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

Horses snorted and stomped, their leather tack creaking, as the
men mounted up. "In the morning we'll be back to burn this place down.
We'd better not catch you or yours anywhere near here, or you'll burn with
it." After a few last curses, the men raced away. The sound of departing
hooves hammering the ground rumbled through Kahlan's back. Even that hurt.

She smiled a small smile for Richard, even if he couldn't see it.
She wished only that he had not begged on her behalf; he would never, she
knew, have begged for anything for himself.

Light splashed across the wall as the blanket over the doorway was
thrown back. By the direction and quality of the light, Kahlan guessed it
had to be somewhere in the middle of a thinly overcast day. Richard
appeared beside her, his tall form towering over her, throwing a slash of
shadow across her middle.

He wore a black, sleeveless undershirt, without his shirt or
magnificent gold and black tunic, leaving his muscular arms bare. At his
left hip, the side toward her, a flash of light glinted off the pommel of
his singular sword. His broad shoulders made the room seem even smaller
than it had been only a moment before. His cleanshaven face, his strong
jaw, and the crisp line of his mouth perfectly complemented his powerful
form. His hair, a color somewhere between blond and brown, brushed the
nape of his neck. But it was the intelligence so clearly evident in those
penetrating gray eyes of his that from the first had riveted her attention.

"Richard," Kahlan whispered, "I won't have you begging on my
account."

The corners of his mouth tightened with the hint of a smile. "If I
want to beg, I shall do so." He pulled her blanket up a little, making
sure she was snugly covered, even though she was sweating. "I didn't know
you were awake."

"How long have I been asleep?"

"A while."

She figured it must have been quite a while. She didn't remember
arriving at this place, or him building the house that now stood around
her.

Kahlan felt more like a person in her eighties than one in her
twenties. She had never been hurt before, not grievously hurt, anyway, not
to the point of being on the cusp of death and utterly helpless for so
long. She hated it, and she hated that she couldn't do the simplest things
for herself. Most of the time she detested that more than the pain.

She was stunned to understand so unexpectedly and so completely