Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Zedd cocked his head. "Brush my hair?"

Rachel nodded with a serious look. "It sticks all out. But I like it."

"Rachel," Chase said as he ducked in through the round-topped door way, "are you bothering Zedd, again?"

Rachel shook her head. "I brought him biscuits. Rikka said he likes his cuits with his stew and I should bring him a whole bowl full."

Chase planted his fists on his hips. "And how is he supposed to eat his biscuits with ugly children sitting on his lap? You could scare his appetite right out of him."

Rachel giggled as she hopped down.

Zedd glanced at the book again. "Are you all packed up?"

"Yes," the big man said. "I want to get an early start. We'll leave first thing in the morning, if that's still all right with you."

Zedd dismissed the concern with a wave of his hand as he studied the prophecy. "Yes, yes. The sooner you get your family back here, the better. We'll all feel better having them here where we know they will be safe and you will all be together."

Chase's heavy brow drew lower over his intent brown eyes. "Zedd, what's the matter? What's wrong?"

Zedd looked up with a frown. "Wrong? Nothing. Nothing is wrong."

"He's just busy reading," Rachel assured Chase as she hugged his leg and put her head against his hip.

"Zedd," Chase said in a demanding drawl that said he didn't believe a word of it.

"What makes you think something is wrong?"

"You haven't eaten a thing." Chase rested one hand on the wooden handle of a long knife at his belt and with the other caressed Rachel's head of long, golden blond hair. The man probably had a dozen knives of various sizes strapped around his waist and to his legs. When he left in the morning he would add swords and axes to the knives. "That can only mean something is wrong."

Zedd popped a biscuit in his mouth. "There," he mumbled around the mouthful. "Satisfied?"

While Zedd chewed the warm biscuit, Chase leaned down and lifted the girl's chin. "Rachel, go to your room and finish getting your things packed up. And I expect your knives to be cleaned and sharp as well."

She nodded earnestly. "They will be, Chase."

Rachel had had a hard life for one so young. For reasons that had always made Zedd suspicious, she'd been at the center of a variety of consequential situations. When Chase had taken the orphaned girl in to raise as his own daughter, Zedd himself had admonished the man to teach her to protect herself, to teach her to be like him so that she could defend herself and stay safe. Rachel adored Chase and eagerly learned all the lessons he taught her. With one of the smaller knives she carried, she could pin a fly to a fence post at ten paces.

"And I want you in bed early so that you will be rested," Chase told her. "I'm not carrying you if you're tired."

Rachel gave him a puzzled look. "You carry me when I tell you I'm not tired."

Chase cast Zedd a pained look before giving her a clearly feigned scowl. "Well, tomorrow you're just going to have to keep up on your own."

Rachel nodded seriously, unruffled by the man towering over her. "I will." She looked at Zedd. "Will you come and kiss me good night?"

"Of course," Zedd said with a smile of his own. "I'll be in after a bit to tuck you in."

He wondered if Rikka would stop by her room to tell her a story. It was heartwarming to think of the Mord-Sith telling a child stories about pictures made by the stars in the sky. Rachel seemed to have that effect on everyone.

Chase watched through the doorway as his daughter raced off down the broad rampart. Zedd had been gratified at the way she had taken to the Wizard's Keep. In short order she had made it hers and was happily skipping through halls that were thousands of years old. She minded well and never strayed from the areas Zedd had warned her about. She was a child who understood danger. Out on the rampart, she looked completely al ease as she paused momentarily to gaze through a crenellation down at the city below before racing off again. It seemed to Zedd a wonder that such spindly legs could carry the child so swiftly.

After Chase was sure that she was safely on her way, he closed the heavy oak door and stepped closer to the desk. His size made the cozy room, a room that Zedd had always thought quite comfortable, seem rather cramped.

"Now, what's the problem?"

The man wasn't going to be satisfied until he knew more. Zed sighed and used a finger lo spin the book around for the boundary warden lo read.

"Take a look. You tell me."

Chase glanced at the ancient book. He lifted a page to each side and briefly took a look before setting each page back down.

"Like I said, what's the problem? It doesn't look like there is much here to worry about."

Zedd arched an eyebrow. "That's the problem."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a book of prophecy. It's supposed to have writing in it-prophecy. You can't have a book with no writing and have it still be a proper book, now can you? The writing is gone."