Yes, for that she felt guilt.
But Nicci had already made her peace with it. Kahlan and Richard had forgiven her. That embittered, evil person might have been who she was a long time ago—Death’s Mistress—but Nicci was different now. She did not wallow in her past and was not haunted by the ghosts of her deeds. She had served Richard, had fought for him, had helped overthrow the Imperial Order. She had commanded Jagang to die. She had served Richard with relentless dedication and killed countless numbers of bloodthirsty half people from the Dark Lands. She had done whatever Richard asked, had even stopped his heart to send him into the underworld so he could save Kahlan.
She had given him everything except for her guilt. Nicci did not hold on to guilt. Even when she had committed those crimes, she had felt nothing.
And now in this new journey of her life, she served an even greater purpose—not just the man Richard Rahl, whom she loved, but the dream of Richard Rahl—and in that service there could be no guilt. Nicci was a sorceress. She had the power of the wizards she had killed. She had all the spells the Sisters had taught her. She had a strength in her soul that went beyond any imagined calling of this deluded Adjudicator.
The magic was hers to control, and the punishment was not his to mete out.
Her body might have turned to stone, trapping her thoughts in a suffocating purgatory, but Nicci’s emotions had been like stone before, and she had a heart of black ice. It was her protection. She called upon that now, releasing any spark of magic she could summon, finding her flicker of determination and her refusal to accept the sentence this grim wizard imposed upon her.
As her fury grew, the magic kindled within her. She was not some clumsy, murderous villager, she was not a petty thief. She was a sorceress. She was Death’s Mistress.
Inside and around her Nicci felt the stone begin to crack.…
*
The Adjudicator’s long face was sallow and dour, as if all humor had been leached away. He showed no pleasure as he explained Nathan’s punishment and worked the spell to trap him. “They are all guilty,” he said, “every person. I have so much work to do…”
Nathan strained, struggling to move his petrified arm. “No, you won’t.” His hand had nearly reached the sword, but even if he touched the hilt, it would do no good. The stone spell surrounded him and was rapidly fossilizing his tissues, stopping time inside his body. Nathan could not fight, could not flee, could barely even move. His only recourse would have been to use magic, to lash out with a retaliatory spell. But if he couldn’t light so much as a campfire, he certainly couldn’t fight such a powerful wizard.
Even if he summoned his wayward magic, though, Nathan knew he couldn’t control it. He could not forget trying to heal the wounded man in Renda Bay, ripping him asunder with what should have been healing magic. Nathan had only tried to help him.…
Maybe that was the moment of great guilt the Adjudicator would force him to endure for as long as stone lasted.
He heard the grinding crackle as the spell petrified even his leather pouch, along with his travel garments, and the life book. He could not breathe.
Nathan felt the magic squirming within him, ducking away like a snake slithering into a thicket. What did it matter if he unleashed it now and the spell backfired? What greater harm could it cause than the harm he was already facing? Even Nicci had been trapped in stone, and Bannon, poor Bannon, was already paralyzed in endless anguish.
Nathan had nothing to lose. No matter what unexpected backlash his magic might trigger, if he could release it and strike back, even in some awkward way, at least that would be something.
His lungs crushed down as the stone weight of guilt squeezed him, suffocated him, but he managed to gasp out some words. “I am Nathan … Nathan the prophet.” He caught one more fractional breath, one more gasp of words. “Nathan the wizard!”
The magic crawled out of him like a fanged eel startled from a dark underwater alcove. Nathan released it, not knowing what it would do … not caring. It lashed out, uncontrolled.
He heard and felt a white-hot sizzle building within his body. For a moment he was sure that his own form would explode, that his skull would erupt with uncontained power.
In front of him, the statue of Nicci seemed to be changing, softening, with countless eggshell cracks all over the white stone that had captured her perfection. Nathan didn’t think he was doing it. His own magic was here … boiling out—and spraying like scalding oil on the Adjudicator.
The grim wizard recoiled, staggering backward. “What are you doing?” He raised a hand and clapped the other to his amulet. “No!”
The petrification spell that the Adjudicator had wrapped around Nathan like a smothering cloak now slipped off of him, ricocheted and combined with Nathan’s wild magic. Reacting, backfiring.
The dour man straightened, then convulsed in horror. His lantern jaw dropped open, and his expression fell into abject despair. His water-blue eyes began to turn white, and his robe stiffened, changing to stone. “I am the Adjudicator!” he cried. “I am the judge. I see the guilt…”
With a crackling, shattering sound, Nicci fought her way out of her own fossilization, somehow using her powers. Nathan’s vision became sharper as he felt the intrusive stone drain out of his body like sand through an hourglass. His flesh softened, his blood pumped again.
Nathan’s unchecked magic likewise thrashed and curled and whipped. The Adjudicator writhed and screamed as he gradually froze in place, even his robe turning to marble.
“You. Are. Guilty!” Nathan said to the transforming Adjudicator when he could breathe again. “Your crime is that you judged all these people.”
Stone engulfed the Adjudicator, crackling up through his skin, stiffening the lids around his wide-open eyes. “No!” It wasn’t a denial, but a horror, a realization. “What have I done?” His voice became scratchier, rougher as his throat hardened and his chest solidified so that he couldn’t breathe. “All those people!” The stone locked his face in an expression of immeasurable regret and shame, his mouth open as he uttered one last, incomplete “No!” He became the newest statue in the town of Lockridge.
Staring at the stone figure, Nathan felt his rampant magic dissipate. Just like that, it was no longer available to his touch. He sucked in a deep breath and felt life flow through him again.
CHAPTER 33
When the Adjudicator himself turned to stone, his spell shattered and dissipated throughout the town.