Shadows Within the Flame (The Elder Stones Saga Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “I’ve been helping you with the C’than, so why is it that I’m not allowed to get any closer?”

  “The C’than are particular about it. I’ve told you that.” She shoved the engineer bound in shadows forward. As she went, darkness swirled around her, obscuring her completely, making it so that Lucy couldn’t See anything. When the shadows were gone, so too were Carth and the engineer. She watched for a while, before turning her attention back to the rocky prominence of this place. It was isolated, violent, and yet this was one of the C’than strongholds?

  There was something about it that troubled her, and it was more than just that she didn’t understand why the C’than would have a place like this here.

  “You look troubled.”

  She glanced over and realized that Carth had rejoined her. How had she snuck up on her like that? These days, very few people were able to sneak up on her, though mostly that had to do with the fact that she could Read people as they approached.

  “How long will we do this?”

  “How long do you think you can?”

  “You’re questioning my ability to Slide?”

  “Perhaps your strength. If you don’t think you can return us to the ship, then we need to be more cautious.”

  “If the ship intends to simply sail into Nyaesh, we could meet it there.”

  Carth nodded. “We could.”

  “You’re expecting some other trouble.”

  “I find it best to expect difficulty so that when it comes, I’m not surprised.”

  “What sort of difficulty do you think we might encounter now?”

  “I’m not entirely sure about these men that you and Daniel encountered. They aren’t the A’ras, which tells me there is something else taking place.”

  “What are you concerned about?”

  “Considering the C’than have been infiltrated, I’m not entirely sure.”

  “You think this is all tied to the C’than?”

  “They started this, and because of it, I feel the need to ensure that it ends.”

  Lucy reached for the back of her head, running her fingers along where the implant remained. It throbbed. Usually she was able to ignore it, but for whatever reason, today she was unable to do so.

  “What happens if we aren’t able to end this?”

  Carth looked back toward the tower. “One way or another, it will end, Lucy Elvraeth.”

  Lucy took a deep breath, staring at the waves as they crashed along the shoreline. The island was small enough that she thought she could cross it on foot within an hour, and yet, as she was there, she had no awareness of anyone else around. Her attempt to Read anything nearby failed. It was as if all others that were near her were closed to her attempt.

  It was possible that there were no others near her. It was possible that the only others on the island were those within the tower. If that was the case, then how did the tower get the necessary supplies?

  She saw no sign of ships moving out of the water, nothing that would suggest to her that anything could make it into here. The violence of the water was enough that she suspected it would be difficult for ships to reach shore anyway.

  Carth watched her, and as before, Lucy had a sense that she was Reading her, somehow dipping into her thoughts, even though Carth claimed not to have that ability.

  “Where would you have us go now?”

  “There are other strongholds for us to visit.”

  “When we find more like him?”

  “We bring them here.”

  “If it fails?” She thought of what the engineer had done to her, the power he must be able to draw, using his knowledge to create an implant that had augmented her in such a way. How many others would be like that? And what would happen if they also thought to use their knowledge in such a way?

  She should’ve come up with that question sooner. That was the real issue. Not only did she need to ensure that the C’than didn’t use power like this again, but they had to make sure that the Ai’thol didn’t acquire this type of power. If they did, it would be dangerous, and countless others might suffer.

  “Why do you think they’re doing it?”

  Carth shook her head. “I was hoping you would be able to tell me.”

  “I can’t Read everything.”

  “Perhaps not yet, but I suspect that when you fully gain mastery over your abilities, not only will you be able to Read, but you will be able to Push. And, unfortunately, it’s that ability that we might need.”

  Lucy stood staring out over the water for a few moments, thinking about how she had felt when she had been Pushed and how helpless she had been to fight it. She had hated the fact that the Ai’thol had controlled her completely, forcing her to do their bidding, and she had been powerless to resist it. She had tried, and she had failed. Now Carth wanted her to do the same thing to someone else like her? Could she do it?

  Even if she could, should she do it?

  It was with those troubled thoughts that she prepared to Slide. Carth sent her another image, the briefest memory of a place, enough for Lucy to lock on to it, and as she prepared to Slide, she forced those thoughts away, focusing on what she needed to do and not on how she felt about it.

  31

  Haern

  The sense of lorcith pulled on them, and Haern used it to draw himself forward. This anchor was massive, an enormous section of lorcith, and as he focused on it, he glided across the rooftop.

  “That’s good,” his father said. He suddenly shimmered, Sliding so that he could emerge a dozen steps from him.

  “I still don’t have much control over it.”

  “I can’t really explain what you’ll need to do. Your control will be different than mine.”

  If only he could Slide, he wouldn’t have to worry about trying to figure out how to anchor and pull himself along. But it was growing easier to use the sense of lorcith, and the more he did, the more he pulled on it, the easier it was for him to glide across the ground as they traveled through the city.

  His father had wanted him to practice within Elaeavn, using the city itself as a way to navigate. There was enough lorcith throughout the city that he could use the various items here as anchors. Haern hadn’t ever paid much attention to how much lorcith was within the city. Much of it was fairly basic. Pots and pans were made out of lorcith, along with lamps and chains and many other functional items. For a long time, that had been all that was allowed of lorcith.

  There were other items, some that were decorative, and surprisingly, these had a little more pull. It was like the one that he anchored to now.

  “You said that I needed to forge the anchor myself.”

  “I think that forging the anchor yourself will give you greater control, and it might allow you to use a smaller quantity of lorcith in order to do it, but grasping the concept is the first step. When I started using lorcith as my anchors, I figure out a way to anchor to it, and then I discovered that the items I forged were better anchors than others.”

  Haern shifted his attention, using another anchor and pulling on that. This one drew him in a different direction.

  So far, he had managed to use the sense of lorcith to glide across the rooftops as well as across the ground, but there were limits to how useful that might be. Why would he use lorcith in that way when he could simply walk or jump? What he needed was to find a way to use lorcith that was different from what he could do by walking.

  Haern hesitated. Could he push off from it?

  He focused on the nearest anchors, and as he did, he pushed.

  He angled the pressure so that he went upward, not wanting to push himself outward, but to jump. There was a soft burst, and he rose several inches into the air.

  “What was that?” his father asked.

  “I was just trying something different with the lorcith.”

  His father nodded. He Slid, shimmering away, and emerged on a nearby rooftop that was a story above Haern. It would take him climbing to reach it, and i
t would be difficult, especially in the darkness.

  Somewhere down the street, a cat meowed, the mournful sound catching his attention, but he ignored it. There was no point in listening to the cat, not since the old superstitions. He didn’t believe that there was anything to them, not really. Waves crashing along the shore were a distant and steady rumbling. It was late enough that there were no other sounds in the city.

  His father wanted him to find a way to reach him.

  Haern should be thankful his father had taken an interest in training him, but he couldn’t help but wish he could train with Galen still. Unfortunately, the attack had left Galen weakened, and he hadn’t managed to do much more than rest. In the days since the attack, Haern had fully recovered, though at times he still felt a strange tingling within him. Would he always feel that? He believed Della had Healed him completely, but with the way the Forgers had attacked, there was a possibility that he would never be back to normal.

  His training with poisons had ended with Galen’s absence. His father didn’t know anything about poisons and didn’t seem to think that they were necessary. Haern recognized their utility, having seen from the attack and Asador that they were in fact needed.

  He searched for signs of lorcith, finding an anchor that would be useful. When he did, he pushed against it.

  With the push, he went soaring and nearly overshot the rooftop.

  He tumbled down, rolling to a stop next to his father.

  “Good.”

  Haern rolled his head around to look up at his father. “It’s only good in that I managed to reach you, but what happens if I’m not in Elaeavn with all this lorcith? How am I going to be able to push off it?”

  In answer, his father removed the knife from his pocket, holding out his palm. He sent the knife streaking and it thunked into a rooftop nearby.

  “Like that.”

  “It’s lorcith, Father.”

  “I realize it’s lorcith. What I’m suggesting is that you place your anchors and then use your connection to the metal to use those anchors. It’s not going to be nearly as quick as Sliding, and so in a fight, it will be more challenging for you, but it’s not that you don’t have the same possibilities.”

  Would he be able to do that quickly enough when it came to the Forgers?

  The only way would be to continue working at it, trying to get faster so that when the time came, he didn’t struggle to push and pull on the lorcith. He also needed better control so that the Forgers couldn’t pull the metal away from him. If they managed to do that, then he would be at a disadvantage.

  Haern looked over at his father. It would’ve been much easier if he had the ability to Slide, to be able to fight like his father.

  “You need to get past it,” his father said.

  “Get past what?”

  “I can see the way you’re looking at me. You’re wondering what it might be like if you could Slide. And it might be easier for you, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less of a threat without it. You’ve already proven yourself a threat to the Forgers, and that was without any significant training. If we can make you more formidable, then you can pose a real danger to them.”

  Haern focused on the lorcith his father had thrown, and he pushed off it. As he did, he pulled on the knife, drawing it to him and then pushing it back down, sending himself higher.

  Almost too high.

  He focused again to slow himself, and when he landed on the roof, his father grinned. “Just like that. That was impressive. You managed to pull on the knife while you were in the air. And that was one of my knives. Imagine what it would be like with one that you had forged yourself.”

  “I don’t know that I’ll ever have time to forge enough knives to make this effective.”

  “Possibly not, which is why you need to master your connection to lorcith in general. The better control you have over it, the less you will need to rely upon having things that you made with you. There might come a time when you need to escape or complete whatever task you have set for yourself, and having metal you have forged yourself will be the most important.”

  His father tipped his head to one side, focusing toward the north. He stared for a long time before turning his attention back to Haern.

  “Continue practicing. I’ll meet you back in the forest later.”

  With that, his father Slid, disappearing with a shimmer.

  Haern stared into the north, wondering what had drawn his father’s attention. Something had caught his eye, but without being able to follow him, Haern would never know.

  He had knives that he had made, and he had the one his father had made, and Haern practiced pushing and pulling, using the lorcith to push off on, trying to control his movements. He would use it to soar through the air rather than to Slide, and in doing so, he found himself flying higher. Could he hover in place?

  He pushed and tried to hold himself in the air. It took a greater focus, more strength of will, but he managed to hover.

  This might be useful while fighting, but he had to get to the point where he could use his connection to lorcith without thinking about it. Right now, it required too much focus. Not only did he have to concentrate on where he was and how he was using the metal, but he had to focus on his connection to it, and it simply wasn’t natural.

  Getting to that point would take time, and they didn’t have that time.

  He pushed off, soaring through the air, and noticed movement down near the shore.

  Haern hadn’t spent enough time in Elaeavn to feel as comfortable in the city as he had within the forest, but he landed on the street and started toward the shore. Every so often, he used the sense of lorcith to draw himself forward, and he started practicing pushing on knives, using those to help him make his way along the street. When he had a knife in place, he would push off it, soaring into the air. While in the air, he pulled on the knife and moved it, trying to relocate it. It had him traveling in something like hops, and with each movement, he traveled much farther than he could by walking. It also took much less physical energy, though it took significant strength and connection to his magical energy.

  The more he used the technique, the easier he thought it would get.

  It was one thing Lucy had said to him about Sliding. The more she practiced, the easier it got for her. It was why Haern had wanted Lucy to practice Sliding with others, to make it so that they could work together, but Lucy had been more interested in other things.

  Sight didn’t work quite like that. There was no training it, trying to strengthen that ability. But then, he had used it his entire life. It was a part of him. His connection to lorcith was a part of him to, but that was one that took conscious effort on his part, an attempt for him to focus on it, to use it, and when he did, then he could gain more power over it.

  He reached the shoreline of Elaeavn before he knew it. He paused, walking along it. It was late enough that there wasn’t anyone out. Waves crashed, sending salty spray into the air, and the occasional ship anchored out on the sea bobbed in the waves. The only light and activity he noticed came from those ships.

  “I used to come here.”

  Haern spun to see his father standing behind him. How had he returned without Haern realizing that he was there? And how had his father found him so quickly?

  “There is something about looking out on the water that always calmed me.”

  “I prefer the forest.”

  “Because you’ve only known the forest.”

  “Did you only know the water?”

  His father stared out into the distance. “The water was a way out of the city.”

  “But you can Slide.”

  “It was different for me. I feared using my ability openly when I was younger. I eventually moved past that, but there was still the fear of what would happen if I was discovered. The Elvraeth would have banished me.”

  “I don’t really understand why that would be so bad,” Haern said.

  “At the time, it
was the worst thing I could imagine. I didn’t want to know what it might be like to be forced away from the city, from everything that I knew. I didn’t know what was out there in the world.”

  “But you could Slide. If you had been exiled, nothing would have kept you from returning.”

  “Only the threat of death.”

  “Would they really have done that?”

  “I don’t really know. That’s not the point, at least not now. When I was younger, I believed the Elvraeth were everything. I believed they could do anything they wanted. They ruled over the city, as far as I understood. And that’s what they wanted others to believe. They wanted people to believe that they were in control, and that they had power. Having people convinced that they were the authority within Elaeavn made them powerful.”

  His father Slid and emerged on a rock high above the water. Haern dropped one of the knives and pushed on it, joining his father. Rsiran glanced over, nodding.

  “Even though they did all that, you were still willing to protect them from the Forgers?”

  “I wasn’t willing to protect the Elvraeth. I didn’t care about the Elvraeth. I cared about my friends within the city. I cared about the people. As I suspect you do.”

  Haern breathed out heavily. “I do care, but I don’t know what I can do.”

  “It was the same for me. I didn’t know what I could do, and I didn’t know what I should do. It didn’t stop me from trying. I think that was the part that your mother wanted me to understand. It’s your turn now. It might’ve been mine years ago, but the fact that the Forgers have come for you suggests that you have a role.”

  “I didn’t want to fight. I never wanted anything more than to just understand my abilities.”

  Rsiran arched a brow at him. “That’s not true. You wanted to be able to relax, to not feel the threats within the city. You wanted to have an easy life. And that was what I wanted for you too. Unfortunately, it seems as if what we want isn’t going to matter. I wanted to find peace for years. I wanted to make it so that we didn’t have to worry about the Forgers, and I’ve chased them for many years, though I think that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have been so focused on them. I should have been more concerned about who was directing them.”