop your innate skills in the real world. The battle ahead lies in the real world; the cloistered world of the palace is no place to learn about life.

I don't expect you to ever forgive me. That, too, is one of the burdens a Prelate must bear: the hatred of one she loves like her own daughter.

When I told you those awful words, that, too, was to a purpose. I had to finally break you of the palace's teaching that you must always do as you were trained, and blindly follow orders. I had to make you angry enough to do what you judged was right. Since you were little, I could always count on your temper.