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Kahlan has taken the first watch, such as it is, but if D'Harans or banelings attack them in the night, she knows she won't notice them until they're within a sword's length. She couldn't possibly be a worse choice for guard duty than she is right now.
Still, it's not as though sleep is an option. She paces, endlessly, boots loud on the loose pine needles beneath her feet, because the anger that twitches in every muscle and the hollow fear in the pit of her stomach won't let her stop moving. She barely sees the trees around her, because her mind won't let go of the image of Cara, bruised and defeated and hanging from a Mord'Sith temple's ceiling.
The thought keeps circling, relentless -- they only had her for a week.
Mord'Sith torture is as inevitable as confession, Kahlan understands that now; has perhaps always understood it on some level, even before meeting Cara. Given enough time, enough pain and deprivation and the sick mind game of false compassion expertly played, there is no soul so strong it will not eventually break or go mad beneath the agiel's burn. But time is exactly the key, the last cruel piece of the puzzle that means the difference between defeat and defiance, between slave and victim. Kahlan has been part of raids and rescues, watched temples fall in the war, sat in judgment over captured Mord'Sith and met those victims strong enough to speak. And it's true that all of them were traumatized, given to nightmares or strange behavior or jumping at any human touch. Yet even among those who'd been prisoners for months, there were still those few who were more angry than afraid, more willing to grab a knife then to obey like a beaten dog when their abusers were set before them. Simple farmers, laborers, merchants, enduring the unendurable, as Richard had, strengthened by love or will or sheer resilience to hold on to their true selves even as home and kin became a distant memory. And to go further, Kahlan knows, to make a Mord'Sith -- independent, autonomous, loyal, cold -- is the work of years.
What could Rahl possibly have done to Cara that could destroy her so completely in only a week?
She can't fathom it. Cara is the most stubborn creature Kahlan has ever met, and so inured to pain that even a bleeding hole in her stomach leaves her looking mostly bored. Sometimes the slow torment of her agiels actually seems to comfort her. No amount of suffering that Kahlan can imagine seems sufficient to even shake her in so small a time -- not the shattering agony of Giller's needles, not the black fire of an agiel on an open wound -- and to think that Rahl, somehow, could have made Cara feel something worse --
Kahlan could almost laugh at herself, now, for the reception she'd given to the woman who led Cara into this trap. She'd thought herself hostile, then, been ready to skewer the other Mord'Sith if she'd made a false move, and yet in the face of Cara's loss, the very idea seems a naive mercy. She should have confessed the bitch where she stood. Failing to have done so is a mistake Kahlan doesn't intend to repeat.
But there, too, beneath the churning rage, is the third clinging torment that keeps Kahlan awake and drives her to pace wild and blind between the trees; the bitter taste of guilt in the back of her throat, like bile, sharp and lingering. Because Cara had wanted to keep looking for the Stone of Tears. Cara, whose leather-clad fingers had carded through her hair like she was looking for a braid -- or maybe, reminding herself it wasn't there -- had had the look of a woman who wanted to trust someone, not the look of a woman who did. Cara, who smiled at the thought of snow, who could speak to night wisps, who only laughed when no one was looking, who could fight a dozen Sisters of the Dark to a standstill in a ridiculous pink dress, had begged them to let this go with every iota of body language she was capable of. Cara, who Kahlan would give up her Confessor powers to have in front of her right now, safe and strong and making some sarcastic comment at Kahlan's expense... Cara would never have left with Dahlia if Kahlan and Richard hadn't bullied her into it.
There is a small, quiet part of Kahlan that still can't forgive Cara for killing her sister, and perhaps never will. Maybe they're even, now, because Cara should never, ever forgive Kahlan for this.
And so, wild and distracted, Kahlan paces. They traveled for hours past sundown, trusting the compass to guide them through the pitch black of the forest, and they'll start up again long before dawn, despite knowing that Zedd, still recovering from his imprisonment, really needs rest and perhaps a halfway decent breakfast. But regardless of how few they are, even these brief necessary hours of sleep feel wasted. Kahlan knows just how fast Cara can travel, just what lengths she'll go to for her duty. She knows Cara is out there, every second taking her further away from the people who love her, every step sending her closer to Rahl and the selfish sadism that is his only reward for loyalty. And all Kahlan can do is swear on everything and everyone she's ever held holy that she will get Cara back... and wait, as she walks guilty, fearful, furious, meaningless circles in the dark.