Read Online Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind - Free Book Online

Richard. If the Mord-Sith saw such a turn of events as improbable, or even ironic, they never said as much. What many of them had found improbable was that Richard hadn’t had them all executed when he became their Lord Rahl.
    It was Richard, though, who had discovered that the devotion to their Lord Rahl was in fact a surviving vestige of a bond, an ancient magic invoked by one of his ancestors to protect the D’Haran people from the dream walkers. It had long been believed that the dream walkers—created by wizards to be weapons during that ancient and nearly forgotten great war—had vanished from the world. The conjuring of strange and varied abilities—of instilling unnatural attributes in people—willing or not, had once been a dark art, the results always being at the least unpredictable, often uncertain, and sometimes dangerously unstable. Somehow, some spark of that malignant manipulation had been passed down generation after generation, lurking unseen for three thousand years—until it rekindled in the person of Emperor Jagang.
    Kahlan knew something about the alteration of living beings to suit a purpose—Confessors were such people, as had been the dream walkers. In Jagang, Kahlan saw a monster created by magic. She knew many people saw the same in her. Much as some people had blond hair or brown eyes, she had been born to grow tall, with warm brown hair, and green eyes—and the ability of a Confessor. She loved and laughed and longed for things just the same as those born with blond hair or brown eyes, and without a Confessor’s special ability.
    Kahlan used her power for valid, moral reasons. Jagang, no doubt, believed the same of himself, and even if he didn’t, most of his followers certainly did.
    Richard, too, had been born with latent power. The ancient, adjunct defense of the bond was passed down to any gifted Rahl. Without the protection of the bond to Richard—the Lord Rahl—whether formally spoken or a silent heartfelt affinity, anyone was vulnerable to Jagang’s power as a dream walker.
    Unlike most other permutations conjured by wizards in living people, the Confessor’s ability had always remained vital; at least it had until all the other Confessors had been murdered by order of Darken Rahl. Now, without such wizards and their specialized conjuring, only if Kahlan had children would the magic of the Confessors live on.
    Confessors usually bore girls, but not always. A Confessor’s power had originally been created for, and had been intended to be used by, women. Like all other conjuring that introduced unnatural abilities in people, this, too, had had unforeseen consequences: a Confessor’s male children, it turned out, also bore the power. After it had been learned how treacherous the power could be in men, all male children were scrupulously culled.
    Kahlan bearing a male child was precisely what the witch woman, Shota, feared. Shota knew very well that Richard would never allow his and Kahlan’s son to be slain for the past evils of male Confessors. Kahlan, too, could never allow Richard’s son to be killed. In the past, a Confessor’s inability to marry out of love was one of the reasons she could emotionally endure the practice of infanticide. Richard, in discovering the means by which he and Kahlan could be together, had altered that equation, too.
    But Shota didn’t simply fear Kahlan giving birth to a male Confessor; she feared something of potentially far greater magnitude—a male Confessor who possessed Richard’s gift. Shota had foretold that Kahlan and Richard would conceive a male child. Shota viewed such a child as an evil monster, dangerous beyond comprehension, and so had vowed to kill their offspring. To prevent such a thing from being required, she had given them the necklace to keep Kahlan from becoming pregnant. They had taken it reluctantly. The alternative was war with the witch woman.
    It was for reasons such as this that Richard abhorred prophecy.
    Kahlan