Blood of the Watcher (The Dark Ability Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “So what can I do?” Rsiran asked.

  Haern lifted a knife off the table and flipped it toward him. Rsiran caught it easily from the air. “Seems to me that you’re already doing what you need. If you don’t want to get caught in the middle, you have to learn to master your abilities, whatever they are.” He tipped his head to Rsiran and touched a finger to his nose. “And there’s more to what you can do than what they know. I think that’s part of the reason you intrigue them so much.”

  “But, Haern, what can we really do if war comes like you say?”

  Haern laughed and started to the door. “Pick a side. That’s all any of us can do.”

  He pulled open the door and leaned out, pausing to turn to Rsiran. “We’ll pick up our training again tomorrow. Let this settle down a bit before we go at it. The forest?”

  Rsiran sighed, wishing what Haern suggested wasn’t necessary but knowing that he was likely right. “Not the edge of the forest,” he said.

  Haern frowned. “Where then?”

  “Deeper. Where Lianna was buried.” At least there he didn’t think they’d be discovered.

  Haern nodded once, then pulled the door closed as he disappeared down the street.

  Rsiran slipped the locks back into place around the door, knowing they did nothing to stop Jessa, but then he had no reason to obstruct her access. As he made his way to the forge, he wondered how he could do what Haern suggested. How could he pick a side if he didn’t know what each side wanted? And how could he choose when each side had done nothing but try to use him?

  Chapter 5

  The forge glowed a cool orange. Sweat dripped from his brow, and Rsiran set the hammer down atop the anvil. He went to the bucket of water where he’d left the knives he’d forged, and pulled them out. These were smaller than his usual knives, and laced with heartstone in a single strip that ran along the blade.

  “You finally done?” Jessa called from their bed.

  He took the knives and placed them on the table, arranging them in a line. It would take more effort to pull on them, but then he needed the practice. And this way, he had something that no one else could use. At least so far. If Venass and the Forgotten had their way, they would learn how to replicate his ability.

  “Done for now,” Rsiran said. He hadn’t noticed when Jessa had returned, but then he had been focused on the forge, and the metal, letting it clear his head as it so often did.

  Jessa stood and came to the table where she examined one of the knives he’d made, holding it up and turning it from side to side. “Interesting texture on this one. It’s almost as if you’ve put two knives together.”

  Rsiran could feel the way the metals sat on each other. Forging this had required folding the metals together rather than simply mixing the alloy, and he’d let the lorcith guide him with the forging. “Something like that,” he agreed.

  Jessa set the knife back down and took his hands. “Haern tells me that you’ve been practicing with him.”

  Rsiran grunted. “Not only him, it seems.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shook his head and told her about the others he’d seen near the hut.

  “What do you think they were after?” she asked.

  “Besides me?”

  She punched him in the shoulder and leaned toward the pale red flower that she stuffed into her charm today. Standing this close to her, the bright fragrance coming off the flower drifted to him. It pushed back some of the bitterness in the air from the lorcith, as well as some of the strange sweetness that came from heartstone.

  “Yes, besides you. Do you really think that the forest is the best place for them to grab you? They were looking for something.”

  Rsiran hadn’t pieced that together, but maybe she was right. He reached for where he’d left his cloak draped over the table and pulled the small sheet of metal out and handed it to her.

  “What is this?”

  “What I found in the hut. This was buried in the wall, stuffed there, I think, by my father.”

  Jessa held it out and examined it much like she had with the knife. She turned her head slightly, as if trying to get a better view, and frowned. “There’s something here, isn’t there?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to look at it much.”

  She passed it back over to him. “This is skillfully made, but it’s different from your forgings.” She looked up from the metal. “You think your father did this?”

  Rsiran studied the piece of metal. It had been a while since he had seen anything made by his father, but the way the metal was folded together made it seem unlikely. The grindl mixed into the iron, but not in an alloy, and not like what was done with metals like steel. This was more like what he did with the heartstone, especially with the knives that he’d just made. There was a certain artistry to the metal, a pattern to the grindl within it, that didn’t really suit the utilitarian designs he’d seen his father favor.

  “I don’t know,” Rsiran said. “There was a reason he thought to hide it, though.”

  Jessa took it back from him and placed it near the blue heartstone light. The blue light could help augment what someone Sighted could see, while the orange light, like the lantern that had been in the Ilphaesn mine, made it more difficult for someone Sighted to see anything.

  “You think these patterns mean anything?” she asked.

  “Not that I can tell. I can barely see them.”

  “The way this green metal—”

  “Grindl,” Rsiran said.

  “—seems to repeat,” she went on. “Almost like there is an intentional pattern to it, but nothing that I can really make out or understand.”

  Rsiran could see the pattern, but if it were made with lorcith or with heartstone, he could feel the pattern. What he could see didn’t really give him much of an idea about whether the pattern itself meant anything, or whether there was something more to this metal than simply demonstrating technique. But the fact that it had been hidden within the wall of the hut made him think that there had to be something important about it.

  “So you think they were after this?” Jessa asked.

  “I don’t know that they knew it was there. I wouldn’t have known it was there if not for the darkness.”

  “Someone Sighted would have seen it,” Jessa said.

  Rsiran wondered if that was true. If they were Sighted, the shadows in the room might have obscured the ability to see the crack where this had been stuffed, especially with a fire burning in the hearth as there had been the times that Rsiran had visited.

  “How has your training gone?” Jessa asked.

  “Haern thinks we’ll need to choose sides,” Rsiran said.

  “Sides?”

  “With what’s coming. This… war,” he said. He ran his hand above the knives he’d just made, feeling the way that lorcith and heartstone called to him, each with a different type of intensity. It was different from the way the alloy pulled on him.

  “Which side, Rsiran?” Jessa asked. She pointed to the forge, and then to the lorcith items spread across the table. “Do you support the Elvraeth in the palace? Because that’s who controls the city. Or do you mean to support the Forgotten, those the Elvraeth have decided were too dangerous for the city? The same Forgotten we’ve seen willing to poison us to learn what you know. The same Forgotten willing to torment you—us—simply so that they could attain more power?” Jessa touched the nearest knife and sent it spinning in place. “What about Venass? The scholars didn’t seem too interested in your safety, either, did they? They were perfectly content to leave you trapped, and only after you managed to escape were they interested in helping. Even that came with a cost, now didn’t it?” Jessa turned to him and crossed her arms over her chest. “So which side, Rsiran? Tell me what you think we should do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said softly. Hearing her put it that way made it clear that there was no side that was the right one for them to choose. How could he work w
ith any of them, especially if all of them seemed willing to harm whoever they had to in order to keep their control?

  “We need to keep safe and stay out of whatever they plan,” Jessa said. “That’s how we’ll get through this. Let the Forgotten do whatever they want to the Elvraeth, and let Venass continue to do… whatever it is they do. But we don’t need to get mixed up in it. That only leads one place.”

  Rsiran nodded. That Jessa was right didn’t mean that he knew how they would remain safe, or that they would somehow manage to stay separated from what the Forgotten or Venass had in mind, especially if they had already come looking for him.

  “That’s my concern,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any way that we’re going to stay out of this. What if the way out is to stay in?”

  Jessa shook her head. “That means you intend to engage in whatever Venass and the Forgotten want. We already know the power the Elvraeth hide—and protect—in the palace. You’ve said it yourself that it needs to stay there, that the crystals are too powerful. What if Venass gets ahold of them? Or the Forgotten?” She grabbed the spinning knife and slapped her hand onto it. “How many of them do you think there are? How many compared to us? We’re nothing, Rsiran. That’s why they haven’t been opposed to using us for what they want. When they’re done using us, they won’t have any problem simply throwing us away again.”

  Even though he agreed with Jessa, Rsiran couldn’t shake the sense that Haern might be right. The Forgotten and Venass had proven that they would keep coming. They would be forced to make a choice at some point, but how could they? What they knew of the Forgotten was that they were willing to sacrifice anyone—and anything—to achieve whatever their goals might be. And Venass? He still didn’t know what they were after, only that they wanted to understand how he could Slide past the heartstone alloy. That, and they wanted the crystals in the palace. Thom coming after them made that clear.

  They needed to know more. In that, Jessa was wrong. If they waited, if they remained in the dark, they would always be forced to react. If they learned more, maybe they could stay in front of what came.

  But that meant putting themselves in even more danger.

  Rsiran watched Jessa. She touched her one hand to the charm hanging from the lorcith chain. Her eyes darted around the smithy, always searching. What might she see with her enhanced Sight that he could not? In the smithy, with the pressure of lorcith all around him, he doubted that she would see much more than he could sense. But elsewhere? It was why he was thankful for his enhanced Sight since holding the crystal.

  Every so often, Jessa would sniff at the flower. He had yet to learn why she chose to place a flower in the charm. Maybe only because she wanted something other than the stink of Lower Town, or maybe there was more to it.

  Before, he had thought to barricade himself in the smithy. That was the reason for the bars of heartstone alloy running along the smithy. It had taken Jessa and his friends to convince him to give up on that notion, that he couldn’t remain hidden, because others would come for him, regardless. And now that he knew more about everything was that took place around them—how much greater it was than he imagined—he knew he couldn’t keep them safe within the smithy, even if he wanted to.

  But remaining ignorant of what awaited them wasn’t helping them, either. Waiting did nothing but put them in more danger, and let others prepare.

  What he needed was to understand what was at stake. It might be about the crystals at the heart of the palace, but there might be more as well. And what would happen when the attack came to Elaeavn? Would they be ready?

  Rsiran found Jessa watching him. “I see what you’re thinking.”

  He shook his head. “I’m only thinking that we need to know what they’re after.”

  “We tried that once.”

  He nodded. The image of Shael lying dead because of his knife remained burned in his mind. Haern claimed that he had only done what was needed, but what if the Great Watcher intended for him to embrace the darkness and to use his ability in this way?

  Rsiran couldn’t do that to Jessa. He would not do that to her.

  Then he needed a different plan. Only… he didn’t know what that would be.

  Chapter 6

  “You have to find a way to move and attack at the same time.”

  Rsiran wiped the sweat dripping from his forehead and glanced up at Haern. Somehow, the older man seemed barely bothered by the sparring, his breathing easy, and no sign of sweat. He scarcely seemed to have exerted himself.

  How could Rsiran be so exhausted? He spent hours hammering away at the forge without any need to slow, but practicing with the sword… that had been a different sort of exertion.

  The heartstone blade touched the floor, the tip resting against the wood. Rsiran was surprised to note that where it touched, it left small charred traces behind.

  He sighed. “Why do I need to learn to fight like this?” he asked Haern, motioning with the sword. The question was not a new one, and he expected the answer.

  “What happens if there are no lorcith knives for you to push or pull? What happens if you can’t Slide somewhere? Do you want to feel helpless like that?”

  Rsiran shook his head. That was the last thing that he wanted. “But you’re letting me use this,” he said, holding up the heartstone-forged sword. “If I have this—”

  “Haven’t I shown you how that can be stopped?”

  Rsiran nodded. The first time he’d tried pushing the sword at Haern, he had simply ducked and grabbed the sword out of the air. Rsiran pulled on it, but Haern had managed to resist, holding tightly to the sword. Rsiran still didn’t know how Haern had managed that.

  “You’re using that sword because you need to learn how to attack creatively. With your abilities, you should be able to attack in ways that I can’t, but you still haven’t managed to even disarm me, let alone defeat me.”

  And Rsiran felt a growing frustration about that as well. Each time he tried—and failed—Haern smacked him with the flat of his sword. His arms and legs stung from each one, a painful reminder of all the times he had failed.

  “I can Slide away if I am attacked, Haern.”

  “Yes. That worked so well for you with Shael. And the Forgotten.”

  “Shael had the Elvraeth chains.”

  Haern nodded. “You make my point.”

  “That’s just it, Haern. Had I not been trapped by the chains, I’m not sure that I would have learned about how I could connect to the heartstone.”

  Haern’s eyes narrowed. “You think that it was a good thing that Shael attacked you? That he trapped you on Firell’s ship?”

  “Not a good thing, no,” Rsiran started. The time he’d spent trapped on Firell’s ship had been torment, but mostly because he didn’t know what had happened to Jessa, where Josun had dragged her. He would have done anything to find out. “But good came from it.”

  “And Venass?” Haern asked. “You were trapped there, I seem to remember you sharing. Do you think that some good came from your time there?”

  Rsiran didn’t think that anything good could come from a place like Venass. After they had trapped him, essentially buried him in lorcith until he managed to find a way free, the only thing that he had gotten from Venass had been an antidote that hadn’t even been needed for Brusus. But hadn’t he come to understand that they were a threat?

  Haern shook his head and grunted. “Always so damn positive. If you think that there were lessons you were meant to take from that place, then you are a fool,” he said. “From that line of thinking, then you’ll probably think there was a good reason you ended up trapped by the Forgotten.”

  Of all the times he’d been trapped, for some reason, it was that time that had left him feeling the most helpless. He couldn’t stop what they did to him, how they assaulted him. Not the physical attacks so much, but the way they had attacked his mind, attempting to steal knowledge from him, secrets that were his alone.

  Because o
f that, he hated the Forgotten the most. That, and the fact that they had not only poisoned him, but Jessa as well. They had forced Firell to help find him, tormenting him by threatening harm to his daughter.

  “Not good. But at least I know how far they’ll go to get what they want.”

  Haern grunted again. “You could have learned that without getting abducted. Think about how long they have been in hiding, with no sign that they were organized as they are. Even Brusus hadn’t learned about the extent of their organization.”

  “Or you,” Rsiran said.

  Haern often downplayed his connections, but he had been an assassin before coming to Elaeavn. Those skills would have given him a different sort of insight than someone like Brusus who had been born and raised in Elaeavn, even if his mother had been exiled.

  “Yes. Or me,” Haern said.

  “You’ve never told me much about your time before Elaeavn, other than the fact that you were an assassin,” Rsiran said.

  Haern’s face remained neutral, but there was a certain tension to his shoulders. His hand clenched around the hilt of the steel sword—one of Rsiran’s that Haern had asked him to make—and he took a slow breath. “There aren’t many who know of that time.”

  “Jessa knows.”

  “Jessa knows some.”

  “How did you end up in Venass?”

  Haern’s eyes seemed to take in everything in the smithy, before pausing on Rsiran. “You don’t end up in Venass. They claim you if they think there’s something you can do for them. Like your abilities.”

  “They wanted what you can See?”

  Haern traced a finger along the scar on his face. “Seers have different levels of ability, you know that, Rsiran?”

  He didn’t, so he shook his head.

  “Don’t really know how it works, but it’s like each person catches a different glimpse of what the Great Watcher knows. You take all of that, and you piece it together…”

  Rsiran thought he understood. Venass could use the combined knowledge gained from Seers in some way. “When did you remove it?”