As he sat at the table, another thought came to him of his conversation with Alyse earlier. For the last few months, he hadn’t given much thought to his family or what happened to them since he’d disappeared other than to feel thankful that his father apparently hadn’t reported him to the constables. But between finding his father’s smithy abandoned and meeting Alyse on the street, he felt drawn back to them.
And there was what Alyse had told him. Had his father not reported him to the constables after all? Alyse claimed their father had protected him from the guild. But if that was the case, why? Why would his father have protected him? He’d been the one to banish him to the mines, to try to teach him a lesson, either to ignore the call of lorcith or simply to punish him for Sliding. He’d been the one who’d said he didn’t want to see Rsiran again.
But now that his father had lost the smithy, Rsiran wondered what happened. Where was his father? Alyse made no mention of where he’d gone, if she even knew. If he was still around, he couldn’t imagine a time when he would simply have abandoned the smithy. And Alyse now lived in a part of Lower Town that even Rsiran wouldn’t have wanted to live in. Did his mother live there too?
He took another sip of ale. If he didn’t think Alyse would attack him for visiting—or worse, report him—he might try to learn more. As it was, he had enough worrying about those who actually cared for him.
The door opened and Jessa guided Brusus through. He was dressed in one of his finer cloaks, heavy embroidery worked along the edge. He wobbled, as if he’d already had too much to drink. Rsiran leapt to his feet to help.
“What happened?”
She shook her head. “Not sure. He won’t tell me.”
Brusus looked up at him and frowned. “What did you do, Rsiran?”
The words froze Rsiran.
Brusus looked at him through reddened eyes. “What did you do?” His words slurred heavily. Brusus was already drunk.
“A little help?” Jessa said.
They dragged him to the table and propped him on a stool. Brusus leaned back against the wall, but at least he had strength enough to keep from falling. A young server came over—one Lianna had only recently hired—a scowl painted onto her round face.
“Black tea,” Jessa snapped.
The serving woman glared at her before turning and making her way to the bar.
“She’ll probably spit in it now,” Jessa muttered.
“What happened?” he asked, already fearing the answer.
She inhaled deeply before answering. A deep crimson flower tucked into the charm, and she’d changed into clothing nearly as fine as what Brusus wore. “Found him wandering near Upper Town like this. I’d think he was just mourning Lianna, but not there.” She looked around the tavern, eyes skimming over the bandolist and the pair of elderly men sitting along the bar. She frowned as she watched the serving girl. “Nearly fell a dozen times as we made our way here. Wish you had been with me. It would have been easier.”
Brusus’s eyes had drifted closed. Had Brusus been there when he’d met Haern? With his Sight, they might have had better luck in the guild house.
The serving girl returned and practically dropped the mug of tea onto the table. Unlike the ale, it steamed with a heady scent. Jessa pushed it toward Brusus and his eyes opened. Heavy lids revealed dark green eyes as he looked at the tea.
Jessa tipped the mug toward his face and helped him take a few sips. “Careful,” she warned when he tried taking a deeper drink.
Brusus blinked again, and his eyes started to clear. He looked at Jessa for a moment before turning to Rsiran. “What happened to you?” His words slurred, but less than when he’d first come in.
“What do you mean me?” Maybe Brusus did know where he’d been. If he’d been in Upper Town, it made sense that he would have heard something, especially as connected as Brusus seemed to be to anything that happened in the city. “What happened to you? Why are you already drunk?”
“Not drunk,” Brusus slurred.
Jessa pushed the tea at him. “Drink this.”
Brusus blinked again. “Looking for answers. Told you to wait for me at the smithy.”
“How long did you think we would wait?” Jessa asked.
“Longer than you did. I came by last night, and neither of you was there. Foolish to go running around the city after what happened. More foolish to do what you did, Rsiran.”
Jessa’s head snapped around to Rsiran. “What did you do?”
“I… Only did what needed doing.”
Brusus took a long sip of tea. Focus came back to his eyes, and the color faded, his eyes regaining the muted green color, masking his abilities. Even drunk as he was, Brusus managed to Push them, and did it so subtly that they didn’t know he’d even done it. If what Della said was right—and he had no reason to think it wasn’t—Brusus had been Pushing that image for a long time. Just as Sliding had been as easy as walking for Josun, Pushing to mask his ability came easily to Brusus.
Brusus shifted on the stool, sitting up straighter. He pulled off his cloak, frowning as he realized how soiled the ends had become. When he looked back up, his face had regained his usual quiet intensity. Wrinkles pulled at the corners of his eyes.
“I was in Upper Town to see what rumors I could find.”
Had word already spread about Rsiran entering the alchemist guild house? “Did you find anything?”
Brusus swallowed another gulp of tea. “After what you told me you found on Firell’s ship, and what Jessa told me about your father’s shop, I needed to know if he had made the mistake of stealing lorcith from the guild, or if it was mined like you thought.” He fixed Rsiran with a hard gaze. “You made it clear how the guild would react if lorcith were stolen from them.”
“The guild tracks lorcith closely. It flows from the mining guild to the smith guild. From there to whoever commissioned the work.”
“Usually Elvraeth.”
Rsiran nodded. There were occasions when others beside the Elvraeth had commissioned lorcith work—rare and only done after consulting with the Elvraeth—but most of the time, it was an Elvraeth request. “Did you find something?”
“Not about lorcith. No rumors floating. Or if there are, I didn’t hear.” His tone made it clear how unlikely he thought that to be. “You certain you saw lorcith on his ship?” Brusus glanced around the tavern, his eyes lingering for a moment where Lianna used to watch over the place. He took a long drink of his tea before setting the mug down carefully. “Not just things you’d created, but the unshaped lorcith?”
“I’m certain.” He didn’t say anything about the lorcith Shael had brought to him. Not yet.
Brusus inhaled deeply and turned to look at Rsiran. “And you are certain that he was taking lorcith away from Elaeavn?”
That was what he’d assumed, but what if that was how Shael got lorcith? The idea was unlikely—one of the reasons lorcith had such value was that it could only be mined in Ilphaesn—but not entirely impossible. Maybe Firell had found another source, and that was what Josun had been after.
“I guess I’m not,” Rsiran admitted.
Jessa squeezed his hand under the table. “You asked Rsiran what he had done. What do you mean by that? What else did you find in Upper Town?” After rattling off these questions and getting only a worrisome gaze from Brusus, she added, “And why were you drunk?”
Brusus looked over to Rsiran. “Some things you don’t speak openly about. Especially in Upper Town. Things like the Elvraeth. Or the palace. And I wasn’t drunk.”
Rsiran tensed, suddenly fearing what Brusus had learned. “Did you find anything about Josun?”
“I tried, but the tchalit will not speak of individual Elvraeth. Getting one to speak at all takes great convincing.”
The tchalit.
Rsiran had heard that term only once before. After Sliding into the palace, Josun had claimed the tchalit were coming for Rsiran. Palace guards of some kind.
How would Brusus
have managed to get one of the tchalit to speak, unless…
“You convinced them you were Elvraeth,” he realized.
“You say that as if it would be difficult for me to do so.”
Brusus’s eyes had flared a dark green, revealing the depths of his ability and his connection to the Great Watcher.
“Of course not, Brusus. I didn’t mean any offense—”
Brusus laughed softly. The edge of heat to his eyes faded slightly but did not disappear entirely. “I know you didn’t, Rsiran. Since Lianna, I’ve been…” He didn’t finish.
They all understood. Since Lianna passed, they’d all been on edge, Rsiran especially. Mostly, it was the idea that Josun could come for one of them next; that he could simply appear, Sliding into place and attacking, made him fear more for Jessa than himself. She was so stubbornly independent. But he didn’t know what he would do if anything happened to her.
“What did you learn from the tchalit?” Jessa asked. She touched Rsiran’s arm, as if Reading his fears. “Why did you ask what Rsiran did?”
Brusus sighed. “The tchalit do not like to speak to the Elvraeth. I had to be… persuasive.”
“So you had drinks with him?”
“Not drinks. They live in the palace. They think themselves more refined than that.”
Jessa’s eyes narrowed. “Then what?”
“Most of the tchalit prefer orphum vapor. Faster drunk than ale and wears off more quickly. And less likely to have other effects.”
Rsiran hadn’t heard of orphum vapor. “Do you need to see Della?”
Brusus glared at him. “Do you? Foolish thing you did.”
Jessa turned and looked at him.
“I… I needed to find answers. Haern came with me.”
Brusus slammed a fist down onto the table. The elderly men at the bar turned to look and watched them for a moment before turning away. “Haern went with you? One of you is foolish, but two is simply asking to get caught.”
Brusus was right. Rsiran should have gone alone, Sliding if needed. But had he done that, it was unlikely he would have gotten very far. The alloy would have blocked him from Sliding. If not for the anchor Haern brought, he wouldn’t have been able to get through.
Even then, it hadn’t been worth it. All they got was a few useless pages of parchment. Scrambled words. Numbers that meant nothing. And the guild learning of his presence and already sending word to the palace for Brusus to have heard about it. Not the secret of the alloy as he had hoped, a way to keep his friends—Jessa most of all—safe.
“I know they saw me. There wasn’t anything I could do at that point.”
Jessa squeezed his arm painfully. “What did you do, Rsiran? Where did you go?” Her voice hid the other accusation: that he’d gone without her. She didn’t need to say anything for him to know how much that hurt her.
Brusus answered for him. “The tchalit told me that someone broke into the palace. They found them walking through the courtyard in the center of the palace carrying a lorcith sword.”
“The palace and a sword?” Rsiran glanced from Brusus to Jessa, confusion surging through him. “I didn’t go into the palace tonight.”
Brusus frowned at him. “Rsiran—”
“You think I’d be foolish enough to return to the palace? I’m worried enough the Elvraeth will notice how much lorcith I’ve forged. I wouldn’t dare try breaking in again.”
Brusus studied him. “The sword would have been bad enough. From what I can tell, they are so rare that the tchalit had never seen one before. Even your knives are a rarity, though other lorcith knives exist in the city. That’s why they’re so valuable.” Brusus leaned forward, eyes growing more intense and flaring a darker green for a moment. “That wasn’t all the tchalit said. He said when they approached the person, he simply disappeared. They have the constables searching throughout the city for this person. With as close as you got to the Elvraeth, the constables will not rest until you’re caught.”
Rsiran didn’t know what to say. Someone—and Josun was the only person he could imagine doing something like that—had entered the palace carrying a lorcith sword. His sword. As attuned to it as he was, shouldn’t he have felt it moving?
Not with what he’d done tonight. He’d buried the sense of lorcith in order to find the guild house. And in doing so, he hadn’t even felt for the knives he’d brought with him.
But it was more than just lorcith. By Sliding from the palace with a lorcith sword, the Elvraeth would be looking. The alchemist guild too. Now he didn’t have to hide from only Josun; he had to hide from all the Elvraeth. And if he didn’t, everyone he cared about would be in danger.
“Wait… if you didn’t go to the palace,” Jessa started, “then where did you and Haern go?”
He met her eyes, knowing how hurt she would be that he would risk entering the alchemist guild without her. “I went looking for a way to keep us safe from Josun Elvraeth, a way to make the alloy.”
She frowned and her eyes narrowed. “Did you find anything?”
He’d gone to the alchemists, thinking to find a way to keep Josun from reaching him, but what if that wasn’t the answer? He wanted to keep Jessa safe—to keep all of his friends safe. From what he’d seen, Josun was after him, not the rest of them.
That meant he would have to do something drastic.
If Josun, the Elvraeth, and the alchemists were after him, what choice did he have left?
Brusus watched him as he finally answered. “Not the answer I wanted.”
Chapter 26
Rsiran let the coals of the forge cool on their own. A stack of new lorcith blades rested on his table, different from the usual knives he’d made. Not only in the shape—these were smaller and more compact, better for concealing within a cloak or stuffing into his pockets—but also in how he’d made them. For the second time, he had asked the lorcith to help him create the knives, rather than listening to what the lorcith wanted to become. And the lorcith had complied.
Was this what his father had wanted him to learn to do? What he had done seemed different from how his father described demanding the lorcith take a certain shape. Rsiran felt more of a cooperation with the lorcith. When he felt it calling to him, pulling on him to make it into a certain shape, he had asked if it would help him make the knives. Rsiran still didn’t know how he did that.
Each knife had the same small mark on the end. His mark. And now his connection to them felt if anything stronger than it usually did.
Rsiran pushed on the top one. It slid along the table until he stopped it. Then he pulled, drawing the knife to him and caught it out of the air.
Collecting the other knives, he tucked two into his waistband. The rest went into pockets in his cloak. He grabbed the lantern, making certain to keep it covered, and looked around the smithy one more time. Possibly for the last time.
An ache pounded through his heart.
He looked over to where the sword he’d made months ago leaned against the table. When he’d returned after meeting Brusus in the Barth, he’d found it sitting atop the anvil. Somehow, Josun had snuck in after Rsiran had been here last, after returning from the guild house with Haern. A message or a threat from Josun. Either way, Rsiran no longer had a choice.
How much longer before Josun learned that Rsiran had entered the alchemist guild? Or did he already? He’d use that knowledge, along with the fact of his lorcith forging, to force his hand. Others would be harmed as Lianna had been. And he wouldn’t allow that.
The door to the smithy clicked, and he turned, expecting Jessa. She stood in the doorway, watching him with a deep frown, her Sight taking in everything in the smithy, before closing the door behind her and locking it.
“Were you going to leave without me again?” Anger hung in her voice over how he’d Slid into the alchemist guild without her.
He swallowed a lump in his throat. He didn’t dare tell her that he hoped he could have. “I don’t think it’s safe for you to come.”
She stormed across the shop, her eyes flashing angrily as she scanned the smithy. Today she wore simple black pants and a shirt without embroidery. The lorcith charm hanging around her neck blended into her clothes. Only the dark red flower stuffed inside contrasted with what she wore. “Why do you think you need to go?”
“You know why. Josun Elvraeth will not rest until everyone around me is hurt. I thought that if I could find a way to keep us safe…”
If only he understood the secret of the alloy. Then he could use it to… to what? Did he really think he’d be able to find a way to prevent Josun from reaching him? If the Elvraeth decided you did something, you did not argue. Even if it meant your life.
“And since you didn’t, you think leaving will change that? You think that if you leave, it changes anything about his plans?” She grabbed his hand and made certain to hold on tightly. He could not Slide without taking her with him.
Rsiran wasn’t certain that it would. “You’ve seen what’s already happened. And now he’s coming after me. I need to go where he can’t find me.”
She shook her head. “Only what Josun wants to happen. We got past him once before. We’ll do it again.”
“We were lucky then. We both know what nearly happened.”
He pulled her close, and she didn’t fight. Her warmth pressed against him. Any other time, it would have felt reassuring. Now it only made him anxious, knowing that he would be the reason something happened to her.
“Only Josun knows where we are,” Jessa said. She pressed her cheek up against his chest and wrapped her arms around him.
“For how much longer? The constables are on alert. Already they’ve begun patrolling Lower Town.”
“They’ve always had a presence—”
“Not like this. Not this late. When was the last time you saw a constable after dark? And now, suddenly, we’ve seen three?” That, as much as anything, told him that what Brusus had heard was true. More than that, he wondered how much influence the alchemists had? “And if the alchemists haven’t made the connection between what Brusus heard and what happened in their guild house, they soon will. And then I’ll never be safe here.” He squeezed her. “We’ll never be safe here.”
The Heartstone Blade (The Dark Ability Book 2) Page 20