"Terry Goodkind. Faith of the Fallen (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

people around her who didn't believe, even though she was again living,
that she would remain alive through the rest of the night. But now she
knew she had; she had remained alive many more nights, perhaps in answer
to desperate prayers and earnest oaths whispered over her that first night.

But if she didn't remember the dying, she remembered the pain
before passing into that great oblivion. The pain, she never forgot. She
remembered fighting alone and savagely against all those men, men baring
their teeth like a pack of wild hounds with a hare. She remembered the
rain of brutal blows driving her to the ground, heavy boots slamming into
her once she was there, and the sharp snap of bones. She remembered the
blood, so much blood, on their fists, on their boots. She remembered the
searing terror of having no breath to gasp at the agony, no breath to cry
out against the crushing weight of hurt.

Sometime after-whether hours or days, she didn't know-when she was
lying under clean sheets in an unfamiliar bed and had looked up into his
gray eyes, she knew that, for some, the world reserved pain worse than she
had suffered.

She didn't know his name. The profound anguish so apparent in his
eyes told her beyond doubt that she should have. More than her own name,
more than life itself, she knew she should have known his name, but she
didn't. Nothing had ever shamed her more.

Thereafter, whenever her own eyes were closed, she saw his, saw
not only the helpless suffering in them but also the light of such fierce
hope as could only be kindled by righteous love. Somewhere, even in the
worst of the darkness blanketing her mind, she refused to let the light in
his eyes be extinguished by her failure to will herself to live.

At some point, she remembered his name. Most of the time, she
remembered it.

13

Sometimes, she didn't. Sometimes, when pain smothered her, she
forgot even her own name.

Now, as Kahlan heard men growling his name, she knew it, she knew
him. With tenacious resolution she clung to that name-Richard-and to her
memory of hint, of who he was, of everything he meant to her.

Even later, when people had feared she would yet die, she knew she
would live. She had to, for Richard, her husband. For the child she
carried in her womb. His child. Their child.

The sounds of angry men calling Richard by name at last tugged
Kahlan's eyes open. She squinted against the agony that had been tempered,
if not banished, while in the cocoon of sleep. She was greeted by a blush