The Dark Ability

by Holmberg, D. K.

  And then there was the palace.

  Standing atop Krali and looking down at the palace provided a unique viewpoint. The five slender towers, each made of the same ivory stone as the rest of the city, created a sort of ring, leaving a grassy clearing in the middle. Brusus claimed that each tower housed a different Elvraeth family and each struggled with the others for more power within the family.

  From here, the palace did not look like it floated at all. Rather, it seemed to flow out of the cliff, as if grown rather than chipped away. For the first time, he noticed a small squat building, different than any others within Elaeavn, in the middle of the clearing. Made of a darker rock, it almost looked to be entirely of lorcith, only Rsiran had never seen so much lorcith in one place.

  He took a deep breath. The wind gusted and swirled around him, making him unsteady. He shifted his weight to maintain balance.

  Standing where he was, looking down on a view that so few had ever seen, he felt almost like he had a purpose, as if the Great Watcher did have a reason for him after all.

  Except the Great Watcher would not approve of what he was about to do. Already, he had done things that shamed him before the Great Watcher. Stealing lorcith from Ilphaesn? Forging weapons out of the metal? And now, worst of all, asked to attack his chosen few? Where Rsiran went now, he did in violation of the Great Watcher.

  Yet he had been left with no real choice. If he did nothing, Brusus and the others would suffer. Rsiran could prevent that from happening.

  The wind gusted again, and he took a small step back. Behind him, he felt something brush against his back and he turned.

  And nearly fell from Krali Rock.

  Jessa stood behind him. One hand balled into his shirt, her fist twisted into the fabric, and her knuckles white. She stared at him with wide green eyes. The lavender flower tucked into her shirt stood fast against the wind, almost as if holding her in place.

  “How did you…” he asked.

  “Grabbed your shirt. Saw you starting your Slide. You sort of flicker right before you do it. Not sure I would see it if I weren’t Sighted. I realized that you were going to do the job without me so I grabbed on.” She spoke quickly as she glanced down, and her body stiffened slightly. “Wasn’t expecting this.”

  Rsiran took her hand from his shirt and twined his fingers into hers. He felt a mixture of emotions seeing her. Partly he was glad she was here. Doing what he intended would not be easy alone. But what Haern had told him stuck with him. If she went into the palace, she ran the risk of capture and banishment.

  “You can’t come with me.”

  She squeezed his hand painfully. “I can’t stay here.”

  “I’ll get you back to the smithy. But I must do the job myself.”

  Jessa pulled him toward her. There was barely enough room for the two of them to stand atop Krali Rock without falling. “Is that what Haern told you? Is that what he Saw?”

  Rsiran nodded. “You cannot come.”

  “You aren’t going by yourself, Rsiran. You may have this ability, but are you actually thinking of Sliding into the palace and doing this? For Josun? If what you think is true… if he wants to start some sort of—”

  “Not for Josun,” he said. “If you come, Haern saw that you would be captured.”

  “And you?”

  “What?”

  Jessa pulled on his hand. Rsiran teetered atop the stone, wind gusting against his face as if threatening to push him down.

  “What of you?” she demanded. “What did Haern see of you?”

  “Nothing.”

  She glared at him. “Nothing? Haern saw nothing of you? He saw me captured and exiled while you…”

  “I think my Sliding makes his visions difficult.”

  “I think you’re not telling me everything.”

  “Talk to Haern! Ask him what he saw! Ask him why he tried to kill me!” His voice rose to a yell. The sound carried off into the wind, disappearing toward the Aisl Forest where it faded.

  Jessa looked at him. At first her head twitched slowly and then she shook it faster and faster. “Haern wouldn’t do that.”

  “No? He brought me down to the harbor. Stood me among the rocks. Held me in place.” Rsiran still didn’t know how he had managed to do that. Always he had been able to Slide. “Tried to cut me with one of my own knives!”

  Her face changed as he recounted what had happened. When he mentioned the harbor, her eyes had flickered wider for a moment.

  “How did you escape?” The question was hard to hear over the sound of the wind.

  “How did I…”

  “Escape,” she repeated. “How did you get away from Haern?”

  “The knife fell out of his hand.”

  But that wasn’t quite right. The knife had flown from his hand as if twisted away. Almost as if Rsiran’s desire to push it away had made it happen.

  Jessa frowned. “Fell from his hand? From Haern?”

  He nodded. There was no way else to explain what had happened, was there?

  “Rsiran, I know you haven’t known us for long. You know Haern as a Seer only. And he is. Partly that is why Brusus always valued his opinions, trusting the visions he Sees. But Haern wasn’t always who he is today.”

  “What was he?”

  She blinked slowly and shook her head. “Something he’s struggled to hide. To forget. But he can’t change who he was, only who he is.”

  “Jessa?”

  “Haern was an assassin. Raised out of Elaeavn, he worked in Asador and Cort and Thyr, taking jobs where he claimed his visions led him.”

  “Jobs?”

  “He was an assassin,” she repeated. “But he abandoned that years ago, returning to Elaeavn for the first time as an adult.”

  Rsiran hadn’t heard of anyone choosing to live outside of Elaeavn. Doing so usually meant that they were one of the Forgotten. But if Haern returned, that meant he was not, unless he violated his exile. And the penalty of doing that meant certain death.

  As he looked down on Elaeavn, the city seemed so much bigger than he had ever realized. Had he truly been so sheltered from everything living with his parents? Had his world ever really been so small? “Why?”

  Jessa glanced away as she shook her head. “Brusus claims Haern Saw something once, a vision that prompted him to return. He hasn’t taken a job like that since. He’s changed now. Different from the man he once was.” There was something else she didn’t share, and she sounded so intent, as if trying to convince herself. “So, Rsiran, Haern would never do anything like that. There must have been a reason.”

  “There was a reason. He was protecting you the only way he Saw how.”

  “I can’t believe that about Haern.”

  “Do you trust his visions?”

  She nodded.

  “Then trust what he saw about you. Know you can’t come with me.”

  She pulled on his hand and motioned out toward the city, toward the palace. “A Seer’s vision is not fixed, Rsiran. It can be changed. Like your future isn’t fixed. Everything depends on the choices you make. The Great Watcher doesn’t set a destiny for us.” She turned him toward her. “Think of the choices you’ve made since we first met. How different would you be had you made only one different decision?”

  One different decision? Had he not gone against his father the first time he might never have been sent to the mine. Had he chosen to stay in the mine rather than Slide away, he might have been dead, or healed by some unskilled healer from the village outside Ilphaesn. Had he not returned to Elaeavn and been found by Jessa…

  He looked at her. “I can’t risk you getting captured.”

  “That isn’t your choice to make. I make my own decisions as you make yours.”

  Rsiran realized that by trying to decide for her, he was doing exactly what his father had done to him—treating her as if he knew what would happen.

  He was not the Great Watcher.

  Rsiran sighed. Up here, above the city with the
wind gusting in his face, the air was cool and tasted of salt. The city looked clean and small. Everything seemed possible.

  “I don’t intend to do what Josun intended,” he admitted to Jessa.

  She tilted her head. Rsiran noticed how she paused to sniff at the flower in her shirt, and he bit back a smile as he wondered how she smelled anything with the wind blowing as it did.

  “What do you intend to do?”

  He had intended to do whatever it would take to keep his new friends safe, even if that meant turning himself in, turning Josun in, to the Elvraeth. But maybe he didn’t have to sacrifice himself. Maybe there was another way.

  “Something else. Something where he can’t force us to help him again,” he said, a plan forming in his mind.

  Jessa waited, and then nodded as he told her his plan.

  Chapter 32

  Rsiran gripped Jessa’s hand tightly as they Slid. He had fixated on an open area outside the walls. He was aware of the warmth of her skin, the slight moisture on her palm, and the extra effort the Slide took.

  They emerged on the outside the palace. He had not dared attempt a Slide from atop Krali Rock into the palace, preferring to see where he was Sliding before risking that. Rsiran was not certain he could do it anyway. Sliding to someplace new required some knowledge of where he would emerge. As he had never been here, the only place he could safely emerge would be the clearing near the dark stone building. That would leave them exposed and visible, especially to the Elvraeth where all were likely to be Sighted.

  He looked up at the tall stone wall that circled the towers rising high overhead. Jessa squeezed his hand. A small alcove atop the narrow wall looked like an ideal place to emerge from the next Slide.

  Once they emerged, Rsiran caught himself from teetering forward. Already the effort of the Sliding wore on him. How many more Slides could he manage? Alone, he suspected he could try a couple. With Jessa along?

  Yet he would do as many as needed to keep her safe, even if it meant he could no longer stand. Even if it meant he was captured. She would be safe.

  Moonlight filtered through the remnants of clouds and glimmered off the pale stone. A soft breeze gusted in from the sea, nothing like the heavy wind that buffeted them atop Krali. The wall circled the outer aspect of the palace more for camouflage than protection.

  This close, he felt a renewed sense of anxiety.

  What was he thinking, attempting to enter the palace? Looking from a distance the idea had seemed reasonable, but now that he was close enough to see the stone towers rising over his head and could almost feel a sense of energy around him, he did not know if he could go through with it.

  “Rsiran?” Jessa whispered. “You don’t have to do this.”

  He looked over at her. She crouched next to him on the wall, none of the anxiety he felt showing on her face. She had looked more scared simply standing atop Krali than she did here on the low wall. “This is the only way, Jessa. With what Josun wants…” He didn’t know how to finish. “I… I don’t know how else to keep you safe.”

  Somewhere in the darkness a cat yowled. Rsiran waited but another did not follow. He shivered. Bad luck.

  She smiled. “Not alone. I’ll help make sure you get where you need to go,” she said and squeezed his hand. “You shouldn’t linger here for long, though. I don’t know much about the Elvraeth security. Few have ever tried to break into the palace.”

  “None are foolish enough.”

  But that wasn’t true. Somehow, the boy had snuck into the palace, or so he had claimed. Sitting atop the wall, Rsiran wondered if that truly happened. He thought of him in the mines, remaining behind trapped in all that darkness by choice, and decided that he no longer mattered. Rsiran was free from that.

  Jessa shrugged. “None have ever had the need.”

  Rsiran shifted on his feet and crouched low against the wall. Even crouching as he did, he felt exposed. The dark pants and shirt he wore left him outlined on the wall, visible to anyone inside who dared look out.

  The wall positioned him so he could see much of the inner portion. The wide clearing stretched in front of him. The dark squat building near the middle looked more rounded on top up close than it had from afar. Even here he could not tell if it was made of lorcith. The rest of the palace was made of the same brown ivory stone as those of Elaeavn. The towers seemed to rise from the ground, as if grown. Windows worked into each tower, marking the various floors. Most were covered with silvery bars that crisscrossed the opening, as if to keep the Elvraeth from escaping.

  There was a symmetry to the windows along the sides of the towers and the main portions of the palace, almost a pattern, but he could not quite place what it was.

  A figure moved along the ground opposite them. He wore a dark cloak, either deep green or black, that barely moved as he walked. Pants were of the same dark color. A long sword shifted from beneath his cloak occasionally. He gripped a crossbow in his hand.

  They had to hurry before this guard saw them. And if there was one, how could they be certain there weren’t others?

  Jessa pointed, and he nodded. “My Sight isn’t that bad.”

  She grunted, as if telling him she couldn’t be sure.

  As Rsiran looked around for the place to Slide, he felt the presence of lorcith. It was a different sense than he had felt within the mines, less an awareness and sense of the ore calling than a presence designed to push them away.

  At first, he thought it might be from the dark building, but as he shifted his focus, he realized that was not the case. The pressure seemed to come from everywhere around him.

  Several moments passed before he realized it was the bars on the window that he felt.

  Rsiran took a deep breath. Jessa was right; they shouldn’t sit atop the wall much longer. Choosing one of the towers, he focused on the upper portion, imagining what the floor would look like inside the window. That should be far enough to get them into the palace but not so far that he overshot. If he was wrong—if the Slide took them inside a wall or worse, simply Sliding over the tower—then they might not survive. Rsiran was careful to maintain his focus.

  Then he pressed into the Slide.

  And was pushed back.

  The sense was like a soft pressure against his whole body. Since he had learned how to Slide, always he had been able to navigate the space between the planes that allowed him to take a single step and travel. The only time he had failed was when Haern had held him in place. This felt different.

  Rather than held in place, he simply couldn’t step forward. Before they even tried, they would fail.

  But the pressure was not completely unfamiliar. Something about it reminded him of the sense he had from the lorcith.

  “Tell me what you see of the windows,” he said, looking at the bars covering the windows.

  She glanced at him and frowned. “You want to sneak in through one of the windows? I thought you were going to Slide into the palace.”

  “I’m not sure I can.” The sensation, the pressure, was strange, but the longer he stood atop the wall, the more certain he became that it was the lorcith itself, as if the metal itself worked to exclude him.

  “I don’t understand. You got us here. You took me to the top of Krali. I can see the palace…”

  “I’m not sure I understand either,” he admitted. “I feel like there is something pushing against me, blocking me. I think it has to do with the windows.”

  Never before had lorcith prevented him from Sliding. He had even Slid huge nuggets from the mines. He had Slid with forged lorcith. He had forged lorcith with him now. But somehow it held him back.

  And if he couldn’t Slide into the palace, Josun would make certain they suffered.

  Jessa looked toward the towers. “They’re windows. Probably large enough for us to crawl through if we can make it across the clearing without being seen. The bars might make it difficult, but we could probably pry them off.”

  “What about the bars? Wha
t do you see there?”

  She shrugged. “They are thick and silver. They look twisted, like a braided rope. Where they meet in the middle there is a small circle. I think something is engraved or printed on the circle, but I can’t make it out.” She sounded surprised by that fact.

  “How are they attached to the stone?”

  Jessa squinted, her brow furrowed in concentration. One hand went to touch the flower on her shirt, almost stroking the petals. “Can’t tell that, either. Maybe they come out of the stone, almost like they are buried into the wall itself.” She looked over at him. “That might make them a little hard to pry off.”

  Another of the dark-cloaked patrols moved across the inside of grounds. The guard patrolled on this side of the wall. Was it the same person or another?

  He pulled Jessa back a step. Much closer, and they would have to Slide away.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to get inside.”

  Jessa smiled. “I told you that you would need me.”

  “If I can’t get through the windows, then how will I get inside?”

  She pointed toward the dark stone building in the center of the clearing. “The door.”

  Rsiran looked but didn’t see any sign of a door on the dark stone. And starting from there meant they would have to somehow sneak through the entire palace to reach the council. Once inside the palace, he wasn’t entirely sure how to find his way. He hoped the lorcith would guide him, but what if it didn’t?

  “Are you sure?”

  Jessa sniffed softly. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that,” she said. “Center of the building. Can you get us down there?”

  “Us?”