Page 47 of The Third Kingdom (Sword of Truth 13)

The half people caught in that violent rage of explosions had been torn to pieces. The pieces of bloody flesh he could see were unrecognizable. Most of what he saw looked like ground meat.

Richard turned back to Samantha. She watched him from the darkness of that split in the rock, as if not sure whether she wanted to come out or not.

Richard held his arms out to her in invitation. When he did, she sprang out of the narrow cleft in the rock and raced into his arms, finally giving in to sobs.

CHAPTER

43

“It’s all right, Samantha,” he said softly as he smoothed her wild tangle of black hair, gently holding her head to his chest. “It’s all right. We’re safe.”

She cried in racking sobs.

He gently shushed her, letting her know that it was all right, that it was over, that she was safe, now.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.

Richard frowned. “Sorry? Why would you be sorry?”

“Because I almost got us killed.”

“What are you talking about?”

She looked up at him, her big dark eyes brimming with tears. “You brought me along because I said I could help you. I convinced you that you needed me, that it was important to take me because I’m gifted.

“Then, when you needed me most, when everything was at risk, you told me what I needed to do. You even explained how to make the trees explode. You brought me along to help you, and when you told me what I needed to do and how to do it, I failed you.

“You could have easily been killed any one of a hundred times fighting off those monsters while we tried to get away. I didn’t do anything to help you.

“You are the one. I recognized that from the beginning, and I failed to do as I promised and as you asked of me. You were nearly killed. You are the one to save us all. It would have been my fault that the world of life ended. All because you told me what to do, and how to do it, and I didn’t do it.”

Richard shook his head reassuringly. “Samantha, that’s not true. You were doing your best.”

“No I wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated, looking for the words. “I was afraid. I was afraid to do what you said. I was afraid that I’d mess it up, that I’d do it wrong, that I wouldn’t be able to do it good enough, and that I’d fail you, fail everyone. So I couldn’t do it. I tried, but I was afraid that I’d fail.”

Richard smiled as he looked down at her, smoothing her hair. “You didn’t fail, Samantha.” He swept an arm out, gesturing around them. “You stopped the threat.”

She wiped at her eyes and finally looked around, really looked around. She blinked, seeing the totality of it for the first time.

“I did this?”

“It wasn’t me,” Richard said.

“It’s just as you said,” she whispered, mostly to herself. “It would save us if I did what you told me.”

“But you said you tried and couldn’t.” Richard was puzzled. She had tried—he’d seen her try—but she hadn’t been able to do it. “So why did it finally work?”

Samantha stared off for a time, perhaps looking into her own visions as she seemed to search for the words to explain it.

“When I was back in that hole,” she finally said, “shaking and terrified that I was going to die, that those unholy half people were going to drag me out of there, rip me apart with their teeth, and eat me alive, I suddenly thought of my mother.”

“Your mother? What do you mean?”

“She saw that happen to my father. That’s what they did to him. She saw those monsters, like a pack of wild animals, using their teeth to rip into the man she loved, the man I loved, and devour his flesh and blood. I could finally, truly, understand how horrified and afraid she must have been.

“Then they took her. After murdering the man she loved, they took her. Can you imagine what she must have been thinking? How horrified, despairing, and afraid she must have been?

“If she really is still alive, then you are her only hope of rescue. I’m her daughter, the one who loves her more than anything, who insisted on coming along because I’m supposed to be helping you so that you can get her away from these savages. You’re my mother’s only hope, her last hope, and there I was cowering in a hole, shaking from head to foot.”

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of being afraid,” Richard offered in solace. “I was afraid, too.”

She looked up. “You were?”

“Of course. I can’t imagine not being afraid in such a situation. It’s a normal reaction of anyone with a soul. But I was also afraid because I was thinking that it was me who failed us, failed everyone depending on me.”

She laid a hand, her tiny fingers, against his chest.

“But you brought me to help you. You gave me the chance. Then, when we were attacked, you had the idea of how to get us out of such a tough spot and you told me what to do. You knew what was needed because you are the one. You even explained how it worked. I’m the one who failed.”

Richard looked around at the scene of destruction. “I don’t think you failed at all, Samantha. In the end you didn’t give up. You redoubled your effort and then you did it. You protected me. You stopped the threat. That’s what matters.”

She smiled with a bit of relief, if not pride, as she looked around with him. “When you told me about doing this, I didn’t know that it would do this much damage. I never imagined.”

Richard turned more serious as he glanced across the expanse of destruction. “Well, I have to tell you, I never saw a sorceress create quite so much ha

voc. But you did what was needed. Anything less, I think, would have not been enough to save us.”

She looked out where his gaze went across the leveled forest. “I never imagined I could do such a thing. I didn’t know the gift could be so destructive.”

“Destruction in the cause of good is a glorious thing.”

She smiled at such an odd sounding concept.

“So,” he finally asked, “if you tried and couldn’t do it, then what happened? How were you suddenly able to do it?”

“I got angry,” she said rather quietly, almost as if she were ashamed of it.

“Angry?”

She nodded. “I was back in the hole, thinking about how I was about to die, and then I thought of my mother, like I told you, about what had happened to her. That made me angry, angry at myself for failing myself, for failing her, for failing you, for failing everyone. I was so angry.

“But mostly, more than being furious with myself, I was enraged at these half people, enraged that they would harm so good a man as my father, as so many others, as you. I was enraged at what they were doing, at what they want to do to everyone. Our souls are ours. What gives them the right to our souls?”

“I don’t think they can really steal our souls, Samantha. Naja said as much.”

“Yes but they want to. They intend to. They try to. That they can’t doesn’t really mean much if we’re dead. They murder innocent people to try to get their souls, and that’s what matters.

“What makes them think they have the right to someone else’s soul, someone else’s life?”

Richard could only shake his head.

“I was so angry,” she said, “that it just sort of boiled over. I wanted more than anything to wipe them all out of the world of life. So, when I got that angry, trying to think of how to strike back at them for what they were doing, I latched on to what you told me to do with the trees.

“I let that anger build toward the ones who were causing so much suffering and death. When I did that, I realized that I was beginning to feel the trees all around us.”

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