Love is Cruel, Chapter 10 of 13

[hrhrionastar]

Title: Love is Cruel: The Mother Confessor
Pairing: Richard/Nicci (background Richard/Kahlan, Rahl/Kahlan/Cara)
Rating: PG-13
Length:
Spoilers: whole series
Summary: Post-Tears, Richard wakes up to find he's not at the Pillars of Creation anymore...and someone very familiar is in the cell next door. Written for madmguillotine, on seekerrarepair.

 

The Mother Confessor

Richard’s pet Mord’Sith. Nicci kept her magic coiled around the loose stone, reasoning that there had to be some reason that Richard’s pet Mord’Sith was still walking around, apparently making herself free of the Palace, when Richard and Nicci and the Wizard had been locked away and tortured.

Although, of course, the Mord’Sith seemed to enjoy torture…

“Cara!” Richard exclaimed, and stepped forward; Nicci thought he was going to embrace his pet Mord’Sith, but he stepped back at the last moment. “Are you all right? Where’s Kahlan? What happened?” Richard said quickly.

“You have to go,” Richard’s pet Mord’Sith said grimly. “Now. Take the Wizard.”

This sounded like a good plan to Nicci, but of course Richard wouldn’t be so easily separated from the Mother Confessor. “What do you mean? Cara, where’s Kahlan?”

“We have seconds,” Richard’s pet Mord’Sith said calmly. But she looked at Richard, and must’ve sensed his overwhelming sincerity and determination, because she turned around abruptly, striding forward.

Richard hurried back to Nicci and they supported the Wizard together, following as fast as possible.

A flight of stairs, distant shouting, another door…Good thing, Nicci thought, that Rahl apparently had never learned to find people by his thoughts alone…

And then Richard’s pet Mord’Sith led them into a pretty room with tall windows and golden curtains, and the Mother Confessor standing in the center, her gown a rich red the color of blood, her fingers and wrists sparkling with gold.

How easily is the Mother Confessor bought, thought Nicci, and instantly reproached herself; she knew the Mother Confessor. She knew the Mother Confessor well. And the idea that anything but powerful magic could keep her from Richard was ludicrous.

“Richard!” said the Mother Confessor.

“Kahlan!” said Richard.

Nicci, still supporting the Wizard, started to feel very out of place.

But Richard said next, “Nicci, quick! Rahl will be here any second! We have to get out of here!”

That, Nicci could support. She couldn’t leave without Richard. Richard wouldn’t leave without the Mother Confessor. And she wouldn’t stay here and let Rahl steal the rest of her Han—not if she died for it.

She slipped out from under the Wizard’s inert arm, and grasped the Mother Confessor’s wrist. At the same moment, the Mother Confessor cried, “You!” and her other hand was around Nicci’s throat before Nicci could move.

And now for an experiment in applied magical transference, Nicci thought dispassionately. How happy the Mother Confessor would be to have Nicci her willing slave—Nicci thought the first thing she would do was make Nicci give Richard back his Han, even though he didn’t want it.

Why was she the only one to understand that?

“Kahlan, no!” Richard cried, and Nicci’s pulse leapt.

But she bent her attention to the task at hand, pulling the outward manifestation of magic from the Mother Confessor’s flesh. She clutched at it, willing it to appear before her so they could get out of here, so that the Mother Confessor would be distracted, so that Richard would be happy—

The Mother Confessor’s veins hummed with magic. Like white fire, it burned through her, a mirror to Nicci’s own blood.

But—that was all.

“Nothing,” Nicci said wonderingly, frustrated, astonished, confused...relieved, because she was right, the Mother Confessor wasn’t perfect; devastated, for Richard, whose blind faith was her salvation.

Nothing. How?

 

 

Richard saw Kahlan, and it all came rushing back. The first time he’d seen her, being chased by a D’Haran quad; the night they’d kissed and she’d told him they could never be, and he hadn’t believed her; that alternate future, where he and Cara had learned of Kahlan’s sacrifices for Richard; a hundred nights spent sitting in front of the fire, joking about Zedd’s appetite or Cara’s state of deprivation after not killing anything for too long; thinking he would lose her, stuck in the Palace of the Prophets; the inexplicable, wonderful feeling of victory, knowing the Rift was sealed, Kahlan in his arms…

For all Richard had once believed he loved Anna, he knew Kahlan was his first real love. She was…Kahlan.

And she was standing there, in Rahl red and gold, Cara going immediately to her side—“Richard!” she said.

“Kahlan!” he cried, and almost embraced her, before he remembered two things: firstly, he was still supporting the mostly unconscious Zedd, and secondly, Kahlan was under the influence of some powerful magic.

Furthermore, Rahl was surely close. Richard knew his brother would have sensed the loss of the Sword of Truth. “Nicci, quick!” he said. “Rahl will be here any second! We have to get out of here!”

Nicci. Kahlan’s polar opposite, surely. Where Kahlan was goodness and light and order, Nicci was darkness and fear and anger and danger…and yet—

Nicci’s rage against the world, her wickedness, her poison—masked a heart of gold. She could’ve just left. She’d made the choice to help Zedd, even to find Kahlan.

Richard had known, when she’d done the Maternity Spell and told him her story, that she was really looking for someone to trust. But all the time, she didn’t trust herself. Her faith was poisoned and embittered, but there still.

She was a fascinating paradox of good and evil, self-interest and selflessness.

And he could no longer deny to himself what her failed Confession of him meant. Hadn’t Zedd told him that only love was strong enough to stop Confession? Because there was nothing more for it to do, perhaps.

Richard loved Nicci.

Richard loved Kahlan.

Was it possible to love two people at the same time?

And why was all this occurring to him now, when he had to get them all out of here before Rahl arrived?

As Nicci grabbed Kahlan’s wrist, Kahlan’s fingers closed around her throat. Richard was horrified—Nicci was a Confessor now, true, but she hadn’t been born one, and might not be immune—“Kahlan, no!” he cried. Kahlan couldn’t Confess her—Richard needed Nicci.

Kahlan and Cara both gave him shocked looks. Cara’s said, have you lost your mind?

Richard didn’t know what Kahlan’s said. He was afraid to.

And then Nicci said, in a voice completely free of lies or contrivance, “Nothing.”

Nothing—no powerful magic, keeping Kahlan in the thrall of Rahl? Richard didn’t understand.

Kahlan wouldn’t choose to cooperate with Rahl of her own free will—it went against everything she believed in!

Didn’t it?

Previous                                       Next