"And what part did Nicci play in your little plot?"

"Nicci had much the same objections you have-which in a way only proves that I'm right about you two being such a good fit."

"So she didn't like you planning her life, either?"

Cara shrugged one shoulder. "No, that's not what I mean. She had the same objections for you-she spoke up on your behalf, not hers. She only cared about what you wanted. She seemed to know that you would take a dim view of such an idea."

"Well, you're right about one thing, she is smart."

"I was only trying to get her to think about it. I wasn't telling her to throw herself at you. I thought that maybe you two could complete each other, fill the void you both feel. I thought that maybe if I encouraged her to consider it, that nature could take its course, that's all."

Richard wanted to strangle her, but he kept his voice calm because Cara's actions, while wrong, were so touchingly human, so caring, that at the same time he wanted to hug her. Who would ever have thought that a Mord-Sith could ever care about love and companionship. He guessed that he had. But still-

"Cara, what you're trying to do is the same thing Shota was trying to do-decide for me what I should feel, how I should live."

"No, it's not the same."

Richard's brow drew down. "And how is it not the same?"

Cara pressed her lips together. He waited. She finally answered in a whisper.

"She doesn't really love you. I do. But not that way," she was quick to add.

Richard wasn't in the mood to argue, or to yell. He knew that Cara's intent was well-meaning, if misguided. More than anything, he could hardly believe what he had just heard her admit out loud. Were it not for everything else going on, he would have been overjoyed.

"Cara, I'm married to the woman I love."

She sadly shook her head. "Lord Rahl, I'm sorry, but Kahlan just doesn't exist."

"If she doesn't exist, then why was Shota able to give me clues that will help me prove the truth?"

Cara looked away again. "Because the truth is that there is no Kahlan. The things she told you will only help you discover that sad truth. Did you ever think of that?"

"Only in my nightmares," he said as he started for the mountain pass.

CHAPTER 44

Jillian turned and gazed up into the sky when she heard the raven croak. The great bird's wide-spread wings rocked as it rode the invisible currents in the perfectly clear blue sky. As she watched, it croaked again, a harsh, grating sound that echoed through the deep silence of chasms and carried out across the parched, rolling landscape baking in the afternoon sun.

Jillian snatched up the small, dead lizard lying on the crumbling wall beside her and then scrambled up the dusty lane. The raven wheeled majestically overhead as he watched her running up the rise. She knew that he had probably seen her ages ago, long before she knew he had been there.

Holding the lizard by its tail as she rose up on the balls of her feet, Jillian lifted her arm as high as she could toward the sky and wiggled the offering. She laughed when she saw the inky black bird look almost as if it stumbled in midair when it spotted the ringed lizard dangling from her fingers. The bird rolled into a steep dive with its wings pulled partly in to enable it to gather speed as it plummeted.

Jillian hopped up and sat on the dilapidated stone wall beside some of the exposed paving stones that had once been part of a road. Over eons, much of that road had been buried beneath layers of dirt. Atop those layers of wind — and rain-borne soil, wild grasses and scraggly trees now grew. Her grandfather had told her that this was part of a special place and very old.

Jillian had trouble imagining how old it could be. When she'd been younger and had asked Grandfather if it was older than him, he had laughed and said that while he admitted to being old, he was nowhere near that old and that the ground did not in a single lifetime so swiftly cover over the accomplishments of man. He said that such slow work required not only time, but neglect. There had been plenty of time, and with virtually no people left, neglect had worked its ways.

Grandfather had told her how this empty, ancient city had once been inhabited by their ancestors. Jillian loved to hear his stories about the mysterious people who had once lived in this place and had built the incredible city up on the headland beyond the stone spires.

Her grandfather was a teller, and, since she was always so eager to hear his tellings of the old lore, he said that if she was willing to put in the effort he would make her the teller who would one day take his place. Jillian was excited at the prospect of learning to be a teller and mastering all the things there was to learn, someone respected for their knowledge of the ancient times and their heritage, but at the same time she didn't like the implication that such an eventual advancement among her people would mark her grandfather's passing.

Lokey alighted next to her and folded in his glossy black wings, bringing her out of her consideration of weighty subjects, of ancient people and the cities they built, of wars and great deeds. The curious raven waddled closer.

Jillian set down the freshly dead lizard and, holding the tip of its tail, wiggled it temptingly.

Lokey cocked his head, watching. Instead of taking the offering, he blinked his black eyes. He waddled closer to her, leading with his right foot in the cautious sideways manner he always used when approaching carrion. Rather than flapping his wings and hopping back several times in the guarded practice he employed when coming upon what he hoped would be a meal but could potentially turn into a threat, he stepped boldly forward and snatched her buckskin sleeve in his heavy bill.

"Lokey, what are you doing?"

Lokey tugged insistently. The curious bird usually plucked at the beads down the sleeve or the leather thongs at the end, but now he pulled the sleeve itself.

"What?" she asked. "What do you want?"

He let go of her sleeve and cocked his head as he peered at her with one gleaming eye. Ravens were intelligent creatures, but she was never quite sure just how intelligent. Sometimes she thought that Lokey was smarter than some people she knew.

Lokey's throat feathers and ears lifted out aggressively.

He suddenly let out a piercing caw that sounded very much like angry frustration at not being able to talk so that he could tell her something. Kraaah. He fluffed out his feathers again and cawed again. Kraaah.

Jillian stroked his head and then his back, scratching gently but firmly under his raised black plumage-something he loved to have done-before smoothing down his ruffled feathers. Instead of clicking contentedly and blinking lazily, as he usually did when she gave him a such a scratch, he hopped back a step out of her reach and let out three piercing caws that made her ears hurt. Kraaah. Kraaah. Kraaah.

She covered her ears. "What's gotten into you today?"

Lokey hopped up and down, flapping his wings. Kraaah. He ran across the top of the old cobble road, flapping and croaking. At the other side he fluttered up into the air, alighted, and then lifted off the ground again. Kraaah.

Jillian stood. "You want me to come with you?"

Lokey cawed noisily as if to confirm that she had at long last guessed correctly. Jillian laughed. She was sure that the crazy bird could understand every word she said and sometimes read her thoughts besides. She loved having him around. Sometimes when she talked to him he would quietly stand nearby and listen.

Her grandfather had told her not to let Lokey sleep in her room or he would know her dreams. Jillian mostly had wonderful dreams, so she didn't mind if Lokey knew them. She suspected that maybe her friend did know her dreams and that was why she often awoke to find him perched on the nearby windowsill, sleeping contentedly.