Temple of the Winds Read Online Free PDF

chimney. It was frightening to see the cold look in those Mord-Sith eyes. Her heart pounded at the thought of how many weeks Richard had seen only cold eyes like that looking back as he begged for mercy.
    Kahlan turned back to the pair. “We need answers, nothing more.”
    “ I’m getting answers.”
    Kahlan nodded. “I understand, but we don’t need the screams along with them. We don’t torture people.”
    “ Torture? I have not yet even begun to torture him.” Cara straightened, casting a glance to the shivering man at her feet. “And if he had managed to kill Lord Rahl first? Would you wish me to leave him be, then?”
    “ Yes.” Kahlan met the woman’s eyes. “And then I would have done worse to him myself. Worse than you could even conceive of. But he didn’t hurt Richard.”
    A cunning smile curled the corners of Cara’s mouth. “He intended it. The canon of the spirits says that intent is guilt. Failure to successfully carry out the intent does not absolve the guilt.”
    “ The spirits also mark a distinction between intent and deed. It was my intent to take care of him, in my way. Was it your intent to disobey my direct order?”
    Cara flicked her blond braid back over her shoulder. “It was my intent to protect you and Lord Rahl. I have succeeded.”
    “ I told you to let me handle it.”
    “ Hesitation can be the end of you … or those you care about.” A haunted look passed across Cara’s face. Iron quickly repossessed her countenance. “I have learned never to hesitate.”
    “ Is that why you were provoking him? To get him to attack you with his magic?”
    With the heel of her hand, Cara wiped the blood from a deep cut on her cheek—a cut Marlin had given her when he had struck her and slammed her into the bookcase. She stepped closer. “Yes.” She took a long lick of the blood from her hand while watching Kahlan’s eyes. “A Mord-Sith can’t take a person’s magic unless they attack us with it.”
    “ I thought you feared magic.”
    Cara tugged the sleeve of her leather, straightening it down her arm. “We do, unless it is specifically used by the one who commands it to attack us. Then it’s ours.”
    “ You always claim not to know anything about magic, and yet now you command his? You can use his magic?”
    Cara glanced down at the man groaning on the floor. “No. I can’t use it, like he uses it, but I can turn it against him—hurt him with his own magic.” Her brow twitched. “Sometimes, we feel a bit of it, but we don’t understand it the way Lord Rahl understands it, and so we can’t use it. Except to give them pain.”
    Kahlan couldn’t reconcile such contradictions. “How?”
    She was struck by how much Cara’s emotionless expression was like a Confessor’s face, the face Kahlan’s mother had taught her, showing nothing of the inner feelings about what had to be done.
    “ Our minds are linked,” Cara explained, “through the magic, so I can see what he’s thinking when he is thinking of hurting me, or fighting back, or disobeying my orders, because it contradicts my wishes. Since we are linked to their minds through their magic, our will to hurt them makes it happen.” She looked down at Marlin. He suddenly cried out anew in agony. “See?”
    “ I see. Now stop it. If he refuses to give us answers, then you can … do what it takes, but I won’t sanction doing anything that isn’t required to protect Richard.”
    Kahlan looked up from Marlin’s torment to Cara’s cold blue eyes. She spoke before she thought. “Did you know Denna?”
    “ Everyone knew Denna.”
    “ And was she as good at … at torturing people as you?”
    “ Me?” Cara said with a laugh. “No one was as good at it as Denna. That’s why she was Darken Rahl’s favorite. I could hardly believe the things she could do to a man. Why, she could …”
    With a glance at the Agiel hanging at Kahlan’s neck—Denna’s Agiel—Cara suddenly caught the meaning behind Kahlan’s