Richard leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I know what it's like to feel regret for how you were born, for what you have, or don't have. I hated being born the way I was-with the gift. But I came to realize how senseless such feelings are, how completely wrong it was to think that way."
"But it's different with me," she said as she pushed at the sand with a finger, erasing the little ruts she'd made with the pebble. "There are others like you-wizards or sorceresses with the gift. Everyone else can at least see colors, as you put it. I'm the only one like this."
Richard gazed at his half sister, a beautiful, bright, ungifted half sister that any previous Lord Rahl would have murdered on the spot, and was overcome with a radiant smile. "Jennsen, I think of you as born pure. You're like a new snowflake, different than any other, and startlingly beautiful."
Looking up at him, Jennsen was overcome with a smile of her own. "I never thought of it that way." Her smile withered as she thought about his words. "But still, I'd be destroying-"
"You would be creating, not destroying," Richard said. "Magic exists.
It cannot possess the 'right' to exist. To think so would be to ignore the true nature-the reality-of things. People, if they don't take the lives of others, have the right to live their life. You can't say that because you were born with red hair you supplanted the 'right' of brown hair to be born on your head."
Jennsen giggled at such a concept. It was good to see the smile taking firmer hold. By the look on Tom's face, he agreed.
"So," Jennsen finally asked, "what about this thing we're going to see?"
"If the thing Cara touched has been altered by someone with the gift, then since you can't see the magic, you might see something we can't see:
what lies beneath that magic."
Jennsen rubbed the edge of her boot heel. "And you think that will tell you something important?"
"I don't know. It may be useful, or it may not, but I want to know what you see-with your special vision-without any suggestion from us."
"If you're so worried about it, why did you leave it? Aren't you afraid someone might come across it and take it?"
"I worry about a lot of things," Richard said.
"Even if it really is something altered by magic and she sees it for what it truly is," Cara said, "that doesn't mean that it still isn't what it seems to us, or that it isn't just as dangerous."
Richard nodded. "At least we'll know that much more about it. Anything we learn might help us in some way."
Cara scowled. "I just want her to turn it back over."
Richard gave her a look designed to keep her from saying anything else about it. Cara huffed, leaned in, and took one of Richard's dried apricots.
She scowled at him as she popped the apricot into her mouth.
As soon as supper was finished, Jennsen suggested that they pack all the food safely back in the wagon so that Betty wouldn't help herself to it in the night. Betty was always hungry. At least, with her two kids, she now had a taste of what it was like to be badgered for food.
Kahlan thought that Friedrich should be given consideration, because of his age, so she asked him if he'd like to take first watch. First watch was easier than being awakened in the middle of the night to stand watch between stretches of sleep. He smiled his appreciation as he nodded his agreement.
After opening his and Kahlan's bedroll, Richard doused the lantern. The night was sweltering but crystal clear so that, after Kahlan's eyes adjusted, the sweep of stars was enough to see by, if not very well. One of the white twins thought the newly unfurled bedrolls would be a perfect place to romp. Kahlan scooped up the leggy bundle and returned it to its tail-wagging mother.
As she lay down beside Richard, Kahlan saw the dark shape of Jennsen curl up by Betty and collect the twins in the tender bed of her arms, where they quickly settled down.
Richard leaned over and gently kissed Kahlan's lips. "I love you, you know."
"If we're ever alone, Lord Rahl," Kahlan whispered back, "I'd like to have more than a quick kiss."
He laughed softly and kissed her forehead before lying on his side, away from her. She had been expecting an intimate promise, or at least a lighthearted remark.
Kahlan curled up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.
"Richard," she whispered, "are you all right?"
It took him longer to answer than she would have liked. "I have a splitting headache."
She wanted to ask what kind of headache, but she didn't want the tiny spark of fear she harbored to gain the glow of credence by voicing it aloud.
"It's different from the headaches I had before," Richard said, as if in answer to her thoughts. "I suppose it's this wicked heat on top of not having had any sleep for so long."
