Blood of the Fold

"Because you have always been honest with us. At first, when you told us things, we thought you would not do as you said. Well, not all of us. Cara has always believed you, but I did not."

Her expression slipped back to the distant countenance of a Mord-Sith. "When Darken Rahl was our Lord Rahl, he found out, and he ordered me to his bed. He laughed at me. He… liked to take me to his bed because he knew. It was his way of humiliating me. I thought that if you knew, too, you would do the same, so I tried to hide it from you by making you think I fancied you."

Richard shook his head. "Berdine, t wouldn't do that to you."

"I know that, now. That is why I had to confess to you, because you've always been honest with me, but I was not honest with you."

Richard, shrugged. "Well, then I'm glad you feel better." He thought as he turned her down a winding hall of plastered walls. "Did Darken Rahl make you this way, by choosing you to become a Mord-Sith? Is that what made you hate men?"

She frowned up at him. "I do not hate men. I just, I don't know, I just always looked at girls from the time I was young. Boys didn't interest me in that way." She drew her hand down her braid. "Now you hate me?"

"No, No, I don't hate you, Berdine. You are my protector, the same as always. But can't you try to not think about her or something? It just isn't right."

She smiled distantly. "When Raina smiles at me in her special way, and the day is suddenly wonderful, it seems right. When she touches my face, and my heart races, it seems right. I know my heart is safe in her care." Her smile withered. "But now you think I am despicable."

Richard looked away, shame coming over him in a cold wave. "That's the way I feel about Kahlan. One time, my grandfather said I should forget about her, but there was no way I could."

"Why would he say that?"

Richard couldn't tell her that it was because Kahlan was a Confessor, and Zedd was doing it for Richard's best interest; no one was supposed to be able to love a Confessor. He felt bad that he couldn't be honest with Berdine now. He shrugged. "He didn't think she was the one for me."

Richard pulled her through another of the tingly kind of shields when they reached the end of the hall. The triangular room had a bench. He sat her down beside him and set the glowing ball between them.

"Berdine, I think I can see how you feel. I know how I felt when my grandfather said I should forget Kahlan. No one else can tell you what to feel. You either do, or you don't. Though I don't understand or approve of this, all of you are becoming my friends. Being a friend means you don't have to be exactly alike, and you are still friends."

"Lord Rahl,I know that you can never accept me, but I had to tell you. Tomorrow, I will return to D'Hara. You should not have 10 have one you do not appicve of as your guard."

Richard thought a minute. "Do you like boiled peas?"

Berdine frowned. "Yes."

"Well, I hate boiled peas. Does that make you like me any!ess, because I disiike something you like? Or make you want to abandon being my protector?"

She made a face. "Lord Rahl, this is different from boiled peas. How can you have faith in someone you do not approve of?"

"It's not that I don't approve of you, Berdine. It's just that to me it doesn't seem right. But it doesn't have to. Look, I had a friend when I was younger, another woods guide. Giles and I spent a lot of lime together, because we had a lot in common.

"He fell in love with Lucy Fleckner. I hated Lucy Fleckner; she was cruel to Giles. I couldn't understand how he could care for her. I didn't like her, and I thought he should feel the same. I lost my friend because he couldn't be the way I thought he should be. I didn't lose him because of Lucy, I lost him because of me. I lost all the good things we had because I wasn't willing to let him be who he was. I've always regretted what I lost, "I guess this is something like that. As you learn to be other than Mord-Sith, like I learned as I grew up, you'll find that being a friend is to like a person for who they are, even the parts you don't understand. The reasons you like them makes the things you don't understand unimportant. You don't have to understand, or do the same, or live their lives for them. If you truly care for them, then you want them to be who they are; that was why you liked them in the first place.

"I like you, Berdine, and that's all that matters."

"True?"

“True.

She put her arms around his neck and hugged him. "Thank you, Lord Rahl. After you saved me, I feared you would wish you hadn't. I'm glad I told you, now. Raina will be relieved to know you will not do to us as Darken Rahl did."

As they stood, a part of the stone wall slid to the side. Richard took her hand and led her from the odd room, through the new doorway, down a stairway and through a dank, wet room with a stone floor that mounded into a huge hump in the center.