STRIFE (Legend of the Seeker - Kahlan/Cara)
TITLE: STRIFE 25/26
AUTHOR: rhyfeddu
RATING: PG-13, Violence and threats thereof.
SUMMARY: Definitely AU from "Eternity" on.
Richard's POV! Kahlan/Cara, Dahlia, Zedd, Rahl, Shota, hell the whole gang is here!
DISCLAIMER: As always, everything here belongs to other (much more wealthy) people. I'm just having fun.
COMMENT: Twenty fifth part, a continuation from "Pinnacle"
Buckle up, people! And yes, it’s Richie’s turn to talk!
Shota’s arm lifted first.
My hand was on my sword, and Cara was about to raise her palm to repel the magic, but Shota was quicker. The force of her spell slammed into us, so hard it felt like a fall from a tall tree. An invisible grip held us in place, constricting and squeezing us. Then we were tugged to the ground, forcing all of us to our knees. The only thing I could move was my neck and head; my arms were forcefully plastered to my sides.
Rahl strolled over with excessive casualness, still dragging Shota by her throat, and swept past us like it was a troop inspection.
He smugly paused in front of Zedd. “You were right about my new servant, Wizard.” Rahl roughly pulled at Shota’s neck. “What you seem to have forgotten, was her power of foresight. Once the witch saw what you intended to do, we just sat back. And waited.” His smile grew warm and grateful. “Such a wonderful gift, Zeddicus. Even if you didn’t “present” it to me quite as you planned. “
Zedd’s eyes were locked on Shota, shocked at her battered, abused state. They’d obviously shaved her head to further humiliate her. Zedd bent his head down as far as it could go against his chest, and I heard a gasp. “I’m a foolish old man,” he muttered in a strangled voice.
“Yes,” Rahl replied in an even, flat tone. “You are. It’s regrettable that you need your hands to employ the Orb’s magic, Zeddicus. I’m sure you’re itching to show it off for me.”
I looked at Zedd’s bowed head with a sick feeling. It had been Zedd that had finally brought me out of my spiraling anger. As we’d marched to these ruins, he'd been struggling to keep up the pace, and I’d stopped to quickly carve him a walking stick. As I’d hacked at the branch, I realized what a toll my anger was taking on all of us. How indulgent it was to stay in it just so I wouldn’t have to feel the loss of Kahlan. Worry that my grandfather was giving up had saved me from that. But now it was so much worse. I’d never seen Zedd look so completely defeated.
I strained against the hold on me, yelling with the effort and frustration. Rahl clicked his tongue. “Dear, dear brother. Never one to admit defeat, are you? Even when it’s painfully obvious you should.” He gestured behind him at the hundreds of Mord Sith and D’Harans flowing around us, filling the empty spaces among the ruins.
My mind spun in circles, trying to figure out some strategy, some way to fight back. I looked beside me. Zedd’s head was still lowered, bitter tears shining his face. Kahlan’s round eyes met mine, full of fear and dread and concern. Cara just glared hard at Rahl, her lip curling. Dahlia’s eyes were downcast, already resigned to some imagined fate.
The only thought I had was to stall for time, maybe learn something, by getting Rahl to talk. Spirit’s knew the man loved to gloat. “How could you ever control a great sorceress like Shota?” I spat out, and noticed Shota twitch, though she stared blankly ahead. “That’s not a Rada Han she’s wearing.”
Rahl turned and flicked at the metal band around the witch’s throat. “No. This little trinket doesn’t dampen ones power. It controls the will. Completely.” His hand moved from the metal to caress her neck. “And such a powerful little puppet she is.” Shota’s bruised face remained blank, but her body shook slightly, some resistance trapped within struggling to get out. “While she wears the Keva Han, she does my bidding. And I have all her powers at my disposal.”
My mouth opened to ask another goading question, but Rahl had turned away, his attention drifting as if bored with his own greatness.
“Dear, sweet Dahlia,” Rahl crooned, as he stepped in front of the Mord Sith. “How your Sisters have missed you. We feared you dead.”
Her words seem stuck and needed to be pushed out. “I was…captured…My Lord.”
“What a humiliating condition for a Mord Sith to endure,” he sympathized.
Rahl paused and waited, gazing at Dahlia’s bent head. She swallowed painfully. “Yes…My Lord.”
“Shota, please release our Sister from your hold.” Shota waved her hand, and Dahlia breathed in sharply and pitched forward.
“Get up, Dahlia,” Rahl’s sickly sweet voice was beginning to sour.
Dahlia rose on shaky legs, her eyes remaining averted. Rahl slowly reached back behind Dahlia’s head and grabbed her hair, suddenly yanking it back and forcing Dahlia to face him. He leaned in inches from her. “Such interesting company you’ve been keeping, Dahlia.”
“As I said, My Lord-“
“Yes, you were captured. But I observed you enjoying a fair amount of liberty earlier. For a prisoner.”
Again Rahl waited as Dahlia struggled to answer, giving an encouraging, demanding tug of her hair. “I…they must’ve decided I was…not a threat. My Lord.” A tear rolled down her cheek.
“I understand you, Dahlia,” he whispered intimately. “I always have. You’ve always been too easily swayed by our Cara here. You’ve obviously been infected by her misguided ideas.”
“N-No,” she denied haltingly.
“No?” Rahl said, all hope and surprise. “I’m certainly willing to allow you to prove it.” He released her and smiled. “I was going to let one these fools handle the Orb for me,” he said, tilting his head towards his amassed troops. “But, I’ve decided to entrust it to you. Dahlia.”
Dahlia glanced at the swirling Orb, still pulsating nearby on the ground. “My Lord? I-”
“Of course,” he quickly added, “it will strip you of all your powers, everything that makes you a Mord Sith, but since you’ve become such a pathetic example of one anyway, what loss there? And you would certainly not mind such a sacrifice. Being the loyal and trusted servant to the House of Rahl.”
Rahl glared his challenge, extending his hand towards the Orb in invitation. “Pick it up, Dahlia.”
“Rahl,” Cara growled at his feet. “This is a foolish waste.”
Rahl’s hard look never left Dahlia. “I don’t really care for you opinion on this, Cara.”
Cara’s jaw clenched. “There’s no need-“
”Quiet!” Rahl’s face flushed with fury, but then he sighed and gave Dahlia a kind, apologetic look. “I’m waiting, Dahlia.”
Dahlia’s eyes darted over Rahl, chewing her lip and giving small, nervous shakes of her head. She looked near to breaking down, when she took a deep, quaky breath and whispered harshly, “No.”
Rahl’s head jerked back, not in surprise, but in confirmation. He smiled again and called over his shoulder. “Garen! Would you please join us?”
A dark haired Mord Sith separated from the crowd and stalked over to Rahl, her hand gripping her unsheathed agiel, her sharp features holding a slight, satisfied grin. “My Lord.”
“Dahlia seems to need a reminder of who’s in charge here.” Dahlia’s spine immediately grew straighter, bracing herself. “We’re in the need of your help, Garen,” Rahl continued smoothy. “Please hold you agiel over Cara’s heart.”
Dahlia’s determined look grew slack as Garen did just that, holding the weapon a hairsbreath from Cara, the agiel’s eager whine already pitching high in the air. Cara somehow grew even more contemptuous, but Kahlan made a distressed noise beside her. I cursed the magical hold on my arms, tasting blood in my mouth from biting down too hard.
Realization flooded Dahlia’s tense face, and it softened in defeat. “Yes,” she nodded. “Yes. I’ll do it.”
“Dahlia!” Cara barked. “Don’t!” Cara continued to yell at her as Dahlia slowly, warily approached the Orb. She carefully knelt down beside it and flinched, already feeling its powerful sting. She hesitated only a moment more, before reaching out with both hands to scoop it up.
As soon as she made contact, her head whipped back and her body stiffened. Her throat opened to scream, but nothing came out. We could feel a vacuum swirl around Dahlia and the Orb, as it violently pulled her magic from her.
And then it was over. Dahlia was bent over and shaking fiercely, her long hair curtained around her face, the Orb glowing even brighter in her cradled hands. Her palms were burnt looking and darkened like soot underneath.
”Dahlia!” Cara’s raw shout rang in the still air. Dahlia painfully straightened, her sweat drenched face numb with shock. She stumbled to her feet and walked towards Rahl, lifting the Orb up as if an offering.
“Thank you, Dahlia,” he said, blandly. “A most interesting demonstration.”
Dahlia staggered, barely righting herself. She paused, and gritted her teeth, and then marshaling a sudden burst of strength, deliberately tossed the Orb directly at Darken Rahl.
But the effort was too feeble and missed. Rahl dodged the throw, and the Orb safely rolled a few paces away. With a sneer, Rahl motioned his head, and another Mord Sith came up from behind Dahlia and struck her down with her curled fist around the hilt of an agiel. Dahlia dropped hard, unconscious. Then Rahl turned back towards us.
“Don’t make me wait, Garen.”
The agiel in Garen’s hand was promptly shoved into Cara’s chest.
Cara’s eyes went wide, mouth open. Remembering that same anguish, I winced. They were killing her. But they wouldn’t bring her back.
Kahlan seemed to shout in anger and fear, but then it became apparent that she was in some sort of sympathetic pain. Her head was thrown back and she released the scream Cara wouldn’t allow. The agiel might have been on Kahlan’s chest instead.
This startled and confused the Mord Sith and she yanked the agiel away before it finished Cara off. Cara and Kahlan’s heads both dropped forward. Garen was the first to see Kahlan’s fixed, blackened eyes when her head suddenly whipped back up.
She jumped back. “Lord Rahl!”
“She’s still bound by Shota’s spell,” he assured her. And himself. But he took an unconscious step back.
As if answering Rahl, Kahlan rose smoothly to her feet and extended her hand. From six paces away, Shota was flung forward like she was parchment caught on a breeze, transported towards Kahlan until the Witch’s throat was cradled in Kahlan’s palm.
Shota’s eyes filmed, then cleared. “Command me, Confessor.” It was the first words I’d heard her say.
“No!” Rahl shouted nearby, a hysterical anger in his voice. “She wears the Keva Han! She is under my control!”
Ignoring him, Kahlan whispered in a voice that seemed to reverberate through our bodies. “Release them.”
Immediately, the choking hold was gone, and Cara, Zedd and I crumpled to the ground, our limbs numb. Rahl’s forces shuffled nervously all around us, waiting for a word from their Lord. They waited too long.
Kahlan shoved Shota away and flung both hands out. Line after line of D’Harans and Mord Sith began to fall to confession. The men sunk to their knees in abject adoration, the women writhed in devoted agony before they began to die. Hundreds and hundreds before her were overwhelmed and engulfed in her power like flame on dry grass.
The more this power was loosened, the more distorted Kahlan’s appearence became. The inky color extended beyond her eyes and stained the surrounding sockets. The red flush I’d seen before was spreading to her entire face, with thick, angry veins protruding through her skin and down her neck. She even seemed to be floating several hand spans above the ground.
“Zedd,” I hissed. “What’s happening? The Con Dar wasn’t like this before.”
Zedd’s eyes were riveted on Kahlan. He didn’t seem to hear me. “Spirits protect us…” he muttered. "I didn't think it true."
The dark clouds above our heads started to swirl, lowering as if to meet Kahlan half way. A wind storm enveloped her as her hands stretched out, orchestrating the destruction around us. Flashes of blue lightning started coursing through the ruins, hitting the pillars that remained standing and shattering them, sending shards into the confessed army. Only the screams of the dying Mord Sith could be heard above the din.
I glanced past Zedd to where Cara still knelt behind Kahlan. One of her hands reached out trying to touch her, her face in tormented despair, as if forced to watch Kahlan free falling to the Underworld with no way to stop it.
Losing Kahlan’s love had felt like a death to me. But I never imagined we would have to watch helplessly as we lost Kahlan completely.
Then a rumble and flash like a half dozen lightning strikes hit the earth at once, and Zedd and I hugged the ground for cover. What remained of Rahl’s confessed troops were being incinerated into nothing.
“Zedd!” I shouted. “She’s destroying everything! Herself!” I scrambled to my feet and took a step toward Kahlan. Zedd’s hand shot out and clasped my arm, gripping me harder than I thought was possible.
“She’ll destroy you, too!” he screamed back. “Kahlan is gone now, Richard!” Zedd then forced us back to the ground.
Finally without an army left to destroy, Kahlan’s foreign gaze fixed on an ashen Darken Rahl, cowering in front of her. Other than a few scratches on his forehead from flying stone, he’d been spared.
The wind and clouds still churned, but otherwise a desolate silence fell. Rahl fearfully lifted his eyes. When they met Kahlan’s, she grinned, a mockery of her own kind smile.
Rahl’s body was lifted and tossed into Kahlan’s waiting grip. Then she started to squeeze, and Rahl turned scarlet from lack of air, almost matching Kahlan’s deformed face. Her lips pulled back in glee the more he struggled. And then tilting her head with a kind of curiosity, she tossed Rahl backwards in the air, and his body shredded into pieces before he’d hit the ground.
I was stunned into a instinct not to move. I was actually frightened of Kahlan. Or what she’d become.
In her confessed ardor though, Shota knew no such caution and she crawled over to Kahlan and gripped her gown. “Mistress?” Her eyes were bright and eager.
An annoyed flip of the hand and Shota was sent flying, her body bloody and mangled by the time it landed. Zedd lurched forward, then stopped himself, hugging his own body and moaning.
Kahlan descended from the air, until her feet were firmly back on the ground. But she didn’t move otherwise, remaining at the center of that murderous churning. Her back to us, she stared into nothing, fused with the violent elements around her, lost in the grip of her own blood rage.
In the corner of my eye, I saw Cara struggling to get to her feet. My stomach rolled.
“Cara” I begged. “Don’t. Please.”
Cara swallowed and turned to me. She looked as devastated as our surroundings. Her eyes held an apology and a promise, and I just shook my head and silently pleaded with her.
She cocked her head back at me, like she always did when she thought I was being thick headed, and it wrung a familiar laugh from me even as I started to sob.
She then slowly, carefully, walked around Kahlan until she was standing directly in front of her. She put out both her hands and seemed to wordlessly call to her. Kahlan’s body shuddered and her head lowered with an unnatural slowness until she focused on Cara.
“Kahlan,” she murmured out loud. “I love you. ”
The power around Kahlan pulsed and flared and Cara’s eyes turned to coal, then faded back to green. I cried out at the destruction of my friend.
The wind picked up speed again and Cara was held rigid in front of Kahlan, caught in the eye of the Con Dar’s fury. The current swirled in a sapphire tinged cloud that seemed to embrace them and it spun faster until I thought Zedd and I would be blown out of the valley. Then I saw a strange smile ghost on Cara’s face, not the agony I expected, and just as quickly the force dissipated and waned until it dissolved completely into unnerving quiet and stillness.
Cara and Kahlan stood suspended in front of one another for a moment, then toppled at the same time, falling entangled to the ground.
Author’s note: I actually based some of Kahlan’s Con Dar abilities on the books’ description, blue lightning, vast destruction and all. Not that I’ve actually read the books, but I read THIS, and thought I’d plunder and embellish it. Obviously the books - and me!- are not under the same budget constraints as the show!
AUTHOR: rhyfeddu
RATING: PG-13, Violence and threats thereof.
SUMMARY: Definitely AU from "Eternity" on.
Richard's POV! Kahlan/Cara, Dahlia, Zedd, Rahl, Shota, hell the whole gang is here!
DISCLAIMER: As always, everything here belongs to other (much more wealthy) people. I'm just having fun.
COMMENT: Twenty fifth part, a continuation from "Pinnacle"
Buckle up, people! And yes, it’s Richie’s turn to talk!
Shota’s arm lifted first.
My hand was on my sword, and Cara was about to raise her palm to repel the magic, but Shota was quicker. The force of her spell slammed into us, so hard it felt like a fall from a tall tree. An invisible grip held us in place, constricting and squeezing us. Then we were tugged to the ground, forcing all of us to our knees. The only thing I could move was my neck and head; my arms were forcefully plastered to my sides.
Rahl strolled over with excessive casualness, still dragging Shota by her throat, and swept past us like it was a troop inspection.
He smugly paused in front of Zedd. “You were right about my new servant, Wizard.” Rahl roughly pulled at Shota’s neck. “What you seem to have forgotten, was her power of foresight. Once the witch saw what you intended to do, we just sat back. And waited.” His smile grew warm and grateful. “Such a wonderful gift, Zeddicus. Even if you didn’t “present” it to me quite as you planned. “
Zedd’s eyes were locked on Shota, shocked at her battered, abused state. They’d obviously shaved her head to further humiliate her. Zedd bent his head down as far as it could go against his chest, and I heard a gasp. “I’m a foolish old man,” he muttered in a strangled voice.
“Yes,” Rahl replied in an even, flat tone. “You are. It’s regrettable that you need your hands to employ the Orb’s magic, Zeddicus. I’m sure you’re itching to show it off for me.”
I looked at Zedd’s bowed head with a sick feeling. It had been Zedd that had finally brought me out of my spiraling anger. As we’d marched to these ruins, he'd been struggling to keep up the pace, and I’d stopped to quickly carve him a walking stick. As I’d hacked at the branch, I realized what a toll my anger was taking on all of us. How indulgent it was to stay in it just so I wouldn’t have to feel the loss of Kahlan. Worry that my grandfather was giving up had saved me from that. But now it was so much worse. I’d never seen Zedd look so completely defeated.
I strained against the hold on me, yelling with the effort and frustration. Rahl clicked his tongue. “Dear, dear brother. Never one to admit defeat, are you? Even when it’s painfully obvious you should.” He gestured behind him at the hundreds of Mord Sith and D’Harans flowing around us, filling the empty spaces among the ruins.
My mind spun in circles, trying to figure out some strategy, some way to fight back. I looked beside me. Zedd’s head was still lowered, bitter tears shining his face. Kahlan’s round eyes met mine, full of fear and dread and concern. Cara just glared hard at Rahl, her lip curling. Dahlia’s eyes were downcast, already resigned to some imagined fate.
The only thought I had was to stall for time, maybe learn something, by getting Rahl to talk. Spirit’s knew the man loved to gloat. “How could you ever control a great sorceress like Shota?” I spat out, and noticed Shota twitch, though she stared blankly ahead. “That’s not a Rada Han she’s wearing.”
Rahl turned and flicked at the metal band around the witch’s throat. “No. This little trinket doesn’t dampen ones power. It controls the will. Completely.” His hand moved from the metal to caress her neck. “And such a powerful little puppet she is.” Shota’s bruised face remained blank, but her body shook slightly, some resistance trapped within struggling to get out. “While she wears the Keva Han, she does my bidding. And I have all her powers at my disposal.”
My mouth opened to ask another goading question, but Rahl had turned away, his attention drifting as if bored with his own greatness.
“Dear, sweet Dahlia,” Rahl crooned, as he stepped in front of the Mord Sith. “How your Sisters have missed you. We feared you dead.”
Her words seem stuck and needed to be pushed out. “I was…captured…My Lord.”
“What a humiliating condition for a Mord Sith to endure,” he sympathized.
Rahl paused and waited, gazing at Dahlia’s bent head. She swallowed painfully. “Yes…My Lord.”
“Shota, please release our Sister from your hold.” Shota waved her hand, and Dahlia breathed in sharply and pitched forward.
“Get up, Dahlia,” Rahl’s sickly sweet voice was beginning to sour.
Dahlia rose on shaky legs, her eyes remaining averted. Rahl slowly reached back behind Dahlia’s head and grabbed her hair, suddenly yanking it back and forcing Dahlia to face him. He leaned in inches from her. “Such interesting company you’ve been keeping, Dahlia.”
“As I said, My Lord-“
“Yes, you were captured. But I observed you enjoying a fair amount of liberty earlier. For a prisoner.”
Again Rahl waited as Dahlia struggled to answer, giving an encouraging, demanding tug of her hair. “I…they must’ve decided I was…not a threat. My Lord.” A tear rolled down her cheek.
“I understand you, Dahlia,” he whispered intimately. “I always have. You’ve always been too easily swayed by our Cara here. You’ve obviously been infected by her misguided ideas.”
“N-No,” she denied haltingly.
“No?” Rahl said, all hope and surprise. “I’m certainly willing to allow you to prove it.” He released her and smiled. “I was going to let one these fools handle the Orb for me,” he said, tilting his head towards his amassed troops. “But, I’ve decided to entrust it to you. Dahlia.”
Dahlia glanced at the swirling Orb, still pulsating nearby on the ground. “My Lord? I-”
“Of course,” he quickly added, “it will strip you of all your powers, everything that makes you a Mord Sith, but since you’ve become such a pathetic example of one anyway, what loss there? And you would certainly not mind such a sacrifice. Being the loyal and trusted servant to the House of Rahl.”
Rahl glared his challenge, extending his hand towards the Orb in invitation. “Pick it up, Dahlia.”
“Rahl,” Cara growled at his feet. “This is a foolish waste.”
Rahl’s hard look never left Dahlia. “I don’t really care for you opinion on this, Cara.”
Cara’s jaw clenched. “There’s no need-“
”Quiet!” Rahl’s face flushed with fury, but then he sighed and gave Dahlia a kind, apologetic look. “I’m waiting, Dahlia.”
Dahlia’s eyes darted over Rahl, chewing her lip and giving small, nervous shakes of her head. She looked near to breaking down, when she took a deep, quaky breath and whispered harshly, “No.”
Rahl’s head jerked back, not in surprise, but in confirmation. He smiled again and called over his shoulder. “Garen! Would you please join us?”
A dark haired Mord Sith separated from the crowd and stalked over to Rahl, her hand gripping her unsheathed agiel, her sharp features holding a slight, satisfied grin. “My Lord.”
“Dahlia seems to need a reminder of who’s in charge here.” Dahlia’s spine immediately grew straighter, bracing herself. “We’re in the need of your help, Garen,” Rahl continued smoothy. “Please hold you agiel over Cara’s heart.”
Dahlia’s determined look grew slack as Garen did just that, holding the weapon a hairsbreath from Cara, the agiel’s eager whine already pitching high in the air. Cara somehow grew even more contemptuous, but Kahlan made a distressed noise beside her. I cursed the magical hold on my arms, tasting blood in my mouth from biting down too hard.
Realization flooded Dahlia’s tense face, and it softened in defeat. “Yes,” she nodded. “Yes. I’ll do it.”
“Dahlia!” Cara barked. “Don’t!” Cara continued to yell at her as Dahlia slowly, warily approached the Orb. She carefully knelt down beside it and flinched, already feeling its powerful sting. She hesitated only a moment more, before reaching out with both hands to scoop it up.
As soon as she made contact, her head whipped back and her body stiffened. Her throat opened to scream, but nothing came out. We could feel a vacuum swirl around Dahlia and the Orb, as it violently pulled her magic from her.
And then it was over. Dahlia was bent over and shaking fiercely, her long hair curtained around her face, the Orb glowing even brighter in her cradled hands. Her palms were burnt looking and darkened like soot underneath.
”Dahlia!” Cara’s raw shout rang in the still air. Dahlia painfully straightened, her sweat drenched face numb with shock. She stumbled to her feet and walked towards Rahl, lifting the Orb up as if an offering.
“Thank you, Dahlia,” he said, blandly. “A most interesting demonstration.”
Dahlia staggered, barely righting herself. She paused, and gritted her teeth, and then marshaling a sudden burst of strength, deliberately tossed the Orb directly at Darken Rahl.
But the effort was too feeble and missed. Rahl dodged the throw, and the Orb safely rolled a few paces away. With a sneer, Rahl motioned his head, and another Mord Sith came up from behind Dahlia and struck her down with her curled fist around the hilt of an agiel. Dahlia dropped hard, unconscious. Then Rahl turned back towards us.
“Don’t make me wait, Garen.”
The agiel in Garen’s hand was promptly shoved into Cara’s chest.
Cara’s eyes went wide, mouth open. Remembering that same anguish, I winced. They were killing her. But they wouldn’t bring her back.
Kahlan seemed to shout in anger and fear, but then it became apparent that she was in some sort of sympathetic pain. Her head was thrown back and she released the scream Cara wouldn’t allow. The agiel might have been on Kahlan’s chest instead.
This startled and confused the Mord Sith and she yanked the agiel away before it finished Cara off. Cara and Kahlan’s heads both dropped forward. Garen was the first to see Kahlan’s fixed, blackened eyes when her head suddenly whipped back up.
She jumped back. “Lord Rahl!”
“She’s still bound by Shota’s spell,” he assured her. And himself. But he took an unconscious step back.
As if answering Rahl, Kahlan rose smoothly to her feet and extended her hand. From six paces away, Shota was flung forward like she was parchment caught on a breeze, transported towards Kahlan until the Witch’s throat was cradled in Kahlan’s palm.
Shota’s eyes filmed, then cleared. “Command me, Confessor.” It was the first words I’d heard her say.
“No!” Rahl shouted nearby, a hysterical anger in his voice. “She wears the Keva Han! She is under my control!”
Ignoring him, Kahlan whispered in a voice that seemed to reverberate through our bodies. “Release them.”
Immediately, the choking hold was gone, and Cara, Zedd and I crumpled to the ground, our limbs numb. Rahl’s forces shuffled nervously all around us, waiting for a word from their Lord. They waited too long.
Kahlan shoved Shota away and flung both hands out. Line after line of D’Harans and Mord Sith began to fall to confession. The men sunk to their knees in abject adoration, the women writhed in devoted agony before they began to die. Hundreds and hundreds before her were overwhelmed and engulfed in her power like flame on dry grass.
The more this power was loosened, the more distorted Kahlan’s appearence became. The inky color extended beyond her eyes and stained the surrounding sockets. The red flush I’d seen before was spreading to her entire face, with thick, angry veins protruding through her skin and down her neck. She even seemed to be floating several hand spans above the ground.
“Zedd,” I hissed. “What’s happening? The Con Dar wasn’t like this before.”
Zedd’s eyes were riveted on Kahlan. He didn’t seem to hear me. “Spirits protect us…” he muttered. "I didn't think it true."
The dark clouds above our heads started to swirl, lowering as if to meet Kahlan half way. A wind storm enveloped her as her hands stretched out, orchestrating the destruction around us. Flashes of blue lightning started coursing through the ruins, hitting the pillars that remained standing and shattering them, sending shards into the confessed army. Only the screams of the dying Mord Sith could be heard above the din.
I glanced past Zedd to where Cara still knelt behind Kahlan. One of her hands reached out trying to touch her, her face in tormented despair, as if forced to watch Kahlan free falling to the Underworld with no way to stop it.
Losing Kahlan’s love had felt like a death to me. But I never imagined we would have to watch helplessly as we lost Kahlan completely.
Then a rumble and flash like a half dozen lightning strikes hit the earth at once, and Zedd and I hugged the ground for cover. What remained of Rahl’s confessed troops were being incinerated into nothing.
“Zedd!” I shouted. “She’s destroying everything! Herself!” I scrambled to my feet and took a step toward Kahlan. Zedd’s hand shot out and clasped my arm, gripping me harder than I thought was possible.
“She’ll destroy you, too!” he screamed back. “Kahlan is gone now, Richard!” Zedd then forced us back to the ground.
Finally without an army left to destroy, Kahlan’s foreign gaze fixed on an ashen Darken Rahl, cowering in front of her. Other than a few scratches on his forehead from flying stone, he’d been spared.
The wind and clouds still churned, but otherwise a desolate silence fell. Rahl fearfully lifted his eyes. When they met Kahlan’s, she grinned, a mockery of her own kind smile.
Rahl’s body was lifted and tossed into Kahlan’s waiting grip. Then she started to squeeze, and Rahl turned scarlet from lack of air, almost matching Kahlan’s deformed face. Her lips pulled back in glee the more he struggled. And then tilting her head with a kind of curiosity, she tossed Rahl backwards in the air, and his body shredded into pieces before he’d hit the ground.
I was stunned into a instinct not to move. I was actually frightened of Kahlan. Or what she’d become.
In her confessed ardor though, Shota knew no such caution and she crawled over to Kahlan and gripped her gown. “Mistress?” Her eyes were bright and eager.
An annoyed flip of the hand and Shota was sent flying, her body bloody and mangled by the time it landed. Zedd lurched forward, then stopped himself, hugging his own body and moaning.
Kahlan descended from the air, until her feet were firmly back on the ground. But she didn’t move otherwise, remaining at the center of that murderous churning. Her back to us, she stared into nothing, fused with the violent elements around her, lost in the grip of her own blood rage.
In the corner of my eye, I saw Cara struggling to get to her feet. My stomach rolled.
“Cara” I begged. “Don’t. Please.”
Cara swallowed and turned to me. She looked as devastated as our surroundings. Her eyes held an apology and a promise, and I just shook my head and silently pleaded with her.
She cocked her head back at me, like she always did when she thought I was being thick headed, and it wrung a familiar laugh from me even as I started to sob.
She then slowly, carefully, walked around Kahlan until she was standing directly in front of her. She put out both her hands and seemed to wordlessly call to her. Kahlan’s body shuddered and her head lowered with an unnatural slowness until she focused on Cara.
“Kahlan,” she murmured out loud. “I love you. ”
The power around Kahlan pulsed and flared and Cara’s eyes turned to coal, then faded back to green. I cried out at the destruction of my friend.
The wind picked up speed again and Cara was held rigid in front of Kahlan, caught in the eye of the Con Dar’s fury. The current swirled in a sapphire tinged cloud that seemed to embrace them and it spun faster until I thought Zedd and I would be blown out of the valley. Then I saw a strange smile ghost on Cara’s face, not the agony I expected, and just as quickly the force dissipated and waned until it dissolved completely into unnerving quiet and stillness.
Cara and Kahlan stood suspended in front of one another for a moment, then toppled at the same time, falling entangled to the ground.
Author’s note: I actually based some of Kahlan’s Con Dar abilities on the books’ description, blue lightning, vast destruction and all. Not that I’ve actually read the books, but I read THIS, and thought I’d plunder and embellish it. Obviously the books - and me!- are not under the same budget constraints as the show!