Rsiran Slid into the back room.
Danis waited next to Naelm. The Elvraeth councilor could barely lift his head. His eyes were bloodshot, and the bruises on his face angrier in person than they had been when Rsiran had Traveled. Danis stood casually, his hands empty.
Rsiran tensed, prepared to Slide. For Danis to stand as he did meant he was unconcerned by their presence, which meant he was prepared in some way. He had to have something planned.
“Rsiran Lareth. It is good to see you in person this time.”
“You’re leaving Elaeavn,” he spat.
“Ah, on that, we will have to disagree. I have yet to obtain what I came for, and Naelm is being most uncooperative. I’d expected more—being one of the family.”
“He can’t help you. I’m the reason you can’t get to the crystals, Danis.”
Danis frowned, something like a sad pout. “So formal. I had always hoped my grandson would address me as Papa, but maybe your sister will find it easier to welcome me.”
A flash of lorcith pressed behind him.
Rsiran Slid, emerging on the far side of the room, and sent a pair of knives streaking toward the Hjan who had appeared behind him. The man was thin, with pale green eyes and a scar that wrapped entirely around his face.
One of the knives connected, catching him in the stomach, and he fell.
“How many can you kill?” Danis asked softly. “You’re too kind to do what you need, so how many will you come after?” He sneered at him. “And to think you’re the one causing me all this trouble. Your mother was such a disappointment. She should have pulled you into line long ago, but now it must be me.”
“My mother never cared about me.” Rsiran pulled on the knives in the fallen Hjan and sent them toward Danis. His grandfather barely moved his hand, and the knives fell to the ground, held there in spite of how much Rsiran pushed.
Danis had grown stronger in his connection to lorcith. Rsiran briefly wondered how, but didn’t take the time to search for answers.
What of heartstone?
Rsiran pressed on one of his pure heartstone knives, and sent that at his grandfather. Much like with the lorcith, it fell to the ground, and he couldn’t move it.
“It is reassuring to know my enhancements worked,” Danis said. “There are so few I can test them on.” He waved his hand, and all the lorcith and heartstone Rsiran carried pushed him into the wall.
Rsiran resisted, but Danis had grown powerful. He focused on lorcith, using the strength of Ilphaesn as he had so often before, and pushed.
In the past, that had been all that he needed to do. Connecting to the lorcith within the mountain had allowed him to push against someone who might be stronger than he was. This time, when he connected to Ilphaesn, it didn’t give him enough strength.
Rsiran started to Slide, but Danis managed to tear him from it, and slammed him into the wall.
“I would like you to remain here, grandson.”
Danis stopped behind Naelm and pulled his head back. “I was never exiled. Perhaps now it’s time for me to re-establish my place in the city, and for new leadership to sit on the council,” he said. He pulled on a knife and brought it toward Naelm. The blade skimmed across his neck, and blood bloomed to the surface. Naelm winced as blood started running down his neck. The blade pressed deeper, and blood poured out.
Danis looked to Rsiran. “You should have brought more than yourself to this,” he said to him.
Haern appeared in the door and flipped a pair of knives at Danis. “He did.”
Danis tried to push on the knives, but they were steel. Finely made—and crafted by Rsiran at Haern’s request—but without lorcith or heartstone, Danis had no control over the metal within them.
One of the blades struck him in the shoulder. The other missed.
Danis flickered forward, and when he emerged, he caught Haern in the stomach with his sword.
Haern’s eyes widened, and he sank to the ground.
“No!” Rsiran reaching for his sword, the only weapon that he had remaining. He wasn’t as skilled with the sword as he was with his knives, but he had no other choice. He carried the blade he’d crafted in the heart of the Aisl, and as he unsheathed it, the metal practically blazed.
Danis tried pushing on it. It dipped slightly before the sword slipped past it, the blade itself managing to push back.
Rsiran swung his sword at Danis.
As he did, he felt a connection to the depths of the Aisl, to the Elder Trees themselves. Had he somehow forged that into the blade?
He pulled on that connection, sending it through the blade, and tried to wrap Danis in that power.
For a moment, Rsiran thought it might hold. Danis writhed in place, struggling against the power that bound him. Rsiran pulled on more power from the Elder Trees.
Haern gasped.
Rsiran’s focus faltered. His friend was dying, and because of Rsiran, because of what he’d wanted, the fact that he had thought he could end the struggle in the city.
As he lost focus, Danis disappeared.
Rsiran wanted to chase him, and wanted to catch him, but didn’t dare or he’d lose Haern.
He sheathed his sword, Slid to Haern, and after a brief internal debate, grabbed Naelm as well. Then he Slid to the place between.
Rsiran left them long enough to Slide to Della. Her eyes widened as he appeared, and then he Slid with her to the place between as well.
“Can you help them?” he asked.
Della placed her hands on Haern, and closed her eyes. Rsiran used the power from the trees to help, funneling it into her. When her eyes opened, she shook her head. “He’s too far gone, Rsiran. I’m so sorry.”
Rsiran dropped to his knees. “Haern?”
Della left him as she went to Naelm. A connection between Rsiran and the Elder Trees remained, some of which he pushed into Della without knowing that he did. Most of the connection, he poured into Haern.
“There’s nothing you can do,” she whispered. “You can help the councilor, though.”
“You help him. I’ll see you’ve got the necessary strength.”
“Rsiran—”
He ignored her, focusing on Haern.
The old assassin’s breathing came in shallow gasps, each one labored and an obvious struggle. His brow was furrowed, and sweat poured from his face. Color had leached from him, bleeding out with the rest of his life. The long scar along his jaw became even starker.
“I’m so sorry, Haern,” he whispered. Rsiran pressed all the power that he could draw from the Elder Trees into Haern, but he had none of Della’s gifts. How had he managed to heal himself? Why couldn’t he do the same for Haern? “This is my fault.”
“Rsiran,” Haern whispered. His eyes flickered open, and he grabbed Rsiran’s hand. “Not… your fault. Danis. You did… what you could. Don’t… let this change… you.”
His breathing sped, and his eyes went wider.
Rsiran couldn’t lose him. Not Haern. The man had done nothing but work with him, trying to train him, preparing him for a time like what he’d faced with Danis—a time where his abilities wouldn’t matter. And Rsiran had failed him.
Closing his eyes, he focused on the connection to the Elder Trees, feeling the power all around him. There was strength here, immeasurable power, and he could pull on it. Why couldn’t he use that power to save a friend? Why must Haern die because of Rsiran’s weakness?
Drawing on that power, letting it fill him even more, he started pouring it into Haern. Rsiran might not know how to heal his friend, but the trees would, wouldn’t they? They were ancient, older than the people who had once lived here, and tied into a greater power than anything Rsiran could imagine.
A hand touched his shoulder and he jerked.
“You didn’t fail him,” Della said.
Rsiran looked to Haern, hoping that he had somehow healed him. Haern’s eyes were closed. He no longer breathed.
He was gone.
“No,” he
whispered. Rsiran drew on more power, pulling it to him, and sent that through Haern.
Della squeezed his shoulder, forcing him to look up at her. “You can’t do anything more, Rsiran. He’s gone. All that you do with this,” she said, waving her hand around trees that appeared to Rsiran as bright glowing lights, “is consume the power of the Elder Trees. Even you cannot bring someone back from the dead.”
Rsiran tore his eyes away from Della and looked at Haern. There was no more pain on his face. No more anger. Lying here, he almost seemed at peace, not gone. But he was gone, and he didn’t know how he’d tell Jessa.
Della was right. There was nothing that he could do. The power of the Elder Trees couldn’t even save him.
Rsiran released the connection to the trees and sat back on his heels. “It’s my fault. He only tried to protect me, but I failed him. He’d been trying to get me to stop relying on my abilities to succeed. He had warned me that I might need to fight without them, but I never learned enough. I wasn’t strong enough,” he finished softly.
Tears flowed. They were tears he had not felt when his mother had died, but for Haern, they came easily.
“He chose to help, Rsiran.” Della sank to the ground and slipped an arm around him. He rested his head on her shoulder, the closest family that he had. “You couldn’t have forced him to help, just as you couldn’t have stopped him when he decided to join. This was Haern’s choice.”
Rsiran sobbed. “I couldn’t beat him.”
“Danis is a dangerous man. He is intelligent, and the things Venass has discovered have only made him more powerful.”
“I couldn’t use lorcith or heartstone around him. I couldn’t even Slide. If my abilities are gone, how are we going to beat him? How are we going to stop Venass?”
“Your abilities aren’t gone. You have more than what Danis possesses. Can he Travel? Can he use the power of the Elder Trees?”
“That power is useless anywhere but here.”
“Perhaps you cannot access it, but that doesn’t mean it’s useless.”
Rsiran stared at Haern. Whatever else he did, he needed to stop Danis. No more of his friends could die because he failed. “The sword,” he said. “I could use it through the sword. I almost had him…” Now Danis had escaped him twice. Rsiran feared he wouldn’t get a third opportunity, and if he did, would anything end up any differently?
There was a cough behind him, and Rsiran turned.
Naelm sat up, running a hand along his neck. A shiny scar remained, but the councilor lived. “How… how is it that I still live? Where is this place?”
Rsiran glanced at Della. “I’ll return,” he said to her.
She nodded. “Take your time. There is much I can learn here.”
He Slid to Naelm and grabbed him, then Slid to the Floating Palace. They emerged in the room where Rsiran had lost Danis, and he released Naelm. “You will welcome the guilds back to the city,” he said.
Naelm somehow managed to quickly regain his composure. “Who are you to direct the council?”
Anger surged within him. Had the damned council not sided with Venass, he wouldn’t have had to come here. He wouldn’t have lost Haern. If this was about Naelm finding his daughter, what made her more important than all those who lived in the city?
“Who am I? Other than the reason that you still live?” Naelm touched his neck, his eyes widening slightly. “I am the smith guildlord, and I speak for all the guilds.”
“The guildlords do not have a single voice.”
“They do now. The council will no longer support Venass in the city.”
“You cannot speak for the council.”
“Then I will take a seat on the Elvraeth council.”
Naelm’s face contorted, and blotches of red rose in his cheeks. “The council consists of the Elvraeth. What you suggest is impossible.”
Rsiran took a step toward him. “I’m descended from Elvraeth.”
“You’re no Elvraeth. You’re Lareth, nothing more than a smith—”
Rsiran slammed his hand on the table next to Naelm. Knives floated up as he pulled on them without intending to. “I’ll take that as a compliment. This smith is descended from Danis Ta’Elvraeth. As he left the palace voluntarily, I believe that grants me the right to remain in the palace. As I have held one of the great crystals—twice—I understand that grants me the right to sit on the council. You will see that it happens.”
Naelm shook his head. “What you suggest can’t happen.”
“No? Then the guilds will return, and they will take residence in the palace.” He didn’t know if the threat would even work, but now that most of the guild halls were destroyed, they would have to have some place to come back to.
Rsiran wondered how many would even want to return to the city. Not all, he suspected. Some might be content to remain in the Aisl, but there were others—those like Brusus and Alyse—who longed to return to the city.
“The palace is home to the Elvraeth, not the guilds.”
“The guilds preceded the rule of the Elvraeth. Perhaps it is time for the clans to return.” Rsiran waited for Naelm’s reaction. He took a deep breath and pushed the knives back into hiding. “I will sit on the council.”
Naelm opened his mouth then closed it again. He sank into a chair, rubbing his hand on his neck. “All we wanted was the return of the crystal. Venass claimed they could see it returned to its proper home.”
“Venass wanted to use the power of the crystals. They would never have returned it.”
“I believe that now.”
“You should have believed that before. And if this was about Cael, then you are even more of a fool, risking the city because you didn’t understand, because the Elvraeth remain closed in the palace, thinking they can rule from above. The city—our people—deserve more.”
Could he really do what he threatened? It wasn’t anything that he planned, but how else would he join the guilds to the ruling Elvraeth without more violence? In many respects, it made sense.
“I will return the crystal,” Rsiran said.
Naelm considered him a moment, continuing to rub his neck as he did. “If you do that, if you can return the missing crystal”—there was a hopeful tone in his voice, one that told Rsiran that Naelm wanted more than the return of the crystal—“I personally will see you sit on the council.”
Chapter 14
Carrying Haern to the heart of the Aisl was one of the hardest things that Rsiran had ever done.
When he emerged with Della inside her forest hut, with the scents of mint and the smoke from her hearth rising around them, she left her small hut and went to find Jessa. When she raced in, she sank to her knees in front of Haern’s body.
“Haern?” she whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Rsiran said. He stood with his back to the hearth, wanting the warmth of the fire, but feeling no real warmth. He wasn’t certain he would ever feel warm again. “He came with me to Elaeavn. We were going to find a way to…” He didn’t finish. What did it matter now what they intended to do by returning to Elaeavn? What mattered was that Haern was gone, lost because of Rsiran. “I’m sorry.”
“How?” Jessa said without looking up.
“Danis attacked. He’s grown stronger. Haern tried to help. He even caught Danis using his steel knives, but Danis Slid to him and got him with his sword. I wasn’t fast enough to help him. I wasn’t strong enough.”
Jessa wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “He told me he wanted Venass toppled. After everything they had done to him, he hated what they were doing to you. He wanted to make sure no one else went through the same.”
“I shouldn’t have taken him with me.”
Jessa stood and stormed over to him, jabbing him in the chest with her finger. “That’s not the answer, either. You should have had more with you!”
“Then even more would have died.”
“Rsiran—”
He sighed. There was something more that he needed
to tell her, but he feared how she would react. He wasn’t even sure how he felt about what he had decided. “I told Naelm I would return the crystal and that when I did, I would take a place on the Elvraeth council.”
“You did what?”
He had worried how she would react to this. “It’s a way we can bring the guilds and the council together without more violence. The council will no longer support Venass, but the guilds need to be in a stronger place than they’ve been. That means having a presence on the council.”
“There are other ways, Rsiran. Besides, why would they even let you on the council?”
The door opened and Della entered, watching him with a puzzled expression. “Did I hear you say you were going to sit on the council?”
Rsiran blanched. “When I faced Danis, he made it clear to Naelm that he was never exiled. He left the city of his own choosing. And since I’m descended from him, I’m Elvraeth.”
Della chuckled, and Jessa shot her a look. “I would never have considered that, but I think you’re right. I imagine Naelm did not take it well.”
“I told him that I’d return the crystal.”
“Which you were going to do anyway,” Della said.
Rsiran nodded.
“An interesting plan.”
They didn’t get the chance to say anything more. Brusus entered, his eyes immediately going to Haern’s body. His eyes flared a bright green. “You weren’t supposed to go this way, friend,” he said, crouching next to him and taking Haern’s hand. “You were supposed to help me See our way through this. How am I going to do this without you?”
Rsiran took a step back, leaving the hut, and leaving Jessa and Brusus and Della to mourn. He didn’t want to face their questions, and didn’t want to face the continued reality that Haern was gone because of him.
As he made his way around the perimeter of the clearing, his eyes were drawn to the top of the trees, toward the massive branches overhead. Shortly, Jessa caught up with him. He wasn’t surprised when she did, or when she slipped her hand into his.
“Haern liked sitting in the branches,” he said.
“He said he could almost see back to Elaeavn from there,” Jessa said.
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