The Slide carried Brusus to the Aisl, and Rsiran left him. He didn’t want to be a part of the meeting. That was something private, something that should be between only Brusus and Luthan. Rsiran could easily imagine the questions Brusus had, questions like how Luthan had abandoned his daughter, or how long he had known that Brusus lived in the city, or whether he had any role in his mother’s exile in the first place.
Rsiran had other things he needed to do, anyway. In addition to preparing for a return to Asador—and he wanted to forge knives of both lorcith and heartstone before he did—there was someone he needed to see.
Jessa refused to leave him, and Rsiran wasn’t about to return to the Floating Palace alone. Now that Haern was gone, and with Brusus trying to understand his heritage, who else could he bring? The obvious answer would be someone from the guild—maybe Valn or even Sarah, someone he’d grown to trust enough to watch him while in the palace, but would either of them want to keep him as safe as Jessa would? And if he left her behind, he knew he’d suffer her anger.
The Slide back to Elaeavn took them into the palace. They emerged in a long hall with the lanterns glowing softly around him. He squeezed Jessa’s hand reassuringly. “This leads to the council chamber,” he whispered.
“It’s strange, you know?” she said. “Coming here like this, when I’m not afraid of getting caught.”
Rsiran sniffed. “I’m still a little afraid of that.”
“But you’re the guildlord.”
“It doesn’t mean anything to the Elvraeth, and certainly not to the council. They fear the threat to their authority more than anything. They see the guilds as competing for the rule of the city.”
Rsiran pushed open the door to the council hall, and found it empty. He hadn’t really expected to find Naelm there, but had hoped he’d have chanced upon a council meeting. Rsiran needed them to understand he didn’t intend to drop the issue of joining the council. As much as the idea of sitting on the council didn’t appeal to him, there was a need for him, one that came from the same place that needed him to settle the strife in the city once the battle with Venass was over.
He Slid with Jessa, this time emerging on one of the upper levels where he’d found Naelm the last time. The outer chamber was empty, but Rsiran noted the movement of lorcith behind the door. Was that Naelm, or was that something else?
He Slid, pulling Jessa with him, and emerged on the other side.
Naelm stood from where he sat behind a narrow table as Rsiran emerged, and the bracelets on his wrists surged with a hint of cold before it faded. “Lareth.”
Rsiran tilted his head. “I apologize for the intrusion. I doubted you’d see me otherwise.”
“Do you think I’ll agree to meet with you now, after you forced yourself into my room?”
“I seem to recall I could have let you die when last here.”
Naelm frowned. He reached for his pocket, and Rsiran prepared for the possibility he would need to Slide, but he only detected steel knives on him.
“You promised that you’d return the crystal,” Naelm said. “You haven’t lived up to that side of the bargain.”
“Recovering the crystal is taking longer than anticipated,” Rsiran agreed, “but I’m close to getting it back.” He stepped to the side, searching for the lorcith he’d detected, but there was none. What had he detected before coming into the room? “Your daughter Cael returned to Elaeavn.”
“You will not speak her name, Lareth.”
Rsiran frowned. “Why? Did you exile her as well?”
Naelm shook his head. “She returned with a man the council had exiled and thought she would force us to reconsider.”
“He saved her life.”
“What do you know about it?”
Rsiran smiled. “More than you, I suspect.” He didn’t want to tell Naelm that Lorst had been hired to kill Cael, along with Galen. That would only give the Elvraeth councilor more ammunition against him, and he had enough as it was. “And then you sentenced Galen to serve in the mines.”
“He’s lucky to live,” Naelm said.
Rsiran shook his head. “You still think in such absolutes, don’t you? The man who brought your daughter back to Elaeavn—”
Naelm pounded his fist on the table. “A man who had been punished by this council before!”
“For what?” He leaned toward Naelm, anger rising in him. Jessa pulled on his arm and he resisted. “What was the crime that earned Galen his exile? Do you even remember?”
Naelm glared at him. “Is this why you have come to me, Lareth? Do you wish to argue? I have already agreed to your terms. Find the damn crystal, and I will see you sit on the council.”
“I have found the crystal. And I have found Josun Elvraeth.” He watched Naelm as he said it. The slight twitch at the corner of his eyes made it clear that he recognized the name. “Did you know he went to serve the Forgotten, and then when they fell, he went to Venass?”
“He chose his path.”
“Because his sister was exiled. Because the council ripped apart his family. When will the council realize they are responsible for many of the horrors that have befallen the city? When will the council realize it is partly their fault so much has been lost?”
“Nothing has been lost because of the council. We protect—”
“Your power,” Rsiran said. “That is all that you protect.”
“The Elvraeth protect the people, Lareth. We are the only ones able to reach the ancient crystals. Without the Elvraeth, there would be no connection to the Great Watcher.”
Rsiran glanced to Jessa, wondering if she would ever begin manifesting any additional abilities. She had now held the crystal, but so had Brusus, and Rsiran wasn’t sure that he had begun showing any signs of them, either.
“Tell me, Naelm, what would you say if I suggested that any within Elaeavn could hold one of the crystals?”
Naelm’s face reddened. “I would say you know nothing about them. You might have managed to hold one, Lareth, but that doesn’t mean that you understand them, not the way the council does. We have protected them, and seen they are attended, for generations.”
Rsiran sighed. “Too long, I think.”
“Even if you join the council,” he began, and the tone of his voice made it clear he didn’t think Rsiran should be allowed onto the council, even if he recovered the missing crystal, “you are one voice.”
“Luthan would get a vote.”
“And you know how the old one will vote? What about when he passes, are you so certain that you know how the next will vote?”
Rsiran watched Naelm. Arguing would get him nowhere. He wondered if Naelm already had a plan to prevent him from reaching the council when he did bring the crystal back. Could he have something in mind for preventing what he’d agreed to?
Probably. As one of the Elvraeth, he would want to maintain his power, and wouldn’t want to risk losing it, especially not to someone like Rsiran, a man he saw as less than the Elvraeth.
What had Rsiran hoped to achieve by coming here?
He had wanted to know whether Naelm would undermine him. Did he have the answer?
“I’ll tell Cael you send your regards when I see her next.”
Naelm clenched his fist and seemed as if he might hit the table again. “You have seen her?”
“I’ve seen her.”
“Where? She must be in the city. She cannot remain away from the palace for much longer. She has responsibilities here.”
Rsiran snorted. “That’s not up to me. And I don’t think it’s up to you, either. Cael is old enough to make her own choices.”
“She has sided with the exiles!”
“And that’s a problem for you?” Rsiran asked. “Those outcasts might be the only reason we manage to recover the crystal. They might be the only thing between us and what Venass intends to use it for.”
“And what is that?” Naelm asked.
Rsiran shook his head. “I don’t know, but whate
ver it is, they intend to draw away the power within the crystal. I suspect they will drain it completely. Then the crystal will be lost forever.”
“You’re the guildlord. You know that cannot happen!”
“Why do you think I continue to fight?” Rsiran asked.
Naelm watched him intently for a few moments. “What is it that you want, Lareth?”
He didn’t know if Naelm would care about the real reason he’d come to the palace, but he had to ask. For any plan to work, they would need the council to help. “If it comes to fighting, will you help?”
Naelm’s eyes narrowed. “Do your duty as guildlord. Find the crystal. Then let the Elvraeth worry about the rest.”
Rsiran opened his mouth to object, but decided against it. He watched Naelm for a moment before reaching for Jessa and Sliding away.
Emerging in his smithy, Rsiran sighed deeply, staring at the lorcith piled along one of the walls. “The council is part of the problem,” he said. “Even if we stop Venass, that doesn’t change anything with the council.”
“We do what we can,” Jessa said.
Rsiran didn’t know if that was all they would need to do. There had to be more to it. Somehow, when all of this was over, it had to be about more than simply stopping Venass, about more than opening the crystals to the people, and even about more than the people getting sent to the mines or fearing exile from the city. With the rule of the Elvraeth, how were the people any different from those inside places like Thyr or Eban, places where they were forced to serve?
They had to provide freedom, but would anyone even want that kind of freedom?
Rsiran hadn’t known he needed it until meeting Brusus. Before then, he thought the Elvraeth ruled because they should. Others would have thought the same. But they didn’t rule because they should, they ruled because no one had ever thought to challenge them. No one had ever questioned whether they should rule.
“First the crystal,” Jessa said.
“Then the Elder Tree.”
“The tree?”
“The crystals will never be safe with the tree damaged,” he said. “So when we find the crystal, then we have to restore the tree. Only then can I face the rest of Venass.”
“Do you know what you’ll do yet?”
“By that, you mean whether I think we’ll have to slaughter all of Venass?”
“Slaughter is a loaded term, Rsiran. They’ve attacked us, and those we have cared about.”
“How many have been Compelled like Amin?”
Jessa shook her head. “And how many are like the man you kept in the cell?”
Rsiran turned away. Jessa knew he didn’t have an answer to that, just as he didn’t have an answer about what had happened to those men. Had the woman attacked them? Rsiran had forged the lorcith implants, preventing them from using them, so he wasn’t sure how he felt about the possibility that they had been killed. “They weren’t a threat there.”
“Not then, but they weren’t Compelled, either.”
“I don’t know that. I didn’t have a chance to bring them to Della.”
“I can’t say I feel bad for them or for what happened to them. They would have done the same to you, or worse, if given the chance.”
Rsiran glanced at the lorcith and came to a quick decision.
He Slid, carrying them to the Forgotten Palace.
The tunnel smelled of burned lorcith. Amazingly, the wall of rolled lorcith still carried some of the heat from what the woman had done, though now, it was nothing more than a pool of slowly hardening lorcith.
“Why here?” Jessa asked.
“If we’re going to take Brusus to Asador,” he started, thinking of what they had promised to Brusus and wondering if that was the right decision, “I need to know more about why she was there.”
“You said she wanted to attack Venass.”
“She did, but I don’t know anything about her. She would have killed me if she could in order to get to Josun.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Look at this, Jessa,” he said. “Look at what this one woman could do. What if I encounter her again?”
“You can Slide away.”
“What if I can’t?”
“Why wouldn’t you be able to get away? What prison has worked to hold you?” She squeezed his hand. “I know you fear the way that first Josun, and then Venass trapped you, but you’ve always managed to escape. I don’t think there’s anything that can hold you.”
“That’s not what worries me,” he said. And it was true. There had been a time when he had been more concerned about whether Josun or Venass would come up with some new way to hold him, but his ability with Sliding was different from what others managed. Even the cell designed for him hadn’t managed to hold him in place. Shadowsteel might have been effective, but Rsiran had destroyed their source for that, leaving them without even that secret.
“What is it, then?”
“If I need to reach Danis and she’s there.” He shook his head. “Whatever else happens, I need to see this ended. We can’t keep at this anymore.”
“Then send her at him. If she wants to see Venass destroyed, as well, then use her.”
He stopped in front of the pool of melted lorcith that had peeled free of the walls, leaving bare rock. The pressure upon him from the lorcith that had once been here was no longer. Now there was only the strange, almost sorrowful sense from the lorcith. It hummed to him, the song disappointed. Heat radiated up from it, and Rsiran pushed, smoothing it out. It was the only thing he could really do for the lorcith.
Could he use the woman? Were there others like her?
If he managed to find the crystal, that would be one of the next things he’d have to determine. Somehow, they needed to find allies, even if they were as dangerous as this woman had been. Maybe especially if they were as dangerous as she was.
Rsiran took Jessa’s hand and Slid her back to Elaeavn.
Chapter 29
When Alyse came to see him, Rsiran wondered what was wrong.
She found him in the Aisl as he made preparations to leave for Asador. Luthan claimed the crystal remained safe, but for how much longer? If they didn’t act, they ran the risk of Venass managing to secure the crystal before they could. So far, Luthan’s visions told them that the Forgotten—and Brusus’s mother in particular—still had the crystal.
“Rsiran,” she said, catching his attention.
He looked up from where he stood near the open-air forge, choosing this place rather than his smithy in the city with the hope that his forgings might connect him to the Elder Trees. The other smiths working nearby had given him space, leaving him to work alone. Rsiran had tried to ignore their watching eyes as he worked, feeling slightly awkward at the way they studied him as he hammered at the lorcith, but the longer he hammered, forming the dozen knives now splayed out along the table, the more he fell into a rhythm and was able to ignore them.
“Alyse,” he said. She wore a long dress, more formal than he would have expected for the forest, and held her hands in front of her, fidgeting. “You left the tavern?” The walk would have taken several hours, unless one of the Sliders had brought her here, but the sheen of sweat on her face made that less likely.
“I need you to do something for me.”
He set the hammer down, resting it along the wide stump that served as an anvil. “If I can.”
She thrust her jaw forward, but her hands remained clenched together. “I… I want to help Brusus.”
“We all do. That’s why we’re planning this trip to Asador. Once I get these knives ready—”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said, glancing to the row of knives. “I want to go with you.”
Rsiran shook his head. “That’s not the best idea, Alyse. You don’t know what you’ll be facing. These people—especially Danis if he appears—they’re dangerous. You saw the way he used our mother and the way he had her use Father.”
“That’s why I need t
o go. I know how dangerous they are. Brusus… he thinks he’ll be fine, that he can go with you as you Slide in”—Rsiran noted the slight edge to the way she said “slide,” letting him know that she still wasn’t quite comfortable with that ability—“and then disappear. But I know how much he’s wanted to find his mother, how much he’s wanted to learn what happened to his father. I know what he’ll do to get that chance. I need to go with him.”
Rsiran wiped his hands on the leather apron that he wore. Since working in the Aisl smithy—that was what the masters had come to call it—he had begun wearing the leather apron, something he did not when working in his smithy in Elaeavn. The weight felt right, especially here, and the pockets had been useful now that he didn’t have a place for the usual tools he liked.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Rsiran said. “And I’m sure Brusus wouldn’t, either.” She started to open her mouth, and Rsiran stepped forward, touching her on the shoulder. “Brusus wasn’t always a tavern owner,” he said. “The skills he had when I first met him made him more dangerous. And you know his background. He has abilities I don’t even fully understand. That at least gives him a way to defend himself.”
“I can defend myself.”
“Alyse—this isn’t like Elaeavn. You haven’t been outside of the city before. You don’t know what it’s like.” He lowered his voice, glancing toward the massive sjihn tree near the edge of the clearing where Jessa sat. She looked up, almost as if she knew what he was thinking. “There are men outside the city who take women from Elaeavn. They use them. They’re forced into—”
“I know all about what they’re forced into.” Alyse took a deep breath, and a flush rose in her cheeks.
Rsiran realized that he might be too protective of his sister, especially given what he’d seen her go through, and what he had rescued her from. She probably did know what women from Elaeavn were often forced into.
“Brusus isn’t a fighter anymore. He’s changed. You know that he has, or you would have used him more in your plans before now.”
Rsiran swallowed. “I know he’s changed. That’s why I hated even telling him what we discovered. I know Brusus. Maybe not as well as you do now”—her cheeks flushed even redder—“but I know him. I knew what his reaction would be when we discovered where his mother might be. Like you, I don’t want him to go, but I can’t keep him from this.”
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