Temple of the Winds

"Sometimes, I would wake when rats scratched my face with their little claws, their whiskers brushing my cheeks as their cold little noses pressed against my lips, sniffing for a crumb. I thought to stop eating what they brought me, and left the bowl of gruel and slab of bread on the floor, hoping the rats would eat my dinner and leave me alone.

"It didn't work. The food only brought hordes of rats, and then, when it was gone…I always ate every scrap of dinner, after that, when Snake brought it.

"Sometimes she would taunt me when she brought my dinner. She would say, 'Don't hesitate, Cara, or the rats will get your dinner. I knew what she meant by saying, 'Don't hesitate. It was her way of reminding me what my hesitation had cost me and my parents. When they tortured my mother to death in front of me. Snake said, 'See what happens, Cara, because you hesitated? Because you were too timid?

"We were taught that Darken Rahl was 'Father Rahl. We had no father but he. At my third breaking, when they told me to torture my real father to death, Snake told me not to hesitate. I didn't. My father begged for mercy. 'Cari, please, he wept. 'Cari, spare yourself becoming what they want. But I never hesitated. After that, my only father was Father Rahl."

Cara brought her Agiel up and stared at it as she rolled it in her fingers. "I earned my Agiel for that. The very same Agiel they trained me with. I earned the appellation Mord-Sith."

Cara looked back into Kahlan's eyes, as if from a great distance, not merely the two steps that separated them. From the other side of madness. A madness others had put there. Kahlan felt as if she, too, was turned to stone by what she saw in the depths of those blue eyes.

"I have been Snake. I have stood in the dappled sunlight, over young girls, and taken the knife from their hands when they hesitated, not wanting to hurt anyone." Kahlan had always hated snakes. She? hated them more now. Tears tickled her face as they ran down her cheeks leaving wet tracks. "I'm sorry, Cara," she whispered. Her stomach roiled. She wanted nothing more than to put her arms around the woman in red leather before her, but she couldn't make herself move so much as a finger.

Torches hissed. In the distance, she heard muffled snippets of conversation from the guards. A soft ripple of laughter floated up the hall. Water weeping from the stone ceiling echoed as it splashed in a little green puddle not far away. Kahlan could hear her own heart pounding in her ears. "Lord Rahl freed us from that."

Kahlan remembered Richard telling her that he had almost wept at the sight of the other two Mord-Sith giggling like little girls as they fed seeds to chipmunks. Kahlan understood the leap that was a simple giggle. Richard understood the madness. Kahlan didn't know if these women could ever return from it, but if they were to have a chance, it was only because of Richard.

The iron returned to Cara's grim expression. "Let's go find out how Marlin planned to harm Lord Rahl. But don't expect me to be gentle if he hesitates in confessing every detail."

Under Sergeant Collins's watchful eye, a D'Haran soldier unlocked the iron door and backed away, as if the rusty lock was the only thing protecting everyone in the palace from the sinister magic below, in the pit. Two more big soldiers effortlessly dragged the heavy ladder closer.

Before Kahlan could pull open the door, she heard approaching voices and footsteps. Everyone turned to look up the hall. It was Nadine, with four soldiers escorting her.

Nadine rubbed her hands together, as if to warm them, as she stepped through the ring of hulking, leather-clad guards. Kahlan didn't return the woman's bright smile. "What are you doing down here?"

"Well, you said I was a guest. As pretty as your rooms are, I wanted to go for a walk. I asked the guards to show me the way down here. I want to see this killer."

"I told you to wait upstairs in your room. I told you that I didn't want you coming down here."

Nadine's dainty brow drew together. "I'm getting just a little tired of being treated like a backwater bumpkin." She lifted her delicate nose. "I'm a healer. I'm respected, where I come from. People listen when I speak. When I tell someone to do something, they do it. If I tell a councilman to take a potion three times a day and to stay in bed, he very well drinks his medicine three times a day from his bed until I tell him he can leave it."

"I don't care who jumps when you speak," Kahlan said. "Here, you jump when I speak. Do you understand?"

Nadine pressed her lips together as she slanted her fists on her hips. "Now, you look here. I've been cold and hungry and scared. I've been played for a fool by people I don't even know. I was minding my own business, going about my life, when I was sent on this pointless journey only to arrive at a place where people treat me like a leper as my thanks for coming to help. I've been yelled at by people I don't know and humiliated by a boy I grew up with.