Fic: Princess Rahl, The Heir to the Throne, Chapter 18

[hrhrionastar]

Title: Those Sinned Against (Ch. 18 of The Heir to the Throne)
Pairing: Darken/Kahlan, background Darken/Cara, Richard/Kahlan, Cara/Dahlia
Length: 804
Rating: T
Spoilers: Reckoning, mostly, but eventually there'll be a few references to things we learn later.
Summary: Reckoning AU: what if Darken and Kahlan's baby was a girl?

 

Those Sinned Against

“What was she thinking?” Hayley asked, sounding honestly bewildered. “Cindi, I mean.”

“She betrayed Lord Rahl,” Dahlia said sharply. “She deserved less than an honorable death.”

Dahlia vowed she would not make Cindi’s mistake. She could understand her predecessor’s hatred for Lord Rahl’s Confessor children—it was certainly ridiculous, their mere existence a challenge to the D’Haran way of life—but obviously, Cindi had lost her mind. (Or had she and Alina…? Could Dahlia honestly say she wouldn’t have done the same if it had been Cara who had died in the agony of Confession? At least, she thought self-righteously, she would have tortured the right child.)

Dahlia thought it likely that Cindi had simply let the hatred that formed such an integral part of the Mord’Sith’s lives run away with her. Any fool could see Cindi had been carried away—to train the Lady Nila as though she were one of the Mord’Sith recruits? If nothing else, it was entirely the wrong way to break a spoiled, pampered little princess like Lady Nila. Why would she believe that her parents were weak and greedy, ready to abandon her? The thought of Lord Rahl in such a role was ludicrous—if he ever ceased being infatuated with his perfect, storybook family, everyone would know.

(And what was Cindi going to do? Betray Lord Rahl in the hopes of gaining a Rahl child she could bend to her will? As if D’Hara would ever choose Lady Nila over Lord Nicholas—and as if Cindi could have held the throne, even had she gained it, as Regent for the princess. Treason, and impractical treason at that.)

The real problem was Lady Rahl, as Dahlia learned first-hand when she went to see how the princess was. (If Cindi had set back the Mord’Sith in the estimation of a Rahl, even a princess who would never inherit, Dahlia might just find a way to bring Cindi back to life after all, so that she might have the pleasure of killing her again. Perhaps the princess would care to watch?)

The Lady Nila was asleep when Dahlia entered, and she stood guard by the door, absolutely still. Now that she was First Mistress, Dahlia had no intention of going counter to Lord Rahl’s wishes in either thought or deed—he had set this child above all others, save his heir. Who was she to disagree?

The door opened—at once, Lady Rahl had a hand around Dahlia’s throat. Dahlia didn’t move, refusing to demean herself by struggling with Lord Rahl’s wife, and further well aware that Lady Rahl wore a Rada’Han. (It was the only reason the D’Haran army had yet to rebel—a Confessor queen, together with amnesty for the despised Resistance? Only Lord Rahl could have made them swallow the indignity.)

“What are you doing here?” Lady Rahl whispered. “Why can’t you leave her alone? Monsters!”

“I am not Mistress Cindi, my Lady,” Dahlia said politely. “I will not let harm come to Lady Nila.”

“I don’t believe you,” Lady Rahl said, her voice getting louder in her agitation. “You’re all the same—look what you’ve done to my daughter! Were you trying to turn her into one of you?”

The contempt and bitter loathing in Lady Rahl’s voice made Dahlia blink, innocently. So Cindi’s hatred had been returned. It occurred to Dahlia that Lady Rahl might have made a decent Mistress—then she scoffed at the idea. A Confessor? Surely not.

“First Mistress Dahlia is as outraged as you are, my dear Kahlan,” Lord Rahl drawled, from the doorway. “She knows the price of disobedience.”

The warning was clear, although Dahlia would rather have said that she knew the price of failure. It was Cindi who had let her emotions rule her, taking her beyond the line of what Lord Rahl would tolerate.

“No…” Lady Nila tossed in her bed, and then sat up with a sudden jerk, her eyes wide and dark in the reflected light from the hall.

Poor child, it must be startling to wake and find your room full of people…

Dahlia caught Lord Rahl’s unreadable look. She was one of the few who would at once know his meaning.

Ignoring Lady Rahl, Dahlia strode to the bedside, and knelt, her gloved hands clasping Lady Nila’s. “I swear to you,” she said solemnly. “That I will only seek to serve and protect you—and that my Sisterhood will never hurt you again. Will you accept my word?”

Lady Nila studied her, and Dahlia waited, shocked by the new maturity in the girl’s eyes. So perhaps Cindi did you a service after all, little princess, she thought wryly. Certainly Lady Nila would never break now—not even a true Mistress, like the forbidding Denna, could have undone that stubborn confidence.

“I will,” the princess said. Dahlia heard Lady Rahl moan, and Lord Rahl murmur soothingly behind her. “I want you to rescue Ruxsendra, though—she’s my friend.”

Dahlia was no stranger to the bonds between girls that the Mord’Sith training created, and her eyes narrowed, as a new thought occurred to her…

Mord’Sith like Cindi had no imagination, Dahlia thought when she had received, in impassive silence, Lord Rahl’s instructions and Lady Rahl’s venomous fury (already, Lady Nila was calling for Jeanna to tell her a story…).

Dahlia brought the girl, Ruxsendra, into her own private training room, and studied her. She reminded Dahlia so much of Cara that, had she not been Mord’Sith, she would have dissolved into tears.

The secret, that someone like Cindi would never have realized, was that the best Mord’Sith were more than hate and obedience and reflex—the best Mord’Sith were full of love. Love for Lord Rahl, love for life—sometimes, love for that one Mistress they could never quite beat, who took on a sort of heroic unattainability—

Dahlia knew that Cara had fought well, had taken the Seeker with her to the Underworld—yet, looking into those familiar green eyes, now wide with fear, she couldn’t help the irrational sorrow swelling through her.

But she could turn it to good use.

“Do you remember Nila?” she asked gently.

“Why didn’t she come back?” Ruxsendra asked, lip trembling. “She’s strong—she’ll stop you, you know.”

Idealistic thought—as though Lord Rahl would disband the Mord’Sith, even for his Confessor family. Cindi had been a fool to make him consider the choice, however…

“She is strong,” Dahlia said. She leaned closer. “And you can be just as strong—do you think you can do that? When you earn your place in the Sisterhood, think how proud she’ll be! She wants to see you again—but she can’t see you if you fail her—if you’re weak. Are you ready to be strong?”

Ruxsendra bit her lip—and nodded.

Dahlia smiled. That was the real secret of the best Mord’Sith—a reason to break, a reason to survive, a reason to be the best Mistress she could be—

Mord’Sith were full of love.

(And if Dahlia saw herself and Cara in Ruxsendra and Nila…that was surely no one’s concern but her own.)

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