The Heartstone Blade (The Dark Ability Book 2)

by Holmberg, D. K.

  Rsiran Slid back to the long corridor and walked down until he reached the wall. The crates there didn’t quite reach the ceiling, but he’d come almost all the way around and still hadn’t seen a way past. Either the crates framed a clearing like was found in the center of the warehouse, or the crates were stacked so densely together that there would be no way to get past.

  And he had no way of knowing the difference, not without tearing the crates apart. Rsiran didn’t know if he could even manage that, and if he could, there would be no way to hide what had been done.

  Rsiran wanted answers, knowing that he needed to if Josun’s rebellion had begun to move, especially if they learned of him. Not only that, but something was happening with lorcith. With his connection to the ore, he needed to understand what that might be. Why did Firell have the crates of lorcith? And why had Rsiran been barricaded from the hidden mine?

  Somehow, it started with the warehouse. Lianna had found the crate sitting on the dock. Rsiran and Jessa had been attacked here. And this wall of crates blocked him from a part of the warehouse. What did he risk by not Sliding to the other side?

  Not knowing. That was what he risked. And something more happening to his friends. To Jessa.

  Rsiran thought about the distance. Just far enough to get past the stack of crates, but not too far that he risked colliding with another stack. If another stack was pushed up against the first, he had to coordinate the Slide to ensure he ended up inside a crate if possible. At least, if something went wrong, he had the possibility of Sliding free.

  Crouching just in case, he Slid.

  When he emerged, he held his breath, body tensed for what might happen.

  But he was unharmed.

  A narrow gap opened around him, crates stretching to the ceiling, blocking off all natural light that would otherwise come through the overhead windows. Without the lantern, he would have had no way to see anything. The gap was barely wide enough for another row of the crates, almost as if crates that had been here were pulled out for this purpose. The air tasted stale and bitter, with a hint of dust filling his nose from the hard-packed ground, but another odor lingered, one of sweat and the tang of blood.

  Someone had been here.

  That either meant some hidden access existed or someone reached it the same way he had.

  Not wanting to linger any longer than needed, he looked for anything that might explain what was happening. They could return later with Brusus and Jessa. Now that he’d been here, Sliding back would be easier.

  Near one end of the space, a collection of metallic items rested on what appeared to be a side panel from a nearby crate, lying on the ground. Rsiran Slid there, not wanting to make anymore prints in the ground than needed. Not until he knew who had been here.

  Close up, the objects each had a strange sheen to them. Made of some grey metal, they almost shimmered in the blue light of the lantern. It took him a moment to realize they were lorcith made.

  But that wasn’t quite right. Not lorcith—at least, not the same type of lorcith he worked with—but an alloy. Like the lantern.

  One of the objects looked like a simple wide-bottomed pan. This was not lorcith, but something else. A deep black metal that he didn’t recognize. Resting up against the side of a crate were a set of small tongs, the same as he’d use to pick up glowing metal heated at the forge.

  Rsiran frowned, considering what else he saw.

  A small, simple rectangle made of iron sat near the tongs. Other than the black pan, it was the cleanest shape. The other shapes scattered on the wooden side panel looked like crude forgings. Something that wanted to be a loop of chain. A too-thick length of metal that seemed to be a knife. And a deformed hunk of silvery metal that he couldn’t identify.

  With a growing curiosity, he lifted the panel, careful not to let any of the pieces fall. Again, he wanted minimal evidence that he’d been there. The ground underneath was scorched and covered in ash. His frown deepened.

  What was this place?

  He would have to come back. Brusus needed to see it. He always seemed to have answers. Grabbing the strange lump of metal, he turned it in his hands. Not silver, but something else he didn’t recognize.

  Rsiran set the panel back down. As he did, he felt the pull of lorcith suddenly strong on his senses. Without waiting, he Slid away from the warehouse.

  Chapter 13

  Rsiran returned to the smithy. Only after he’d returned did he realize that he still held the strange lump of metal. Cursing himself, he slipped it into his pocket. If he had more time, he would learn what it was. Maybe then he would understand why it had been hidden between the crates.

  He looked around the smithy, but Jessa was gone.

  Rsiran needed to find Brusus to fill him in on what they’d learned, and learn if he’d found anything from his sources in the palace. Too much had happened since they’d seen him, but it was growing clearer to Rsiran that it all tied together somehow. If only he could make the connection.

  His mind still hadn’t slowed since returning from Ilphaesn. Studying the lantern helped, but didn’t put him at ease like working with the hammer would.

  Deciding to take some time, he moved to the coals and began heating them to a red-hot glow. Once satisfied, he sorted through the remaining lumps of lorcith until he found one that called to him. He set it in the coals, letting it gradually heat to an orange glow. Lorcith could take more heat than most metals and had to be much hotter than even steel to work easily.

  Then he set to work.

  Rsiran began hammering the metal, flattening it. As he worked, he considered trying to influence the shape the lorcith took. So often when working with lorcith—and lorcith only—he listened to it and let the metal dictate what direction the forging took. This led to Brusus’s frustration that Rsiran did not make nearly enough of the knives that fetched so many coins. Now Rsiran wanted to make knives, but for a different reason. He needed something small enough to easily pocket.

  The lorcith responded. As he worked, he split the metal, turning the single lump of lorcith into three separate pieces. He hammered each of them, slowly turning them into small knives that he flattened, slowly shaping. Before finishing, he worked his mark onto the end.

  When they were finished and cooled, quenched in the bucket of stale water resting near the anvil, he lifted them. Compact and balanced, but unlike the other knives he’d made. They barely fit in his hand. These would not be marketable, but they suited his purposes, fitting nicely into his pocket.

  With a push on the lorcith, he sent one of the knives flying across the room. It sank into the wooden wall plank with a loud thunk.

  Rsiran pulled it back and felt some resistance as he did. When the knife came flying back to him, he slowed it and caught it out of the air. These knives would be useful.

  After sharpening them on his grinding wheel, he pulled the other knives he had in his pocket and set them on his table, replacing them with the small knives he’d just forged. They did not weigh so heavily in his pocket. The others could be hidden throughout the city as anchors. If there was someone out there for him to fear, he needed to be prepared.

  Like it so often did, working the forge had cleared his mind. He considered what they had seen, about the stores of lorcith on Firell’s ship. His own collection had diminished, and he had to address how he would obtain more. He could return to Ilphaesn late at night and mine the ore himself, but doing so would be risky. What if he took some from Firell?

  The first person he worried about was Brusus. Would he mind Rsiran stealing from Firell? Brusus wanted more shaped lorcith items. Better to sell. While there was value to the unshaped lorcith, it was much more valuable when forged. And Brusus would likely have wanted Firell to bring the lorcith to him anyway.

  And Firell? Rsiran didn’t know him as well as the others, but Firell had been nothing but kind to him. Would he really steal from a friend?

  If he did, what did that make him?

  Noth
ing more than the thief his father had always expected he would become. Sliding, the dark ability, but one that had saved him so many times. And what Rsiran had used it for had not been dark, at least not the way he saw it. Could saving Brusus be a dark ability? Could saving Jessa? How could the Great Watcher not want him to use his ability?

  But he didn’t have to use it against his friends. First, he needed to understand why Firell had the lorcith. Then he could decide what to do. But doing that meant he would need to reach Firell. Too much delay and Firell would leave the city, travel up the coast to Asador, and whatever he intended to do with the lorcith would be complete.

  But… he would have to reveal his ability to reach Firell. That was the only way he could think of reaching him. Given that everyone but Firell knew, it did not seem that much of a problem.

  A loud knock on the door to the smithy startled him.

  Rsiran Slid to the door, one hand resting on the hilt of the knife at his waist, ready to flick it toward whoever might be on the other side of the door. Jessa wouldn’t knock. Brusus might. And Haern? Haern never visited. Since the attack on the palace, Haern had been distant. Rsiran preferred it that way.

  He hated the idea of a surprise, but the heavy knocking came again, shaking the door practically from its hinges.

  “Damn, Rsiran. I do be knowing you’re there!”

  Shael.

  After what they’d seen on Firell’s ship, what they’d overheard, he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to Shael. The smuggler likely wanted to see how much progress he’d made on the device, but Rsiran hadn’t done anything with it yet. Nor had he decided if he wanted to.

  Rsiran twisted the lock and pulled the door open. Shael looked at him, his wide face and deep blue eyes mixed with amusement. He pushed through the door and slammed it closed.

  “You do be a hard one to reach, Rsiran. I be seeing Brusus this morning and he be telling me you be here.”

  He frowned. Why would Brusus have told Shael that he was in the smithy when Rsiran hadn’t seen Brusus in days? Maybe Jessa found Brusus?

  “I was actually just leaving,” he told Shael.

  Shael’s eyes darkened and his brow furrowed. He scrubbed a massive hand across his face. “So… can you be making the device for me, Rsiran? That be the purpose of my visit.”

  Rsiran glanced over to the table where the sheet for the schematics lay folded up. He hadn’t given it much more thought since Shael’s first visit. “I haven’t had a chance to try—”

  “I know you be thinking this is more than you be wanting to do, but I can pay you well. Those plans… they be valuable to the right person, you know.”

  He didn’t, but Shael knew that too.

  “Jus’ like the knives you be making for Brusus.” He smiled a wide smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You do be making such fine knives for Brusus. And I hear you be making a sword? I no see a lorcith sword in… well, not for a long time.”

  Sweat suddenly slicked Rsiran’s palms. His heart thudded once. How did Shael know of the sword? Brusus wouldn’t talk of it, would he?

  Rsiran shook his head. “No swords. And even the knives have been harder to make. Working with lorcith is difficult. The metal doesn’t always take the shape I want it.”

  That last, at least, was true. But he wouldn’t share with Shael that he kept the sword in the smithy. That he felt it calling to him even as he stood across from Shael, the sense of the blade so finely attuned to him. Since its forging, he’d always been able to sense it well, more so than any of the other items he’d made. Rsiran did not understand why.

  Shael leaned toward him. “Don’t be worrying about lorcith,” he said. “I do be able to find it for you now. Told you the last time you asked I couldn’t but found me a source, I did. So if that be your concern…”

  Rsiran swallowed, afraid to say anything that might reveal he knew about Firell’s ship and the lorcith collected there. “That would help,” he said carefully. Having more lorcith, no matter how he acquired it, would help. At least then, he wouldn’t have to return to the mines, work in the dark, and try to free the lorcith. The idea of returning haunted him more than he cared to admit. And he wouldn’t have to steal from Firell.

  And maybe Shael’s source was the same one that Firell shipped, but to where? Who other than the Elaeavn smiths could use lorcith?

  Shael’s smile deepened and he stepped over to Rsiran and clapped him on the shoulder, nearly knocking him forward. Working with metal all these months, finally learning the secrets of forging, taking the lessons imparted by the lorcith, had changed more than just his skill. Rsiran had grown stronger too. But Shael still seemed to tower over him, easily able to overpower him.

  “I be bringing a small supply to you tomorrow. Then you be working on my project.”

  Rsiran glanced again at the schematic. “I’ll do what I can,” he started. “But—”

  Shael shook his head. “But nothing. You be one of the best smiths I meet in Elaeavn. If you no be able to do it, then who?” Then he stepped out the door and pulled it closed with a loud thud.

  Rsiran stood, staring at the door. His father might have been able to help, but he was gone. The shop shuttered. Generations of Lareth master smiths would end. Rsiran may be able to work with metal, but he would never have the same respectability that his family had known for years. And he’d always felt fine knowing that until seeing what had become of his father’s shop.

  Now… now he didn’t know how he felt. Only that it felt empty and strange to see the place that he’d always expected to take over abandoned, left empty. Would it one day fall into the same level of disrepair as the smithy he now worked in?

  Rsiran sighed.

  He made his way to the table and pulled out the schematics, unfolding the parchment so he could examine it again. The diagram looked like nothing more than parts, and he had no idea how to piece it together. Without knowing how to follow a schematic like this, he would never be able to make what Shael wanted.

  He sighed again. What would it have been like to truly work as an apprentice? What would it have been like for him to learn from his father—or other master smiths—rather than taking whatever lessons the lorcith provided? He didn’t deny that the lorcith had guided him well, as evidenced by his improved skills, but even the lorcith couldn’t teach him certain things.

  And without knowledge, he’d always be a second-rate smith. Never able to become a master smith. That shouldn’t bother him, but it did. Did he really want to spend the rest of his days worrying about the guild discovering his unsanctioned smithy? Did he want to fear the Elvraeth learning how he worked with lorcith? But without an apprenticeship, he’d never be anything but what he was now.

  That should be enough. He had Jessa. A sense of safety. A place where he felt at home and welcomed.

  Why was it, then, that he felt something was missing?

  Chapter 14

  Rsiran checked the knives in his pockets and looked over his smithy again. The unfolded parchment rested atop the table like a taunt, reminding him of how little he knew. He folded it back up so that it fit into his pocket. Maybe Brusus would understand how to read it. At least Brusus should know what Shael wanted from him.

  At this time of day, he should be working. A forging of some kind—anything of value—that Brusus could move. And if Shael truly intended to supply him with lorcith, he didn’t need to fear running out of his supply. Yet, he didn’t feel like standing in front of the hot forge. Not that it wouldn’t relax him. He knew it would. But doing so would only remind him of what he’d become. And he didn’t know how he felt about it yet.

  What else could he do? Search for Jessa? She could be anywhere in the city. Likely, she went prowling on one of her own tasks, something she wouldn’t tell him about. Though they shared a deep bond, he knew she had her secrets. For the most part, he didn’t mind.

  And if not Jessa, then should he try to find Brusus? That man was more difficult to find than Jessa. Rsi
ran suspected he spent much of his day in Upper Town. At least, by the way he dressed, it seemed he did. Always decked out in some finery, heavily embroidered or with the perfect cut, almost as if he wanted to believe he didn’t truly live in Lower Town. Not that Rsiran could blame him.

  But he would not find Brusus. And after Shael’s visit, he didn’t want to stay here. Besides, there was much he needed to find out, not the least of which was an answer as to why Firell smuggled lorcith. That, at least, was something he could do.

  He should leave a message for Jessa, but decided the knives sitting out on the table would serve. Then he Slid.

  It was late afternoon and the sun was starting to sink toward the horizon, leaving streaks of orange in the sky and just enough light to finish up the day’s tasks; the docks were flush with activity. A few shallow-keeled boats floated toward the docks. One was tied to the far dock. Men worked quickly, unloading buckets of fish that sloshed as they carried them. These would be carted to the Lower Town market, which would be a flurry of activity until late in the night.

  A tall twin-masted ship was moored out in the bay. Rsiran recognized it as Firell’s ship, anchored in a different location from before. Would its new location make it more difficult to Slide to, or would the fact that he had been on the deck before ease that transition? Had he only left one of his forgings on the ship, he would have an easier time reaching it.

  But he remembered there were forgings of his on the ship. How many knives had he sensed when he first reached the ship? And he had practiced feeling for his work. Standing atop Ilphaesn had given him plenty of practice listening for the tiny pull of his lorcith forgings.

  As he focused, he felt the sword in his shop… the knives resting on the table nearby… the various other items left throughout Lower Town in the Barth or Brusus’s house… and at least two different knives. He could use that awareness to pull him, as he had when Sliding away from Ilphaesn earlier.