The Mord'Sith Confessor-Legend of the Seeker Fanfic

4. How Much Safer

4.

"What," Thalia began, "in the name of Creation is a Confessor?"

Kahlan spun round. "You don’t know?" She asked incredulously.

"Greaaat!" Cara threw up her hands in exasperation. "We go and get landed with a piece of newbie Mord'Sith cargo who happens to be a Confessor and happens to not know what a Confessor is? How do we get into these messes?!"

"Cara," Richard reprimanded her warningly.

"My name is Kahlan," the white dress woman told her. "I am Mother Confessor."

Thalia blinked. "You...are not my mother."

Cara rolled her eyes in exasperation. "For God's sake! She means, she's in charge of the Confessors. She's Queen Bee. Got it?"

Thalia shot her a withering look.

"A Confessor is a breed of women with the ability to turn someone into their slave. Someone who is Confessed loves his or her Confessor unconditionally and does his or her bidding until the death of the Confessor. To be Confessed deprives a person of free will; their will becomes dependent on the will of the Confessor."

"How is someone Confessed?" Thalia asked quickly.

"By grabbing them by the throat and gazing into their eyes."

A million pieces of a jigsaw Thalia had never known existed suddenly flew into place. This was why Dahlia had been scared to look her in the eye; this was why her father turned her in to the Mord'Sith. In one instant, the many mysteries of Thalia's life were explained.

"Wow," Thalia breathed. "I never knew..."

"What's your name, child?" The wizard asked. It was the first time she had heard him speak; his voice was soft and gentle, laced with intelligence and insight. Thalia sensed he was a perceptive man with a very different outlook on life to others. No wonder he was a great wizard.

"Yours first," Thalia glared, her tone crisp and arrogant. She sounded like Dahlia. The thought made her smile.

"Zeddicus Zu'ul Zorrander. Wizard of the First Order. You have met Kahlan and Richard; this lovely lady-" Zedd glanced at Cara with a sarcastic smile-"is Cara."

"I know who she is."

Zedd did not ask, for he did not care, how she knew or what she knew."What's your name?"

"Thalia Aisling White." She spoke with Mord'Sith arrogance, and tossed her long, blonde plait proudly.

"You ran away from them." Richard's definite tone annoyed her. Did he think her weak?

"No, I did not. I do not fear the Agiel." As if to prove a point, she drew her own and plunged it into her stomach, then stood calmly, barely wincing at the pain.

"Then why are you so far from the temple?" Cara demanded.

Thalia hesitated. "There were Banelings...too many of them. I would have fought them. Dahlia told me to run. I ran for my life."

"What did they do to you?" Kahlan asked gently.

"I-I killed my father." The words were repulsive on Thalia's lips. She hastily spat them out.

Cara stepped forward. "Wait-what did you say?"

Thalia locked eyes with her. "They told me he betrayed me. Said he turned me in. So I killed him. And you know what? I enjoyed it," she added with relish.

"Your father didn't betray you," Cara said slowly.

"How do you know?" Thalia spat.

"That's what they told me, too," Cara whispered. Her eyes glistened with the ghosts of her past and tears welled up.

"They made me kill him. They said he was speechless, too ashamed to deny it. He didn't speak, so I believed them." She wiped a tear from her cheek in embarrassed frustration. "It turned out they tortured him, and tried to make him say to me that he turned me in. They did everything but still he refused." She became suddenly very interested in her feet, and told the rest of her story to them. "So they burned his throat so he couldn't speak. They've done it to many fathers."

A wave of guilt hit Thalia. She killed her father. Dahlia lied to her. Thalia had heartlessly killed her father, barely stopping to question the truth in Dahlia's words.

Looking up from behind her eyelashes, Thalia saw stray tears fall from Cara's eyes and onto the grass. Sobbing now, she ran forward and wrapped Cara in a hug.

Cara hesitated before wrapping her arms around Thalia.

"Well, you better stay with us," Richard decided.

"She's not safe!" Cara exclaimed incredulously.

"She's a Mord'Sith Confessor," Kahlan smiled. "How much safer can you get?"