The Third Kingdom

As soon as she had Richard’s agreement to let Sammie help, Ester sprang up. She pulled back the thick covering over the doorway and ducked under it to rush out into the hall. Richard could hear her asking the others to please give the Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor privacy. The people murmured their understanding.

In short order Ester ushered the girl back in, leaving all the others to wait down the corridor. With a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder, Ester steered her into the room as she once again let the heavy sheepskin fall across the doorway.

A black cat ducked in under the sheepskin and casually followed the girl into the room. The cat sat sat off to the side, lifting a hind leg as it licked the glossy fur on its tummy.

Sammie stood stiffly just inside the room, looking too fearful to approach. Her flawless skin laid over her immature features not yet fully emerged made her almost look like a statue carved of the smoothest marble.

Richard held out his good hand and waggled his fingers in invitation. “Please, Sammie, come sit here beside me.”

When Sammie shuffled closer, he gently took her hand and urged her to kneel down beside him. She sat back on her heels, wary to get too close. Her big eyes sparkled in the candlelight as they remained fixed on him. If she only knew that he probably had more to fear than she did.

Once Ester saw that the girl was in his hands, she used her foot to slide the bucket of water across the floor with her as she carried the bandages and other supplies over to Kahlan, where she squatted down and hurriedly began cleaning the worst of Kahlan’s wounds.

“I’m very sorry to hear about your father and that your mother is missing,” Richard said.

Sammie’s eyes welled up with tears at the mention of her parents. “Thank you, Lord Rahl.” Her voice was as thin and timid as the rest of her, and it carried the lonely, painful tone of inconsolable grief.

“Maybe if you can help us, then when I’m able to, I can help find your mother.”

Sammie’s brow twitched. She looked confused. “You are the ruler of the D’Haran Empire.” She wiped the tears from under her eyes. “Why would you be concerned with helping someone from the little village of Stroyza?”

Richard shrugged. “I didn’t become a leader because I wanted to rule people. I became a leader because I wanted to help protect our people from harm. If one of the people I’m sworn to protect is hurt or in danger, no matter who they are, then that is my concern.”

She looked perplexed. “Hannis Arc rules all the Dark Lands, including our village. I’ve never met him, but I’ve never heard anyone say that he is concerned about protecting us. Far from it; I’ve heard that he only cares about prophecy.”

“I’ve heard the same thing,” Richard said. “I don’t share his concern for prophecy. I believe we make our own future. In part that’s what brought me here. The Mother Confessor and I were both hurt while making sure that a terrible prophecy did not come true and harm our people. Our free will, not prophecy, made the ultimate difference in what happened.”

The girl glanced at Kahlan out of the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry about your wife being hurt.” Her big eyes turned back to Richard. “My mother often said that I was gifted, but it was up to me, not fate, to make something of it.”

“Wise advice. And did she teach you about using your gift?”

A bit of the tension went out of the girl’s bony shoulders. “All my life she taught me things about my gift, but mostly in little ways.”

“Little things are a good place to start. Larger understanding is built on little things. We put those little things we learn together into larger concepts.”

With a thumb, Sammie smoothed a fold in her dress along the length of her thigh. “She was just starting to teach me more, to teach me about using our calling to heal. She said that I was old enough to start learning more. But I’m still only a young sorceress. My ability is nothing compared to my mother’s gift, and especially nothing compared to one such as yours must be, Lord Rahl.”

Richard couldn’t help but to smile. “I didn’t even find out that I had the gift until I was a lot older than you are now. No one taught me about it as I was growing up. I imagine that with all your mother taught you, you must know more about the gift than even I do.”

Her smooth brow bunched skeptically. “Really?”

“Really. I’ve since used my ability, but in a different way than most gifted people. I’ve both destroyed and healed with my ability, but I’ve done it through instinct and desperate need, through letting my gift guide me, rather than from anything I was taught.”

Sammie sat over on her hip as she thought it over. The black cat strolled over to rub against the girl before padding on silent paws toward Kahlan.

“That must be frightening to have the gift and not know how to use it, not know how to control it.”

Despite the pain he was in and his worry for Kahlan, he couldn’t help letting out a small ripple of laughter. “You don’t know the half of it.”