Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind Page A

she whispered to herself.
    As she shuffled across the polished floor, she let the letter slip from her fingers. Sisters cautiously scurried in behind to snatch it up, to read for themselves the last words of Prelate Annalina Aldurren.
    The four Sisters came to their feet as she approached. Sister Maren’s fine, sandy hair framed an ashen face. Sister Dulcinia’s blue eyes were wide, and her face red. Sister Philippa’s usually placid expression was now a picture of consternation.
    Sister Leoma’s wrinkled cheeks spread in a kindly smile. “You will be in need of advice and guidance, Sis … Prelate.” Her smile was spoiled by the way she swallowed involuntarily. “We will be available to help in any way we can. Please consider us at your disposal. We are here to serve—”
    “ Thank you,” Verna said in a weak voice as she started out again, her feet seeming to move of their own accord.
    Warren waited outside. She pushed the doors closed and stood in a daze before the young, blond-headed wizard. Warren went to a knee in a deep bow.
    “ Prelate.” He glanced up with a grin. “I was listening at the door,” he explained.
    “ Don’t call me that.” Her own voice sounded hollow to her.
    “ Why not? It’s who you are, now.” His grin grew. “This is—”
    She turned and started away, her mind at last beginning to function again. “Come with me.”
    “ Where are we going?”
    Verna crossed her lips with a finger and over her shoulder shot him a scowl that snapped his mouth shut. Warren scurried to catch up with her as she marched off. Once beside her, he lengthened his stride to keep pace as she proceeded out of the Palace of the Prophets. Whenever he looked as if he might open his mouth again, she crossed her lips with the finger. He at last sighed, stuffed his hands in the opposite sleeves of his robes, and set his gaze ahead as he strode along beside her.
    Novices and young men outside the palace, who had heard the riot of bells proclaiming the new prelate named, saw the ring and bowed. Verna kept her eyes ahead as she passed them. The guards on the bridge over the River Kern bowed as she crossed.
    Once over the river, she descended to the bank and walked along the path through the rushes. Warren hurried to keep up with her as she passed the small docks, all empty now, the boats out on the river with their fishermen casting nets or dragging lines as they rowed slowly upriver. They would soon be returning to sell their fish at the market in the city.
    A ways upriver from the Palace of the Prophets, at a deserted, flat patch of ground near an outcropping of rock around which the water gurgled and splashed, she came to a halt. Scowling into the swirling water, she planted her fists on her hips.
    “ I swear, if that meddlesome old woman wasn’t dead, I’d strangle her with my bare hands.”
    “ What are you talking about?” Warren asked.
    “ The Prelate. If she weren’t in the hands of the Creator right now, I’d have mine around her throat.”
    Warren chuckled. “That would be quite the sight, Prelate.”
    “ Don’t call me that!”
    Warren frowned. “But that’s who you are now: the Prelate.”
    She snatched his robes at each shoulder in her fists. “Warren, you have to help me. You have to get me out of this.”
    “ What! But this is wonderful! Verna, you’re Prelate now.”
    “ No. I can’t be. Warren, you know all the books down in the vaults, you’ve studied palace law—you have to find something to get me out of this. There has to be a way. You can find something in the books that will prevent this.”
    “ Prevent it? It’s done. And besides, this is the best thing that could happen.” He cocked his head to the side. “Why did you bring me way down here?”
    She released his robes. “Warren, think. Why was the Prelate killed?”
    “ She was killed by Sister Ulicia, one of the Sisters of the Dark. She was killed because she fought their evil.”
    “ No, Warren, I said think.