Cassia nodded in thought. She looked down as she rolled her Agiel in her fingers for a time, carefully considering her next words. Richard knew the agonizing pain caused by holding that weapon. Mord-Sith were taught to endure and ignore pain. In the madness these women had been cast into, pain was a refuge.
“The pain of the Agiel helps you to think,” he said. “It’s familiar, ever-present, comforting.”
She looked up in wonder. “I guess Denna really did teach you many things.”
“She taught me that people who had been ripped from everything good they knew in life, and were made to suffer for no reason but to turn them into monsters who could be used to serve the cause of evil, could still find their way back.”
“Not all of them,” she said with quiet remorse.
“No, not all of them. Some have been severed from their souls, and can never come back to humanity. But some still can.”
Cassia let her Agiel drop to dangle on the fine gold chain on her right wrist, as if suddenly not wanting to be reminded of the pain.
“We served under Darken Rahl.” She gestured back at the other two. “The three of us. He was everything you say. I would venture to say that we know that better than you ever could.”
Richard nodded. “I understand. I know some of what was done to you by that man, but I’m sure I could never know it all.”
The truth of his words ghosted across her face.
“We finally found a way to leave him,” Cassia said. “Bishop Arc offered us refuge by using his powers to take up our bond. We thought it would be better.
“We found life with Hannis Arc to be little different, except that his schemes for evil were even more grandiose than Darken Rahl’s had been. Once bonded to him, we only then learned that one of our own, Alice, had tricked us—betrayed her sisters of the Agiel.” A dark look settled into her features. “She had delivered us to him in exchange for favors for herself.
“Then, just days ago, Lord Dreier arrived and enslaved us in service to him by using his occult powers to link our bond to him instead, as if we were property he could walk in and seize. In many ways, personal ways, he has proven to be more than a match for the savagery of Darken Rahl or Bishop Arc.
“Those two used torture as a means to an end. Lord Dreier, though, gets pleasure from the things he does to people. Sick pleasure.
“There were four of us he put into bondage to him when he arrived here. Like Darken Rahl, he took us to his bed as a form of domination, to show us our place as his property, to let us know that he can use us as he wishes, however he wishes.
“One night, he took Janel to his bed. He was fascinated—captivated—by her beauty. In the morning, he decided that because she was Mord-Sith and he found her so achingly beautiful, she would be the perfect one to use in his effort to obtain prophecy from the other side of the veil.”
“He tortured her?” Richard asked. “One of his own Mord-Sith?”
Cassia nodded. “He and Erika commanded the three of us to watch it being done, to show us, he said, the tremendous value and importance of the work he does.
“There was no value in what he did to Janel. There was no point to it other than his desire to watch her naked body break. He got no prophecy in exchange for her life. He shrugged it off as a ‘worthy attempt.’”
When she fell silent, Richard said, “Believe me, Cassia, I share your revulsion at all three of the men who enslaved you. That’s why I fight against them and those who help them.”
She nodded, looking down, rolling the red leather weapon in her fingers again as she considered. She spoke as she watched her Agiel turn first one way and then the other.
“Our lives have been in service to brutes, each worse than the last. We have never had any say in it. It was always framed as a choice but it was never really any choice at all. We have been the chattel of evil men, property, weapons they used for their ends, weapons they used to intimidate and harm others. Some Mord-Sith came to embrace that role. Some did not.”
The other two silently watched Cassia speaking for them. Richard didn’t say anything, giving her the space to find her own words.
“What we have come to ask,” she finally said in a quiet voice, “is if you will take us back, if we can serve as your Mord-Sith. If you will be our Lord Rahl.”
Richard shared a look with Kahlan.
Cassia still hadn’t looked up into his eyes.
Richard spoke softly. “I can’t do that to you, Cassia.”
Finally she looked up, a tear rolling down her cheek. “May I know why not?”
Richard nodded—as best he could in the iron collar. “Cassia, I’m dying. We came here because we thought there was a containment field here where Nicci could heal us. But there isn’t. With this sickness inside me and Kahlan, our abilities are cut off from us. If I were to take you up on your offer, I would only put your lives in mortal danger because I can’t power the bond, and without that bond, your Agiel wouldn’t work.