Into Darkness

39

The smug smile vanished. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really?” Kahlan cocked her head. “If you really wanted these children dead, they would already be dead. You’ve just said you intend to kill me. So if your intent really is to kill these children, and you admit that you also intend to kill me, you would do to me right now what you just did to Nea. Then my unborn children and I would all be dead. Isn’t that what you claim to want?”

Shota didn’t answer.

“But you can’t do that,” Kahlan went on, “because you actually have no intention of killing my children, and if you killed me now you would be killing those two children—the children you so desperately want to be born alive.”

Shota acted perplexed, as if such a notion was utterly outlandish. “Where in the world would you come up with such a fanciful idea? After I have for so long promised you that I would not allow the children you and Richard create to live, why in the world would you now come up with this crazy notion I would not carry out my promises and kill those two little monsters?”

“Because you intend to raise them.”

Shota stood stock-still as she stared into Kahlan’s eyes for a long, dragging moment.

“I can see that Lord Rahl does not wed stupid women.”

“And certainly not one stupid enough to let you get away with it.”

The menace returned to Shota’s face. “Oh, but you are wrong, there. I have already gotten away with it, we simply need to play out the final acts and it will be done. At least as far as your part in this is concerned.”

“You seriously think I intend to let you raise these two children?”

“You no longer have any say in it.” Shota gestured dismissively. “I will raise them in a way that you never could.”

“You mean raise them as your two little underlings to follow in your footsteps, worship you as their mother, and do your bidding?”

Shota glared. “I have seen into the flow of time. I told you that I saw that you and Richard would conceive a monster. It is possible, although it is a remote possibility, that it is as you have said, that the child I saw in the flow of time was the one you previously lost. But having seen into that complex flow, I don’t for a second believe that.

“One of the children you now carry is the monster I saw in that prophecy.”

“Richard ended prophecy.”

“That doesn’t mean that prophecy wasn’t real, or true, or that when it was here in our world I wasn’t able to use it. You didn’t see what I saw in that flow of time, and you can’t begin to imagine it. Before Richard ended my ability to continue to use that flow, I saw this, saw what you two would create.”

“Our children will be who we raise them to be. I told you, I don’t believe in destiny. No matter what you saw, that doesn’t mean one of these children will turn out the way you think.”

Shota shook her head as she let out a weary breath. “You just can’t grasp the entirety of this, can you? You see only your little slice of it, your naive wishes, hopes, and dreams. Monster or not, they are both gifted with power from each of you.

“You and Richard are not the ones to raise such a powerful pair—a girl with Confessor power combined with the power of her war-wizard father, and a boy war wizard with your Confessor power. Neither of you can begin to comprehend the enormity of what you have created.

“You say that these children are needed to protect our world from the Glee by maintaining the web of magic they provide, and you are right. The power these two hold will be a web of magic so intense that it will drive the Glee from our world for all time. It will protect our world and protect the magic of it.

“But you don’t see the bigger picture beyond that which our world needs to free us from the immediate threat of the Glee. You and Richard are too weak, too softhearted, too indulgent of what people under your rule wish to do with their lives. Those ebbing and flowing wishes of the ignorant masses would eventually lead our world over the brink and into ruin that even the Glee could not accomplish.

“You two fought a long and terrible war against the Imperial Order. Do you think their destructive doctrine came from another world? No, it came from the people in our world, people who left to their own ignorant wishes will one day again fall under the seductive spell of such beliefs. It has always been that way, and it will always be that way, unless there is rule strong enough to exert control for the good of our world.

“These two children you carry, together, with the gifts they will be born with, will have the ability to rule the world with the kind of power and authority that will prevent that kind of thing from ever happening again.

“So you see, in a way, I, too, do not believe in destiny. I am the one who will prevent that terrible future from ever having the chance to fester and grow. What I do now saves countless lives in the future.

“With these two under my protection, care, guidance, instruction, and preparation, they will be the two powerful instruments to both expel the Glee and control our world so that it can never be allowed to fall into the foolishness of ignorant masses too stupid to know what is in their own best interest. I will control those masses. With those two children, I will protect the best interest of the world. It will all be done for the greater good.

“You and Richard do not have the strength to raise rulers like that. I do.

“I will be the mother children such as these really need. The boy will see me as a vision of Richard’s mother, and the girl will see me as a vision of yours. They will both see me as their mother, think of me as their mother, and have total trust in me as their teacher.

“They will both depend on me for everything. They will learn from me everything. They will come to believe from me everything. I will forge them both into the powerful force the world needs, into the powerful rulers the world needs in order for it to continue without the mindless, destructive beliefs of fools being allowed to flourish. In the past when people were allowed to force unworkable ideas on nations, it cast the world into wars in which countless masses died. I will not allow that to happen again.

“These two will rule with iron fists and their power.

“I will rule them both with mine.”

Kahlan blinked in stunned surprise. She had known that Shota wanted both children in order to raise them and use their gifts for her own ends, but she hadn’t realized the full extent of her ideas.

Shota intended to turn the twins into weapons she would shape and wield. It was she who would be pulling the strings of her two puppets in order to rule the world. It was now crystal clear that Shota had put a great deal of thought, to say nothing of effort, into her mad scheme. She was convinced of the need of doing this. She believed in what she was saying and that she was doing it for the greater good. She thought that she was ultimately doing the right thing.

Richard had always said that the most dangerous person was the one who truly believed that their cause was right. Shota believed that what she was doing was inherently right. It was the greater good as she saw it.

Kahlan knew that she had to stop the woman now, before she used her witch woman’s power to put her into a numb sleep until the babies were born. By then it would be too late.

Because it would still be a while before her power returned, she could see no other way to do it.

Since Kahlan couldn’t move her feet, while Shota was still close enough and before she moved away Kahlan leaned out with lightning speed and just that quick had her hands around Shota’s throat.

She gritted her teeth and growled with the effort of squeezing the life out of the witch woman.

But before she could crush her windpipe, Shota did something Kahlan hadn’t considered.