Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

Nicci had no idea how she could explain it to him in a way that could make him understand the magnitude of the forces he had invoked or the grave danger he had unleashed. How could she say anything and not have him misunderstand her meaning? In the end, she knew she couldn't.

Nicci placed a hand on his shoulder. "I guess I can't blame you, Richard. I guess that in your place, I would have done the same. Someday, when we have the luxury of time we will have to talk about this. When we are able, I would like you to tell me everything you did. Maybe I can help you learn to better control what you alone were able to harness. If nothing else maybe I can at least make things you do spontaneously a little more focused and a little less dangerous."

Richard nodded his appreciation, whether of her offer or her softer tone she wasn't sure.

Nicci could see in Richard and Cara's eyes that the experience had brought the two of them closer. When she realized that he would soon be leaving, Nicci's brief bout of joy at seeing Cara alive and well faded.

"Besides," Richard said as he scanned the darkness, "we don't even know if this had anything to do with the thing back in the woods."

"Well of course it did," Nicci said.

His gaze returned to her. "How do you know? That thing tore all those men apart. This was a different kind of attack. For that matter, we don't even know for certain that either attack was the beast that Jagang ordered to be created."

"What are you talking about? What else could it be? It has to be the weapon that Jagang directed the Sisters to conjure."

"I'm not saying that it isn't-it very well could be-but a lot of it doesn't make any sense to me."

"Like what?"

Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. "The thing in the forest attacked the men-it didn't attack me even though I wasn't far away. Here, it didn't bother to tear Cara apart like it did the men. If it was the same thing, then we know it could have easily killed me. So when it was right here and had the chance, why didn't it use the opportunity?"

"Maybe because I tried to capture its power," Cara offered. "Maybe it just passed me by because I was a threat or maybe I distracted it enough that it decided to flee."

Richard shook his head. "You were no threat. It went right through you, and besides, its touch was enough to eliminate your interference. Then, it came through the wall for me, but as it reached my room it didn't flee, it simply disappeared."

Nicci abruptly turned suspicious. She never had heard the whole story.

"You were in the room and it just vanished?"

"Not exactly. I jumped out the window to escape it as it came through the wall into my room. As I hung there some kind of dark thing, like a moving shadow, came out the window and as it did it seemed to evaporate into the night."

Nicci idly drew the end of the cord of her bodice through her fingers as she considered what he'd said. She tried to fit the pieces into everything else she knew, but none of it would match. Nothing that the beast did seemed to make sense-if it really was the same beast. Richard was right in that it all seemed to defy logic.

"Maybe it didn't see you," she murmured half to herself as she considered the puzzle.

Richard flashed her a skeptical expression. "So you're saying that it could find me, at night, inside the inn, and it then crashed right through a succession of walls as it was coming for me, but then when I just barely managed to jump through the only window, it became confused and so it wandered off?"

Nicci appraised his eyes a moment. "Both attacks have something important in common. They both displayed incredible power-shattering trees like they were twigs and going through walls as if they were no more than paper."

Richard sighed unhappily. "I suppose that's true."

"What I'd like to know," Nicci added as she folded her arms, "is why it didn't kill Cara."

She caught the slight flicker in his eyes and she knew then that he knew something more than he had said. Nicci cocked her head as she watched him while she waited.

"When I was there in Cara's mind, taking up the pain of the touch of that vile thing, there was something more that it left behind," he admitted in a quiet voice. "I think it wanted to leave a message for me to find, a message that it's coming for me, that it will find me, and that for all eternity it will make my death a luxury beyond reach."

Nicci's gaze slid to Cara.

"I didn't choose for him to come after me to that twilight place, as you called it. I didn't ask him to and I didn't want him to." The Mord-Sith's hands fisted at her sides. "But I can't lie and say that I'd rather be dead."

Nicci couldn't help but to smile at such simple honesty.

"Cara, I'm joyful that you're not dead-I truly am. What kind of man would we be following if he easily let a friend die without trying his best to save her?"

Cara's expression cooled as Nicci looked again at Richard.