Fic: R.S.V.P. Pt 3 (end) | LotS | C/D, R/K | NC-17
**
In her young life, Cara Mason has experienced more public scorn and derision than most humans could bear. Villagers have thrown stones, children have run screaming, and courts have pronounced her irredeemable and ordered her execution. Countless people have sought to cut her down, and some have succeeded.
She faced it all with fatalism and glib humor, since there is no better way to shrink widespread calumny and death into perspective. As she enters the People’s Palace ballroom and feels the combined pressure of a hundred baffled gazes, Cara wishes like mad for that sense of fatalism to return.
Richard was correct that things were much simpler on the road. He never bothered with his nails and Cara didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of her. In this moment, she knows the full hell of doubts and second thoughts. She stares down at her boots, spatted in white leather, and steps back into the hall to reconsider her course of action.
In recent years, the white Mord’Sith attire became publicly known as a symbol of forced mastery. The principals of trust and chosen commitment were all but erased. Some might see these colors and call Cara a rapist, Dahlia a victim. Some cooperating armies might refuse to work with her. And there could be repercussions for the singer’s reputation; she could lose clients, and her burgeoning business could suffer… why didn’t Cara think of any of this before?
“Stupid,” she mutters. “You stupid, selfish fool.”
Cara looks up and barely pulls out of her brooding in time to catch the scarlet blur streaking toward her like a falling tree. Arms fly around her neck and kisses pound her face, wet as storm rain. She stumbles backward toward the doorway and into full view of the ballroom, with Dahlia attached to her like a very affectionate barnacle.
“I missed you! Stars, but you look amazing!” the singer crows, kissing her with lips that taste strongly of peach wine. “Please say you’re wearing this for me, because if there’s someone else, I might - ”
Cara grabs her waist and holds her off. “You’re not upset?”
An artless smile is her first answer, followed by a hug and a whisper. “If this means everything you said it means, I couldn’t be more proud.”
“But… some will say this isn’t a choice, that you’ve been broken,” Cara warns.
“Let them whisper lies. We’ll live the truth.” Dahlia touches her forehead to Cara’s. She raises one hand and signals the band; a lute picks out the opening notes of the Ansara Quatrain. “You promised to dance with me.”
Cara hesitates, but the music is rolling out so beautifully, and Richard and Kahlan are stepping onto the floor, and it seems a shame to leave such a beautiful woman in suspense. She tugs Dahlia close and they auger a path through the crowd by turning in tight circles.
“Not that I’m complaining - but why are you here?” Cara asks.
Dahlia doesn’t see the point in soft-pedaling anything tonight. “The Rahls are going to name you and Zedd as godparents for their daughter. Kahlan lured me back to make certain you say yes.”
So surprised is Cara that she misses two steps and nearly steers them into the watching crowd. They brush close by several spectators; she absently notes most of them are smiling. She takes a moment to mull Dahlia’s revelation, then she starts smiling, too. “Why would I refuse such an honor?”
“Kahlan thinks you’re skittish.”
“Kahlan.” Cara frowns at this. “I’m not skittish.”
“I know! That’s what I tried to tell her!”
**
Zedd has cast a spell to mute his and Shota’s voices as they rationally and calmly discuss the situation. While they talk, the witch’s hands rise to gesticulate in a rather hostile manner, and she lets go of her ward’s shoulder.
The little boy walks away from them and wedges himself between guests by the dance floor. He watches all the couples move and twirl, but his eyes always return to one blond woman in white.
Lleyton Rahl drops to one knee and presses his hand to the floor. From all the taps and scuffs and stomps from various dancers, he isolates Cara’s footsteps. He feels the lightness of her movement, pairs it to the happiness on her face, and he smiles.
**
The child is not alone in his fascination; every eye not watching Richard and Kahlan is transfixed on two women in scarlet and white, who dance the complex Ansara Quatrain as if they’ve moved intricately together for years. The circles and crashes and turns roll out with captivating ease, although they scarcely pay attention to the steps because they are deeply entrenched in a stupefying conversation.
“Cara, I have so much money now! Money I earned with my brain and not by enticing people with my body!” Dahlia whisper-shouts. “Or by, you know, torturing them.”
Dahlia is making ludicrous peach wine confessions and Cara hangs on every word, adding a comment here or there as needed.
“Your success is deserved,” she says. “I’m very proud of you.”
“You are?” On hearing this, Dahlia just…shines. She darts in and pecks Cara’s cheek. “I want to buy you a house. There’s a lavender farm for sale in Hargrove Mill, with a small lake on the property. It’s very affordable, and the village hardly ever gets attacked by giant vulpines anymore.”
“I don’t need a house,” Cara says, not unkindly, because the woman did just offer to purchase her a home. “I appreciate the thought, but you know I couldn’t live there.”
The budding magnate pokes out her lips, disappointed. “Okay. So how about I buy myself a house, somewhere close but not too close. You can visit and eat cheese with me and sleep there sometimes and we’ll do sticky, filthy things in every room. And play chess.”
Cara raises her brows and grins as they spin, far again and near again. “Okay.”
“Yeah.” Dahlia nods and the agreement is sealed, then she’s onto something new. “Why are people buying my system? It’s tantamount to cheating. Music is super easy to learn if you just spend, like, ten years cloistered in a remote mountaintop conservatory.”
Cara laughs at her. What else can she do? “They buy it because it’s ingenious and you’re an excellent salesman, although I do think you need a better name.”
“What? You don’t like my name?” She tucks her mouth against Cara’s ear, moaning silky and low. “You’ve certainly fooled me with all that ‘oh, Dahlia - please, Dahlia - don’t ever stop, Dahlia’ business.”
Improvising retaliation, Cara dips her suddenly and the sultry taunts squeak away. “You’re pickled,” Cara points out, and tugs her upright into a sharp turn. “And your system needs a better name.”
“Tablature is a fine name. It’s descriptive and simple,” Dahlia insists. “Players call it ‘tab’ for short.”
“That sounds silly to me.” Cara sniffs and shakes her head. “Forget it. Maybe I’m just being picky.”
“You’re not picky, you’re discerning, and it’s one of the many reasons why I love you,” Dahlia casually declares, while gliding into another soft collision.
Their eyes meet as Cara halts in mid-turn. All around them, people click and spin like cogs in some distant machine, quite unrelated to them. As they stand embraced and breathing in unison, D'Hara becomes a nation of two.
Cara closes in and brushes her cheek against Dahlia's, whispering. “I love you, too.”
Air catches in Dahlia's throat and she freezes, cradling the snowflake moment until it melts away. She kisses Cara once and sways back sparkling, doubly drunk on happiness and wine.
Bodies and arms slide apart until only their fingers touch, but Cara doesn’t lead them back into the steps as she should. Green eyes have turned to fire and want, and Dahlia knows their public dance is over. She links their hands and they dash away, vanishing into the crowd.
**
In a conjured tent of silence, filled with recriminations and threatening hand gestures, Zedd and Shota are having the mother of all disagreements.
“I maintain you had no right to do this!” Zedd shouts.
Shota’s eyes bulge with anger. “A vision placed me in that river, showed me exactly where to stand, and that baby flowed directly into my arms! Should I have let him suffocate in that goat bladder and die, Zeddicus?”
“Of course not, but to keep the child and raise him in isolation - ”
“By necessity! Darken Rahl was and is a misbegotten bastard devil, and I knew only that the mother was Mord’Sith. Learning her identity later only affirmed my choice,” the witch explains. “I need not remind you that the Cara of old was a murdering bitch with a heart of flint! She bore little resemblance to that woman!”
Shota looks toward the dance floor and notices Cara’s absence. She turns in a circle, scanning for the boy. “Lleyton…” she says, sounding genuinely fearful. “He’s gone!”
“Don’t be so dramatic. You said he wanders off and hides all the time,” Zedd grumbles. “And it’s not like he’s going to walk up to Cara and call her ‘mama.’ He doesn’t even speak!”
“Lleyton is no ordinary child,” Shota reminds him. “Magic was strong in that boy from infancy, and he is very willful. I’m never sure what he’s going to do.”
Zedd clenches his fists and growls out words to end the privacy spell. He steps back from Shota as if her very nearness offends him. “Let’s find the boy and make sure he’s safe,” he says. “When the truth comes out - and Cara will hear it from you tonight - I’ll be standing behind her.”
The witch gives a ghastly sneer. “For moral support?”
The wizard lifts one fuzzy brow and shakes his head. “For my own safety.”
Her eyes narrow, but Shota’s throat swells with a dry, nervous gulp. They separate and begin searching for a child who excels at silence and hiding.
**
Cara emerges into the east hallway on the third floor, just outside her quarters, and pulls up short. Dahlia crashes into her back and Cara shushes her as if deadly enemies are nearby. The door to her room is slightly ajar, and three feminine voices twitter within. Amid drunken laughter, a few random words ring clear, including lemon grease and three girls, one flagon.
Shudders of revulsion wrack Cara’s body. Dahlia’s strong hand latches onto her arm like a Gar claw, spinning her around. “There are giggling deviants waiting in your bedroom. Explain.”
“I didn't invite them! It's those three goaty princesses!” Cara softly yelps. “Zedd says they're envoys from Kardashia.”
The singer stares blankly. “Never heard of it.”
“On the coast - it’s the capital of Echannel?”
“Ohhh,” Dahlia says, as the implications come clear. “So they’re on a diplomatic mission to give you pubic mites.”
Cara only sneers and pulls her back onto the stairs. She doesn’t have the patience or tact to deal with royal idiots tonight, so they continue climbing until the steps curve to a sharp end at the tower turret. On the landing is one curved door leading into Panis Rahl’s circular private study, manned by one perpetual guard. Tonight that guard is an older, gruff-faced soul who looks singularly unhappy in his puffy, green-on-black formals.
“Gerod!” Cara barks, “I need you for a special mission.”
His heels snap together and his back straightens, though he can’t help blinking at his commander’s stunning white leathers. “Yes, General.”
“Go down to my quarters and gently clear out the three guests therein,” she orders. “Inform them that they are trespassing and should return to the ballroom immediately.”
“Gently. Immediately. Of course.” He takes up his ceremonial halberd, but hesitates. “If I may, General, should I post a guard at your door? I mean, with that child Tristan ran out of there earlier - ”
“Some strange child wandered into my quarters?” Cara’s voice jumps an octave. “Is it normal for powerful people to let their young flit around like squirrels?”
“I don’t… uhh… it was just one little boy who got lost on the lunch tour. Tristan sent him down to the kitchens with a maid,” Gerod explains. “So, post a guard at your door?”
Cara squints, rubs the building tension from her forehead. “Yes, post a bloody guard,” she growls.
“Aye, General.” Gerod turns to go, but hesitates again. “Who will guard the tower while -”
“Me! I will! Now go. Go now.” Cara stares hotly at the man until he salutes and departs.
Dahlia, tucked discreetly behind her, sighs in disappointment. “I really shouldn’t be on guard duty.” Her arms coil around Cara’s waist; she kisses the back of her neck, just beneath her knotted hair. “I’m quite drunk, you know.”
“I do know.” Cara groans as soft breasts crush into her back and a wet tongue climbs the rim of her ear. “I'd be taking advantage of that fact right now, if my quarters weren't under siege.”
“Pssh! Why should we wait? There's a perfectly good room right here.” With a reckless giggle, Dahlia spins away and grabs the door handle to the turret study. Cara barely has time to raise a hand in protest before the knob turns and the heavy, curved door creaks open.
“Well, that was easy,” Dahlia says, peering inside the black den. “It isn't even locked.”
“Because no one dares go in!” Cara moves to close the door, but Dahlia edges past her and dissolves in the darkness. “Dahlia, come back here. Right now.”
From several feet away, a voice issues a challenge: “Find me and I'll do whatever you want.” Fabric rustles, discarded shoes clatter on the floor.
Concurrently cross and thrumming with lust, Cara bites her lip. She only wanted to slip away to her rooms, fool around with the radiant, inebriated eccentric who owns her heart, then rejoin the reception in time to publicly accept tertiary parental responsibility for an unborn Confessor with the world's most notorious surname. How quickly her simple plan went awry.
She huffs and turns back to Gerod's guard post, steals one hallway lamp, and stalks into the study. Light reveals Dahlia leaning against the south wall. Her underskirts and stockings are off, folded in a delicate pile by her shoes.
“That's cheating,” she says, frowning at the lamp, “but my offer stands.”
Though it's enough to navigate by, the orange light seems dim in this smothering dark. One stained glass window is cracked open - for air circulation, Cara assumes - and the waning moon provides little relief. She looks around the room and sees only a tall desk bearing two large open tomes. In the folds between blank, yellowed pages rest two golden and bejeweled stiletto daggers, serving as weights and markers in these Rahl spellbooks that may forever remain unused.
The mighty sorcerer Panis Rahl died on this floor, perhaps right where Cara stands, murdered by his elder son. This room holds disquieting dark energy... but it's warm and secluded and Dahlia is here, bracing her foot against the wall, raising one bare knee.
“We should go,” Cara sensibly suggests, even as she sits the lamp on the high desk.
“We have time.” Dahlia slides that scarlet dress high on her naked thigh, dragging the eyes of her ardent lover along for the ride. Her voice is thin, starved for air. “Cara, please... I won't last.”
Those words dispel Cara’s prudence like smoke in the wind. Dahlia tells her to close the door and the door is closed. She opens her arms and Cara is there, tugging off gloves with her teeth and holding her face, stroking her throat and chest and hips, telling her by turns that she is beautiful and vexing and treasured.
Kisses build from a fortnight's banked passion, layering soft on wet until they topple into piles of hot breath. Beneath the red dress lies a wealth of skin, silken and damp and easily pillaged by hands conditioned for war. True as arrows, Cara's fingers bunch and glide into Dahlia's welling sex while her thumb rides the outside ridge in dense circles.
Filled and clamped and stroked by the one who hears her body best, who deftly counters every gasp and tremor, Dahlia keeps her word and does not last. She breaks over Cara as a storm wave, hips crashing down wet and fast, arms and legs pulling hard as the hungry sea. She muffles her cries with a mouthful of white leather shoulder, coming endlessly while Cara kisses her neck and whispers entreaties to stay close, because time apart is a misery.
Wind flutters through the open window and orange light dances with shadow. Dahlia tucks her raised knee between Cara’s legs, linking their pleasure as best she can through the barrier of sealed leathers. She kneads taut buttocks, lifts, and runs curious fingers into every navigable cleft and crevice.
“Later,” Cara groans, hating the word and the concept.
“Later,” Dahlia echoes, kissing her lips and repeating the word like a curse. “I hate later.”
Cara slides her hand free and licks her fingers; her smile promises a forming scheme. “You’re going to love later.”
“I love you,” Dahlia says, and loops her arms around her lover’s waist.
The Mord’Sith does not reply. Her eyes cut toward the window, tracing a susurrous breeze. Behind them, paper ruffles, and then comes a muted, fleshy thump.
Cara jerks forward slightly, holding her face very still, evaluating. In the space of seconds, her every hope falls to corruption. When she looks into Dahlia’s eyes, so full of gentle expectation, she actually tries to apologize.
Her left hand fumbles vainly for her agiels. Her knees waver. She becomes heavy in Dahlia’s arms, and her eyes flutter.
Confused and frightened, the singer repeats Cara’s name as a frantic question and pulls her close. She feels something scrape painfully against her sternum, hisses and recoils. Glancing down, she sees the golden tip of a stiletto dagger protruding from Cara’s chest.
Over Cara’s shoulder, a naked blond woman with eyes like pitch stands up tall. She swings a second golden blade toward Cara’s exposed throat. With no cognition of risk, Dahlia intercepts the killing stroke with her bare hand.
She has no concept of Nicci as anything more than a stranger threatening Cara’s life, and that is enough to endure the pain, to trap the knife in her trembling fist until every tendon severs and pops.
Wavering between them, Cara manages to free an agiel and touch Nicci’s leg. The sorceress cries out, savagely twists the knife in Cara’s back and shoves her to the floor. She then rips the blade from Dahlia’s failing grasp and jabs the bloody point against her neck.
“I knew you’d return to stand with her tonight. So predictable,” says Nicci. She glances at Dahlia’s shredded fingers and cants her head. “But not so weak as had I thought.”
The singer whimpers only once, flattens her back to the wall, and cradles her ruined hand. She looks to Cara, fully impaled and lying motionless on her side. Blood pools quickly beneath her, graphic evidence that she won’t last long. Dahlia wants to fall by her and scream flames until help arrives, but everyone who could save her is very far away.
“You know, I had planned to kill Cara in her own bed tonight, but your absurd sex drive just saved me several hours of waiting,” Nicci says, sneering at Dahlia. “Continue easing my way, or I’ll beat you down and poke a dozen more holes in her pretty white leather.”
Dahlia sneaks enough air under the knifepoint to form a question. “What do you want?”
Nicci smiles. “I want your body. Turn around and face the wall.”
It doesn’t matter what she means. Dahlia complies, and Nicci neatly slits open the lowest rear ties on her scarlet dress. She pulls Dahlia’s back against her chest, lays the golden stiletto across her throat and walks them over to that high desk bearing two empty spellbooks.
Nicci slides one cold hand inside Dahlia’s dress and traces the lumpy scars near the base of her spine, the circles and lines which form warding runes. Baron Danton’s own wizened sorceress cut them in with decaying underworld bone, allegedly to protect Dahlia from the old man’s family curse.
“We’re going to play a little game with wards and bindings,” Nicci says. “If I’m wrong, you win and I die. If I’m right, I win and I choose who dies.”
Those last words are so dire that Dahlia thinks of resisting, even unto death… but she can just barely see beyond the desk, can see that Cara is moving again, curving one slow hand around her back toward the knife handle. She pushes back against Nicci, intending to obstruct her view of Cara, and the dagger point rips through her ear.
“Be still, girl,” Nicci warns her, running the gory stiletto under Dahlia's eye, “there are parts of you I can do without.”
The Mord’Sith flickers in and out of consciousness until she hears Dahlia cry out. She wakes fully, hears Nicci begin to chant some nameless spell, and decides to kill her again and forever.
She gets two fingers pinched around the golden dagger haft and tugs an inch free; the sudden spike of hurt provides clarity, centers her mind on a goal. She tugs again and turns her head slightly, riding the pain, and sees a glinting silver cuff around Nicci’s ankle.
Veins of black retribution rise up the sorceress’ bare leg as she weaves words of forbidden magic, and she moans pure agony. As she continues, bluish light rises from the Rahl spellbook, and the deathly darkness spidering through her flesh suddenly halts near her knee.
“It’s working!” Nicci cries, and from her pain springs crazy laughter. “Your backshooting lover spoke the truth - you truly are a treasure! Now, very carefully remove those two pages.”
Cara hears paper ripping and uses the sound to hide her gasps as she pulls the blade free. She feels a sickening gush of blood inside her chest. Her strength is draining fast; there will be only one chance, and she will not miss.
Nicci steps backward, dragging Dahlia with her toward the cracked turret window. She flings the frame wide, and stained glass panels shatter against the wall.
Cara rolls over to face them. Despite having a blade at her throat, Dahlia looks dead steady into her eyes. Nicci’s head is turned toward the window. The sorceress speaks quick and low, conjuring through a loophole as fast as she can.
Cara clenches the dagger blade in her fist. Her arm cocks back. Dahlia shuts her eyes and grabs Nicci’s wrist, forcing the stiletto away from her vein. She leans as far aside as she can, but Nicci’s hand is still inside her dress, pressed tight to her back.
It’s not a clear shot, but it’s the best Cara will get. She digs deep, begging the last drops of her blood into action, and sends the knife spinning toward Nicci’s face.
A blinding flash of blue light forces Cara’s eyes shut; the last thing she sees is Dahlia’s outstretched hand, reaching for her own.
The light dies. Cara opens her eyes. Her raised hand shakes and sinks to her side.
The hurled dagger is buried to the hilt in the plaster wall. Nicci and Dahlia are gone, vanished on the night wind.
Cara falls back and stares up, broken and numb. Dimming lamp light shows a landscape painted on the turret ceiling - a blood red moon shining over D’Hara.
Tears pool as her vision fades. With her last breath, Cara offers an apology to those she loved, and failed to protect.
END