Faith of the Fallen

"I remember that." Alessandra didn't look up. "When her father died, I went with her to his funeral. 1 always felt sorry for taking her away from her family, but I explained to her that she was so talented that she had great potential for helping others and must not waste it."

"It's always hard to bring young ones to the palace. It's difficult to part a child from loving parents. Some adapt better than others."

"She told me she understood. Nicci was always good that way. She never objected to anything, any duty. Perhaps I assumed too much because she always threw herself into helping others, never once complaining.

"At her father's funeral, I wanted to help her over her grief. Even though she had that same cool exterior she always had, I knew her, I knew she was hurting inside. I tried to comfort her by telling her not to remember her father like that, but to try to remember him as he was when he was alive."

"Those are kind words to one in such grief, Sister. You offered wise advise."

Alessandra glanced up. "She was not comforted, Prelate. She looked at me with those blue eyes of hers-you remember her blue eyes."

Ann nodded. "I remember."

"Well, she looked at me with those piercing blue eyes, like she wanted to hate me, but even that emotion was beyond her, and she said in that lifeless voice of hers that she couldn't remember him as he was when he was alive, because she had never known him when he was alive. Isn't that the strangest thing you've ever heard?"

Ann sighed. "It sounds like Nicci. She always was one to say the strangest things at the strangest times. I should have offered her more guidance in her life. I should have taken more interest in her. . but there were so many matters needing my attention."

"No, Prelate, that was my job. I tailed in it. Somehow, I failed Nicci."

Ann pulled her cloak righter against a bitter gust of wind. She took the bowl of soup when Alessandra handed it to her.

"Worse, Prelate, I brought her to the shadow of the Keeper."

Ann looked over the rim of the bowl as she took a sip. She carefully set the steaming bowl in her lap.

"What's done is done, Alessandra."

While Alessandra sipped at her soup, Ann's mind wandered to Kahlan's words. They were words spoken in anger, and as such, were to be forgiven. Or were they to be considered in an honest light?

Ann feared to say Kahlan's words were wrong; she feared they were true.

For centuries Ann had worked with Nathan and the prophecies, trying to avoid the disasters she saw, and the ones he pointed out to her. What if Nathan had been pointing out things that were only dead words, as Kahlan said? What if he only pointed them out so as to bring about his own escape?

After all, what Ann had set in motion with Richard had also resulted in the prophet's escape. What if she had been duped into being the one to bring about all those terrible results?

Could that be true? Grief threatened to overwhelm her.

She was beginning to greatly fear that she had been so absorbed in what she thought she knew that she had acted on false assumptions.

Kahlan could be right. The Prelate of the Sisters of the Light might be personally responsible for more suffering than any monster born into the world had ever brought about.

"Alessandra," Ann said in a soft voice after she finished her bowl of soup, "we must go and try to find Nathan. It's dangerous for the prophet to be out there, in the world that is defenseless against him."

"Where would we look?"

Ann shook her head in dismay at the enormity of the task. "A man like Nathan does not go unnoticed in the world. I must believe that if we set our minds to it, we could find him."

Alessandra watched Ann's face. "Well, as you say, it is dangerous for the prophet to be loose in the world."

"It is indeed. We must find him."

"It took Verna twenty years to find Richard."

"So it did. But part of that was by my design. I hid facts from Verna.

Then again, Nathan is no doubt hiding facts from us. Nonetheless, we have a responsibility. Verna is with the Sisters, and with the army; they will do what they can in that capacity. We must go after Nathan. That part of it is up to us."

Alessandra set her bowl aside. "Prelate, I understand why you believe the prophet must be found, but, just as you feel you must find him, I feel I must find Nicci. I'm responsible for bringing her to the Keeper of the underworld. I may be the only one who can bring her back to the Light. I have a unique understanding of that journey of the heart. I fear what will happen to Richard if I don't try to stop Nicci.

"Worse," Alessandra added, "I fear what will happen to the world if Richard dies. Kahlan is wrong. I believe in what you've worked for all these years. Kahlan is making a complex thing sound simple because her heart is broken, but without what you did, she would never even have met Richard."

Ann considered Alessandra's words. The seduction of acquittal was undeniable.

"But, Alessandra, we don't have the slightest idea where they went.