Naked Empire   ::   Goodkind Terry

She snatched his outstretched wristcapped with his fist.

He appeared no more than a statue before her.

The night, sprinkled with a vault of stars, seemed cold and distant.

Beneath her grip of him, Kahlan could feel Nicholas tense, as if to draw back his arm. But it was too late.

He had no chance. He was hers.

Time was hers.

The men all around, who had begun rushing in, were far too distant to matter. They could never reach her in time to save Nicholas. Not even the man who had brought her from the bridge, who now stood not more than a few paces away, was close enough to matter.

Time was hers.

Nicholas was hers.

She gave no thought to what those men would do to her. Right then, it didn't matter. Right then, nothing but her ability to do what needed doing mattered. This man had to be eliminated.

This was the enemy.

This was the man who had invaded a land to torture, rape, and murder innocent people in the name of the Imperial Order. This was a man who had been mutated by magic into a monster designed to destroy them. This man was a tool of conquest, a being of evil.

This was the man who held Richard's life in the balance.

The power within raged to be released.

All her emotions evaporated before the heat of that power. She no longer felt fear, hate, anger, horror. The emotions behind her reasons were now gone. In the all-consuming race of time suspended before the violent rush of her power, she felt only a resolute determination. Her power had become an instrument of pure reason.

All her barriers fell before it.

In an infinitesimal spark of time as she watched the beady eyes staring at her, her power became all.

As she had done countless times before, Kahlan released her restraint on it, and released herself into the flux of violence focused to a singular purpose.

Where she should have felt the exquisite release of merciless force, she felt instead a terrifying emptiness. Where there should have been the fierce twisting of her power through this man's mind, there was… nothing.

Kahlan's eyes went wide as she gasped.

As she felt hot pain knife through her.

As she felt the thrust of something foreign and terrible beyond anything she could have imagined.

Hot agony lanced through her consciousness all the way into her very soul.

It felt as if her insides were being ripped apart.

She tried to scream but couldn't.

The night went blacker still.

Kahlan heard laughter echoing through her soul.