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PERHAPS I WILL HEAR YOUR VOICE UNTIL THE END OF TIME
The weight of everything she had ever been and would never be again pulled her bones apart and rammed them back together again. The notion that she would be lost to time without a trace of herself for people to look back on haunted her even though she had minutes left to live. The only truth in this world was the Mother Confessor’s hand around her throat, gripping her so tightly that she could hardly breathe.
Dahlia’s feeble hands grasped at the front of the Mother Confessor’s dress as every original thought she’d ever had leaked out from her ears and collected in messy puddles on the forest floor beneath her. Lord Rahl was a distant memory, the smell of her leathers was completely absent, and any sight that was not the godly countenance of the Mother Confessor, Kahlan Amnell, was all gone away. There was nothing that was not Kahlan.
“Mistress,” Dahlia managed to choke out despite the blacksmith’s hammer driving down into her head. Her chest felt so very tight as she struggled to retain consciousness. Not far off from where they were kneeling in the leaves was a dark, black, swirling nothingness that only seemed to grow where her eyes were fixed elsewhere. Dahlia hoped that Kahlan’s face would be the last she saw before she died. Dahlia needed Kahlan’s face to be her dying visage, like the burial masks laid over the dead faces of kings long buried in the ground. Perhaps, if she was worthy enough, she would hear Kahlan’s voice until the end of time, feel her skin until there was nothing left of this world, taste her lips like they were the blood of the gods.
“Tell me what Darken Rahl is planning. What did he want of Cara?” Kahlan commanded, her voice was one thousand sunsets and two thousand sunrises. Dahlia had never seen blue eyes so clear, so deep, so much like the sky and the great, wide ocean all at the same time. The Mord-Sith wondered if she had ever seen true beauty or known unconditional love until Kahlan had wrapped her hand around Dahlia’s neck and forced this indelible Confessor’s touch unto her. Dahlia had seen the light of creation for only a moment, but she wanted to keep it forever. Her hands continued to grasp Kahlan’s pure, white dress until Dahlia saw the tears beginning to dampen the Mother Confessor’s divine eyes.
“Mistress…” Dahlia gasped against the growing darkness, tears streaming down her face like rivulets of molten metal. She wanted nothing more in this world than to obey Kahlan’s command, for there was nothing that Dahlia would not do for her newfound goddess, but the still-logical piece of her brain still breached the surface. Dahlia could not understand what she was never told. “I don’t know… Mistress please, forgive me, I don’t know—”
Kahlan’s face turned from frantic and impatient into something far more primal, twisting and morphing into the most unseemly expression. Dahlia could not understand the anger in Kahlan’s eyes, furious and blue. Kahlan gripped her tighter, which made Dahlia all the more breathless. Her vision was tunneling, she only had eyes for the Confessor’s face. Dahlia could only see the woman who she loved more than anything she had ever known.
Dahlia could no longer differentiate a look of adoration from a look of anger, and when Kahlan’s face turned from inquisitive to abject, Dahlia could not understand any of it. It was all the same to her, it was all light from Kahlan Amnell, and that magic was only thing that mattered anymore.
“Mistress, please,” Dahlia begged, threading her hands through Kahlan’s thick, dark hair. Before the darkness could swallow her up, before everything ended, Dahlia cupped the back of Kahlan’s neck. Dahlia could feel the softness of Kahlan’s skin and tiny, silken hairs even through the rough touch of her leather gloves. Her bleary eyes roamed to Kahlan’s mouth and took them in as if they were a cliff at the end of the world. Dahlia did not hesitate to plunge into the slow curve of Kahlan’s lips, pressing her own down onto them, smashing their faces together as time slipped so quickly away from her. Life slithered out of her as something deep and dangerous shook within her belly, aching and screaming for her to leave all of this behind.
Dahlia was not long for this world, but in that short time she knew without a shadow of doubt that all she wanted was Kahlan.
Kahlan’s cried out in disgust—or was it pleasure—and fell back to escape Dahlia’s touch. Even in Dahlia’s weakened state, however, she could plainly see that there was not only malice in her eyes. But it was so hard to distinguish the truth from her delusions. Dahlia’s lungs closed up, her hands sought Kahlan’s but found no solace. The Mother Confessor rose up and stared down at Dahlia, who under her glare was forced to crumple to the ground like a marionette that someone was weary of playing with. A puppet that Kahlan herself had grown tired of. Dahlia was useless without her magic. Dahlia was useless in her death.
“Mother Confessor,” Dahlia croaked, crawling on her belly despite all the pain and reaching for Kahlan’s muddy, black boot. She held onto her ankle like it was a relic, like it was all the lost time she had left, but it was not enough. Dahlia forced her head to turn upward to watch Kahlan’s indomitable gaze look down on her.
The sky fell down and the trees grew upward and Dahlia sunk into the ground and never spoke again her eyes lay open as time and centuries and worlds passed her by nothing mattered anymore, not now, for there was no where to be and nothing to do and no one to be and—