Confessor Read Online Free PDF Page B

had started ahead with the first of the three boxes. Now she was dead and the box she’d had was missing. Kahlan had killed Sister Cecilia. That left Sisters Ulicia and Armina, out of her four original captors. Of course, Jagang had other Sisters under his control.
    “Who could put a box in play?” Jagang asked as he stared off toward the palace atop the plateau. It wasn’t entirely clear if he was asking the Sisters for an answer, or if he was merely thinking out loud.
    Sisters Ulicia and Armina shared a look. The elite guards stood like stone sentinels. The special guards marched slowly back and forth, the closest one taking note of Kahlan, giving her a superior, smug glance each time he turned to march in the opposite direction. Kahlan knew the man, knew his habits. He was one of her less intelligent guards, substituting arrogance for competence.
    “Well,” Sister Ulicia finally said into the uneasy silence, “it would take someone with both sides of the gift—both Additive and Subtractive Magic.”
    “Other than the Sisters of the Dark you have here, Excellency,” Sister Armina added, “I’m not sure who could accomplish such a task.”
    Jagang shot a look back over his shoulder. The soldier was not the only one who foolishly harbored an attitude of arrogant superiority. Jagang was a lot smarter than Sister Armina; she just wasn’t smart enough to know it. She was, however, smart enough to recognize the look in Jagang’s eyes, the look that said he knew she was lying. She quailed, momentarily struck silent by the emperor’s glare.
    Sister Ulicia, also a great deal smarter than Sister Armina, quickly recognized the danger of the situation and spoke up.
    “There are only a couple of people it could be, Excellency.”
    “It had to have been Richard Rahl,” Sister Armina was quick to put in, eager to redeem herself.
    “Richard Rahl,” Jagang repeated in a flat tone of cold hatred. He didn’t sound the least bit surprised by the Sister’s suggestion.
    Sister Ulicia cleared her throat. “Or Sister Nicci. She is the only Sister you don’t have who is able to wield Subtractive Magic.”
    Jagang’s glare fixed on her for a moment before he finallyturned back to consider the People’s Palace, now lit by the sun so that it glowed like a beacon above the dark plain.
    “Sister Nicci knows everything you stupid bitches did,” he finally announced.
    Sister Armina blinked in surprise. She couldn’t resist speaking. “How is that possible, Excellency?”
    Jagang clasped his meaty hands behind his back. His heavily muscled back and neck looked more like those of a bull than those of a man. Curly black body hair only added to the impression. His shaved head made him look all the more menacing.
    “Nicci was there with Tovi when she was dying,” Jagang said, “after she had been stabbed and the box stolen from her. It had been a very long time since I’d seen Nicci. I was surprised to see her show up out of the blue. I was there, in Tovi’s mind, watching the whole thing. Tovi didn’t know I was in her mind, though, the same as you two didn’t know.
    “Nicci didn’t know I was there, either.
    “Nicci questioned Tovi, used the woman’s grievous wound to prod her into revealing your plan, Ulicia. Nicci told Tovi quite the story about wishing she could escape my control and with that lie gained Tovi’s confidence. Tovi told her everything—everything about the Chainfire spell you ignited, the boxes you stole with Kahlan’s help, how the boxes were meant to work in conjunction with the Chainfire spell, all of it.”
    Sister Ulicia was looking sicker by the moment. “Then it very well could be Nicci who did this. It has to be one or the other.”
    “Or Nicci and Richard Rahl together,” Sister Armina suggested.
    Jagang said nothing as he stared off at the palace.
    Sister Ulicia leaned forward the slightest bit. “If I may ask, Excellency, why is it that you are unable to…well, why is Nicci not here,