Ludwig let his gaze roam across the books of prophecy lying open all throughout the room. Prophecy that he had not wanted Hannis Arc to see. But despite his efforts, the man had seen it.
Ludwig sighed.
“Is it going to be a problem?” Erika asked, seeing his worried look at the prophecy.
“The die has already been cast,” he said, looking into her steely blue eyes. “Events have already been set into motion. There is no calling them back, now. Hannis Arc has a demon by its tail. It is no less perilous a problem for the spirit king. They need each other. I need neither of them.
“Chaos has now been loosed on the world, but I will rein it in.”
Just then, he felt something giving off the slightest tingle at his waist. He reached inside his coat and ran a thumb under his belt until he found the hidden pocket.
Slipping his finger into the pocket, he scooped out his journey book. He flipped open the black leather cover and turned over the first page. He always erased the previous messages as a precaution.
There, he saw new writing.
“My, my, my. Now isn’t this interesting.”
“What is it?” Erika asked.
“It would seem…” he murmured to her as he read the message again to himself, “that things are suddenly looking up.”
CHAPTER
41
Richard heard someone screaming at him.
They were screaming at him to breathe.
When he tried, he realized that he couldn’t draw a breath. He tried again, pulling harder, but it wouldn’t come. His lungs burned and it felt like he had the weight of a mountain pressing down on top of his chest.
He felt a hard shock, like a jolt of lightning slamming into him.
The woman screamed again, louder. “Breathe!”
He sat bolt upright and gasped. His eyes popped open.
He sucked in another desperate breath, as if he had been sinking under dark, black waters and unable to breathe and now he had finally gotten his head back up above the water.
He had seen them there, waiting in the blackness, dark wings opening in anticipation of having him.
Nicci was kneeling on the ground to his left, Zedd to the right. They both had flinched back at how fast he’d sat up. They pressed their fingers back to his temples. It had been Nicci he’d heard screaming at him to breathe, and he now recognized that it had been Zedd’s gift crackling through him like lightning.
Nicci closed her eyes as she bowed her head and put trembling fingers of her other hand to her forehead.
“Dear spirits … thank you…” she whispered to herself.
Richard panted, still confused, still trying to get enough air, still trying to make sense of where he was and what was happening. It felt so good having air fill his burning lungs that he simply wanted to feel himself breathe. It was such a relief not to see the dark ones coming for him.
As his dazed, murky awareness cleared, he could begin to sense the air of desperation around him.
Irena leaned in with joyful surprise. In her exuberance she knocked Nicci’s and Zedd’s hands off him in order to grip his shoulders. “Richard!” She gave him a gleeful shake. “You’re back! You’re at last awake!”
Richard blinked as he looked around, finally starting to catch his breath. Then he saw her.
Kahlan, beaming with a big smile, crowded Irena aside as she leaned in to put her arms around him in a tight hug, almost squeezing all the air back out of his lungs. She finally leaned back only because she needed to gaze into his eyes.
Her green eyes, even though they brimmed with tears, had never looked more beautiful to him.
“Welcome back,” she whispered to him in relief.
She bent forward, then, and kissed him.
It took his breath, but this time in a good way.
In that instant, it seemed that all the wonderful moments of being with her flashed across his mind’s eyes, everything from the first time he had looked into her eyes in the Hartland woods, to the day they were married, to seeing her again, now.
The world was still spinning as all the sights and sounds rushed in around him, but Kahlan’s soft lips on his made it all come gracefully to a halt.
Everything at last settled and seemed right again.
As Kahlan finally backed away to let him catch his breath, he saw men of the First File at a respectful distance back beyond the immediate group, all with serious, concerned expressions. Their postures eased in relief.
Towering pines sheltered them under a late-afternoon, leaden sky that threatened drizzle. The light there in the woods, under those low clouds and with the trees all around, was muted and mellow. Richard spotted a squirrel running across a limb, and heard birds singing and chirping. Leaves of a leaning birch tree shimmered in a breath of breeze. He found the sight of the woods all around them, the life all around them, cozy and comforting. It was like being home. It felt safe.