Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Nicci only then realized that she was struggling mightily, trying to move her arms, and that she was being held down. It was as if her mind and body were both jumbled, trying to function through turmoil and confusion, trying to get a grip on something solid.

But she was beginning to make sense of things.

"Six," she said with great effort. "Six."

The black memory loomed up in her mind as if she had summoned it and it had returned to finish her.

She fixated on the meaning of that word, that name, that dark form floating there in her mind. She pulled random bits inward, building them together around it. When one memory fit-the memory of the hallway with Rikka, Zedd, and Cara up ahead frozen in place on the stairs-she went on to the next and worked to add another piece.

By the sheer force of her will, order began tumbling into place. Her thoughts fused into coherence. Her memories began to coalesce.

"You're safe," Cara said, still holding Nicci's arms. "Be still, now."

Nicci wasn't safe. None of them were safe. She had to do something.

"Six is here," she managed through gritted teeth as she struggled to push Cara out of the way. "I have to stop her. She has the box."

"She's gone, Nicci. Just calm down."

Nicci blinked, still trying to clear her vision, still trying to catch her breath. "Gone?"

"Yes. We're safe for the time being."

"Gone?" Nicci clutched a fistful of red leather, pulling the Mord-Sith closer. "Gone? She's gone? How long has she been gone?"

"Since yesterday."

The memory of the dark figure seemed to stretch away into the distance, out of reach.

"Yesterday," Nicci breathed as she sank back against the pillow. "Dear spirits."

Cara finally straightened. Nicci no longer cared if she got up.

Everything had been for nothing.

She thought she might not ever want to get up again.

She stared off at nothing. "Was anyone else hurt?"

"No. Just you."

"Just me," Nicci repeated in a flat tone. "She should have killed me."

Cara frowned. "What?"

"Six should have killed me."

"Well, I'm sure she probably would have liked to, but she didn't manage to accomplish it. You're safe."

Cara hadn't understood what Nicci had meant.

"All for nothing," Nicci mumbled to herself.

Everything was lost. All the work had been for nothing. All that Nicci had accomplished had unraveled, melting away in a dark shadow's echoing laughter. All the studying, the piecing together, the monumental effort to finally understand how it all actually functioned, the work to invoke such power, to control it, to direct it-all of it had been in vain.

It had been one of the most difficult things she had ever done . . . and now it was all in ashes.

Cara dunked a cloth in a basin of water on a side table. Water ran back as she wrung the cloth. The sound of each drop falling back into the basin was pronounced, penetrating, painful.

Rather than a blur of shapes and shadows, as it had been when she'd first awakened, now everything had focused into raw sharpness. Colors seemed blindingly bright, sounds strident. The dozen candles in the nearby stand shone like twelve little suns.

Cara pressed the damp cloth to Nicci's forehead. The red color of the Mord-Sith's leather outfit hurt Nicci's eyes, so she closed them. The cloth felt like a thorned hedge being pressed against her tender flesh.

"There is other trouble," Cara said in a quiet, confidential voice.

Nicci opened her eyes. "Other trouble?"

Cara nodded as she blotted the cloth on the sides of Nicci's neck.

"Trouble with the Keep."

Nicci glanced past the foot of her bed to the heavy dark blue and gold drapes over the narrow window. The drapes were drawn closed, but there was no light at all leaking in, so she realized that it had to be nighttime.

As she looked back at Cara, Nicci frowned even though doing so hurt. "What do you mean, trouble with the Keep? What sort of trouble?"

Cara opened her mouth to speak, but then turned at the sound of a commotion coming from behind her across the room.

Zedd swooped into the room without knocking, his elbows pumping up and out to the sides in time with each long stride, his simple robes billowing behind him as if he were the king of the place come to see to kingly business. Nicci supposed that, in a way, he was.

"Is she awake?" he demanded of Cara before he had even arrived at the bedside. His wavy white hair seemed especially disheveled.

"I'm awake," Nicci answered for herself.

Zedd came to an abrupt halt, looming over her. He leaned down, scowling, having a look for himself as if not trusting her word for it.

He pressed the tips of his long, bony fingers to her forehead. "Your fever has broken," he announced.

"I had a fever?"

"Of a sort."

"What do you mean, of a sort? A fever is a fever."

"Not always. The fever you had was induced by the exertion of forces, rather than by illness. In this case, to be precise, your own forces. The fever was your body's reaction to the stress of it. Rather like the way a piece of metal gets hot when you bend it back and forth."