Parallel Affinity

Part 22

You have forgotten the prophecy, and now curse us all to death... The ever-familiar voice said.

Cara sat upright.

  The pain in her belly was gone, the heaviness from her entire body  lifted. Cara was feeling much lighter than only moments ago... which, as  she observed, was rather strange.

You should have listened... the voice spoke again.

"I don't understand", Cara replied.

She turned about herself, confused.

  In the midst of the chaos that surrounded her, in the midst of its  extraordinary stillness, Cara sought the source of the voice. In the  stillness of the chaos that surrounded her she could not find it, but  she perceived terror on frozen faces, terror and bewilderment, laced  with anger, fuelled by greed, masking, ultimately, fear...

Cara blinked.

  The state she was in, it felt unreal, and yet, she was overcome with a  strange sensation of clarity that felt too real, maybe even hyper-real,  causing the memory of the waking world to appear as no more than a vague  dream.

"What is happening?" she uttered, perplexed by this very strange picture she found herself in.

  The people that surrounded her, these people... The peasants, farmers,  townsfolk and guards alike, who stood on this stage made of stone, where  it felt as though she had been waiting forever, she knew who they were,  looking at them now, she recognised their essence. They were not  strangers about to lynch her, like she had thought of them only moments  ago — she recalled that this was just a part they chose to play, just as  she had chosen to be a Mord'Sith — but rather, her own brethren. She  saw their light on the inside, and perceived how their fears had  concealed it... And now, as she sought the source of the voice that spoke  to her, she saw that they were reduced to no more than human bodies  frozen mid-battle, or mid-flight, as though seized, captured, in a  living, breathing painting. And she, the only awoken one, was the only  one aware.

"Where are you?"

I am here, the voice replied.

  Cara turned, and turned again. Somewhere above the crowd of people  fleeing for their lives, somewhere around the midpoint between Kahlan  and Dahlia, she saw, at last, a vague figure enveloped in emanating pink  light. She could not quite distinguish its face, but it appeared old,  wrinkled, weathered, feminine... And, unexpectedly benevolent. It was by  the familiar voice, and the ever-haunting presence that Cara recognised  Shota, though the witch's beauty and youth were long gone, while her  true form came to light.

"What are we doing here?" Cara asked. "Am I dead?"

No... Shota replied. No, you are not.

  Unlike the night when Shota had erupted from the camp fire in the  forest, her voice roaring like giant flames to reveal the prophecy that  would alter Cara and Kahlan's lives forever, while ending others', the  witch's voice sounded infinitely more ethereal and gentle now. It was  this more than anything else that surprised Cara.

But the baby... The baby will be, she added.

  Cara froze. She remembered suddenly everything that had transpired only  moments ago... The fight with the guards, seeing Dahlia be beaten, seeing  Kahlan captured, restrained, and she, running, heedlessly running,  headfirst, into a fist that came out of nowhere and set her back, winded  her, and ravaged her stomach with unbearable pain. Cara remembered it  all as if recalling events from a different lifetime.