Where had Lucy gone?
Maybe it was just that the body had moved farther down the river than Lucy could account for, and when she had attempted to return, she hadn’t known how to find Haern. But then, there had been that strange sense of something else in the forest. Whatever was out there had made enough noise for him to detect it but hadn’t made its presence known.
“Come with me.” She started off down the trunk.
Haern hesitated only a moment. If he didn’t go with her, he would be in for more than just a stern talking-to.
At the base of the tree, she started toward the blacksmith building. Why was she leading him there? No smoke drifted from the chimney, leading Haern to believe that his grandfather wasn’t there. Even if he was, his mother and his grandfather didn’t get along all that well. It had always seemed to Haern that his grandfather wanted his mother to do more to keep his father from racing away from the city, but what could his mother do? His father was stubborn, and he believed that what he was doing was essential and that no one else could do it in his place.
Inside the blacksmith shop, his gaze went to the forge. The coals had cooled, though heat still radiated from them. The massive anvil took up most of the center of the room, and an equally large bucket of water—a quenching bucket—rested next to it. The forge here could handle lorcith of enormous size, much larger than in many other parts of the city, and they took advantage of that fact, often hammering out massive pieces of lorcith.
She guided him into the back of the building. It was little more than a walk-through, a space between one side and the other. It was an office, and when his grandfather wasn’t here, his father was, making it essentially off-limits to Haern.
The carpet on the floor was the only nod to any sort of formality, and his mother quickly began rolling it away.
“Mother?”
“Are you going to help me?”
“Help with what?”
She glanced up at him, and Haern hurried, helping to roll the carpet out of the way. Beneath it, a trapdoor was carved into the floor.
“What is this?”
“Pull it open.”
The handle was intricately made, and partly of lorcith, but done in such a way—and with a specific type of alloy—that he hadn’t even been aware of it. Nothing about the handle pulled on his senses.
When he climbed down the ladder, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. They were probably twenty feet below ground, below the forest floor. This space shouldn’t even exist, and yet somehow, they were here. A distant blue light glowed, and his mother motioned for him to head toward it. He didn’t need any prompting for that, as it had already drawn his attention.
When he reached its source, a single ornate lantern resting on a table, he saw the interior of what appeared to be a storeroom, its walls of smooth stone.
Not stone. Metal, but not any that he recognized, though there was an element of lorcith within it.
“What is this place?” he asked.
“This is your father’s place.”
“Why am I only seeing it now?”
“There’s been no reason for you to see it.”
“And there is now?”
“Haern…”
Haern rounded on his mother. “Why show me this now?”
“Because you brought something your father searches for.”
She guided him to a drawer along one of the walls and pulled it out. Inside were other items, all of the same strange metal and all the same cylindrical shape as the object he had recovered from the dead woman.
“What is this?” Looking up at his mother, he frowned, “Forgers?”
She placed the item he had discovered into the drawer. “Over the years, this collection has grown. He needed a safe place to store it, so he built this.”
Haern ran his hand along the wall. It was slightly warm and completely smooth, like no forging he’d seen before.
There were no hammer marks within it, and it was far too large to have been simply carved out of the space, especially here at the heart of the Aisl, where this would’ve been earth and nothing more.
And it wasn’t a forging. It was something else.
Haern stared at the walls, trying to imagine how much power his father would have needed to form this structure. That was what he had done, Haern was certain of it. Given what he knew about his father’s control over lorcith—and other metals—it was all too easy to believe that his father had been the one responsible for this. And if so, he could have crafted it without heating it the way any others of the Smith Guild would have needed to.
“Why does he keep it here?”
“The forest provides a certain amount of protection,” his mother said softly. “And then there are the protections that he has placed upon the city. The combination allows him the confidence to believe the Forgers aren’t able to fully reach here. At least, not easily. If they were able to reach this room and find where your father has been hiding the items he’s stolen from them, all of the Aisl would be in danger.”
“I don’t understand. What is it that he hopes to learn from them?”
“I don’t know. Over the years, I had thought your father wanted simply to defeat the Forgers, but as their attacks grew less and less frequent, his desire changed. He’s changed. He wants to destroy them, and he blames them for the attack that took place twenty years ago.”
“And you don’t?”
His mother stared at the floor. “They were probably responsible, but again, that was twenty years ago. There have been other attacks, and I’m sure there will be many more, but what he did…”
“What did he do?”
She looked up at him. “He’s destroyed everything they created. Everything he can find that they are responsible for, he’s brought down. There should be nothing left of the Forgers, and yet…”
She didn’t need to finish. Despite everything he had done, his father continued to push, searching for closure that might not even exist, not when it came to the Forgers and their attack on the city.
But then, he knew how his father could be and he recognized the intensity he had. He kept it to himself, and Haern didn’t fully understand it. Maybe he never would. Seeing this room, witnessing just how far his father would go to defeat the Forgers, Haern realized he might never really know his father.
“Can you show me to this body?” his mother asked. Haern nodded. “And if the Forgers have reached us, we need to send word to your father.”
He nodded again. “You have some way of doing it?”
“Not easily, but there is a way.”
He hoped that she might elaborate, but she didn’t. Haern only smiled. It had been that way his entire life.
“When will he be done with all of this?” Haern asked.
She looked around the room before her gaze settled on him. “I have to trust your father will know.”
“What if he doesn’t? What if in his eagerness to continue to attack, he doesn’t know when to stop?”
His mother smiled at him. “That’s where I come in.”
“You think you can convince Father to stop?”
She closed her eyes. “If I can’t, then no one can,” she said softly.
5
Haern
The return to the forest happened in little more than the blink of an eye. Haern held on to one of the Sliding Guild—a stocky man named Jason—letting the man Slide him, trying not to focus on how much more capable Jason was. There was power to Jason. It was more than simply his ability to Slide; it was something that came from within him, a sense of power that Haern didn’t have. Or maybe it was simply a sense of purpose.
His mother appeared with another Slide, accompanied by a senior guild member. Aria had a serious expression and managed to travel just as quickly as Jason, though she had brought two others with her.
“Where now?” his mother asked.
“It’s nearby,” he said. It had taken them a few attempts to find thei
r way here. Without the Slider’s ability to know exactly where he’d gone, they had been forced to experiment, hopping from place to place without any real idea of where they needed to go. Reaching the river was easy enough, but going from the river to where he had left the body was trickier.
The trees around here were much more familiar to him, and he found the tree that he’d climbed and hacked the branches from. He still held on to Lucy’s sword, stuffing it within his belt, feeling somewhat ridiculous carrying it in the first place. He wasn’t skilled enough to use it, but until he found Lucy, he wasn’t going to leave the sword behind.
When Haern motioned to the tree, Jason Slid up to one of the upper branches, running his hand along the surface where Haern had cut off the branch. He returned with a flash of colors.
“I could have told you what I did,” he said.
“That was you?” Jason asked.
Haern grunted. “That was me.”
“How did you get up there?”
“I climbed. Not all of us are blessed the same way you are.”
Jason glanced at him, but Haern ignored him.
“Where did you leave this body?” his mother asked.
Haern guided them to the space near the trees. The branches had been pushed aside, and the body was missing.
He crouched down in front of it, frowning. “It was here. I left her—”
“Are you sure it’s a her?” his mother asked.
“She had long hair and a narrow jawline. She was bloated, so it wasn’t that easy to tell anything else about her.”
“Jessa, we don’t even know if—”
His mother cut Aria off before she could finish, glancing over to him. Haern only shook his head. It figured that the Sliders wouldn’t believe him. As if he would make this up.
“What else can you tell me about her?” his mother asked.
“I pulled her from the water over here,” he said, leading his mother back to the shores. She had changed into deep green clothes, a jacket and pants that blended into the forest. They were made of high-quality wool and were almost as nice as what he’d seen on the woman he had pulled from the water. “She was dressed almost like you are,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“She wore a jacket and pants, though they weren’t of the same kind of wool. They were a little nicer, if I’m being honest.”
His mother clenched her jaw and breathed out. “Do you think your friend came back through here?”
“If she did, why would she have moved her?” For that matter, why wouldn’t Lucy have returned to the heart of the Aisl? It still troubled Haern that she hadn’t come back, essentially abandoning him. That wasn’t the kind of thing Lucy would do.
“Maybe she wanted to be the one to bring the body to us,” Jason said.
Haern looked over at him. He didn’t know Jason well. He was about ten years older than Haern and knew his father far better than he knew Haern. He had short brown hair, and his deep green eyes were a reminder of how much lighter Haern’s were. Along with his ability to Slide, Jason had some affinity for lorcith, making him more like his father than Haern himself.
“Let’s just agree that’s not what Lucy would have done.”
“Then where did your friend disappear to?” Jason asked.
“That’s just it. I. Don’t. Know.” He tried pushing down his frustration, but it was getting the best of him. Maybe it was nothing more than this situation, the body, and the fact that he had no idea what had happened to Lucy.
“And now your friend and this body have disappeared?”
He looked over to his mother, but she watched him, a question in her eyes. Did she not believe him either?
“Do you think it could be one of the Forgers?” Aria asked.
“They shouldn’t be able to reach us here, not with everything Rsiran did to protect us, but the item Haern found suggests that they have.”
Haern made his way along the shore, staring out at the water. He found the space where he had shoved the branches out into the water and pulled the body back to shore. The rocks left no trace of what he’d done, but there was a smear of mud along the shoreline, and he followed it back toward the branches. From here, he found nothing else to explain where the body had been dragged.
He motioned to the dirt scattered all around where he had pulled her out. “There’s nothing beyond here. Whoever was here took her by Sliding.”
“Then it was your friend.”
“It wasn’t Lucy.”
“How can you be sure?”
Haern breathed out in a frustrated sigh. He couldn’t be sure, but that wasn’t the point—at least not all of it. Lucy wouldn’t have disappeared. And she certainly wouldn’t have taken a body from here. If she wanted to do that, she wouldn’t have come for Haern in the first place. That suggested something else had happened.
He cursed himself for not looking for Lucy before.
Trailing along the water’s edge, he searched for signs of where his friend might’ve gone. When his mother called after him, Haern ignored her. He continued forward, following the current, wishing Lucy had kept her sword; Haern would have been able to detect it. Detecting something he had forged was easier than picking up on random lorcith.
Could Lucy have had anything else on her that he could use? Closing his eyes, he focused on the sense of lorcith.
As it often was, the sense was there. There was the nearby sensation that came from his knives and swords, and there was that of lorcith carried by the two Sliders. As far as Haern knew, it was made by his father, and with more skill than Haern possessed. His grandfather believed he had potential, though Haern didn’t think he cared enough to reach that potential. There was the sense of lorcith that came from his mother, who wore a ring given to her by his father. She had another trinket, a necklace that was exquisitely made, demonstrating the extent of his father’s skill. All of that was nearby.
But there was something else.
Haern hurried along the shoreline. He moved away from the water, heading toward the trees, and tracked the sense of lorcith. He should have done this before.
A small lump of lorcith buried in the ground, nothing more, pulled on his attention. Haern reached for it when his mother’s voice called to him.
When he reached her, she stood next to Jason. “There’s nothing here, Haern.”
“There was.”
“I believe you, but there’s not now. We’ll return to the city, see if I can’t get word to your father, and then figure out what you discovered.” She nodded to Jason, and he Slid her away.
More than ever, he wanted the ability to travel the same way. Maybe there was some way he could hold one of the sacred crystals, to be granted that ability, though his understanding of the crystals left him thinking it didn’t work quite like that. They granted abilities, changing the people who held them, but they offered only the gifts of the Great Watcher, not those of the Elder Trees.
Haern looked for Aria and found her near the shore.
“This is where you pulled the body from the water?” she asked as he approached.
The water burbled softly, somehow peaceful despite what had taken place here. “Yes. I don’t know how long—”
Jason appeared, staggering toward Aria. Blood stained his shoulder.
“What happened?” she snapped.
“Attack,” he said, breathless. Aria clenched her jaw and disappeared with a shimmer of color. Jason turned to Haern. “Your mother wanted me to get you out of here, far away.”
Haern looked toward the heart of the forest, his heart hammering. “She wanted me to go?”
“Come. We’re going to—”
“Take me back to the Aisl.”
“That wasn’t what she wanted.”
“I don’t care what she wanted. I can help.”
Jason shook his head. “The attack is too much.”
Haern reached into his pockets and pulled the knives out. He pushed on his sense of lorcith, hoveri
ng the knives into the air. It took a great effort of focus, but the metal responded to him. If nothing else, he had that aspect of his father’s ability, though not as pronounced.
“I can help. I might not be a fighter, and I might not be able to Slide, but I’m not useless.”
Jason studied him before grabbing his arm. When they Slid, Haern half-expected to emerge somewhere far from Elaeavn, but they appeared in the heart of the forest.
As Jason had said, fighting came from all around them. More than that, he detected strange pulsations against him. It was lorcith, but unlike anything he had sensed before.
Jason released him. “Don’t die,” he said.
“Where’s the attack? I feel—”
Jason shook his head. “The attack is everywhere.” He Slid away, disappearing with a flicker.
The trees should prevent the Forgers from accessing them, shouldn’t they? And if not the trees, then the lorcith barriers his father had placed should do it.
Haern heard an explosion and was drawn toward it.
What had happened to his mother?
What about others who didn’t have the ability to defend themselves? He thought of Nevrah, and couldn’t imagine how she might be faring. There shouldn’t be an attack on the Aisl. Everything he had been told suggested that his father had protected it.
Unless something had happened to his father.
He caught a flicker of movement at the edge of the forest. Between a pair of trees stood someone dressed much like the body he had seen before. They were short and slender and had black hair flowing down to the middle of their back.
That was not anyone who lived in Elaeavn.
He pushed on his knives.
Haern had seen his father using knives in such a way. He was incredibly skilled and could manipulate the metal in a way that no others could, practically as if it were a part of him. Haern had practiced but had never really taken the time to master the same skills.
It didn’t matter. All he needed to do was send the knives streaking toward the person.
He had no control. They struck the figure in the chest, and blood bloomed around the blade. Their eyes widened, and they pointed in his direction.
The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3 Page 7