No Law Except the Sword, Part III
Title: No Law Except the Sword
Fanfic Series: Confessors and Kings
Author: pristineungift
Beta: brontefanatic
Rating: Hard R - NC-17
Warnings: Graphic Fantasy Violence; Graphic Sexuality; Dark Psychological Themes; Dub-Con Inherent With Mord’Sith; Death; Author Chooses Not to Give Specific Warnings.
Summary: What does it mean to change fate? To defy prophecy? Is it possible, or are some things set in stone? Is one death the same as another? In this latest installment in the series that began with For All That We Have and Are and The Old Commandments Stand, everyone just wants to go back to the beginning, but find they can only move forward. To the end. Darken/Kahlan; Darken/Richard (if you squint); Darken/Denna; Darken/Cara; Darken/Salindra; Richard/Denna; Richard/Salindra; Zedd/Denna.
Notes: As always, thanks to madmguillotine for influencing my characterization of Salindra. Also thanks to evilgmbethy for influencing this particular incarnation of Richard, as well as the way I think of confession and Confessors. Thanks to brontefanatic for keeping me from giving up on this fic when I wanted to take it out back and shoot it. And thanks to angstbunny, since her comments on The Old Commandments Stand pretty much directly spawned this sequel.
No Law Except the Sword
“Mistress Denna,” Darken greeted his Mord’Sith.
“My Lord,” Denna purred in return, her fist over her heart. “It has been too long since I have been in your presence.”
Darken waved the flattery away, well used to Denna’s attempts at charming him. “You retrieved it?”
“From Demmin Nass, at the ruins of Calabra. Yes, my lord. General Egremont has taken it to be placed in the chamber with the other one.”
Darken stood, his robe trailing behind him as he descended the steps of his throne dais. It made a slithering sound as he moved.
His robe.
“You have done very well,” Darken told Denna, rewarding her with a light caress. She leaned into his touch, her eyes flickering closed. Darken smirked.
Denna was often defiant, but she loved him more than she herself knew. He’d made sure of that, when he broke her. It was why she was so adept at the fine art of torture.
She had learned from the best.
“You will start on the wizard at once.”
“Yes, my lord.”
There was the sound of hurried steps in the corridor. Richard burst into sight, moving in a funny little half run, half trot, as if he were trying to hurry and look dignified at the same time.
Darken’s lips twitched up at the corners.
“Sorry,” Richard was sheepish. “Am I late? Egremont said we were supposed to be holding court, but I was trying to - ”
Richard blinked and looked at Denna, flushing red. “Sorry,” he said again, looking at his feet.
Darken had to suppress a chuckle. “This is Mistress Denna, one of our women warriors.”
“Mord’Sith,” Richard smiled at Denna. “I know.”
He held out his hand for Denna to shake. Denna took it, squeezing firmly, her fingers playing suggestively around Richard’s palm.
“I have heard many tales of Lord Rahl’s new heir in my travels,” Denna said smoothly. “My lord, if I may?”
She reached for Richard’s collar. Darken could see that Richard had fastened the top of his red and gold tunic crookedly, likely in his hurry to be on time for court. Denna unfastened the hooks and did them up again, properly this time.
She smiled one of her seductive smiles, her teeth very white next to her ruby red lips.
Richard gave her a doe-eyed look.
Darken frowned.
-l-
Cara returned a fortnight after Denna’s arrival, her quarry in tow. Darken received them in his private sitting room, Cara leading Salindra by a collar and chain. Salindra followed meekly, a fading bruise on her cheek showing that she had already learned the price of defiance.
“In the future, avoid marking her face,” Darken said to Cara as he examined the woman, taking in Salindra’s delicate frame and crown of golden curls. She really was quite beautiful. What a princess was supposed to look like.
Cara raised a brow, but assented, handing Salindra’s chain to Darken.
“Leave us.”
Cara left, though not before trailing one of her gloved hands over Darken’s chest. It pleased him that she was possessive of him. That she wished to remind him of her touch before leaving him alone with another woman.
Like Denna, she loved him more than she realized.
“I hear you are a countess now, my lady,” Darken circled Salindra, a lightly mocking note in his voice.
Salindra stayed silent, watching him with knowing eyes.
“I’ve wondered at times… I wonder, what would have happened if I had chosen you that night, instead of her.”
He almost had. He remembered looking Salindra up and down and thinking she knew how to please a man. How different would it all have been, if he had chosen Salindra instead of Kahlan…
Salindra wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, her voice husky as she answered, “Choose me now, and we can find out.”
She pressed herself against him, the metal of her chain and collar cold against the exposed skin of Darken’s chest. When he made no move to stop her, she kissed him, thrusting her tongue into his mouth and winding her hands in his hair, grinding her hips against his in slow, sensuous circles.
He could feel his pulse quicken, his body growing hot and hard.
What he had thought that night was true. Salindra knew how to please a man.
Not bothering with grace or foreplay, too impatient even to undress, Darken cleared the top of his desk with the sweep of one arm, and then shoved Salindra onto her back, flipping her skirts over her head and parting his robes to free his engorged cock.
He pushed his way into her, making her cry out. Then he tightened his grip on her hips, closed his eyes, and pretended that this was a year ago, at the D’Haran National Festival, and he had chosen to take Salindra to his bed.
Kahlan had never happened.
-l-
“Dennee? Are you there?” a man’s voice called.
Dennee recognized that voice. “Wizard? Zedd? Is that you?”
She went to the barred window of her cell door, her foot shackles clanking. She was pale and dirty. She’d lost weight. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been here, locked in a tower of the People’s Palace, a Rada Han at her throat. With no way to see the sky, one day flowed into the next in an endless stretch of miserable darkness.
Darken Rahl had visited her only once. For trying to protect his son, he had told her, she was to serve life in prison rather than face execution. She should be grateful for his mercy.
She wasn’t.
“It’s me!” the voice called out.
Dennee peered through the bars to see Zedd’s dirty face behind the barred window of the cell across from hers. “Are you alright?” she asked him, knowing even as her lips formed the question that it was a stupid one.
“I’m alive,” Zedd answered. “But listen, we don’t have much time.” Zedd’s eyes darted about the dimly lit hall. A guard could interrupt them at any moment. “They’re going to move me. Soon. I may be able to get a message out, or even escape. Tell me where the rest of the Confessors are hiding.”
Dennee opened her mouth, only to have Zedd shush her. “What is it?” she called desperately after a moment of tense silence.
“I thought I heard footsteps.”
“There’s no one coming,” Dennee assured him after craning her neck, trying to see down the hall.
“Then tell me. Tell me where I can find what remains of the Sisterhood.”
Dennee told him.
-l-
“Did I do well, mistress?” Zedd asked.
He sat at Denna’s feet, leaning against her legs, his face pressed to the buckles at her knee. She was so beautiful, his lady in red. Her leather armor accentuated her toned muscles and womanly curves. Her long braid was the color of gold and honey, and when Zedd looked into her eyes, he saw the sky that was denied him in his prison cell.
Denna stroked his hair, and Zedd knew bliss.
“You’ve done very well, Zeddicus. Lord Rahl will be so pleased. I’m very proud of you.”
Zedd rejoiced in the words. He was Denna’s, completely and utterly. He had been lost, when Serena died. He saw that now. Being with Denna gave him purpose. A compass to follow.
He was happy to have a mistress again.
“Would you like to please me even more, my pet?” Denna asked, her hands on Zedd’s Rada Han.
“Yes, mistress,” Zedd breathed, his heart pounding in his chest.
Denna removed Zedd’s Rada Han. “Make yourself pretty for me.”
Zedd waved his hands.
-l-
Salindra strode through the palace halls on Darken Rahl’s arm. She was wearing one of Kahlan’s old dresses, tailored to fit, until her wardrobe could be fetched from her manor house.
She had once dreamt of such a position for herself.
Now she hated all of these people and this palace and wished the thrice damned fools would stop dragging her here and making her wear a dead woman’s clothes. She’d even give back all the jewels if it meant being done with the Rahls.
She smiled prettily at Darken Rahl. “So I am to make your brother fall in love with me, steer him in the direction you wish him to go, and report to you on his doings.”
“And we will consider the matter of your thievery forgotten,” Darken returned her smile with a razor thin one of his own.
“And if I fail or try to flee, you will mount my head on a spike.”
“It would be one of the prettier ones to grace the palace gates.”
In another life, Salindra thought she and Darken Rahl could have been friends. “I understand.”
She understood all too well. Lord Rahl wanted his heir under control - and didn’t trust a Mord’Sith’s loyalty wouldn’t be swayed to the younger man. That was why he used Salindra. He thought her less dangerous.
She would have to prove him wrong.
They reached the throne room.
“Richard,” Lord Rahl said as the younger man approached. “May I present Countess Salindra of Ceria? She will be staying with us for some time. Lady Salindra, my brother and heir, Richard Rahl.”
“An honor to meet you, my lord.” Salindra curtsied deeply, and then offered Richard her hand to kiss.
He shook it.
“Nice to meet you too, Lady Salindra.”
Salindra raised a brow. Lord Rahl’s heir was clearly still a farm boy in expensive clothes. But he was handsome, and there was something winsome about him. A sort of charm that couldn’t be learned.
There were worse fates than having to make this man fall in love with her, Salindra decided.
“I must attend to a matter of state,” Lord Rahl was saying. “I trust you will see to Lady Salindra in my absence, brother?”
“I’d be glad to,” Richard smiled, offering his arm to Salindra.
At least he knew to do that much.
-l-
“Denna has gotten the likely locations of the last of the Confessors out of the one we have imprisoned in the tower, my lord. She reports that there will be some at Aydindril, but most will have fled to the island of Valeria. Shall I send Mistress Cara?”
Darken sat in the window seat of his council chamber, looking down at the courtyard below as he and Egremont went through the day’s reports. He held up a hand, thumb and two fingers extended.
“No. Send Triana. I have a more important task for Cara.”
“More important than hunting the last Confessors, my lord?”
Darken turned to face Egremont, gesturing to a scroll that lay on the council table. “Queen Milena and I have come to an understanding at last. She will give up the third Box of Orden. I trust no one but Cara to fetch it.”
-l-
Salindra walked through the gardens of the People’s Palace on Richard Rahl’s arm. He was sweet, and clumsy, picking her flowers and telling her about how this plant grew by the river in Hartland, or such-and-such a flower was his mother’s favorite. Salindra almost thought she could fall in love with him, if she were the sort to fall in love.
She didn’t think of Kahlan.
“Am I boring you?” Richard asked, pulling her out of her thoughts. “It’s just. My brother, I mean my lord brother, told me to entertain you and I’m not really sure what you’d like to do.”
Salindra laughed, and it was real, a warm tinkling sound of rain on a tin roof. “I’m not bored. How about this?” she winked at him. “Don’t think of me as a countess, and don’t think of yourself as a prince. We’re just Salindra and Richard. What would Richard like to do with Salindra?”
She put just enough of a suggestive tone behind her words to let Richard move things in that direction if he wanted. She had a feeling that if she was more overt, sweet Richard would run from her like a lamb from the slaughter.
“Oh,” he puffed out his cheeks, his brow wrinkling as he thought. Salindra stepped closer so that he might smell her perfume and feel the press of her breasts against the side of his arm. He looked down at her, and she looked up, batting her eyes. For an instant, she thought he had him. She just needed to stand on her tiptoes, and they would be kissing.
Then Richard looked away.
“Denna!” he shouted, waving his free arm like a maniac.
A Mord’Sith was coming down the garden path, the tall tower of the temple where the Mord’Sith carried out their torture rising into the sky behind her. Salindra knew just what this Mistress Denna had been doing.
She wondered if Richard did. Then, she decided she didn’t want to know. Let him stay Sweet Richard.
She wanted to believe in his goodness.
“My lord,” Denna answered Richard with the thump of her fist against her chest.
“I’ll be right back,” he smiled to Salindra, then hurried over to the Mord’Sith.
Salindra watched as Richard and Denna exchanged a warrior’s clasp, and then began talking, animatedly on Richard’s part, grudgingly on Denna’s. And yet, even the Mord’Sith couldn’t resist Sweet Richard for long. Soon she was smiling, and those smiles reached her eyes. She really did enjoy the young prince’s company. Salindra knew. She could tell.
A working girl could always tell.
Salindra flipped her lacy fan open, fanning herself and winking at Richard over the edge of the frothy accessory when he and Denna looked her way.
So this is my rival, she thought, subtly studying Denna from crown to sole.
Thinking of Darken Rahl, she looked down at herself, at Kahlan’s borrowed clothes.
She had more than one rival.
-l-
Richard was in the royal council chamber. He was supposed to be reviewing military strategy with Egremont, but he kept finding himself at the balcony, looking down at the courtyard below.
Denna was there, addressing a line of soldiers. Richard couldn’t keep his eyes off of her.
“What is it that intrigues you so? Ah, I see,” Egremont said, looking over Richard’s shoulder. “You and your brother have similar tastes, my lord.”
“What?” Richard gaped. He could feel heat suffusing his cheeks. “I don’t -”
“Good. Don’t. It can never be, my lord. Not with her.” Egremont’s voice was filled with firm command.
“But why?” Richard asked, turning to look down at Denna again. As he watched, she punched a soldier in the throat, bringing the man to his knees. Richard winced. But surely, Denna wouldn’t do that unless the man had done something to deserve it… “Darken and Cara are always,” Richard flapped his hands. “You know.”
“Lord Rahl doesn’t need an heir. He has one. You,” Egremont poked Richard in the chest, making him feel like a little boy who’d been caught stealing apples. “But you have your duty to D’Hara to think of. Put Mistress Denna from your mind, and focus on Countess Salindra. That’s what she’s here for.”
Richard returned to the table where his maps and figures were laid out, sinking heavily into his chair. “Darken called her here just to marry me?” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I was afraid it was something like that.”
“Do you find the countess unappealing?” Egremont sat across from Richard, his brow raised in the same way Darken was always doing. Richard spared a moment to wonder whether the general had picked the habit up from his lord, or the lord from his general.
“No, no, nothing like that!” Richard hastened to assure Egremont. “Salindra’s great. Pretty, and smart, and beautiful, and she’s patient with me… She’s everything a princess is supposed to be.”
“Exactly why Lord Rahl chose her for you. But if she is, as you said, a perfect princess, then what is the problem, young lord?”
Richard grinned a sheepish grin, shrugging his shoulders. He stared down at his maps when he said, “I don’t know. Maybe the problem is… I don’t want a princess.”
Egremont laughed. And kept laughing, until Richard was a little worried the old general would hurt himself. “Forgive me, Richard,” Egremont panted. “It’s just that you’re the third Rahl I’ve served, and I’m starting to think wanting things you can’t have is in the blood!”
Richard chuckled along with his teacher, and then they got down to business. Richard was supposed to present Darken with a workable plan of siege for some island called Valeria by the end of the day.
_________________________________________________________
Part: I, II, III, IV, V