Temple of the Winds

She remembered that the Keeper had sent a wizard and a screeling to kill Shota. Shota had barely escaped with her life. She had vowed to regain her home.

"I'm glad you got your home back. I'm glad for you, Shota. I really am. Agaden Reach belongs to you." "Thank you. Mother Confessor."

Kahlan looked to the witch woman's almond eyes. "What did you do to the wizard who chased you out?"

"What I said I would do. I tied him up by his thumbs, and I skinned him alive. I sat back and watched as his magic bled from his skinless carcass." She turned and gestured back down into the green valley. "I covered the seat of my throne with his hide."

Kahlan remembered that that was precisely what Shota had promised to do. It was small wonder that even wizards rarely dared to enter Agaden Reach; Shota was more than a match for a wizard. One wizard, at least, had learned that lesson too late.

"I can't say I blame you-the Keeper sending him to kill you and all. If the Keeper had gotten you, well, I know how much you feared that."

"I owe you and Richard a debt. Richard prevented the Keeper from having us all."

'I'm glad the wizard didn't send you to the Keeper, Shota." Kahlan really meant it. She still knew Shota was dangerous, but the witch woman seemed also to have a compassion that Kahlan hadn't expected.

"Do you know what he said to me, this wizard?" Shota asked. "He said he forgave me. Can you believe it? He granted me forgiveness. And then he begged mine."

The wind carried some of Kahlan's hair across her face. She pulled it back. "Seems a strange thing for him to say, considering."

"The Wizard's Fourth Rule, he called it. He said that there was magic in forgiveness, in the Fourth Rule. Magic to heal. In forgiveness you grant, and more so in the forgiveness you receive."

"I guess the Keeper's minion would say anything to try to get away with what he had done, and to get away from you. I can understand you not being in the mood to forgive him."

Light seemed to vanish into the ageless depths of Shota's eyes. "He forgot to place the word 'sincere' before 'forgiveness. »

CHAPTER 42

Kahlan watched the witch woman disappear back into the gloomy forest. Vines hanging down from craggy branches reached out to touch their mistress as she passed, while tendrils and roots stretched up to brush her leg. She vanished into a shroud of mist. Unseen creatures called in low whistles and clicks from the direction she had gone.

Kahlan turned back to the moss-covered boulder Shota had shown her and, just beyond, found the sliph's well. The silver face of the sliph rose from beyond the round, stone wall, to watch as Kahlan approached. Kahlan almost wished the sliph hadn't come, as if somehow, if Kahlan couldn't get back, none of the things she had learned would come to pass.

How was she going to look into Richard's eyes and not scream in anguish? How was she ever going to be able to go on? How would she find the will to live? "Do you wish to travel?" the sliph asked. "No, but I must."

The sliph frowned, as if well puzzled. "If you wish to travel, I will be ready." Kahlan sank to the ground, put her back to the sliph's well, and folded her legs under herself. Was she to give up this easily? Was she to submit meekly to the fates? She didn't have a choice. Think of the solution, not the problem.

Somehow, things didn't seem as desperate as they had back in the reach. There had to be a way to solve this. Richard would not so easily give in. He would fight for her. She would fight for him. They loved each other, and that was more important than anything else.

Kahlan's mind felt as if it were in a fog. She tried to focus with more resolve. She couldn't just give up. She had to face this with her old determination.

She knew that witch women bewitched people. They didn't necessarily do it out of malice; it was just the way they were. It was like a person not being able to help the fact that they were tall, or short, or the color of their hair. Witch women bewitched people because that was the way their magic worked.

Shota had bewitched Richard, to an extent. Only the magic of the Sword of Truth saved him the first time. The Sword of Truth.

Richard was the Seeker. This was the kind of thing a Seeker did: solved problems. She was in love with the Seeker. He would not so easily give up.

Kahlan plucked a leaf and tore little strips from it as she began to reconsider everything she had been told by Shota. How much of it dare she believe? It was all beginning to seem like a dream, from which she was just coming awake. Matters could not possibly be as desperate as she had thought. Her father had told her never to give up. to fight with every breath, with the last breath if need be. Nor would Richard give in easily. This wasn't ended yet. The future was still the future, and despite what Shota said, the matter was not yet decided.