Faith of the Fallen

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Harold."

His face had aged and hardened. "I know that you are not responsible for all that happened before you came to be, and I will always love that part of you that is my father, but I am still the one who must live with it all. Now I must be true to myself, to my own feelings."

"Your feelings," she repeated.

"Yes, Mother Confessor. Those are my feelings, and I must put my faith in them."

Kahlan swallowed past the painful constriction in her throat. Her fingers, lying limply on the table before her, tingled.

"Faith and feelings. Harold, you are as mad as your sister."

She drew herself up straight and folded her hands. She shared a last look with her half brother, a man she had never known, except in name, as she pronounced sentence on him.

"Beginning at sunrise tomorrow, the D'Haran Empire and Galea are at war. After sunrise tomorrow, if you are seen by me or any of our men, you will be put to death for the crime of treason.

"I will not allow those brave men out there to die for traitors. The Imperial Order will, in all likelihood, turn north up the Callisidrin Valley. You will be alone. They will butcher every man in your army, just as they butchered the people of Ebinissia. Jagang will give your sister to his men, as a whore.

"It will be by your doing, Harold, for refusing to use your ability to think, and instead following your feelings and faith in what does not exist."

Harold, hands clasped behind his back, chin held up, said nothing as Kahlan continued.

"Tell Cyrilla that she had better hope for the fate I have just described, because if the Order does not come through Galea, I will. I have promised no mercy to the Order. Galea's treason condemns her to the same fate as the Order. If the Order does not get Cyrilla, then I swear I will, and when I get her, I am going to take her back to Aydindril and I'm going to personally throw her back down into that pit from which you rescued her, and I am going to leave her down there with every criminal brute I can find for as long as she lives."

Harold's jaw dropped. "Mother Confessor. . you wouldn't."

Kahlan's eyes told him otherwise. "You be sure to tell Cyrilla what's in store for her. Jebra probably tried to tell her, and was thrown in a dungeon for it. Cyrilla is refusing to see the open pit before her, and you are walking into it with her. Worse, you are taking your innocent people with you."

Kahlan drew her royal Galean sword. She grasped either end in a hand.

Gritting her teeth, she pulled the flat of the blade against her knee. The steel bent, then finally snapped with a loud report. She tossed the broken blade on the floor at his feet.

"Now get out of my sight."

He turned to leave, but before he took a step, Zedd stood, holding out a hand as if to ask him to remain where he was.

"Mother Confessor," Zedd said, choosing his words carefully. "I believe you are letting your emotions get in the way."

Harold gestured to Kahlan, relieved to hear Zedd's intercession. "Tell her, Wizard Zorander. Tell her."

Kahlan couldn't believe her ears. She remained where she was, staring into

Zedd's hazel eyes. "Then would you mind explaining my error of emotion.

First Wizard?"

Zedd glanced at Harold and then back to Kahlan. "Mother Confessor, Queen Cyrilla is obviously deranged. Prince Harold is not only doing her a disservice, but enabling her to bring only the specter of death to her people. If he chose the side of reason, he would be protecting his people, and honoring his sister's past admirable service when she was of sound mind.

"Instead, he has betrayed his duty to his people by embracing what he wishes to be true about her instead of facing what is true. In this way, he is embracing death, and in this case, embracing death for his people, too.

"Prince Harold has been justly found guilty of treason. Your emotions for him are interfering with your judgment. Obviously, he is now a danger to our cause, to the lives of our people, and to the lives of his own people. He cannot be allowed to leave." -

Harold looked thunderstruck. "But Zedd. ."

Zedd's hazel eyes, too, were a terrible pronouncement of guilt. He waited, as if challenging the man to further prove his treason. Harold's mouth moved, but he could offer no words.

"Does anyone disagree with me?" Zedd asked.

He looked at Adie. She shook her head. Verna likewise shook her head.

Warren stared at Harold for a moment, then shook his head.

Harold's expression turned indignant. "I'm not going to stand for this.

The Mother Confessor has given me until dawn to withdraw. You must honor her sentence."

He took two strides toward the door, but then paused, clutching his chest. Twisting slowly as he started to sink, his eyes rolling up in his head. His legs folded and he crashed to the floor.

Kahlan sat stunned. No one moved or said anything. General Meiffert went down on one knee beside the body, checking Prince Harold for breath or pulse. The general looked up at Kahlan and shook his head.