“And I can’t stay here,” he said. “That Venass would attack me—”
“You think it means they no longer fear you.” Della patted him on the chest. “But you still need your rest.”
“Given the attack, clearly they don’t,” Rsiran said.
“Rsiran, do you really think they are not fearful of the man who can Slide past their heartstone? I think you gave them greater pause than you realize.”
Jessa grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back down. “Rest. I can see how tired you are, even if you think you’re hiding it.”
“I’m not hiding it. I am tired, but I can’t wait here any longer.”
Della blocked him. “What happened to you when you disappeared?”
“I thought you said I didn’t go anywhere.” He stopped trying to stand and took a deep breath.
“Your body might not have gone anywhere, but…” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I thought you were gone, only your heart still beat and you still breathed. Had you not… had either of them stopped… I would have expected you to be dead from what I could tell by trying to Read you.”
Rsiran touched his wrists and realized the bracelets were gone. Della must have removed them at some point. He shouldn’t have expected anything less, especially given that she needed to understand what was happening to him and find a way to help. But where had she put the bracelets? Having the reassurance that he couldn’t be Read, and that he couldn’t be Compelled, was valuable to him.
Without the bracelets, he’d been too sick to prevent her from Reading him. With as much as he’d gone through, shielding his mind was the last thing he would have thought about. And he wasn’t even sure that he would have managed it even if he had remembered. Shielding it effectively required holding onto a connection to lorcith or heartstone. He wouldn’t have been able to do that as injured as he was.
“You haven’t answered,” Della said.
“I… I don’t know what happened.”
“Tell me where you went first. Then we can figure out what happened.”
“I’m not even sure I know where I went,” Rsiran said. “I think I was by the Elder Trees, and then beneath them, with the crystals. I held one. Or merged with one.” He tried to shrug. “I don’t really know. It all seemed something like a dream.”
Della took a step back, and her eyes widened, the color in them darkening. Rsiran felt a soft rustling through his mind as she Read him and didn’t have the strength or the desire to attempt to stop her.
“You returned to the forest,” she said in a whisper. “You actually did it.” She met his eyes, and he saw unexpected emotions there.
Rsiran took a deep breath. Whatever had happened there felt too faded, too indistinct now, almost as if it weren’t real at all. And maybe it wasn’t. How could any of that have been real? He had only imagined that he traveled to the Elder Trees, and only imagined that he returned to the crystals. Hadn’t he?
“I didn’t do anything. I wanted the pain to go away. I wanted to find a place of peace.” That had been why he’d imagined the Aisl and why he had returned to the Elder Trees. “Like I said, it was a dream.”
“I think,” Della began, “that you had something much greater than any dream. I believe that your mind Traveled.”
“How can a mind simply travel?” Jessa asked.
“Rsiran Travels. He calls it Sliding, but the ancient clans called it Traveling. A talent.”
“So you have said,” Rsiran said.
“But I have never spoken to you about the stories of those who most fully manifested their talents. They were said to Travel, but their bodies would never leave. Such a talent… I would not believe it had you not described what happened. And had I not been here to know that your mind had departed.”
“Wait. You actually believe that he Slid only his mind?” Jessa asked.
“Based on what he described, that is exactly what I mean.”
“But it wasn’t anything like Sliding,” he said. “For this, I only imagined the forest, and the crystals.”
“And then you were there?” Della asked.
Rsiran nodded.
“I think you Traveled much like the most powerful of the ancient clans once were able to Travel. It would explain why you are so fatigued.”
“I thought that was your Healing,” he said.
“Rsiran, I have done little to Heal you. When you returned—when your mind returned—your body did not require much Healing.”
He glanced over at Jessa, and she watched Della with an incredulous expression.
“Tell me what you remember of what you experienced,” Della said. “All of it.”
Rsiran closed his eyes and tried to envision what he’d seen. “It was mostly about light,” he started. “When you were…” He paused, searching for the right word. “Trying to Heal my back, trying to remove the spikes, there was so much pain.” Rsiran didn’t think that he could forget that pain. Even now, he ached with the memory of it. “I wanted to escape. I needed to escape, if only because everything hurt so much.”
“How did you Travel to the forest?” Della prompted.
“I didn’t know that I did. I had an image of the forest, of something soothing, and then I disappeared. There was nothing but darkness.”
“You said there was light,” Della said.
“There was light. But I didn’t know it at first. There were three bright lights, and I could feel a sense of… power… from them. It was like nothing that I’ve ever experienced.”
“You told me there were five Elder Trees,” Jessa said.
“There are,” Rsiran answered.
“But what about your three lights?”
“I saw the three, and then looked for the others. One was dim, as if the power had faded or maybe I wasn’t attuned to it the right way,” he said. “It was there, but not as bright as the others.”
“And the fifth?” Della asked.
“That one I could not see. It was dark. I wouldn’t even have known it was there except for the fact that I suspected I was near the Elder Trees.”
“So some part of you knew that you had Traveled,” Della asked.
“I… I don’t know what I thought. It all seemed like a dream. I was there with no pain at first, and then began to feel some before it faded.”
“The fifth tree,” Della asked, “what do you remember of it?”
Rsiran sighed. “I remember that it had the same sense of power as the others, but it was dark to me.” He finally opened his eyes and met Della’s. “I don’t think I was meant to reach that one.”
Her brow wrinkled and she turned away for a moment. She mixed something, and he smelled the scent of the mint tea, but with a more bitter edge to it, as if she added something else to it. When she turned back to him, she handed the mug to him.
Rsiran took it and inhaled. The aroma helped clear his head, and the memory of what he’d seen, and what he’d experienced, came flooding back to him.
“What happened then? You mentioned the crystals. Were you able to see them again?”
He nodded. “I think,” he started, trying to remember what it had been like when he’d been in the crystal room, “that I held one again. Much like the first time, one of the crystals flickered. I had no hands, but I sort of…” He struggled again for words. Jessa squeezed his hand to reassure him. “I merged with the light coming from it.”
“You merged?” Jessa asked.
He nodded. “That’s the only way I can describe it. There was the pulsing blue light, and I tried reaching for it, and then… then I was with it, and floating again.”
“You should not have been able to hold one of the crystals again,” Della said. “Of those who’ve held one, none has ever held it again.”
“I’m not sure I actually held it.”
She nodded. “The point is the same. What you describe is unusual.”
Rsiran smiled as he took a deep breath. “I think all of what happened to me
is unusual, don’t you think?”
Della motioned to the mug, and he took a sip. Warmth flooded through him as he drank, and rather than feeling relaxed, he instead felt invigorated.
“What is this?” he asked.
“A different mixture,” she answered. “For this, I think you will need your strength.”
“For what?”
“For taking us to the forest.”
Chapter 27
Rsiran thought that he might be too exhausted to Slide them all to the Aisl, but there was something energizing about the tea that Della gave him. After a few more sips, his strength had returned enough that he felt confident in attempting to Slide again.
With Della on one side of him, holding onto his arm, and Jessa on the other, he stood from the cot and glanced briefly around the room. As Rsiran had suspected, Brusus had put him up in Lianna’s room. Most of her belongings had been pushed to the side of the room. The air had a sickly odor to it—from him, he realized. A basin of water sat on a table near the door.
Della prompted him to take another drink. “Are you certain that you are strong enough to do this?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. Sliding doesn’t take the same strength from me as it once did, but…”
“You have Traveled. There is much strength required for that.”
He thought about how much strength he could manage. “I think I can carry all of us.”
Jessa pulled him close, squeezing on his arm. Whatever else, she didn’t seem like she was about to let him go without her.
“I’m not,” she whispered.
He rubbed his arms, realizing what was missing. “The bracelets,” he remembered.
Della’s mouth puckered. “I have removed them—”
“I would like them back. I don’t want to risk having someone Compel me.”
“You have already decided that smith born cannot be Compelled.”
Rsiran didn’t know if that was true or not, but it seemed possible, even likely from what he had seen. “It’s not only the Compelling.” He didn’t want to tell Della that he hated the idea of someone Reading him, but that was the greatest benefit of the bracelets. And likely, given that she’d been Reading him throughout his recovery, she already knew his feelings.
Jessa pulled his bracelets from a pocket and handed them to him.
Rsiran slipped them on and found the heartstone in the bracelets much warmer than he remembered. “Are you ready?” he asked.
Jessa squeezed. Della nodded.
Rsiran focused on the Aisl Forest and pulled them in a Slide.
Sliding came as a whistle of air and a flurry of movement. Warm, sweetly scented air swept past. And then they emerged in the Aisl, near the Elder Trees.
Rsiran hadn’t wanted to Slide all the way into the middle of the clearing, not certain whether he could, anyway, so he’d chosen a place outside the edge of the trees for them to emerge.
The air immediately took on an earthy, humid note, and a solemn silence seemed to fall all around them. Della released his arm and stared at the trees rising up from the ground. Jessa remained locked onto his arm, unwilling to let him go.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Not too tired?”
Surprisingly, the Slide hadn’t bothered him, not even taking both of them with him. “Not yet.”
Jessa finally seemed to see the first of the Elder Trees, and her breath caught. “Oh.”
“I haven’t seen them for... years,” Della sighed. “It’s easy to forget how enormous they are, until you stand in front of them once more. Great Watcher, but they are impressive.”
Rsiran stood next to Della, staring at the massive trunks. From here, they were larger than Della’s home, larger even than the Barth. “Do you know which tree belongs to which clan?”
Della stared up, but her eyes were closed. “The trees belonged to all of the clans.”
“That’s not what Sarah said.”
Della took a deep breath. “Perhaps they claim differently now, but when our people lived among the trees, the clans did not claim a specific Elder Tree. How could they, when the Elder Trees served all of the people?”
“Why would it be different,” he asked. “What would have changed.”
Della turned to him. “They discovered the crystals.”
“You sound like you know it better than the guilds,” Jessa said.
“Because I do.”
Della started around the nearest massive tree, her hand trailing along the trunk. She paused at the clearing, and a slight smile spread on her face. “Imagine what it would have been like. Imagine bridges spanning the space between these trees, and homes built along the branches. Children scurried high above the ground, and those with talent, those able to Travel… they would not need the bridges.”
“Della,” Jessa started slowly, “were you alive then?”
Della turned to her and shook her head. “Girl, I’ve lived a long life, but most of mine has been spent in the city.”
“Then how do you know all this?”
She sighed. “I’m a Seer.”
“But that only means you can See what might happen.”
Della shook her head. “Not all, but some Seers can See both directions. What has happened, and what can happen.”
“That’s why you know about this place?” Rsiran asked.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been here,” Della said, “only the first time in many years. I was a younger person when I last visited, and had not lived the life that I have. Now… now I feel a different sense as I stand here.”
“What sense is that?” Rsiran asked. Did Della know which trees he’d seen in his vision? Could she know which of them had been dim, and which one was darkened?
“Hope.”
She strode into the middle of the trees, leaving Rsiran and Jessa staring after her.
“What now?” Jessa asked.
“I don’t know why she wanted us to come here,” Rsiran said. “But I need to find out what Venass plans.” They knew Venass was after something—everything that they’d seen so far indicated that, from the attack outside the city to the attack on him in Elaeavn—but what?
“That is why I wanted us to come,” Della said.
She stood near the center of the clearing and stared up to the darkness. The Elder Trees rose so high overhead that their lowest branches were nothing more than shadows. No sunlight made it through, though Rsiran didn’t know whether it was daytime or night. Maybe there was no sunlight to drift through the branches.
“Why?”
“When you mentioned what you saw when you Traveled.”
Rsiran Slid him and Jessa to Della. “What? The bright lights that I saw?”
Della shook her head. “That is what should be when you visit a place of power, especially this place of power. For someone like you, the Elder Trees should be bright.”
“What do you mean for someone like Rsiran?”
Della looked to Jessa. “Do we have to speak of this again?”
Jessa shrugged. “Seeing as how I don’t know what you mean, I guess the answer is yes.”
Della looked up. “These Elder Trees. What do you feel, Rsiran?”
He looked around the clearing. “I don’t know. The trees are impressive. And enormous. But am I supposed to feel anything else?”
“Think of your abilities. What do you feel?”
Rsiran frowned and shifted his attention to lorcith. As he did, he felt a throbbing, but realized that came from the bracelets and from the charm that Jessa wore. Even the knife tucked into her waistband. They were there, and he could feel them, but that wasn’t quite what he detected.
The sense of lorcith was indistinct. Or his awareness of it was imprecise. Once, he would have thought that impossible, that his connection to lorcith was too potent for him not to know what he detected, but the injury had changed something for him. Since recovering, he was aware of lorcith, both near an
d far, and could push on it, but there was not the same constant awareness of it all around him, not like there had been before, and not with the same bright intensity that he once had known.
Strangely, heartstone did blaze in his mind, though he still wasn’t sure what to make of that. Normally, heartstone was something that he had to focus on, that he had to push away the awareness of lorcith for him to detect, but now… now he felt the constant warmth from the bracelets he wore, and he easily sensed the heartstone in the Barth back in Elaeavn, and even the heartstone used in the palace to prevent Sliding. All of that lit up in his mind, much like lorcith.
Maybe the lorcith spikes really had changed something in him. Had he lost some of the control of lorcith, yet somehow become more connected with heartstone?
Rsiran would have to study it later to find out.
But those familiar pieces weren’t the only sense of heartstone around him. Buried in the trees, or growing within the trees, he detected a deep and powerful vein of heartstone running within each. His eyes widened.
“Heartstone,” he finally answered.
Della nodded. “Heartstone. And with it, you might note that other metals are present. Perhaps not now, but you will.”
“What other metals?” Jessa asked.
“There are others besides lorcith and heartstone with potential, but they have been lost to time.” She smiled at Rsiran. “There is something unique about you, Rsiran Lareth, and that is what the others fear.”
“What the Seers know?” Jessa asked.
Della nodded. “Possibly something more than that as well. Rsiran hears the potential of the lorcith. The ancient smiths were able to do that as well. But he’s gained an ability to see that potential as well. That is much like the alchemists. From the sculpture of the sjihn tree that now rests on the mantle in the tavern, I gather he has gained an even greater ability to manipulate lorcith. Perhaps even heartstone.”
“What are you getting at?” Jessa asked.
Della finally pulled her attention away from the trees and focused fully on Rsiran. “Do you not see a connection to the other abilities? Those that you view as traditional ones?”
The Shadowsteel Forge (The Dark Ability Book 5) Page 20