Epilogue

The Emperor was in a terrible rage. He had killed one girl, and looked ready to kill another. And what made it worse was that he was using his bare hands, instead of his dreamwalker powers. Covered in blood, the Emperor turned on Bree and grabbed her throat, pulling her up off the floor.

"You told me it would work!" he seethed, his chest heaving with horrific fury. "You promised me!"

Bree narrowed her eyes and fought off the pain that was threatening. "It would have," she managed to choke out. "It would have worked if you hadn't trusted Neville. He was the wrong man for the job… and you know it." The Emperor released her from his grasp and snarled, throwing her on the bed.

He spun around and grabbed Cynthia by the hair and pulled her up to him. "Perhaps I should take you now, darlin," he growled at her. "If I cannot have the Mother Confessor, I shall have you."

"No, my lord, wait!" Bree pounced up, knowing she'd only get punished even more for this, but she did not care. There were far greater things in this world that need her attention. The Emperor's obsession with the Mother Confessor was getting in the way. "There is another way, a better way." She slid down and ran her hands up his brawny back and rubbed his shoulders, trying to ease his anger. "Let me take care of it," she said.

The Emperor narrowed eyes and released Cynthia, who collapsed on the ground crying. Bree had come to care about the woman. She had spent many hours with the girl, training her to behave and act like the Mother Confessor.

"What do you have in mind, darlin?" the Emperor purred, turning on her, his big hands wrapping around her small waist.

Bree opened her legs for him as he lifted her up and positioned her. "Something deliciously evil and wicked, my lord," Bree cooed, as he moved her down, entering her. Bree let out a feigned moan of pleasure at the feeling of him shoving himself inside her.

The Emperor curled his lips. "This plan, you have, darlin," he said as he held her small bottom in his big hands. "Does it involve our twin of the Mother Confessor?"

"Oh yes…," Bree murmured, feigning delight at the brute's ministrations. "With what I have planned, Richard Rahl shall never know what hit him."

As the Emperor spun around and pinned her against the wall, thrusting him in and out of her with such force that Bree knew she would bleed for several days, the Sister of the Dark looked down upon Cynthia, the woman who looked so much like the Mother Confessor, and smiled.

Her skin, the same pale alabaster as the confessor, when matched with the frame of her dark brown hair, which, so lush and rich, gleamed with a raven black sheen in the candlelight. And her blue eyes… they shined with the same brilliant and wondrous quality as the woman the Lord Rahl loved.

Yes, Bree smiled, this woman was indeed the exact likeness of the Mother Confessor Kahlan Amnell. She was a perfect copy, even down to her exquisite voice. And soon, very soon, she would prove her worth.

RICHARD and KAHLAN

will return

in

THE CHIMES TOLL A FIRESTORM