The sorceress gritted her teeth.
Outside, lightning flickered and thunder rumbled through the mountains.
Inside, the room crackled with threads of lightning that lit the stony faces of the Mord-Sith. The lamps dimmed, not because their flames went down, but because the air itself grew thick with what Richard recognized as Subtractive Magic, the magic of the underworld itself.
The realm where Kahlan had gone.
Ropes of black lightning arced and crackled around the bed. Blinding threads of lightning threaded themselves around it, spiraling and twisting, jumping from one place to another. The sound it all made—especially when the white and black lightning touched—was at times deafening.
Several times Richard saw Kahlan draw a breath under Nicci’s hands, but he knew that it wasn’t Kahlan breathing, it was Nicci trying to pull life back into her. She was doing everything she knew to try to bring Kahlan back.
Finally the sound and fury died away.
Nicci stood and stared down at Kahlan for a time. The blood was gone, wiped out of existence by the Subtractive Magic while the Additive had knitted tissues back together and made her still heart whole again.
Nicci took a deep breath. She looked exhausted. She looked defeated.
“I’m sorry, Richard,” she whispered, unable to look up at him. “I repaired everything that was damaged. She is again as she was before. It is not enough.”
Richard stared at Kahlan’s still, lifeless body. “Thank you, Nicci. You cannot imagine how much I appreciate what you’ve done for us.”
“Richard, I’ve done nothing of any real use. Her life is gone. Her spirit has already crossed over through the veil. Her soul is already on that journey along the lines of the Grace. She is gone beyond, now.”
“I know that, Nicci,” Richard said, holding himself together for what was to come.
“Now, I need you to do one more thing for me.”
CHAPTER
85
Nicci frowned suspiciously. “What one other thing do you need me to do?”
Without answering, Richard walked to the door, to the Mord-Sith standing silent guard. He touched the cheek of each one of them in turn.
“Thank you for reminding me why I fight for life.”
A little puzzled, they nodded.
“Thank you for giving us ours back, Lord Rahl,” Cassia said.
He smiled, as best he could. It was forced. “Now, I need you all to wait outside, please.”
The three shared looks with one another, uncertain what he had in mind.
“Lord Rahl,” Cassia said, “we…”
“I know,” he said. “Now, please wait outside.”
They nodded tearfully and then, reluctantly, quietly left, closing the door behind themselves.
Richard went back to the side of the bed. His heart pounded so hard that he rocked slightly with each beat as he stared down at Kahlan.
“We have to hurry.”
Nicci’s head came up. “What?”
“Every moment counts. I need you to do one last thing for me. We have to hurry.”
Nicci stared suspiciously up into his eyes. “What do you want me to do, Richard?”
He swallowed. “I need you to stop my heart.”
She did not look surprised. “I can’t do that, Richard.”
“You can, and you must. You healed her body. Now, I have to go beyond the veil and retrieve her spirit before it travels too far along the lines of the Grace and she is lost forever to the underworld.”
“Richard, that’s … Richard I understand how you feel, I swear I do, but that’s just not—”
“I have the touch of death inside me.”
“And so you want to hurry it along?”
Richard’s gaze turned from Kahlan back to Nicci’s haunted blue eyes. “When Hannis Arc captured all of you, he kept you trapped in chambers behind a veil to the underworld. I stepped through that veil and into the underworld to come and get you out. Remember?”
“We weren’t dead, Richard.”
“In the third kingdom, both worlds existed together at the same time in the same place. Because I have death inside me, I am part of that third kingdom. I’m not only alive, I also carry death inside.
“I passed through the world of the dead to get you out of that prison. I was there briefly, in the underworld, and I made it through. I know a great deal about the underworld.”
“Richard, this is different. You can’t go to the world of the dead and retrieve a soul that has crossed over. You can’t do such a thing.”
“Ordinarily, no, but Kahlan has that same touch of death in her that I do. That means that in this world, the call of death we have in us has been slowly stealing life away from us. But Kahlan and I are of that third kingdom, with both death and life in us, together, at the same time.