“I couldn’t agree more,” Richard muttered.
“You can’t stop him if you are off chasing phantoms,” Shota said.
Richard halted his pacing and stared at her. “Shota, you can’t just tell me all this without at least telling me something that will help.”
“You are the one who came to me asking questions. I did not go looking for you. Besides, I have helped you. I told you what I know. Maybe by using the information you now have, you can live another day.”
Richard had heard enough. The blood beast had no nature, but not to have a nature, in a way, was its nature, so it had one as far as he was concerned. It may be true, as Shota had said, that there was no accurate way to predict what it would do next, but lack of understanding or knowledge did not constitute a lack of a nature. It was, however, a point that was not worth arguing. He thought that it might be an important distinction sooner or later, but right then it didn’t matter much. Everything Shota had said largely confirmed what Nicci had already reported. While she had added facets and details that Nicci hadn’t known about, Shota hadn’t provided any solutions.
In fact, it seemed to him that she had gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure she had painted a hopeless picture.
Richard almost rested his hand on his sword. He stopped and ran his fingers through his hair, instead. He was at his wits’ end. He turned and stared off at the trees spread across the valley, their leaves shimmering in the late-day sun.
“So, there is nothing I can do to protect myself from the blood beast.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Richard spun back around. “What? You mean there is a way?”
Without emotion, Shota studied his eyes. “I believe that there is one way to keep you alive.”
“What way?”
She clasped her hands, twining her fingers together. She looked down at the ground a moment, as if considering, and then met his gaze with steady resolution.
“You could stay here.”
He saw Samuel come to his feet. Richard returned his attention to Shota’s waiting gaze. “What do you mean, I could stay here?”
She shrugged, as if it were a trivial offer. “Stay here and I will protect you.”
Cara straightened, her arms coming unfolded. “You can do that?”
“I believe I can.”
“Then come with us,” Cara suggested. “That would solve the problem.”
Richard already didn’t like Cara’s idea.
“I can’t,” Shota said. “I can only protect him if he stays here, in this valley, in my home.”
“I can’t stay,” Richard said, trying to make it sound casual.
Shota reached out and gently grasped his arm, not allowing him to so easily dismiss the issue. “You can, Richard. Would it be so bad, staying with me?”
“I didn’t mean it that way….”
“Then stay here with me.”
“For how long?”
Her fingers tightened ever so slightly, as if she feared to say it, feared his reaction, but at the same time was steadfast in her course.
“Forever.”
Richard swallowed. He felt like he’d walked out onto thin ice without realizing it, and now he found that it was a long, long way back to safety. He knew that if he said the wrong thing he would be in over his head. His flesh tingled as he realized how dangerous the late day air had suddenly become.
At that moment, he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t rather face the beast than Shota’s scrutiny.
Richard spread his arms, as if to ask her understanding. “Shota, how can I stay here? You know that there are people counting on me—people who need me. You said so yourself.”
“You are not the slave to others, chained to them by their need. It’s your life, Richard. Stay, and have a life.”
Cara, looking more than suspicious, tapped a thumb to her own chest. “And what about me?”
Without looking over at Cara, without taking her gaze from Richard’s, Shota said, “One woman in this place is enough.”
Cara glanced between Richard and Shota as they stared into each other’s eyes, but she then did what Richard had earlier advised: she turned cautious and said nothing.
“Stay,” Shota whispered intimately.
Richard could see a terrible kind of vulnerability laid bare in Shota’s eyes, in her hungering expression—an open look he had never seen on her before. From the corner of his eye, he could also see Samuel glaring at him.
Richard tipped his head, indicating her companion. “And what about him?”
She did not shy from the question—in fact she seemed to have expected it.
“One Seeker in this place is enough.”
“Shota—”
“Stay, Richard?” she pressed, cutting him off before he could turn her down, before he crossed a line he hadn’t known was there until right then.
It was both an offer and an ultimatum.
“But what about the blood beast? You said yourself that you can’t know its nature. How can you know that we would be safe here if I stayed? A lot of men near me were killed when the beast attacked the first time.”
Shota lifted her chin. “I know myself, know my abilities, my limits. I believe that I can keep you safe, here, in this valley. I can’t be completely certain, but I sincerely believe it to be true. I do know that if you leave here you will have no protection. This is your only chance.”
He knew that the last part had more than one meaning.
“Stay, Richard…. Please? Stay here with me?”
“Forever.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Yes, forever. Please? Stay? I will take care of you, forever. I will make sure you never regret it, or ever miss the rest of the world. Please?”
This was not Shota, the witch woman. This was simply the woman, Shota, desperately laying herself open to him in a way she never had, offering her unprotected heart, taking a chance. The naked loneliness he saw there was terrifying. He knew, because he felt the same anguish of being so alone that it hurt.
Richard swallowed and took the step out onto the ice.
“Shota, that’s probably the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me. To know that you respect me enough to ask such a thing means more to me than you will ever understand. I have more respect for you than you know—that’s why when I needed answers I thought of no one but you.
“I sincerely appreciate all you are offering…but I’m afraid I can’t accept. I have to go.”
The look that came to her face made Richard go as cold as if he’d been plunged into icy water.
Without another word, Shota turned and started away.
Chapter 42
Richard caught Shota’s arm, stopping her before she could leave. He couldn’t allow it to end in this way—for more than one reason.
“Shota, I’m sorry…. But you said it yourself; it’s my life to live. If you consider me—even a little—to be a friend, someone you really do care about, then you would want me to live my life as I think I must, not as you might wish I could.”
Her chest heaved. “Fine. You have made your choice, Richard. Leave. Go and live what is left of your life.”
“I came to you because I need your help.”
She turned around fully toward him and cast him as forbidding a look as he had ever seen on anyone. It was the unmistakable mask of a witch woman. He could almost see the air around her sizzling.
“I have given you help—gained through an effort on my part that I seriously doubt you can begin to imagine. Use that help as you wish. Now, leave my home.”
As much as he wanted right then to do as she asked, as much as he wanted not to press her, he had come for a reason and she had not yet addressed it. He wasn’t leaving until she did.
“I need your help to find Kahlan.”
Her look turned even colder. “If you are wise, you will use the knowledge I have given you to stay alive as long as you can to help to defeat Jagang, or to g
o chasing after phantoms—I don’t care which anymore. Just go, before you find out why wizards fear to come into my home.”
“You said that your ability helps you see events in the flow of time. What does your ability see about me in the future?”
Shota was silent for a moment before she finally glanced away from his steady gaze. “For some reason, the river of time has become obscured to me. It happens.” Her gaze returned, more determined than ever. “You see? I can be of no further help. Now, go.”
He was determined not to allow her to dodge the issue. “You know that I came here for information, for something that could help me find out the truth about what’s going on. This is important. It’s important to more people than just you or me. Don’t close yourself off from me like this Shota, please. I need your help.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Since when have you ever followed anything I’ve ever told you?”
“Look, I admit that in the past I haven’t always agreed with everything you’ve had to say, but I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you were an astute woman. While some of the things you’ve told me in the past were true, if I would have done things strictly your way without using my own judgment as the situation developed I would have failed and we would all be either under the rule of Darken Rahl or in the merciless embrace of the Keeper of the underworld.”
“So you say.”
Richard lost his indulgent tone as he leaned toward her. “You do remember the time you came to see me at the Mud People’s village, don’t you? The time you begged me to close the veil so that the Keeper wouldn’t have us all? You do remember telling me how much the Keeper wanted those with the gift, wanted you, a witch woman, to suffer unimaginably for all eternity?”
He jabbed her with a finger, punctuating his points. “You did not suffer all the frightful things necessary to stop what was happening—I did. You did not have to fight the Keeper’s terrors to close the veil—I did. You did not save your own hide from the Keeper—I did.”
She was watching him from under her lowered brow. “I remember.”
“I succeeded. I saved you from that fate.”
“You saved yourself from that fate. That it saved me as well was not your purpose, merely a side consequence.”
He let out a breath, trying to be patient. “Shota, I know that you must know something about this—something about what’s happened to Kahlan.”
“I told you, I don’t remember any woman named Kahlan.”
“Yes, and the reason is that something is terribly wrong and I realize that because of that you don’t recall her, but you must know something that will help me in my search for the truth—some bit of information that will help me find out the truth about what’s really going on.”
“And you expect that you can just walk uninvited into my home, put my life at risk, do your little dance, and get whatever part of my life, my ability, that you want for yourself.”
Richard stared at her. She had not denied that she knew something that might help him. He realized that he had indeed been right about her.
“Shota, stop posturing and stop acting like I’m unfairly making demands of you. I’ve never lied to you and you know it. I’m telling you that this is important to you, too, whether or not you yet realize it. For all I know, it could yet be something the Keeper has initiated in order to get us all. I need whatever information you can give me to prevent the success of whatever it is that’s going wrong. I’m not playing games. I will have what you know!”
“And you think that such a demand entitles you to it?” Her eyes narrowed. “You think that just because I have something, your perceived need means that I must surrender whatever I have? That you are entitled to any part of my life you feel you need? You think that my life is not mine, but I am merely meant to serve you? You think my life means nothing but to be at your disposal when you deign to have use of me? You think you can come in here and make demands, but when I dare ask for something, you get indignant?”
“I wasn’t indignant,” he said, trying to restrain his tone. “I appreciated the sincerity of your offer. I understand very well the empty feeling of being alone. But if you’re the woman I believe you are, you wouldn’t want me even though my heart wasn’t in it. You deserve to have someone who can love you. I’m sorry, Shota, but I can’t lie and tell you that I can be that one for you or I would only in the end be hurting you worse. I can’t lie to you; I’m already in love with someone.
“And even if you already realized that, would you really want someone who was so casually unfaithful as to just take up such an offer on the spot? I think what you really want is your equal, a true partner in your life, someone with whom to share the wonders of life. I don’t think you really want the empty reward of a lapdog. I think you already know that a lapdog can bring you no real joy.
“If you care about me, if you made such an offer because you really care, if you were sincere, then help me.”
She didn’t look like she intended to answer, so he pressed on. “Shota, I need to know any information you can give me. It’s important. As important as it was to you when you came to ask me to seal the breach in the veil. I don’t know enough to solve this problem. If I fail, I fear we all will lose. I don’t have time for games. I need the information you have.”
“How dare you make such an arrogant demand of me. I’ve already told you, already given you my answer. It’s my ability, my life. You have no right to it.”
Richard pressed his thumb and middle finger to opposite temples as he took a calming breath. He grudgingly realized that maybe she had a point.
He turned his back to her and walked off a few paces as he considered what he might do. One thing he knew for certain, he wasn’t leaving without every bit of help available.
“You’re saying, then, that you know something that would help me in my search for the truth.”
“I know a lot of things about a lot of different areas of the truth.”
“But you know something that I need in order to find the truth about what brought me here to see you.”
“Yes.”
He knew it. With his back still to her, he said, “Name your price.”
“You would not be willing to pay the price.”
He considered the price he expected her to revisit.
Richard turned to her. She was watching him in that way that made him feel transparent. He was not leaving without the information and that was all there was to it. This was Kahlan’s life.
Whatever he had to do to save her life, including giving up his, he would do.
“Name your price.”
“The Sword of Truth.”
The world seemed to stop. “What?”
“You asked the price for what I can tell you. The price is the Sword of Truth.”
Richard stood paralyzed. “You can’t be serious.”
The corners of her lips curled ever so slightly. “Oh, but I am.”
Off through the trees, Richard saw Samuel stand up, suddenly very attentive.
“What do you want with the sword?”
“You asked the price, I named it. What I want with the payment after it has been made is not your concern.”
Richard felt sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades.
“Shota…”
He couldn’t seem to make himself move, or speak. This was not at all what he had expected.
Shota turned her back and started for the road. “Good-bye, Richard. It’s been nice knowing you. Don’t come back.”
“Wait!”
Shota paused to look back over her shoulder, waves of her auburn hair glistening in a streamer of golden sunlight. “Yes or no, Richard. I have given you enough of myself for nothing in return. I will give you no more. If you want this, you will pay for it. I will not offer you the chance again.”
She watched him a moment and then started to turn away again. Richard gritted his teeth.
“All right.”
She paused. “You ag
ree, then?”
“Yes.”
She turned fully around to face him, waiting.
Richard immediately reached up to pull the baldric off over his head. Cara jumped in front of him and seized his wrist in both her hands.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she growled. Her red leather glowed in the low sunlight, as if to match the fire in her eyes.
“Shota knows something about this whole mess,” he told her. “I need to know what she can tell me. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t have any choice.”
Cara let go of his wrist with one hand to press her fingers to her forehead as she tried to gather her senses, tried to calm her sudden rapid breathing.
“Lord Rahl, you can’t do this. You can’t. You’re not thinking clearly. You’re swept up in the passion of the moment, the passion of wanting something you think she has. You’ve got it in your head that you have to have it no matter what. You don’t even know what she’s offering. As angry as she is at you, it’s most likely that she has nothing of any real value.”
“I have to know something that will help me find the truth.”
“And there is no assurance that this will. Lord Rahl, listen to me. You’re not thinking clearly. I’m telling you, the price is too high.”
“There is no price too high for Kahlan’s life—especially if the price is merely an object.”
“This isn’t her life you would be buying. It’s just a witch woman’s word that she can tell you something useful—a witch woman who wants to hurt you for rejecting her. You said yourself that nothing she’s ever told you before ever turned out to be the way she said. This will be no different. You will lose your sword and it will be for nothing of value.”
“Cara, I have to do this.”
“Lord Rahl, this is crazy.”
“And what if it’s me that’s crazy?”