The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  “What if she has Carth’s blessing?”

  “Carth isn’t gone,” Galen said.

  “I know that’s what you want to believe, but with what we’ve heard—”

  Galen shook his head. “I’ve known Carth too well and too long. She’s far too powerful to be taken down easily, and she would not have allowed herself to be beaten in such a way.”

  “But what if she was?”

  Galen squeezed his eyes shut. “She would have gotten word to me.”

  “Even if she was gone?”

  He snapped his eyes open and looked over to him. “Especially then.”

  Haern stared at the fallen Forger for a moment. “What if she couldn’t? The Forgers seem to think she really is gone. And if she is—”

  “Then we will need to find another way.”

  “To find my father?”

  “To return to Elaeavn.”

  “But my father—”

  “If Carth is gone, then your father might be inaccessible to us. We might have to come to terms with that.”

  Haern watched the Forgers. If only there was some way of getting to them. Maybe if they had a Reader, they could find out what the men knew, but without that? He should have considered that need when they had left Elaeavn. Had they brought Cael Elvraeth with them… though Haern doubted Galen would have wanted Cael to risk herself, even if she had been willing to do so for his father.

  “These two will sleep for a while,” Galen said.

  “And then what?”

  “Until then, I want to scour the city. I want to see if we can uncover anything.”

  Galen motioned for him to follow, and Haern did, having little choice but to do so. When they reached the street, it was late, and people wandered along the street, not paying them any mind. Haern fidgeted, absently twisting a knife in his hand, turning it over and over.

  “You’re getting better,” Galen said.

  Haern glanced down. “It’s nervous energy, I guess.”

  “It’s what you will need to do in order to make yourself more formidable. Continue to manipulate the knife. Get to the point where you can use it comfortably without needing to draw upon your connection to it. When you get to that point, then you can begin adding your connection to the metal and exploring how extensive that bond might be.”

  Every so often, Haern pulled on the lorcith. He did so subtly, trying to draw it to him, forcing the knife to spin in his hand. It was more than what he had ever done in Elaeavn, but there, his ability with lorcith had been more of a curiosity, and as he hadn’t felt all that powerful, it hadn’t been much of a useful ability.

  “There are times I wish I had my father’s skill,” he said to Galen.

  Galen glanced over as they reached the end of the street. He looked in either direction, and then his gaze drifted to the rooftop before he turned back to Haern. “There were times when I was training that I wished I had my mentor’s ability. Della taught me what I needed to know about medicines and herbs, but Isander taught me how to use those same treatments for a much different purpose. It’s because of him that I began to learn the ways that certain healing medications could be used to overwhelm someone. At the same time, many of the dangerous and deadly poisons also have alternative uses.” Galen shrugged. “I always found that interesting.”

  “What? That poisons were not always poisons?”

  “Exactly. What makes one thing a poison and another a healing medication? It’s intent. That’s the only thing that changes. It’s the same with our kind. I suppose it’s the same with any man. Intent changes, and when it does, we can either do great things, or we can do dangerous things.” Galen smiled. “Cael never liked to think in such a way. She always believed there was more good in the world than bad, but I lived too much of my life outside of the city. I saw the horrors that existed, the things men would do to themselves, and because of that, I understand that the opposite is often the reality.”

  “She must have seen something in you,” Haern said. He had a hard time believing that Cael Elvraeth would have remained with an assassin as cold and calculating as Galen seemed to be. There had to be more to him.

  “She saw something in me. She was the first one in a long time.”

  “I don’t know that that’s true. You keep talking of your relationship with Carth. From the way she sounds, she must’ve been a formidable woman, too. That’s not the kind of person who would have willingly stayed with someone who had no good in them.”

  “Carth is… Carth. When you meet her, you will understand.”

  “What happens if she’s not the same person? What if she’s not even alive?”

  They stopped at a corner. In the distance, a busy market stretched throughout a wide clearing. People filled the clearing, the throng pressing toward the market. Haern felt an energy here, and for the first time, he thought he understood what Galen had said about a vibrancy within the city.

  “Once I came to Asador, thinking Carth was gone. I went looking for an ally, and when I found one, I believed Carth gone. It was all part of her plan.” Galen turned to him, and he fixed him with his deep green eyes. “One thing you will learn if you ever get to know Carth is that everything is a part of her plan. She’s an incredibly skilled tactician, to the point where even this might be part of a longer-term plan.”

  “You think she planned for my father to be taken by the Forgers?”

  A troubled expression crossed Galen’s face, lingering for only a moment before fading. “Were it not for his absence, I would have said so, but perhaps she really is gone.”

  It was then that Haern thought he understood. This was about more than needing to find Carth to have any ally in discovering what the Forgers did with his father. This was about Galen finding someone he cared about, too.

  There was much about Galen that he didn’t understand. The man was an assassin, and Haern had seen him act ruthlessly, but there was compassion in him as well. More than that, there was the devotion he showed, not only to Cael Elvraeth, but to Carth.

  Haern wished he could have a similar devotion to his father.

  “You just don’t want to believe she’s gone.”

  Galen glanced over at him before shaking his head. “Carth was a friend when I had so few.”

  He fell silent as they meandered through the crowd. Every so often, Galen would pause and tilt his head to the side, studying the crowd before shaking his head and continuing on. After a while, Haern stopped trying to get a sense of what he was doing. He couldn’t replicate what Galen did, and he didn’t have the same ability to follow the flow within the city. But then, maybe he didn’t need to. All he needed to do was realize that there was an energy here.

  Galen trailed along with it, and Haern began to have a better sense of where it led them. As he followed it, he realized that it guided them toward the shoreline.

  Why would it guide them down to the shoreline again?

  “Where are you taking us? We were down here before and were attacked.”

  “I’m taking us where the night takes us,” Galen said.

  It seemed an odd turn of phrase, but he started to realize that there had to be more to it. The darkness did seem to coalesce along the shoreline. Maybe it was simply that the energy of the city was closer to the market and the center of the city, but maybe there was something more.

  “You think you can find this woman this way?”

  Galen glanced over to him. “What do you See?”

  “It’s not so much what I See, it’s what I don’t see.”

  The assassin paused, studying Haern for a long moment. “What is it that you don’t See?”

  Haern strained against the darkness, staring at it, once again wishing for an ability more than just his connection to Sight. “It’s almost as if the night is darker here. I don’t know how to explain it any better, but there is a certain denseness to the darkness here.”

  “Very good. When I first started tracking Carth, it was one of the things I struggl
ed with. How to find someone who could hide and manipulate the shadows? Her magic is not necessarily unique, but it is rare, certainly in this land. When someone can hide within the shadows and use them to mask her presence, how is anyone supposed to find her?”

  “Why did you have to track Carth?”

  “I was hired to capture her.”

  “Did you?”

  “One doesn’t simply capture Carth. She knew what I was after, and she used me. At the time, I think I was a little irritated. Maybe a lot irritated. But it was the way she used me, and the reason she used me, that brought me closer to her. I began to understand that there was a purpose, and I was a part of that purpose.”

  “So you used the darkness to find her?”

  “I used the presence of darkness. With enhanced Sight, I’m not limited by the depths of shadows or the darkness of night. When dealing with someone like Carth, who can manipulate shadows to make everything seem like the deepest night, you begin to watch for gradations within the shadows, anything that might help you track her.”

  “Such as now.”

  “Such as now.”

  “Can you stop this woman?” Haern asked.

  “You’re asking if I could stop Carth if it came down to it.”

  Haern shrugged. “If they share the same ability, I suppose I am.”

  “I don’t know. Carth was always more than just the shadows. That’s what made her unique. That’s what made her powerful. It’s the reason so many feared her over the years.”

  Haern continued to stare out into the growing darkness. Shadows greeted him, but they were meaningless. The shadows indicated something, but what?

  Could it really be this woman they sought?

  More than ever, he wanted to find Carth, if only to understand why his father had feared her. Shadows wouldn’t slow his father. He could Slide away from them. Haern had even heard that his father could see through the darkness within the Ilphaesn mines by using the lorcith there. Could Carth overpower that?

  “Why does it seem darker near the water?”

  “It’s always been darker near the water. It’s near the water where Carth was the most powerful. She had her connection to the shadows, but more than anything else, she had a connection to the sea. As far as I knew, her ship was her home.”

  Haern didn’t really understand how anyone could find the sea to be home, but then, with his people’s ability to Slide, there never was a reason for them to travel that way. He couldn’t imagine standing on board a ship, dealing with the heaving of the waves beneath him, struggling to keep from vomiting. No, Haern would much rather deal with the sudden and jarring movement of a Slide, even if he wasn’t the one in control of it.

  As they stood there, he thought he caught sight of a figure, and he motioned to Galen. The other man spun around, looking into the darkness, watching the shoreline.

  “Can you See anything?”

  “Nothing clearly,” he said.

  “What if it’s that woman?”

  “I doubt she’d be out here.”

  “But what if it’s her?”

  “Then we move carefully,” Galen said.

  He guided them onto the rocks, shifting them down to the shoreline, and they navigated carefully, working their way around the massive boulders lining the shore. They paused occasionally to look up to determine what might be there.

  There was a figure, simply standing and looking out at the water as if oblivious to their approach.

  Haern’s heart hammered in his chest. He didn’t like the idea of coming upon this woman, certainly not if she presented a danger to them. But Galen was determined. And if anyone would give them a chance against someone like that, it was Galen.

  Haern had always believed his father to be incredibly capable and dangerous, but having traveled with Galen this long, he had a different assessment now. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe his father would be able to do some of the things that Galen had; it was just that, where his father had so many abilities, Galen managed to be incredibly imposing despite having Sight and nothing else,.

  “Can you tell anything?” he whispered.

  “It looks like her.” Galen spoke so softly that the wind gusting off the sea carried his voice away before he could really be overheard. He kept his head down, shielded from view by the enormous boulders lining the shoreline, and Haern mimicked him. He wasn’t certain that anyone without the gift of enhanced Sight would be able to make out anything, anyway. Were it not for his ability, he doubted he would notice anything more than pitch darkness. As it was, the night felt like a blanket pulled around him, muting even his movements.

  “Why would she be out here?” he whispered.

  “It’s possible she’s meeting someone,” Galen said.

  They were still near the city, but they had put some distance between themselves and the main part of the city—and the docks. Out in the harbor, waves gently lapped along the shore, and the creaking of ships moored out in the bay carried to him on the wind. Haern was careful not to make any sound louder than his own breathing.

  They were close to this figure. He couldn’t quite See them, but he knew they had to be near from the position where he had last glimpsed them. Galen gripped a pair of darts, and rolled them lightly between his fingers.

  Haern decided to copy that, at least as much as he could. He grabbed two of his lorcith-forged knives and twisted them in his fingers, ready for the possibility that he might need them. He connected to the lorcith within them, using that connection, his connection, to prepare for the possibility that he might need to push the knives from him.

  “I don’t know where they went,” Galen mouthed.

  Haern nodded, staying down near one of the rocks. It brushed up against his skin, the stone abrasive, surprising given how close they were to the water. He would’ve expected it to be weathered and smooth.

  Shadows moved near them, and Galen nodded toward them.

  It was little more than a slight shifting of the shadows. Had he not been so focused, Haern doubted he would have noticed. Even with his enhanced Sight, he might’ve overlooked it.

  Galen motioned for him to wait. The older man circled around rocks, moving more quietly than Haern would have been able to manage. Haern simply watched, not daring to move. They were close enough to this figure that if they weren’t cautious, they would draw attention to themselves.

  Waves continued to wash behind him. There was something soothing to them, almost hypnotic. If he weren’t careful, he might be soothed to…

  Haern shook his head.

  When he did, he realized his mistake.

  Not only had he nearly drifted off, but the sudden movement would draw attention.

  A hand fell on his shoulder.

  “Who are you and why are you here?” The voice was pitched at a low whisper, barely loud enough to hear.

  Haern resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. “Just wandering through here.”

  “Wandering along the shore at this time of night?”

  “It’s a beautiful night. I find the water calming.”

  “The water is calming, but—”

  “I thought you were dead.”

  Haern turned slowly and saw Galen standing behind an older dark-haired woman, a pair of darts pressed against the side of her neck. The woman’s jaw clenched, and she breathed out.

  “Galen. I was surprised to hear that you returned to Asador.”

  “You were dead.”

  “Did you really believe that?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you have darts to my neck?”

  “Because I want to make sure it’s you.”

  All of a sudden, darkness thickened around the woman, and Haern could make out nothing. Galen grunted, and surprisingly, he started laughing.

  “It’s good to see you again, Carth.”

  33

  Haern

  Haern sat next to Galen on top of one of the massive boulders. Shadows swirled around them, n
o longer as thick as before but still unnatural to his eyes. He studied Carth. After traveling with Galen, a part of him had expected her to be little more than myth. The power attributed to her seemed far more than anything he could believe, but here she was.

  As Galen had suggested, she reminded him of the other woman they had observed coming out of the tavern. It was more than simply their abilities. Their appearance was similar, too. Both had dark hair and a matching olive complexion. Carth was perhaps a little taller, though still compact, and moved with a precise sort of power. The only difference Haern could tell was that Carth had to be twenty years the other woman’s senior.

  “You were waiting for us,” Galen said.

  “No. I came out here to try to regroup.”

  “Does it have anything to do with your network having been disrupted by someone who shares your talents?”

  Carth sighed. “Rayen has always had a stubborn streak. I thought she might be more useful, but it seems she has decided to take a different approach.”

  “If they believed you gone, can you blame her?”

  “I can blame her for working with them.”

  Silence fell, only the crashing of waves breaking it. Carth turned her attention to Haern, watching him. “You are Lareth’s son. He has spoken highly of you.”

  “That’s interesting, considering he hasn’t spoken to me all that much over the years.”

  “Your father has taken an enormous burden upon himself.”

  “And it seems that he’s done quite well with it.”

  “You resent him,” Carth said.

  “Should I not?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve all made mistakes, me as much as anyone.”

  “I didn’t think you made mistakes. I thought everything was according to your plan,” Galen said.

  “There was a time when I would’ve believed that too, but over the years, my plans became increasingly difficult, and after a while, I started to struggle with staying ahead of my enemies.”