The Heir (Fall of the Swords Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

slept for a full day.
    Waking, Icy Wind asked the boy what happened, as if he hadn't been there. Explaining as well as any five-year old could, Seeking Sword felt he had been a character in one of the stories told late at night around the fire. His father didn't want to believe him but had to.
    The sword.
    Icy Wind's eyes lit up like lamps when he saw the weapon. Seeking Sword didn't remember his father's exact words, merely that Icy Wind was ecstatic, as if they had found something very valuable.
    To this day, Seeking Sword wondered why the sword was valuable, and also wondered, if it were so valuable, why Icy Wind had left it in a five-year old's possession.
    Sighing, Seeking Sword stood to examine the place where the trunk had split ten years ago. He found no seam, no scar, nothing to show where the tree had opened.
    His stomach growled, and he shook his head. I need to eat, he thought, not feeling hungry. Shouldering his bow and quiver, he stepped toward denser forest, leaving his other accoutrements behind.
    Sliding along a clearing edge, Seeking Sword saw motion among the opposite trees. Dropping to a crouch, his back hunched, an arrow in his bow, he crept through the grass. Slowly, he approached, tracking the animal more by sound than sight, the wind favoring him. At fifteen paces from his prey, he rose, found a bead and loosed the arrow.
    “You vomitus of a cancerous hyena, what do you think you're doing?!”
    Laughing, Seeking Sword rose to his full height. “How are you, Thinking Quick?” he asked, unable to see the girl to whom the voice belonged.
    She appeared in the moon-dapple, his arrow in her fist. “Alive, thank the Infinite. You almost put that arrow in my heart, Seeking Sword. Have you begun hunting humans?” she asked affably, stepping into his arms.
    “I love you and would never harm you, child,” he replied, embracing her. “I may go hungry if I don't kill
some
thing.”
    “I'll be back.” She disappeared without sight or sound, teleporting herself away, her usual method of coming and going.
    He smiled, grateful she was here. Eight years old, Thinking Quick was the daughter of Melding Mind, the bandit Wizard. Independent, mischievous and talented, she was a full-fledged Wizard of many psychic disciplines, and of all three time sights—temporal, extant, and prescient. She often complained that her prescience was more a curse than a blessing.
    Waiting in the clearing, Seeking Sword wondered what it was like to know the entire past and all possible futures. She claimed it was torture. He sympathized, knowing he was incapable of truly understanding. At one time she had told Seeking Sword he was invisible to all three time sights. “I can never see where you've been, where you are, or where you'll be. Sometimes I
can
see the effects of your presence on others.” Despite her multiple talents, Thinking Quick couldn't determine why he was without one. “Only the Infinite knows,” she had said.
    She appeared before him, carrying a large hare by the ears. Taking it from her, he gestured toward the oak where he had left his other weapons.
    “I saw the burst of energy earlier,” she said. “What did he do, try to hit you with his staff?”
    He nodded, stepping through moon-dapple.
    “It's not easy to leave one's father,” Thinking Quick said, “or lose a son.”
    Seeking Sword was in tears again, feeling his grief anew. She always knew what to say to bring his pain pouring from him, always knew when he needed her. The girl calmly took his hand and led him while he was blind.
    Her practice seemed to be to help him through his rough times. A psychological Wizard, she was expert at treating emotional imbalances. With him, of course, she used words instead of psychic adjustments.
    “Icy Wind has his own terrible purpose—as you do,” she said, guiding him across a dry stream-bed. “Your time had come to take a different path. Remember, my friend, he's a very sick man. The staff compounds the