Fic: R.S.V.P. Pt. 2 | LotS | C/D, R/K | NC-17
**
Greyfall is coarse and unlovely, the kind of functional utilitarian stronghold Darken Rahl favored over the ornate monuments to glory and power erected by Panis Rahl. Cara doesn’t really believe that architectural taste entered into these decisions; despite being sovereign of D’Hara with access to untold fortunes, Darken Rahl was quite the skinflint when it came to his Mord’Sith.
Unadorned stone curves through every hallway, floor to ceiling, and there are too few windows. Rarely is there enough light to read properly or darn torn leathers. The baths are almost too small for bathing (let alone fighting), the dungeon too vast and difficult to clean, and hot winds often sweep across fertilized farm fields and roar up the bluff like a dragon’s shitty breath.
Though its proximity to the People’s Palace made Greyfall seem like a plum assignment, Cara had despised serving from this barren tower, where every rickety beam and joist seemed nailed in place by no more than blind devotionals and arbitrary lessons.
Ghosts roam these halls and drift like fog over the waters below. Though these memories come from a most difficult and confusing time in her life, Cara is unafraid. She doesn’t live here anymore, and her time away has imbued her with enough strength to confront the revenants rather than simply deny their existence. Let them come; they will find her unblinking and ready.
In the second floor hallway, she drags her fingertips along the rough block wall and feels every catch on her skin. She knows how a bit more pressure can rip scratches into flesh. Weak daylight washes down from above, but Cara remembers this passage more darkly, from a moonless summer hour some seven years ago.
On that evening, following a rebel skirmish which temporarily took the lives of several Mord’Sith, Cara received a secret charge: she was to teach an elder sister a brutal lesson about the folly of ignoring direct orders in battle. Young and brash, Cara decided to fulfill her mission in a unique and personally beneficial way.
Beneath the third floor staircase landing, she stops at a closed bedchamber door and shuts her eyes. Touching the weathered wide planks, she looks backward in time until live color drains to achromatic memory.
+*+
The chamber door bursts wide and Triana stumbles into the hall, naked and theatrically frantic. She bleeds from the mouth and nose, and her head swivels around seeking an escape route. A sudden kick to the back sends her sprawling face-down on the floor.
Cara, wearing only a harness and a waggling leather godemiche of notable girth and length, stalks out and pounces on her. She doesn’t chastise Triana or explain herself, because there is no need; by this point, all discussion has ended. Cara winches Triana’s fraying braid, curving her back in a beautifully anguished arc, and enters her sex from behind.
Due to clandestine activities within that closed bedchamber, Triana is beyond wet and penetration is much easier than it looks or sounds, but no one watching - and someone is always watching - need know that.
Cara’s speedy hips rise and drop without kindness or romance, crushing the other woman into the abrasive stone floor, scraping her down the hall with every percussive thrust. The hateful mechanics are easily managed, though an act can never be perfectly mechanical with imperfect human beings involved.
At nineteen, Cara is a bloodletting terror, a prodigy at dealing pain, but she is vulnerable to bodily hungers - as a veritable legion of dizzied Mord’Sith and several ravaged stable boys could attest. This charge is a test of Cara’s ability to discipline another while exercising self-discipline, and the latter aspect is proving much more difficult than she imagined.
Minutes beat away with no sound but grinding breath and the slap of focused, working flesh. Sweat drips from Cara’s nose and chin, merging into the slow trickle between Triana’s shoulders, pooling in dimples at the base of her spine. Cara bites her lip and swallows hard, battling an urge to lower her mouth and lap up this concentrated salt. Instead, her free hand smears these reservoirs across hot skin, and she blows steady cooling breath over Triana’s wetted back.
In fitful, disguised movements, Triana gradually lifts her buttocks and parts her legs to invite deeper touches. Cara wants very badly to smirk; her co-conspirator, who swore she would not enjoy this, has just proven herself both a liar and a harlot.
Charitably, she responds with a series of bruising, sinuous pumps. Triana melts beneath her and turns briefly careless, gasping and moaning against her own rounded shoulder. Cara clamps a hand over her mouth to muffle any sound that could be interpreted as pleasure, and Triana promptly bites her fingers - not breaking the skin, just hard enough to convey hostility.
Hissing, Cara yanks her hand away and pulls out suddenly. She takes hold of one shoulder, flips Triana over and strikes her hard across the face. Triana impassively sets her jaw, but her eyes burn like newly stoked coals. Cara barely chokes back another smug grin as she pins her arms, settles between her legs, and resumes her duties with one competent, businesslike push.
All goes according to their plan - stage a semi-public and seemingly humiliating sexual domination - until Cara notices the blood. Startlingly red by torchlight, it flows from deep and ragged lines which now mar Triana’s once perfect torso. She didn’t mean for this to happen. Such injury was not part of the plan.
It would be better for them both if she didn’t care, better if Cara didn’t feel a strange compulsion to comfort her sister in the midst of punishment. It must show in her eyes, this soft and destructive impulse, because the older woman’s stern face silently exhorts self-control.
For reasons beyond her ken, Cara does not stop herself; she leans in close and licks blood from an abraded breast. Their eyes meet and Triana’s arms tense with incipient rebellion, but Cara is not dissuaded. She nuzzles the wounds, striping her own face with crimson, and soothes raw nipples in her mouth until Triana’s angry breath calms to a kittenish stutter.
Instinctively, Cara’s hips relax into a heartbeat rhythm of rolling double taps, an unmistakable effort to coax orgasm rather than obeisance. She glides their bellies together, transferring rosy sweat from skin to skin, and Triana’s traitorous body rises to the dance.
When Cara stupidly takes her mouth in a kiss, steaming with blood and sweat and pleasure, the fiction crumbles along with the last of Triana’s reserve. She comes in a tidal rush, bucking hard and triggering unexpected climax in the younger woman.
Cara frees Triana’s arms and falls against her, a hot writhing mess unable to hold still, kissing harder until their tongues thrash together like whitewater. Triana gentles her down by gripping Cara's waist with disciplinary pressure, and gradually stroking sanity into her shoulders and flanks. As their bodies relax and cool, they regard each other with resignation, acknowledging mutual failure. Other reactions - pointless questions and strange, nascent feelings - will not survive this night.
Surrendered and damned, Triana folds her legs across Cara’s backside, locking her down tight and deep for a few moments more. They rock together in the quiet, a glowing pink knot of defiant energy sure to be extinguished.
Sound echoes from the landing above, soft leather gloves clapping slowly in mock applause, and the moonless night begins to rain down consequence. A half-dozen armed guards appear and surround them. In a voice like scissors rending silk, Denna calls out from the stairway crest.
“Sister Cara,” she begins, descending with light, scratching steps, “perhaps you misunderstood your charge. Is there some mirrored reality where that is considered punishment?”
Cara decides since there is little to lose at this point, she may as well aim for a prize to be collected later. She looks down on frozen, stoical Triana and winks at her, as if she’s going to take care of everything.
“Our methods of correction differ, Mistress,” she answers.
As Denna approaches, Cara eyes the platinum-haired elder with false prurient interest. She presses one firm hand against Triana’s mound and slips free the phallus, which now appears less of a tool and more an extension of Cara’s own rigid and ready gall.
“I can prove myself to you directly,” Cara says, “if you would grant me the opportunity.”
Denna’s pale brows rise as she snickers. She locks her boots against the sides of Triana’s head and pats Cara’s blood-smeared cheek, as one would a precocious child caught stealing candy.
“My little hotspur,” she coos. “If Lord Rahl’s enemies ever discover your weakness for the fairer sex, you will surely become a liability.”
“I appreciate intelligence and beauty,” Cara demurs. “Though, in your case, I could excuse those requirements and act based on duty.”
Denna snorts carelessly, but her nostrils flare and her eyes darken. She raises a hand and the largest guard bashes an agiel against Cara’s skull, knocking her to the floor in a dazed heap.
“Dunk her in the bath and bind her in my quarters,” Denna orders. She taps her boot sole against the phallus. “Dispose of this, but bring me the harness. It may yet prove useful.”
As Denna speaks these words, she pointedly strokes her agiel. Behind her bravado, Cara shudders at the thought of what’s to come.
Denna departs and Triana shrinks away against the wall. She will not intervene with the guards, nor should she. By her own choice, Cara will now answer for Triana’s insubordination at today’s battle and for her own failure to mete out appropriate punishment. Her sexual appetite aside, Cara subverted her orders because she felt Triana's so-called offense was rational and necessary.
Stubbornly, Cara clings to notions of Mord’Sith honor, pride, and merit - the noble aspects of service she was taught as a girl - though these concepts hold little weight in Darken Rahl’s desolate culture. Many customs and rituals have withered in his grasp, removing much complexity and nuance from their insular society. This has gradually affected everything from the color and meaning of a sister’s leathers to her proper tactical education.
Cara truly believes that had Triana followed Denna’s original attack plan today, more of their sisters would have died, perhaps too many to revive, and the filthy rebels would have retained a large D’Haran army weapons cache. As the senior Mord’Sith in the field, it was Triana’s duty to serve the greater purpose and disobey her Mistress. Through her insolence, she unwittingly earned Cara’s respect.
She knows Triana is cold and devious and that her first loyalty lies with D’Hara, but the woman’s personal wants and needs shift like mercury. After tonight, perhaps one silvery drop of allegiance will roll into Cara’s grasp… if Denna doesn’t kill her, that is.
+*+
Cara smiles herself out of recollection, amused by her youthful and short-sighted idiocy. Denna did kill her that night - by particularly inventive suffocation, if she recalls correctly - sending Cara on one of several touch-and-go visits to the Underworld.
The bitter irony is that Cara’s efforts to ally with Triana, to better serve D’Hara and survive this brutish world as long as possible, only provoked more danger. They incited insecurity in elders like Denna, and later in Darken Rahl himself.
Over time, the two Mord’Sith were set on each other like dogs and repeatedly forced to compete for favor and position. They barked loudly enough to mask the occasional whisper of respect, words uttered far away from temples and spying eyes, in woods or in water, while touching each other with open hands. It was never love, or even in that kingdom of feeling, but Cara always felt a secret concord between them.
And yet she drowned your child.
Cara thinks the words out one at a time, clear as bells, but they do not harmonize like truth. She still cannot reconcile the woman and the act. She will never understand, and never forgive.
She climbs stairs leading to the private third floor chambers, thinking to search hidden compartments in Denna’s old rooms for clothing, but Cara has accidentally sprung the latch on a door long closed. Her mind is finally pulled down to the river, and her thoughts sweep back to the frosty fall dawn when she birthed a doomed son.
The onset of labor was marked by a red moon - an omen of bloodshed. When the condemned baby arrived, elder sisters rushed him away and Cara never even saw his face. She remembers the boy only as a hushed, kicking thing swaddled in burlap. Minutes later they pulled Cara from her labor bed and dragged her, limp and mute, to the Lleyton’s brown banks.
The sisters of Greyfall surrounded her, chanting the devotional like a dirge. A muffled cry sounded as Triana placed that bound bundle on the misty water. It floated away with the current, and gradually sank into silence around the river bend.
Cara made no noise, kept her face blanked clean as she held up a hand and channeled all her will into the water. She instructed the child to remain calm and quiet, to be without fear. She told herself the baby found peace in the forest, where the Lleyton runs dark under sheltering trees.
Darken Rahl was absent for the ritual murder of his infant son. That day, Cara learned how all the power and magic in the world cannot rid some men of cowardice.
On reflection, it did not surprise her that their calculating, parricidal master would fear his own child. As foolish and egotistical as it now seems, Cara saw Triana’s part as a much more personal betrayal. She conveyed this feeling by piercing the woman’s heart with a dagger some months later, though she wept solemn tears while slashing her throat and hiding her body beneath fallen rebels on the battlefield.
Such betrayals were unavoidable in a world washed nearly clean of empathy. Had she let Triana live, it might have been her instead of pig-eyed Nandra who later bushwhacked Cara, sawed off her hair and left her for dead - an act which spurred her destined alignment with the Seeker.
Things may well have happened just that way, only to be casually erased and rewritten, along with so many other events people rely on as immutable facts. Zedd changed many things with his spell of undoing, more than anyone might ever know. He intended only to divert one woman from another’s path, but Cara wonders sometimes if that single change acted as a stone tossed in a pond, birthing ripples which have yet to come ashore.
She doesn’t enjoy thinking about that spell, about how the lines of fate are fragile as silk in a spider’s web, and how a few words of powerful magic can rip those strands apart and re-weave an entirely new pattern. She likes the shape of her life now, and would willfully attack anyone who tried to tear loose even a single thread.
Cara has come into her own in this world, in a way only possible when people know they are not extraneous. Her duties and friendship truly matter to Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd. And everything about her - each edge and curve and light in her eye - matters to Dahlia.
By the time she enters Denna’s chambers, Cara feels quite warm; even the mental echo of Dahlia’s name still sends heat though her skin. She has spent the whole of summer lolling in green pleasures like some juvenile shepherd poet, devotedly loving one woman as if born to the task.
Cara might feel ashamed, if not for the strong conviction that this endearment was truly unavoidable. A rational Mord’Sith experiences no shame when bested by a super-eminent force. A sensible Mord’Sith kneels before this conqueror and offers service. Cara prides herself on being rational and sensible.
After a bit of searching, she locates the right hearthstone trigger and two floor planks rise underfoot. Cara kneels and opens Denna’s concealed storage hold. She finds an older but intact brown suit almost instantly, and allows herself a few moments to root through the dead woman’s impressive collection of weapons and toys, items designed to blur the lines between pleasure and pain.
Amid the blades and bludgeons are several glass vials filled with a heavy liquid she recognizes as body oil. Cara’s knuckles tighten and ache as she recalls her Mistress’ demands for endless, forceful massage. She gleefully smashes these vials in the fireplace.
Beneath a bundle of eyelets and laces and leather awls, Cara finds something unexpected, something that stops her cold. She immediately envisions Dahlia’s smile, her blue eyes twinkling upon seeing Cara wearing this for her. They’ve discussed it once or twice, with Dahlia voicing support and Cara questioning the necessity, but it seems fate has taken a stance on the matter.
Today, Cara doesn’t ask any questions; in fact, so little rational thought occurs that the decision to steal practically makes itself. Cara unfurls a sack and takes what she desires and every accessory she might someday need, thieving in a guiltless frenzy that would probably give Denna no end of perverse amusement.
The lambswool hold lining has kept all clothing materials supple, so Cara sheds Richard’s vest and slides easily into the fresh suit of brown leathers. She tightens stays, and cuffs legs and sleeves to compensate for her shorter limbs. The suit is not perfect, but it will suffice until permanent alterations can be made.
Booted and gloved, she hoists her sack of pirated goods and races downstairs to rejoin Richard in the courtyard. Horses whinny and stamp the gray dust, impatient as their riders to get moving toward Eringaard.
Cara looks at Greyfall and wishes they had time to burn it down, but that wish fades quickly. She spares a glance toward the sunlit eddies of the Lleyton River and feels a hot prickle behind her ribs, though that, too, numbs away within a few heartbeats. Water and time rightly flow one way; Cara will not fight the current.
Richard sidles up on his horse and holds the reins of Cara’s chestnut stallion while she mounts up. “Got everything you need?” he asks.
“I do,” she answers, and it feels like the truth.
“The brown leathers look good. Kind of… elegant,” he observes. “Is that color new?”
“Quite old, actually,” Cara says, hesitant to explain years of twisted history with one breath. “It fell out of fashion.”
“Huh. Too bad. Race you home?” Richard asks, brows rising over a boyish smile.
By way of a reply, Cara kicks her horse into a gallop. Richard passes her within half a league and they trade position through fields and along wooded trails as their lead soldiers struggle to keep up. Every once in a while, when Cara feels her bag of stolen property bouncing against the saddle, she wishes for winged horses to hasten their journey.
It will be two more days until Dahlia gets home, and Cara doesn’t think she can wait that long. Three leagues ahead is a turn east, a path through the valley that leads to Hargrove Mill. She could break away and ride straight through, arriving by dusk…
**
By mid-day, the People's Palace swarms with early arriving visitors and their servants. Staffers escort guests to their rooms, suggest amusements in the city, conduct tours, and otherwise try to keep them away from Kahlan. This privacy has allowed her to nearly finish all preparations for Midlands political dueling in the days ahead.
Everything is signed and ready, except for those eleventh hour tariff requests. If Kahlan didn’t know better, she might think Dennee was being spiteful by presenting the alterations at the last minute. Her sister claimed to be happy about the move back to Aydindril, but her work with the Council has been spotty at best.
Hoping to shake loose a few compromise ideas over lunch, Kahlan takes up these damnable papers, sneaks downstairs through service passages and emerges briefly into the main hall.
A trio of buxom young ladies, olive-skinned and dressed in bright, skimpy D’Haran finery, spots the Mother Confessor and breaks away from their tour guide. They talk loudly over each other, and their voices bleed together like honking geese in flight.
“She’s too tall - and fat - she looks sick - so pale - and fat - and spotty - quiet, you ninny - she’ll hear you and confess us all - oh, such a plain white dress!”
Anxious to evade them, Kahlan zips sidelong into the ballroom and locks the door behind her. They converge on the other side, knocking and banging until the tour guide pulls them away. She heaves a sigh of relief and pats her little belly.
“When you meet girls like that - and you will, because they are eternal - just remember that they see the worst of themselves in everyone else,” Kahlan whispers to her daughter. “Never forget that you are beautiful.”
She hears a voice and soft music from across the room and raises her head. She had thought the ballroom empty, but two people - a striking woman in a scarlet gown and a small boy wearing white - sit on the edge of the stage, plucking at a violin. Kahlan recognizes the woman and smiles, watching her.
Dahlia Currier lifts the child onto her lap and tucks the violin under his chin. She positions his hands and fingers on the strings and helps him draw a bow across, to and fro again and again, until the sound grows sweet and strong. Even from a distance, Kahlan sees his face break with joy as music blooms from his fingers. She rolls the tariffs under one arm and approaches, clapping her hands together in applause.
Dahlia looks up and gives a grin, but the boy visibly cools in Kahlan’s presence. He stands and calmly trots off behind the stage, leaving a visual impression of stubby limbs and bouncing blond hair.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to frighten him away,” Kahlan says. “Is he with the children’s choir?”
Dahlia shakes her head. She lifts her dress hem and hops down from the stage. “Actually, I think he’s deaf. He arrived with a crew of Palace staffers while I was tuning strings,” she explains. “The kid just wandered up and sat by me. I couldn’t get him to say a word, but he really liked the feeling of the instruments, the vibrations.”
“He warmed up to you pretty quickly,” Kahlan notes. “You must have a way with skittish, tow-headed creatures.”
The singer folds her arms and mock-glares over the obvious reference. “Cara isn’t skittish; she’s discerning.”
Kahlan sputters and laughs. “Discerning? Is that the word I’ve been looking for all this time?”
Dahlia crosses her eyes and taps her temple, suggesting more cock-eyed wisdom lies ahead. “While we’re on words, I’ve always hated being called ‘tow-headed,’” she complains. “When I was small, my father used to say that and it really hurt my feelings. I just knew he thought my head looked like a giant toe.”
“Why would you believe that? I’m sure you were a lovely little girl,” Kahlan offers, touching her arm in a comforting gesture.
“Thank you,” Dahlia says, and shyly ducks her chin, “but clues to his true feelings were everywhere. My winter hat was an oversized sock, my childhood bed was shaped like a foot…”
Kahlan instantly stops rubbing her arm and slaps her elbow instead. “Tricky.”
“Like knows like.” Dahlia waggles an accusing finger. “You planted that second journey book in my luggage for the express purpose of luring me into subterfuge.”
“Only because I couldn’t get a moment to speak with you alone!” Kahlan snaps. “Cara guards you like a dragon on her egg.”
“I know! It’s crazy and infuriating and I pray it never stops.” Dahlia flutters her lashes, enamored as a teen. “Don't tell her, but I quite like being a dragon egg.”
Kahlan pulls an incredulous face, though instincts both magical and feminine resonate in harmony, telling her that this woman isn’t false or even insincere. She’s simply too gone on Cara to hide it from anyone.
“Do you think she’ll say yes?” Kahlan wonders, and Dahlia immediately nods.
“I understand you asked me here to support her - and to lay a bit of groundwork - but I can’t imagine Cara turning down such a request,” she says. “Duty aside, she thinks very highly of you as people.”
Kahlan looks around, making sure they are alone. “It’s traditional to name the godparents during the public announcement of pregnancy, and I want this settled tonight. If anything should happen to me and Richard…” she pauses, breathes deep and rubs her stomach. “Well. I know Zedd and Cara would take very good care of our girl.”
Dahlia gives a quick smile, then rubs a thumb nervously across her mouth. “Is this the part where I tell you that it’s silly to worry, that nothing could possibly happen to you and the Lord Rahl?”
“We can skip all that,” Kahlan says, waving her off. “False comfort is worthless, though I value honest friends quite highly.”
“You have one in Cara.”
“Yes,” agrees the Confessor, “and I would welcome one more, if you’re looking to complicate your life even further.”
The singer doesn’t look shocked or flattered so much as thoughtful; the mutual pros and cons of such a friendship march across Dahlia’s face as an army of lucid twitches. After a few beats, she flares her skirts and bends into a deep, formal curtsey. “It would be my honor, Lady Rahl… Mother Confessor… your majesty?”
“I answer to my name more readily than any title,” Kahlan says, taking Dahlia’s arm to pull her up.
“Alright, then - Kahlan,” Dahlia slowly intones, testing the shape and resonance of the name. “It’s a fine word, sonically speaking. Percussive and airy… consonance, assonance… dogs respond well to words beginning with hard ‘k’ sounds… and I’m rambling like a perfect nutter. Please forgive me?”
“There’s really nothing to forgive,” Kahlan protests, beginning to understand how this fetching oddball won Cara’s heart. She loops their elbows together and walks them to a nearby table and padded bench. “I relish the distraction. I’ve driven myself half-mad reviewing lumber and oil tariffs all night.”
“Ahh, yes.” The musician hums and clicks her tongue, as if she understands well the frustrations of multi-state trade laws. “Fluctuating ad valorem headaches?”
Blue eyes bulge as the Confessor is taken off guard. “Yes, actually. How -?”
“I've spent years working for the idle rich, who complain incessantly about taxes,” Dahlia explains. “What say we have a nice sandwich and discuss how protectionism kills economic growth?”
Kahlan looks like she'd rather chew glass, until she realizes Dahlia is kidding. “Spirits,” she sighs, shaking her head. “You’re going to be a handful.”
Dahlia doesn't bother denying it. She smiles warmly and asks for a lunch order, and they agree on a quick and convenient meal of cold sandwiches and fruit. She skips off behind the stage, taking that deserted service passage to the kitchen to procure food for herself and her new friend, the Mother Confessor.
“Kahlan,” she whispers, correcting herself. “Remember to use her name, you goof.”
**
Richard and Cara reach the Palace stables at dusk in very different moods. She scowls over a foiled plan to break away to Hargrove Mill. He smiles broadly, as if running her down and ordering her back home gave him some secret, perverse pleasure.
They dismount, gather their things, and Cara still won’t speak to him. Richard plays along and takes her arm in a formal, two-handed grasp - a gesture she finds preferable to embarrassing ‘thank-yous’ - before turning to leave. Cara kicks some hay and sighs noisily.
“If you had let me go, I could have been there by now,” she calls after him.
Richard laughs and waves over his shoulder. “Hurry to the party. You’ll forgive me soon enough."
“Maybe not, my Lord,” she mutters. “Free will can be a real bitch.”
Though known more for their aggression, Mord’Sith are also quite adept at being passive-aggressive. Cara does not hurry; she brushes down her horse while complaining to the animal, rewards his keen neighs of insight with apple slices, and otherwise pokes around the stables until she feels merely sullen rather than hostile.
She slogs toward the Palace through the warm, torch-lit gardens and immediately encounters clumps of reception guests. Old men in velvet robes and squatty hats argue with young toffs in tight-fitting suits. Elaborately painted women parade about in fine gowns. All of them seem to be gulping free wine as if thirsting to death.
She dons her most repellant expression and uses her dusty saddlebag as a prow, breaking easily through the first throngs. Closer to the Palace, the crowds grow dense and contact becomes unavoidable. Cara has no interest in these people or their feelings about her, though some reactions are too overt to ignore. The fearful or vindictive flame her with their eyes; others gape and point at the proximal Mord’Sith as some exotic animal they might reach out and pet.
Near the wisteria arbors by the front entrance, one bold youth edges into her path and bows, introducing himself as the crowned something of somewhere. He rightly fancies himself handsome, and presumes to kiss her hand with his greasy-looking mouth.
Cara just wants to reach her rooms without causing a ruckus or scandal, so she politely pulls back and slips away from the boy with speed, but the new course throws her headlong into a virtual wall of scantly wrapped cleavage.
She bounces back one step and the flesh barricade - comprised of three buxom, olive-skinned young women - begins three simultaneous, loosely related conversations while handling Cara like marketplace fruit.
“Fortune! - We were going to look for you - you smell like a tannery - I want another drink -we’ve not met a Mord’Sith - I bet you’d look taller on a horse - daddy won’t let us have anyone who might really kill us - Brandon! Get me another drink! - are those the agiels? - ooh, one is bigger than the other - you can have the small one - not ale, you hateful bitch! I’m a fucking princess! - but I need the big one!”
Cara is red and steaming, barely suppressing the urge to whack them all. One of them thumps her ass as if testing a melon and her gloved fist clenches on the rise… and then, miraculously, Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander is at her side.
The towering wizard shoos the girls away with threats of aging spells and acne, and takes Cara under his arm. As they enter the Palace foyer, Zedd notes her pinched, horrified expression and can’t help laughing. “My timing is still impeccable,” he says.
She shudders and scratches roughly at her leathers. “Why do I feel bugs crawling all over me?”
Zedd laughs harder and explains who the three young women are, suggesting she give them a wide berth. “They collect exotic and dangerous lovers, so you would be quite the prize,” he says. “If only people knew you were already taken and unavailable -”
“I won’t make it, Zedd!” she interrupts. “Dinner is years away and half these people already want to bury me or bed me. I should go up to my rooms and bar the door until morning.” She turns for the stairs, but the wizard hangs on to her arm.
“Don’t be such a baby! At least visit the ballroom for a minute or two,” he presses, tugging her down the main hall.
Although she grumps and drags her feet at first, the string and horn music streaming through the open ballroom doors seems curiously enticing, and she allows Zedd to lead her into the more civilized setting.
Banquet tables form a square around the room perimeter. Jovial, seemingly well-mannered people mill around sipping rather than gulping their beverages. Gentle music and muted conversations form a veil of pleasant noise. Smells of food and close bodies and candlewax perfume the heavy, warm air. It’s not as bad as the gardens, but Cara still wants to go upstairs
“I assume Richard told you about the Cobbled Man?” she asks, in a discreet sideways voice.
“Yes, that is distressing.” Zedd bites his lip and nods. “I’ve cast all the protective spells the Palace will accept, sealed every passage, and guards patrol the grounds in strength. I think we’re safe tonight.”
Cara doesn’t look so certain. Zedd gently squeezes her forearm. “How was it for you, being there again?”
She knows he means Greyfall on the Lleyton, where she watched her son drown. Zedd is the only one she’s ever told about the boy, and that’s one person too many. Cara shrugs and casually turns her arm from his grasp. “I’ve escaped that pit twice now. I’d rather not go back,” she says.
Zedd gives her a kindly smile; he observed her discomfort on this matter once before, and knows Cara would prefer to keep her own counsel. He lets out a loud sigh and pats his belly. “I think I’ll have a little pre-dinner snack - and perhaps make an inquiry about that Cobbled Man with someone who claims to know everything,” he announces, and glides off toward the buffet tables.
Cara eases into a nook near the entrance and surveys the room. By a dense clutch of people near the stage, Kahlan is hugging Richard, now clad in his green and gold royal finery. The Confessor catches Cara’s eye and waves smiling, obviously relieved that they returned intact and clean.
The royals then move to a loose receiving line, where they graciously shake hands with a nervous young couple. Soon, the four laugh like new friends. They make the broad exercise of trust look so easy that Cara feels wonder, and flickering envy.
She sees several more familiar faces, some welcome and some not so much. Near the buffet table, black-robed Baron Alphonse Danton confers with a handsome, taciturn matron. He looks hale and hearty; since defeating his family curse, he’s grown plump around the middle and red-cheeked. Cara gives a nod of acknowledgment, and Danton responds with a courtly bow.
Dennee crosses in front of her. Kahlan’s murdered sister, resurrected for vengeance and left stranded in a strange body, has come from Aydindril to represent the Council. Cara thinks there are surely better candidates, because Kahlan has had to fix numerous errors in her sister’s petitions. Still, they are sisters, and family loves without requiring perfection. Dennee and Cara lock eyes briefly, trading hardness and sorrow, and then pretend they never saw each other.
Cara’s discomfort rises upon sighting an ageless woman draped in gold silk and wolf tails, with hair like a straight black curtain. Although Shota requested and received a legitimate invitation, in deference to her peaceful control of certain Midland territory, the Mord’Sith glares warning at the witch.
Zedd sidles up and tries to engage Shota in conversation, presumably about the Cobbled Man, but she ignores him. Shota looks Cara up and down, apparently fascinated or puzzled by her brown leathers, and offers a neutral, polite nod.
The music stops and people applaud and Cara, like everyone, glances instinctively toward the stage. A lovely blond woman in a scarlet gown mounts the steps and picks up a violin. She looks like Dahlia, but it can’t be Dahlia because Dahlia is in Hargrove Mill, where Cara would be if Richard hadn’t stopped her.
And yet it is her, for when the woman lifts her head and spies Cara, her luminous smile defines happiness. The Mord’Sith feels her own face spasm in joyful answer; she probably looks brain damaged, but not replying to such a call is unthinkable. Whatever royal plot brought her here tonight, Cara will gladly forgive. Dahlia is within her sight, and that’s all that matters.
Dahlia waves her bow and appears to gauge the distance to the floor, maybe contemplating a leap down, but there are too many people clustered near her feet. Several of them call requests up to Dahlia, who humors with quips and grins. She shrugs at Cara, asking for patience, and Cara nods for her to proceed with the performance.
Those gathered around the stage are mostly men of various ages, uniformly groomed and blandly handsome. Dahlia cues the band to strike up a merry tune and when she joins in, her little fan club begins to cheer and stomp. Cara suddenly realizes, with no small amount of horror, that these purported music fans are swains on the make.
The summit has drawn scores of wealthy and powerful men from far territories, and it’s only natural that some will use this work trip to search for pleasure. It’s only natural for them to offer praise and attention to a beautiful and gifted young woman who is unmarried and - as far as they know - without a partner.
It’s only natural that Cara wants to see them all trampled by boars. And yet, what defense has she mounted against such assumptions? She’s hidden her lover away like a wanted fugitive, rebuffed offers of public outings from everyone who dared offer, and she’s upset when strangers show interest?
Her need for security is paramount, and she will never entirely shed her fear of losing Dahlia to violence. The threat of losing her to a more suitable suitor may be less dramatic, but it is quite real and must be addressed. She can’t exactly mount the stage and shout threats at the horny rabble - and words always seem so puny, inadequate to convey her level of commitment.
Action is all. Cara turns heel and marches from the ballroom, nervously clutching her dusty saddlebag. The contents may prove a solution… or trigger humiliation from which she will never recover.
**
“Zeddicus, for the last time, I know nothing about your goblin swordsman,” Shota insists. She turns her head in an effort to dismiss the argument, leans back against the banquet table edge and takes a sip of peach wine. On tasting it, the stern woman almost smiles. “Freestones usually make inferior spirits, but this is very tasty.”
The wizard puffs up his chest and grins. “Thank you. I blended it myself.”
Shota looks genuinely impressed. She sniffs the wine and narrows her eyes. “I never knew you could make wine.”
“Because I can’t!” Zedd snaps, and rolls his eyes. “You’re not the only one who can lie.”
“I am not lying.”
“You are hiding something,” he rumbles. “If not the Cobbled Man, then what? Why did you insist on coming to this summit?”
“I didn’t really have a choice,” she says. “My ward insisted.” Shota looks toward the stage and waves her hand, bidding someone to come over. A small boy wearing white scampers to her side and looks up and up and up until he finds the tall wizard’s face. He blinks at Zedd, who honestly doesn’t know what to make of this.
“Your ward,” Zedd repeats. He drops to a knee and examines the boy closely. He looks to be about five years old, with shining blond hair and bright, curious eyes. “Where are you from, little fellow? Where are your parents?”
The boy says nothing. He regards the wizard calmly, and holds his gaze like a poised adult.
“He won’t speak to you,” Shota says. “And before you even ask, I didn’t steal him away from some loving home in order to abate my crushing loneliness.”
Zedd looks put out, since that’s almost exactly what he was thinking. “Who in their right mind would entrust you with a child?”
Shota takes a calming breath, but shakes her head as if she has no good answer. “The Spirits, perhaps,” she begins. “In late summer five years ago, I was plagued by a recurring dream. I stood in dark forest water on the morning after a red moon, waiting for a baby. The dream would not subside, so I hid by that river on the night of the blood moon and waited… and the next morning, this child flowed into my arms.”
Doubt clouds Zedd’s face; he ponders the boy’s green eyes and sickness swells in his gut. Surely this is some kind of cruel, misleading joke. He’s waiting, praying, for a punchline.
“I took him home and waited for further guidance, prophecy, clues to lead me forward,” Shota continues. “Everything I learned convinced me that the child was safer in hiding. As he grew, it became clear he was no ordinary little boy - there is magic in him, even now, at this young age.”
“That’s simply not possible,” Zedd huffs. He stands up, preferring to look at Shota because the child’s pacific steadiness now makes him uneasy.
“He doesn’t speak, Zeddicus, but he sends me prescient dreams,” the witch explains. “This summer, he has dwelt on one image so consistently that I couldn’t ignore his wishes.”
“He wanted to come to a political summit?”
Shota places a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Lleyton wanted to meet his mother.”
Voices around them begin to murmur about something. Heads are turning. Zedd ignores them and swallows a ball of tension. His hands are sweating. “Lleyton,” he whispers.
“Yes. Like the river beneath Greyfall,” Shota confirms. “I’m beginning to think he was mistaken about tonight, because he dreamed of a woman in white dancing with a woman in red, and unless our mutual friend changes into her regular uniform and shakes a leg with the Mother Confessor...”
“Oh… sheep dip,” Zedd breathes. He is looking past Shota, and tracing the crowd’s focus to the ballroom entryway.
Cara stands there alone, poised and calm, deflecting the attention with a subtle flex of her jaw. Her hair is gathered neatly and pinned in a twist. She wears a pristine set of Mord’Sith white leathers.
Part Three (end)