Faith of the Fallen

"She is my queen. The queen is devoted to the people."

Kahlan drummed her fingers on the table. "What Cyrilla is, is deluded by ghosts that still haunt her. She is going to bring harm to your people.

You are going to aid her in delivering your people into ruin because you wish something to be true, even though it is not. You are seeing her as she once was, not as she is now."

He shrugged. "Mother Confessor, I can understand why you think what you think, but it can change nothing. I must do as my queen commands."

Elbows on the table, Kahlan held her face in her hands for a time, trembling with anger at the insanity of what she was hearing. She finally looked up, meeting her half brother's gaze.

"Harold, Galea is part of the D'Haran Empire. Galea has a queen only at the indulgence of the Empire. Queen though she may be, even if she does not recognize the rule of the D'Haran Empire, she is still, as she always has been, subordinate to the Mother Confessor of the Midlands. As Mother Confessor, as well as the leader of the D'Haran Empire in Lord Rahl's absence, I formally terminate that indulgence. Cyrilla is now without authority and is removed from office. She is no longer the queen of anything, much less Galea.

"You are ordered to return to Ebinissia, to put Cyrilla under arrest for her own protection, to release Jebra, and to return to this army with the seer and all Galean forces except a home guard for the crown city."

"Mother Confessor, I'm sorry, but my queen has ordered-"

Kahlan slammed the flat of her hand down on the table. "Enough!"

He fell silent as Kahlan rose. With her fingertips pressed to the table, she leaned closer to him.

"As Mother Confessor, I am commanding you to carry out my orders at once. That is final. I will hear no more."

The room seemed gripped by the grave consequence of what was happening.

Each forbidding face watched, waiting to see how it was going to go.

Harold spoke in a voice that reminded Kahlan of her father's.

"I realize that it may make no sense to you, Mother Confessor, but I must choose my duty to my people above my duty to you. Cyrilla is my sister.

King Wyborn always told me to run a good army. An officer must obey his queen. My men down here are ordered by their queen to return at once to protect Galea. I am a man bound by my honor to protect my people, as ordered by my queen."

"You pompous fool. How dare you speak to me of your honor? You are sacrificing the lives of innocent people to your delusions of honor. Honor is honesty to what is, not blind duty to what you wish to be. You have no honor, Harold."

Kahlan sank into 'her chair. She looked past him, to the side, staring into the hearth, into the flames.

"I have given you my orders. Do you refuse to obey them?"

"I must refuse, Mother Confessor. Let me say only that it is not out of malice."

"Harold," she said in a flat tone without looking at him, "you are committing treason."

"I realize that you may see it that way, Mother Confessor."

"Oh, I do. I do indeed. Treason to your people, treason to the Midlands, treason to our D'Haran union against the Imperial Order, and treason against the Mother Confessor. What do you suppose I ought to do about it?"

"I would expect that if you feel so strongly, you would have me put to death, Mother Confessor."

She looked up at him. "If you have enough sense to realize that, then what good will it do for you to stick to the orders of a madwoman? It will only bring your death, and then you will not be able to carry out your queen's orders. Staying to your course can only leave your people without your aid, which is what you claim to put above all else. Why not simply do the right thing and help us to help your people? Since you refuse, you have shown yourself, in truth, to be without common sense, much less honor."

His eyes turned to her, filled with smoldering anger. The knuckles of his fists went white.

"I will be heard, now, Mother Confessor. If I stand by my honor, even if it costs me my life, it will be honoring my family, my sister, my queen, and my homeland. A homeland forged by my father, King Wyborn, and my mother, Queen Bernadine. When I was young, my father, my sovereign king, was taken from my mother, my family, and my homeland of Galea, by the Confessors, taken by a Confessor's power for their selfish desire of a husband for your mother, for her selfish desire for a strong man to father her a child-you.

Now, you, Mother Confessor-the daughter of that theft of that beloved man from us when I was but a boy-you would take me from my sister? 'hake her, too, from our land? Take me from my duty to serve my queen, my land, and above all my people? The last duty my father charged me with before your mother took him from us and destroyed him for no reason but that he was good and she wanted him, was that I should always honor my duty to my sister and my land. I will carry out my father's last charge to me, even if you think it madness."

Kahlan stared at him in cold shock.