Faith of the Fallen   ::   Goodkind Terry

"Would you tell this obstinate husband of yours to let me kill someone before I go crazy? I can't just stand around and allow people to get away with threatening the two of you! I am Mord-Sith!"

Cara took her job of protecting Richard-the Lord Rahl of D'Hara-and Kahlan very seriously. Where Richard's life was concerned, Cara was perfectly willing to kill first and decide later if it had been necessary.

That was one of the things for which Richard had no tolerance.

Kahlan's only answer was a smile.

"Mother Confessor, you can't allow Lord Rahl to bow to the will of foolish men like those. Tell him."

Kahlan could probably count on the fingers of one hand the people who, in her whole life, had ever addressed her by the name «Kahlan» without at minimum the appellation «Confessor» before it. She had heard her ultimate title-Mother Confessor-spoken countless times, in tones ranging from awed reverence to shuddering fear. Many people, as they knelt before her, were incapable of even whispering through trembling lips the two words of her title. Others, when alone, whispered them with lethal intent.

Kahlan had been named Mother Confessor while still in her early twenties-the youngest Confessor ever named to that powerful position. But that was several years past. Now, she was the only living Confessor left.

Kahlan had always endured the title, the bowing and kneeling, the reverence, the awe, the fear, and the murderous intentions, because she had no choice. But more than that, she was the Mother Confessor-by succession and selection, by right, by oath, and by duty.

Cara always addressed Kahlan as "Mother Confessor." But from Cara's lips the words were subtly different than from any others. It was almost a challenge, a defiance by scrupulous compliance, but with a hint of an affectionate smirk. Coming from Cara, Kahlan didn't hear "Mother Confessor" so much as she heard "Sister." Cara was from the distant land of D'Hara. No one, anywhere, outranked Cara, as far as Cara was concerned, except the Lord Rahl. The most she would allow was that Kahlan could be her equal in duty to Richard. Being considered an equal by Cara, though, was high praise indeed.

When Cara addressed Richard as Lord Rahl, however, she was not saying "Brother." She was saying precisely what she meant: Lord Rahl.

To the men with the angry voices, the Lord Rahl was as foreign a concept as was the distant land of D'Hara. Kahlan was from the Midlands that separated D'Hara from Westland. The people here in Westland knew nothing of the Midlands or the Mother Confessor. For decades, the three parts of the New World had been separated by impassable boundaries, leaving what was beyond those boundaries shrouded in mystery.