Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Richard nodded. "Since the People's Palace, in D'Hara. When I came to close the gateway to the underworld you were one of the Mord-Sith who helped get me up to the Garden of Life. You were the one who held my shirt at my left shoulder as all of you guided me safely through the palace. One of your sister Mord-Sith gave her life that night that I might complete my mission."

Rikka smiled in astonishment. "You remember. We were all in our red leather. I can't believe you have that good a memory that you could remember me, much less that I was the one at your left shoulder." She bowed her head. "And you honor us all to remember one who fell in battle."

"I do have a good memory." Richard cast a dark glare at Nicci and then Zedd. "That was just before I came back to Aydindril and the gravestone with Kahlan's name on it." He turned back to Rikka. "Watch over the Keep, will you, Rikka? We all have to go down to the city for a while."

"Of course, Lord Rahl," Rikka said, bowing her head again, looking almost giddy to be in Richard's presence, and to be remembered.

Richard again swept his raptorlike glare across the rest of them. "Let's go."

Richard vanished out the doorway. Zedd caught Nicci's sleeve on her way by.

"He was hurt, wasn't he?" When she hesitated, he went on. "You said he was suffering delusions from being injured."

Nicci nodded. "He was shot with an arrow. He almost died."

"Nicci healed him." Cara leaned in as she spoke in a low voice. "She saved Lord Rahl's life."

Zedd lifted an eyebrow. "A friend indeed."

"I healed him," Nicci confirmed, "but it was difficult beyond anything I've ever attempted before. I may have saved his life, but I now worry that I didn't do a good enough job of it."

"What do you mean?" Zedd asked.

"I fear that I may have somehow done something to cause his delusions."

"That isn't true," Cara said.

"I wonder if it is," Nicci said, "if I might have done more, or done things differently."

She swallowed past the lump growing in her throat. She feared that it was true, that Richard's problem was her fault, that she hadn't acted quickly enough, or that she might have done something dreadfully wrong. She constantly fretted over her decision that terrible morning to get Richard to a safe place before working on him. She had feared an attack that would have fatally interrupted her efforts to heal him, but maybe if she would have simply started right then and there on the battlefield he might not now be chasing phantoms.

After all, an attack never had come, so she'd made the wrong judgment about needing to get him to the deserted farmhouse. She didn't know at the time that no attack was imminent, but maybe if she would have taken the time to have Victor's men scout the area she could have started healing Richard much sooner. She hadn't done that because she feared that if they scouted, and she was right about more of the enemy being nearby, then they would have had to move Richard anyway, and by then his time would have run out.

Even so, she was the one who had made the decisions and Richard was the one now suffering delusions. Something had gone wrong that terrible night.

There was no one in the world who mattered to her more than Richard. She feared that she was the one who had caused him the harm that was ruining his life.

"What exactly was wrong with him?" Zedd asked. "Where was he shot with the arrow?"

"In the left side of his chest-with a barbed bolt from a crossbow. That barbed head lodged in his chest without penetrating all the way through his back. He was able to partially deflect it, so it just missed his heart, but his lung and chest were rapidly filling with blood."

Zedd lifted an eyebrow in astonishment. "And you were able to get the arrow out and heal him?"

"That's right," Cara confirmed with forceful passion. "She saved Lord Rahl's life."

"I don't know.» Nicci had difficulty putting it all into words. "I've been separated from him as I made my way here. Now that I see him again, see how he has latched so strongly onto his delusion and can't come to see the truth, I'm not so sure I did him any good. How can he live if he can't see the truth of the world around him? While his body may be healed, he's suffering a dreadful kind of slow death as his mind fails him."

Zedd gave her shoulder a fatherly pat. Nicci recognized the light of life in his eyes. It was the same spark that Richard had. At least the same spark he used to have.

"We'll just have to help him see the truth."

"And if it destroys his heart?" she asked.

Zedd smiled. It reminded her of Richard's smile, the smile she missed so much.

"Then we'll just have to heal his heart, now won't we?"

Nicci was unable to bring forth more than a whisper that bordered on tears. "And how are we to do that?"

Zedd smiled again and gave her shoulder a firm squeeze. "We'll have to see. First we have to let him see the truth, then we can worry about healing the wound it will bring his heart."

Nicci could only nod. She dreaded seeing Richard hurt.