Wizards First Rule   ::   Goodkind Terry

"Well, Kahlan, my friend, can you tell me how it is that we are alive and those four men are not?"

She looked at him, in surprise. "Do you mean that?"

"Mean what?" She hesitated. " `Friend. »

Richard shrugged. "Sure. You just said I stood with you. That's the kind of thing a friend does, isn't it?" He gave her a smile.

Kahlan turned away. "I don't know." She fingered the sleeve of her dress as she looked down. "I have never had a friend before. Except maybe my sister…"

He felt the pain in her voice. "Well, you have one now," he said in his most cheerful tone. "After all, we just went through something pretty frightening together. We helped each other, and we survived.".

She simply nodded. Richard looked out over the Ven, the forests where he was so at home. Sunlight made the green of the trees vibrant, lush. His eyes were drawn to the left, to spots of brown, the dead and dying trees that stood out among their healthy neighbors. Until that morning, when he found the vine and it bit him, he had had no idea that the vine was up by the boundary, spreading through the woods. He rarely went up into the Ven, that close to the boundary. Other people wouldn't go within miles of it. Others went closer, if they traveled on Hawkers Trail, or to hunt, but none went too close. The boundary was death. It was said that to go into the boundary was not only to die but to forfeit your soul. The boundary wardens made sure people stayed away.

He gave her a sideways glance. "So what about the other part? The part about us being alive. How did that happen?"

Kahlan didn't meet his gaze. "I think the good spirits protected us."

Richard didn't believe a word of it. But as much as he wanted to know the answers, it was against his nature to force someone to tell something she didn't want to. His father had raised him to respect another person's right to keep his own secrets. In her own time she would tell him her secrets, if she wanted to, but he would not try to force her.

Everyone had secrets; he certainly had his own. In fact, with his father's murder and. with today's events he felt those secrets stirring unpleasantly in the back of his mind.

"Kahlan," he said, trying to make his voice sound reassuring, "being a friend means you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, and I'll still be your friend."

She didn't look at him, but nodded her agreement.

Richard got to his feet. His head hurt, his hand hurt, and now he realized his chest hurt where the man had hit him. To top it off he remembered he was hungry.