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They decide to stay in town for a few days. It is a foolish choice, born of sentiment, and Cara nearly finds it in herself to object to the wishes of the Lord Rahl.

But Richard smiles, and tells them all that it's to help the other Confessor get settled with her new child. As though this is important work, equal to the task of finding the Stone of Tears. Cara sees the way his eyes drift to Kahlan, sees the way she lights up at the thought of time with her sister, and it's clear - if there's a Confessor they're helping, it isn't Dennee.

When the Seeker first suggests it, the wizard looks between Richard's pleading eyes and Kahlan, smiling as though she's run out of happy tears, and Cara knows that, at least for a moment, he is considering the wisdom of the decision to stay. But he smiles, indulgent as a country grandfather, and permits it. Just for a few days, he says.

As though that makes it better.

All Cara can think about is Denna, putting leagues between herself and Cara's Agiel with every moment that they wait here, drinking mulled wine and hugging children.

Nobody asks Cara if she wishes to stay.

They pass the time in town for a day - in Dennee's home, taking it in turns to sleep on the bed in her spare room - before Cara begins to feel it.

It starts slowly, while Richard cooks the morning meal and Kahlan fusses over the child, her smile wistful as she indulges herself. Cara will never understand the Confessor's sense of longing for the things she will never have.

Cara feels perfectly alright, when she wakes and washes her face. But as she sits down at the table, wedged between the wizard and a common woman who flinches when Cara's thigh comes too close to her own, something begins to change.

It comes over her quickly; a vague, unfocused rush of human emotion, filling the space behind her ribs, settling in her stomach like a weight. Cara doesn't know what to do with it, the way it makes her feel ill and restless all at once.

She leaves the house without eating, and begins to walk.

Emotions, every Mord'Sith knows, are little more than instruments. Things to be channeled into work, or discarded, and nothing more. Cara is a Mord'Sith, and she will keep command of herself, just as the wizard would keep command of his own magic.

Allowing herself to be ruled by her emotions, to feel whenever she wished, would be unthinkable. She will not allow it.

When Cara returns from her walk, hours later, she feels more like herself. When Richard smiles at her and asks where she's been, she returns the expression, and asks him if he wishes to spar with her.

Her voice is friendly, controlled. But Cara can feel her palm itch for the comforting sting of the Agiel, and she knows that if he refuses, she will need to find another way to keep her mind clear, and she's not sure where she will find it. It unsettles her, the way her very existence has grown to depend on the whims of others.

Today, however, Richard's whims fall in her favor, and he draws his sword with a child's smile, bouncing on his toes. "If you think you're ready to handle me," he says, eyes shining. Cara realizes that perhaps, asking this of him is one of the things he wishes her to do, to be nicer.

She grasps her Agiels, drawing them. She endures the familiar feeling, not quite pain after so many years, leaning into it like an old friend until she feels centered, calm. "I'm ready," she says.

Richard runs at her, sword aloft, and everything seems clear once more.

The fight is everything that Cara needs it to be. She feels calm, even as Richard runs at her, matching her blow for blow. She channels the emotion of the morning into her Agiels, turns it into focus and determination and precise, unwavering attack, until Richard is sweating and Cara is smiling, alive, every movement clean and focused in a way that would be deadly, were she truly fighting to kill.

Dimly, she is aware of the others coming out of the house to watch. She feels Kahlan's gaze on her, like an itch between her shoulderblades. Earlier - hours ago - it would have set Cara on edge, made her feel weak. Now, it only gives her more energy, and she presses Richard harder as they move back and forth across the grass.

Richard stumbles, laughs, and holds up his hands in defeat, begging exhaustion. There's a part of Cara that wants to keep going, but the will of this smiling almost-boy is, after all, the will of the Lord Rahl. "A worthy opponent," she says, clasping his hand in hers, and she means it. "Thank you."

"I'm just glad I've got you fighting with me, instead of against me."

Cara smiles. Richard has never been particularly funny, but she feels like herself again, and that's such a comfort that she very nearly laughs.

He claps her on the back, and as she turns away, she catches the Confessor's eye. Kahlan is watching her, still, with a look on her face that Cara can't quite put a name to - tentative, and almost shy.

It undoes Cara completely, and that feeling comes rushing back, all over again.

The morning arrives with an announcement from Richard, made over breakfast as they all crowd around the too-small table. Unfortunately, they will have to depart the following day. He smiles, regretful yet dignified, with a practiced sincerity that Cara has seen many times before, in the previous Lord Rahl. Richard would never admit it, but this world, the relentless domesticity, is beginning to fray him around the edges.

He and Cara are not as different as he believes.

By the end of the morning meal, Cara is ready to crawl out of her own skin, and she passes time until evening with Richard, sparring behind the house. She cannot bring herself to face Kahlan and the way she sometimes watches Cara, with that look that Cara does not know how to understand. Combat, even between friends, gives the world a simplicity that Cara cannot seem to find at rest, not here, and they fight until Richard is exhausted.

But after a time - too quickly - he laughs and pulls Cara into a rough, friendly embrace and begs for mercy. Cara just feels more on edge, energized. As though she could fight with an entire squadron of D'Haran soldiers and win - as if she wants to find one, and test that theory.

Instead, she finds a man in the local tavern. One who, after a few drinks and the right sort of smile, is no longer frightened of spending time in the bed of a Mord'Sith.

She exhausts him, too.

They leave Norwood with the dawn, still half-asleep as they mount their horses. The others bid farewell to Dennee, politely ignoring Kahlan's tears as she embraces her sister, pain deep in her eyes in a way that would have given Cara a deep sense of satisfaction, in another time.

Cara waits nearby on her horse, observing. Dennee has not spoken to her since she tried to do the compassionate thing, and apologize. Cara has returned the kindness.

People often mistake the natural calm of the Mord'Sith for ill temper, or meanness. This is almost never true, and most people would do well to learn the difference between self-control and malice.

Cara does not feel like a Mord'Sith. She is not calm.

Instead she is irritable, jumping at shadows, resentful of the way that Richard smiles at Kahlan, the way that her horse walks, the weather. She thinks, if she knew why, then this would be easier to control. She spends the journey from Norwood turning over possibilities in her mind. She can no longer be upset that Denna's trail is growing cold, as they move nearer to her with every passing hour. She knows that allowing Denna to escape - an unforgivable concession - is something she does not enjoy living with. But she understands that, and it's settled into anger at the edges of her thoughts, comforting and familiar. Making her strong, even as the sense of discontent that she cannot name makes her weak.

It cannot be Denna.

Her line of thinking ends abruptly, as Kahlan draws her horse nearer.

She decides, very quickly, that it is best if she does not speak. There are horrible words waiting in her throat, things she wishes to say but should not. Things she has learned are not marks of compassion, even if they are the truth.

So Cara holds her tongue, and speaks only when spoken to - save one occasion. Richard is walking, stopped at the foot of a tree, examining the trail for evidence of riders. "We'd better hurry," he says, mounting his horse and urging it into a trot in one motion. "The trail is growing cold."

Cara cannot - refuses to be silent. The trail is growing cold because they stopped to have a family tea party in Norwood, and no other reason. "Of course," she says, rolling her eyes. Richard is too far ahead to notice.

But Kahlan notices. She stares at Cara for a long moment, eyes searching and mildly disappointed, until Cara begins to squirm under her gaze.

She shakes away the feeling and urges her horse onward to catch up with Richard. He is, after all, her master. It is her job to be obedient.

They stop to make camp when they begin to lose the day's light. Cara helps, as much as she can without speaking. She still feels wrong, as though she can no longer control a part of herself, and she has no desire to say any more things that will make Kahlan look in her direction.

When the fire is made, and the meal has been eaten, Cara takes her place away from everyone else, further from the fire. It's not very warm, but that suits her. The cold brings back some of her focus. She turns her Agiel over in her hands, pressing it to all ten fingertips as she stares into the flames, trying to find calm.

She feels as though she almost has it, as though she's almost in control of herself, when she feels the hand on her shoulder. Reflexively, she grips her Agiel as a weapon, drawing her arm back.

When she sees that it's only Kahlan, however, she wills herself to sheath her Agiel and forces a smile. Her near-calm is gone.

"Cara," she says, exhaling. She seems nervous, and Cara cannot think of a reason for it. "Can I talk to you?"

Cara says nothing, but she follows Kahlan further away from the camp, into the trees. It is not quite privacy, but it will do.

"Are you-" Kahlan begins, then stops. She shakes her head, as though frustrated with herself. "Is there something wrong?"

Her voice is gentle, the same tone she uses for sick children and bereaved mothers. Cara finds it unbearable. "Why would something be wrong?"

"You seem -" Kahlan pauses, and it's clear that she is taking time to choose her words carefully. "Different."

On any other day, Cara would look into those eyes and tell untruths, and Kahlan would not be able to tell. Today, Cara does not know if she could lie without the Confessor's knowledge. "Do I?" Cara says, and moves closer, stepping into Kahlan's personal space.

Kahlan's lips are parted. She looks hopeful, eyes bright with emotion that Cara cannot and refuses to learn to name. "Yes," she says, and something in Cara's chest begins to flutter.

"Oh."

"Cara, if you ever -"

She stops, hand at Cara's elbow, voice gone. Her expression is odd, and it takes Cara a moment to realize that this is what the Mother Confessor looks like when she is unsure of herself.

It's the look on Kahlan's face, and not the way that Cara has been feeling since Norwood, that makes something instinctive rise up in Cara. She pulls Kahlan close, and kisses her, roughly. It fills her with the same sense of calm she feels when she's in the heat of battle, and she allows herself to enjoy it.

"Cara," Kahlan says, as she pulls away, in a voice that Cara can't read.

Cara waits, searching Kahlan's face, feeling Kahlan's breath on her lips. She does not understand what Kahlan is trying to say, but she's sure it's not no, and so she leans in and kisses her once more, harder. Kahlan pulls her closer and slides her tongue against Cara's, making sounds that she swallows.

Instinctively, Cara knows that this was the right thing to do.

And then there's force at her shoulders, and Cara is being shoved back, as quickly as she was pulled close. The expression on Kahlan's face is clear, and it's anger. "Cara," she says, voice dangerous.

Cara does not understand.

"What?"

Kahlan just looks at her, furious beyond words, and turns away. Her hair falls forward, covering her face, and Cara still doesn't know how this happened. Feeling rises in her again, overwhelming and useless, until she feels sick. She only knows of two ways to fix this.

Cara finds the curve of Kahlan's hip with her palm, and tries to pull her closer. "Isn't this what you wanted?" she says, voice nearly a purr, the memory of Kahlan's mouth still fresh on her lips.

The look in Kahlan's eyes, when she turns so that Cara can see her, is entirely wrong. She looks as though she's been slapped, and Cara doesn't understand what she did, but it's clear that it was the wrong thing to do.

She has missed something very important.

The wizard is next.

He comes to her as they're camped outside Westfall, fingers twisting around themselves with discomfort as she sits in the place that's become hers, since the last time she spoke with Kahlan. Her back is to a tree, and she's near enough to camp, but not quite in it.

Sitting next to the fire, with Richard casting encouraging smiles at her with every available opportunity, while Kahlan steadfastly refuses to look at her - it's too much.

"Cara," the wizard says, in his most kindly tone. His voice quavers, but only just - Cara is, in a vague sense, impressed at his mastery of his own fear. "Is there anything that's, perhaps, troubling -"

Cara looks up at him, eyes hard.

She knows, now, that this is rude. This is what Richard means when he tells her to be nice, this is the sort of behavior that makes the Confessor look at Richard over Cara's head with eyes that say you see? this is why we can't keep her. But Cara has her dignity.

She may have been cast out by her sisters, braid shorn, beaten. But she is still a Mord'Sith, and good at what she does, and she is far, far better than speaking with the Seeker's pet wizard about the things that are troubling her.

"Wizard," she says, and he tenses. Like this, bracing for an attack, acutely aware of the things she can do with his magic, he looks nothing like a Wizard of the First Order at all. He looks old and frail, face brave in that way that only comes out in people who are truly scared.

His fear, in the end, is what gives her pause. Cara feels the hardness go out of her, and her anger falls away as quickly as it came. She presses her fingertips to the hilt of her Agiel, and it helps. "Which one of them was it, that talked you into speaking with me?"

The wizard smiles, as though she has shown wisdom beyond her abilities. Daily, Cara is astounded by how little he wishes to know about the abilities of the Mord'Sith. "Kahlan," he says.

Cara pulls her mouth into a smile. It's a hollow gesture, one that even a child could see past, and Cara knows that this is a worrisome sign. She is capable of far better control over her emotions. But there's something in the words that the wizard is not saying - Kahlan would not speak to Cara herself - that makes hurt gnaw at her. She is too preoccupied with disgust - for allowing herself to feel hurt, for feeling something that she cannot seem to control - to worry about putting on a convincing face for Zedd.

"Tell her that if she wishes to know whether or not I am troubled, she would do better to speak with me herself."

The Agiel is warm against her fingertips, grounding her. As the wizard leaves, Cara reaches for it in earnest, running it across her palms, trying desperately to feel centered. One of the earliest lessons of a Mord'Sith is discipline, control over that which makes her weak. A loss of that control is a loss of herself, a betrayal to her training.

Every instinct she has ever had is telling her to find a way to get it back.

They get attacked by bandits outside Easthaven. It's the best day Cara has had all week.

The next time they make camp, everyone is restless. They've been growing closer to Denna, finding tracks that are fresher, talking to townspeople who saw her that morning instead of days ago. Richard is restless, bouncing on his toes with anticipation and smiling at Cara as though she understands.

She does, but she's not about to admit to it.

Kahlan still refuses to speak with Cara. But the closer they get to Denna, the more restless she becomes, almost despite herself. As the hours pass, she looks at Cara more and more, making something at the back of Cara's neck tighten with the way she keeps watching.

It's late that night - as Zedd and Richard begin to nod off - when Cara finally breaks down. She is not proud of it, as she turns to Kahlan - who is watching her from the warmth of the fire, eyes full of distrust and longing - and says, "What?"

Kahlan looks away and faces the flames, but Cara can see the way her eyes flick up towards Cara every few minutes, and it makes that emotion she can't tamp down bubble up a little more, until her throat is tight. "I thought you wanted to talk," Cara says, and Kahlan looks back to her in surprise. "Don't you want to know all about what's troubling me?"

Kahlan stands, jaw set, anger flashing in her eyes once again. Cara cannot begin to understand her moods, but she feels, vaguely, as though she should. "Fine," she says, and takes Cara by the arm. "We can talk. Somewhere else."

"So? What is it?" Kahan's arms are crossed, and she looks the way she did the last time they spoke. Suddenly, against her will, anything Cara had to say disappears.

She begins to speak, opening her mouth, but there is nothing. She has no words, no thoughts, only Kahlan before her and and endless supply of weakness her chest tight with it. "I-"

"What?" Kahlan says, voice crackling with irritation. There is a long silence, and something in her softens, before she speaks again. "What?"

Kahlan's tone is gentle, and Cara finds herself feeling calmed despite herself. The words come out before she can stop them, childish and pleading. "What are you doing to me?"

Shame fills her, even as the words spill from her. She wants to vomit. Cara's gaze is low, fixed somewhere near Kahlan's mouth, and she does not move it. As her words sink into the air, a poor choice she cannot take back, something changes in Kahlan's eyes. Something soft, like the weakest and tenderest parts of humanity, as Kahlan waits in silence.

Cara can't bear to look at her any longer.

"What am I doing to -" Kahlan looks skyward, as if asking the spirits for patience. She places a palm on either side of Cara's face, and for a moment, Cara wonders if she is about to learn what it feels like to be confessed.

It would not, she thinks, be so bad. When she feels like this, she is no longer a Mord'Sith.

If Cara is not a Mord'Sith, if she is simply Cara, she is no longer of use to anyone.

"I chose you," Kahlan whispers, as her voice crumbles. "Over my sister. She begged me to kill you, and I chose you."

Cara closes her eyes, leaning into Kahlan's palm. Something in her voice - something that would have given Cara thrills of satisfaction, of power mere weeks ago, is too much to bear.

"Why did I do that?" Kahlan's voice is barely a whisper, terrified and confused and hurt.

Cara cannot - this is not what she was trained for. She was trained to take feelings like this and to use them, and having them out in the open like this, in front of her is too much. She wants to hide, and she does not understand why. "I don't know," she says, and for the second time since she was a girl, she feels herself shed tears.

"I don't, either," Kahlan says. Her eyes are shining.

Cara feels something soft against her cheek and realizes that it's Kahlan's thumb, reaching out and brushing across her skin, comforting. Without thinking, Cara removes her gloves and presses one bare palm to Kahlan's face, giving comfort in return.

It's then that Kahlan's mouth meets hers, lips wet with tears, and something inside Cara twists. The feeling is comforting and frightening all at once, and Cara, for a moment, is unsure how to proceed. Kahlan is the one who coaxes Cara's lips apart, sliding her tongue across Cara's teeth until she understands. Kissing back, letting her hands fist in Kahlan's hair and tugging until she growls, is something that Cara knows how to do, as calming and exhilarating as using her Agiels.

They kiss until Cara's tears begin to stop. Her head is clear, and once again she feels as though she is on solid ground, full of purpose. She is a Mord'Sith and Kahlan is a woman and as she presses her mouth to Cara's, hungry, Cara knows that there is one inevitable end to this encounter.

"Cara," Kahlan says, tearing herself away after long, hungry kisses that feel nothing like sweetness and everything like satisfaction. There are tears in her eyes, as there were before, but the voice she speaks with is low, full of lust, and the sound of it hits Cara between her thighs.

Finally, this is as it should be.

Cara surges forward, kissing harder, taking Kahlan's mouth with her own and Kahlan is groaning against her with every kiss. She allows her hands to wander lower, tracing the lines of Kahlan's body and letting herself enjoy the fact that the woman she has squirming under her palms is also none other than the Mother Confessor. She runs her fingertips down the boning of Kahlan's corset, finding space in the skirt of her dress. Cara's hands move as though they've traveled Kahlan's body many times before, confident and light, and she feels powerful.

She presses her palm to Kahlan's leggings, just beneath her center. Kahlan's hips buck into her hand, eager to be touched, and she groans into Cara's mouth as if her touch is everything she has ever needed.

Cara allows herself a smile of satisfaction. Kahlan nips at her mouth, until it's been kissed away.

"Can you stop me?" Cara says, as she pulls away. Her fingertips are still at Kahlan's core, pressing up, making her hips rock.

"What?" Kahlan says. She blinks, as though dazed, and the knowledge that Cara did that - that she is still able to do that - sends sparks down her spine.

A smirk curls across Cara's mouth before she can stop it. "When you can't hold onto your -" Cara curls her fingertips up, pressing against Kahlan's center until her lips part. "Magic, any longer. Can you stop me from touching you?"

There are fingers around her wrist, and Kahlan tugs her hand away, just for a moment. She's biting her lip, the way she does when she's giving something serious consideration, and Cara cannot decide if she should be touched or bemused. "Yes," Kahlan says after a long while, releasing Cara's wrist and running her palm up to Cara's shoulder. The touch gives Cara goosebumps, and she does not allow herself to think about why.

"Lie down," she says.

Kahlan obeys.

Cara presses herself down, lying on top of Kahlan's body like a man and rocking their hips together. Kahlan looks up at her, lips parted, eyes wide and dark with lust instead of magic, and Cara stops herself. Just for a moment, long enough to memorize Kahlan's face, to remember what it looks like to make a woman come undone. Kahlan laces her fingers through Cara's hair and breathes out, this shaky, aroused sound that Cara knows.

She bends, pressing her mouth to Kahlan's and kissing her as only a Mord'Sith can, hard and demanding and feminine. Kahlan allows it. Her body is limp, but her hands are tense against the back of Cara's head, her shoulders, pressing down as if to pull her closer. When her mouth finds Kahlan's throat, the tops of her breasts, Kahlan's grip tightens as she arches and squirms. The noises she makes, as her nails press half-moons into Cara's scalp, are intoxicating.

Cara's hands find Kahlan's waist and then dip down, fumbling underneath what feels like miles of skirt. It takes Kahlan a moment to realize what Cara is after, but that's to be expected. Cara knows - has been taught - the ways in which her mouth can be very distracting.

When Cara's fingers finally slide across slick, too-warm skin, finding Kahlan's center and pulling noise from her, loud and pleading, Cara feels it between her own thighs. She has always taken a certain amount of personal satisfaction from this - a job well done, the undeniable appeal of sexual gratification.

Somehow, when Kahlan is the one underneath her, Cara feels that satisfaction more strongly.

"Take off your boots," Cara says, and her voice is gentle. It's the voice she uses - used - on trainees, at the lowest points of their suffering.

Kahlan does as she is told, as Cara slides her leggings off and casts them aside. "Now, bend your knees."

Again, Kahlan obeys. The sight of her, spread out and open while she shakes in anticipation, is enough to give Cara pause. As she leans down, hot breath and then lips and then tongue against Kahlan's core, Cara knows that she will remember this as something important.

Kahlan arches her back, tilting her hips forward, making sounds as though Cara's mouth is a revelation. Cara only moves her tongue faster, finding the place where she knows that Kahlan needs her, allowing herself to think of nothing but the taste of this and the feel of warm skin under her palms as she presses them to Kahlan's thighs, her breasts. Above her, she can hear Kahlan's breath coming faster, the noises she makes growing more urgent.

Cara flicks her tongue harder.

When Kahlan's hands find Cara's hair and make fists, she assumes it to be an expression of need. It's not until Kahlan tugs, hard, scrambling backwards and shoving at her shoulders, that Cara remembers.

She moves away, settling with her back to a tree. Kahlan reaches between her own legs, finding the place where Cara's mouth was working. The sight of it makes Cara's breath catch, as wetness pools at her core.

Kahlan's eyes are dark, half-magic and half-arousal. They flood with black as she arches up, crying out and shuddering against her own hand, letting go of her control in a way that Cara will never tire of seeing.

She watches Cara the entire time.

As she regains her composure, eyes unfocused and dazed in nearly the same way they look after she's confessed someone, Cara can do nothing but appreciate the sight of her. Kahlan is flushed, delicate pink from her cheeks to her chest, hair wild, eyes still dark. Her dress has fallen across her front, covering some of her nakedness, but her thighs are bare.

She looks debauched, and Cara cannot help but feel proud.

"Oh," Kahlan says, voice hoarse.

Cara smiles, despite herself. She is deeply aroused, in a way that makes her feel moments away from taking care of her own needs with shaking fingers. But she retains her calm, uses control that she was terrified she'd lost, and shows nothing. Kahlan moves to her, crawling the short distance across the ground to where Cara is sitting. The back of her dress is dusty, in a way that means she will have to clean it, and Cara feels proud of that, too.

Kahlan kneels before her, palms hot through Cara's leather, and smiles in a way that has Cara thinking about all of the ways she wishes she was able to use that mouth. Her thoughts are so powerful that she hears Kahlan asking, "Show me."

Kahlan watches her expectantly, and it occurs to Cara that she may, in fact, have spoken. "What?" she says, sharp and undignified.

Kahlan leans closer, bringing her mouth to Cara's, very nearly kissing her but holding back just so, as though waiting for Cara to break down and kiss her. As though Cara would ever break.

"I said," Kahlan whispers, voice hot against Cara's lips. "Show me how to do that. For you."

Cara cannot believe her good fortune.

She does not answer, but her hands fall to her belt, and she casts it to the side. Kahlan smiles, and kisses her first.

Cara's laces are at her back, beginning high on her neck and snaking down to her waist. Mord'Sith leather is not meant to be worn by someone who dresses alone, but Cara has learned to manage. It's moments of frustrated fumbling at her waist, however, before Kahlan realizes the same thing.

They stand together, kissing so roughly that it's hardly lips at all, just teeth and tongue and Kahlan's fingers working at the back of her neck, finally finding the laces and easing them open. "How -" she says, gasping against Cara's mouth. "How do you ever dress yourself?"

"I'm sure you'd love to know," Cara says, lips pulling themselves into a smirk. There is a part of her that's tempted to leave it at that, to let Kahlan puzzle through it on her own. But Cara can feel herself throbbing with need, her center begging to be touched, and she relents. "It's easier if you're behind me."

Kahlan moves away, walking to stand behind Cara. It's not long before those strong, sure fingers are tugging at her laces and pulling leather back to free bare skin, so slowly that it's all Cara can do to keep herself from shaking. There's a horrifying moment, where Cara very nearly begins to beg, but she controls herself. "What's taking you so long?" she says, voice a little sharper than she intends. "It's not difficult."

Kahlan has every right to be sharp in return. Her hands still, and for a moment Cara thinks she may stop altogether. But then hands snake around her waist, reaching up to cup her breasts and squeeze, twisting at her nipples with a roughness that makes Cara cry out with satisfaction. "Be patient," Kahlan all but growls, low in her ear.

Something deep in Cara tightens. She feels as though she's lost, but she's so close to being touched that she cannot bring herself to mind.

It feels like years before Kahlan finishes, enough that Cara can help her to tug the leather down. She stands, naked, spine straight and jaw proud. Kahlan turns to face her, and blushes at the sight. "Kneel," Cara says.

Kahlan hesitates. It's only for a moment, but Cara can see the mistrust in her eyes, and she can't help but smile. "Unless you don't want to," she says, setting one hand on her hip.

Kahlan does as she's told. Cara smiles, leaning back against the tree behind her and hooking one leg over Kahlan's shoulder. Her eyes go wide, and the mistrust is replaced with something different, understanding and what almost looks like apprehension.

Kahlan runs her palm along the skin of Cara's thigh. Her touch is tentative, so gentle that it's almost sweet. It is not - should not be - enough for Cara, but she shivers. "Now what?" Kahlan whispers. Her mouth is so close to where Cara needs her that she can feel the words, hot on her skin.

It takes all of Cara's self-control to answer with patience. "Now, you -" Cara begins, but her voice sounds sharp even to her own ears. She takes a breath, and tries again. "Use your tongue." She brings her hand to Kahlan's head, stroking her hair. "Think of the places you like to be touched."

Kahlan nods, the way she would if they'd just agreed on a plan of attack. Then her head moves forward, and her tongue is exactly where Cara likes to be touched. She cannot help but cry out in relief. Kahlan's mouth moves faster, tongue lapping harder, and it is not the best that Cara has ever had but it's enough to have her arching back, fingers tangling in Kahlan's hair. Bark scratches against her skin, and she hisses with the sort of pain that hits her between her legs.

Beneath her, Kahlan's mouth stills. For a long moment, Cara cannot think of a reason why.

Slowly, with a strength of will she was not sure she had, Cara untangles her hands from Kahlan's hair and strokes the back of her head, giving comfort. "It's okay," she says, forcing the irritation and need from her tone. "Don't stop."

Cara can feel Kahlan's laugh, smug against her. But Kahlan's mouth begins to work once more, tongue tracing shapes against Cara's center, and it feels better than she is willing to admit. It's not long before her hips begin to rock against Kahlan's mouth, as her tongue finds that spot, the one that's exactly where Cara needs her.

When she comes, it's with her hands tangled in Kahlan's hair and a name on her lips that she will never, ever admit to saying.

Kahlan has helped Cara dress, and Cara has helped Kahlan dress, and there is no reason for either of them to linger here.

But Cara is sitting on the ground, her back to the same tree, and Kahlan is sitting next to her. She is not resting her head on Cara's shoulder, but Cara can tell that she would like to, and this worries her. The Mord'Sith are not comforting.

Kahlan keeps looking at her, through her eyelashes, eyes hopeful in a way that Cara does not understand and does not want. Nobody should hope for anything from a Mord'Sith but mercy, unless she has trained them to.

"I thought you loved Richard," Cara says, after a while. She is stating fact, but Kahlan's eyes turn hurt and her face twists into indecision.

"I do," Kahlan says, and her voice makes Cara want, for a moment, to reach out and comfort her. She does not give in to it. "I do, but maybe I -"

She looks away, unable to keep speaking, and Cara does not want to understand the pain in her voice. She does not want to know the thing that neither of them will ever say, that perhaps it is not friendship or sisterhood that brings them together like this, again and again. Kahlan turns back to Cara, hope in her eyes once again, and Cara can no longer resist the urge to give her comfort.

She is always in control, except with Kahlan. She wonders, not for the first time, what her sisters would think of her now.

Slowly, Cara takes off her glove, and rests her hand on Kahlan's shoulder. Her fingers tangle with her hair, on instinct, and Kahlan smiles the way that she always does when Cara has done something good. "Does this mean that I can trust you not to kill me in my sleep?"

Kahlan smiles, and rests her head against Cara's shoulder. Cara does not push her away.

"Probably," Kahlan says.

Cara smiles. This time, she understands what Kahlan really means.