Chainfire Read Free

plaster.
    Seeing the plastered wall, the hearth, and the heavy plank table brought back spectral fragments of memories.
    Driven by his need to know where Kahlan was, Richard staggered to his feet, clutching at the lingering pain in the left side of his chest with one hand and the edge of the table with his other.
    At hearing him stand in the dimly lit room, Cara, leaning back in a chair not far away, shot to her feet. “Lord Rahl!”
    He saw his sword lying on the table. But he had thought—
    “Lord Rahl, you’re awake!” In the somber light Richard could see that Cara looked exuberant. He also saw that she was wearing her red leather.
    “A wolf howled and woke me.”
    Cara shook her head. “I’ve been sitting right there, awake, watching over you. No wolf howled. You must have dreamed it.” Her smile returned. “You look better!”
    He recalled not being able to breathe, not being able to get enough air. He took an experimental deep breath and found that it came easily. While the ghost of terrible pain still haunted him, the reality of it had nearly faded away.
    “Yes, I think I’m all right.”
    Short, disjointed memories flashed in fits before his mind’s eye. He remembered standing alone and still in the eerie early light as the dark tide of Imperial Order soldiers flooded through the trees. He remembered bits of their wild charge, their raised weapons. He remembered releasing himself into the fluid dance with death. He remembered, too, the hail of arrows and bolts from crossbows, and, finally, other men joining the battle.
    Richard lifted the front of his shirt out away from himself, looking down at it, not understanding why it was whole.
    “Your shirt was ruined,” Cara offered, noticing his puzzlement. “We washed and shaved you, then we put a clean shirt on you.”
    We. That one word rose up above all others in his mind. We. Cara and Kahlan. That had to be what Cara meant.
    “Where is she?”
    “Who?”
    “Kahlan,” he said as he took a stride away from the support of the table. “Where is she?”
    “Kahlan?” Cara’s features meandered into a provocative smile. “Who’s Kahlan?”
    Richard sighed with relief. Cara would not be needling him in such a way if Kahlan were hurt or in any kind of trouble—that much he knew for certain. An overwhelming sense of relief purged his dread and with it some of his weariness. Kahlan was safe.
    He couldn’t help being cheered, too, by Cara’s impish expression. He loved to see her with a lighthearted smile, in part because it was such a rare sight. Usually when a Mord-Sith smiled it was a menacing prelude to something wholly unpleasant. The same was true when they wore their red leather.
    “Kahlan,” Richard said, playing along, “you know, my wife. Where is she?”
    Cara’s nose wrinkled with seldom-seen feminine mirth. Such an extraordinary look was so uncommon on Cara that it not only surprised him, but spurred him into a grin.
    “A wife,” she drawled, turning coy. “Now, there’s a novel concept—the Lord Rahl taking a wife.”
    That he found himself to be the Lord Rahl, the leader of D’Hara, at times still seemed unreal to him. It was not the kind of thing a woods guide growing up in far-off Westland would ever have dreamed up in his wildest imaginings.
    “Yes, well, one of us had to be the first.” He wiped a hand across his face, still trying to clear the web of sleep from his mind. “Where is she?”
    Cara’s smile widened. “Kahlan.” She tilted her head toward him, arching one brow. “Your wife.”
    “Yes, Kahlan, my wife,” Richard said offhandedly. He had long ago learned that it was best not to give Cara the satisfaction of seeing her mischievous antics get to him. “You remember her—intelligent, greeneyes, tall, long hair, and of course the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
    The leather of Cara’s outfit creaked as she straightened her back and folded her arms. “You mean the most beautiful besides