Blood of the Watcher (The Dark Ability Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Haern tapped the scar. “You can never really get away if you continue to use what they give you. That’s something I learned early on. But it’s been hard. A man gets used to having certain gifts. Thing like enhancement to Seeing, that was useful in my line of work. Can’t say I don’t miss it.”

  Rsiran realized that was part of the reason Haern pushed him as he did. He wanted Rsiran to be better prepared for whatever he might face, including the possibility that his abilities would fail. “You’re still gifted.”

  His eyes went distant. “That’s the thing. I was never a strong Seer before I went to Venass, so when I took away what they gave me, the implant, I expected it to fade. Only… only I retained more than I expected. Sort of like I gained strength through use.”

  “Is the scar from when they implanted you with lorcith?” He didn’t know if it had been lorcith or heartstone, but Venass seemed more likely to use lorcith.

  “From when it came out. Jessa’s father… He helped.”

  Haern fell silent and Rsiran decided not to push on that issue any further. “That’s why you helped her? She told me that you rescued her.”

  Haern’s face darkened. “That would be as good a way to put it as any,” he answered.

  “Where was she? I mean, she told me that slavers thought to sell her, but not where.”

  Haern shook a moment. “What would you do, Rsiran? You think you would go to Eban, find the slaver responsible for what happened to her, and get revenge for what they did?”

  What they did? Jessa hadn’t said anything about what they had done to her. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I already took care of them,” Haern said.

  He said it with such force, and an edge of darkness, that Rsiran took an involuntary step back.

  “Elaeavn is protected,” Haern went on. “And that isn’t necessarily something that should change. Most who live here do not know about the darkness that exists outside the city, and never learn how hard a place it can be. You’ve seen some of it—more than most who have lived here their entire lives—but you’ve been protected as well.”

  “I’ve seen what Venass did. I’ve seen what the Forgotten—”

  Haern laughed. “The Forgotten. They only matter to the Elvraeth, and to Elaeavn. But what of other places? In Elaeavn, we think the Great Watcher has granted us abilities, and that makes us special, but there are other places and other abilities. The only thing special about Elaeavn is that we know so little about the rest of the world.”

  Haern raised his sword and held it out. “Now. We need to continue to practice. If you lose your connection to lorcith, you might need to know simple technique. I don’t think to make you into a Neelish swordsman, but you can learn enough to get past someone who knows less than you. That might make the difference between getting caught and getting to safety.”

  “Haern—” Rsiran started.

  Haern shook his head, cutting off additional questions. Then he leapt forward, swinging his sword in attack.

  Chapter 7

  The bandolist playing in the back of the Wretched Barth was a man Rsiran had seen before, and the mournful tune he played was familiar. There was a certain soothing quality to the fact that he could sit at a table in the Barth again, and hold a mug of ale. Perhaps in that, Brusus had been right to buy the tavern.

  Jessa sat across from him, absently rolling dice in her hand, shaking them before letting them spill out across the table. Her ale sat untouched. Since returning to the smithy to see him practicing with Haern, she had been quiet, though Rsiran hadn’t learned why. She had whispered something to Haern before he left, making him promise to meet them at the Barth later. And now they were here.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “When Brusus gets here,” she said.

  Rsiran took a long drink and set his mug back on the table. His eyes darted around the Barth. There were others here tonight, the first time that he’d seen that since it had reopened. A couple sat along one wall, eating a plate of beef and bread, speaking quietly. Rsiran couldn’t help but check for weapons, or anything that might put them in danger. Four men sat around a table near the bandolist. They diced and talked too loudly to be much of a threat. He saw nothing about them that made him uncomfortable. Unfortunately, he’d learned such an observation didn’t mean they were harmless. He’d thought there was nothing to worry about from the waitress when Brusus had been poisoned, and he’d nearly lost a friend that night.

  No other patrons sat in the Barth, though Rsiran figured that was probably for the best. Too many people would make him suspicious about why they had suddenly chosen the Barth. Even under Lianna’s management, the Barth had never been all that busy. She had been busy enough, and her cooking had brought in more people than had come under Karin’s management, but that had been part of the Barth’s charm.

  “When will he get here?” Rsiran asked. He shifted on his stool, trying to find a comfortable way to sit, but his body ached from working with Haern all afternoon. As fit as he felt, given his working the forge, it seemed his training introduced him to muscles he didn’t even know he had. Somehow, even his buttocks throbbed.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Jessa?” he asked. There was tension in her voice. Had he not known her nearly as well as he did, he might not have heard it, but he was around Jessa pretty much every day, and he knew her as well as he could know anyone. He leaned toward her and rested his arms on the table, reaching for her hands.

  She swallowed as he touched her. “Not yet.” She pulled one hand away and touched the charm she wore, now with a bold yellow flower inside. The large petals fell from the charm, making them look as if they had been formed together. Rsiran wondered how she managed to stuff the flowers inside.

  “What are you keeping from me?” he asked.

  She looked over, and her eyes were drawn, but she only shook her head.

  Rsiran waited. If Jessa didn’t want to answer, then he wasn’t going to push, but whatever she wasn’t saying troubled her. He continued to drink his ale, while she occasionally picked up the dice and tossed them across the table. She never bothered to look at how they landed.

  Rsiran didn’t know how much time passed before the door to the Barth opened. They both glanced to look. Haern came in and wiped a trail of rain off his cloak, sending splatters of water to the ground. It hadn’t been raining when they arrived at the Barth.

  “Is he with you?” Jessa asked.

  “Coming,” Haern answered. He took a seat next to Rsiran. An amused smile came to his lips as he saw the way that Rsiran shifted on his stool. “You look like you’re sore.”

  Rsiran rubbed his thighs and shook his head. “How is it that I hurt like I do?”

  “You need practice. Muscles take a while to get accustomed to different movements. Maybe you’re not as strong as you think.”

  The comment brought a smile from Jessa that faded quickly. “He’s strong enough.”

  “Better hope so,” Haern said.

  Jessa shook her head.

  Rsiran looked from Haern to Jessa. Neither was willing to meet his eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “Wait for—”

  “Yeah, Brusus,” he said. He reached for Jessa before pulling his hand back. What wouldn’t she tell him? Why keep something from him? Didn’t they share in the risk together? What didn’t she want to say to him?

  He began to feel a growing irritation the longer he sat there. Had she learned something about the pair he’d seen in the forest? If so, why not tell him?

  He drank his ale, finishing the mug in a long draught, and nodded when one of the servers came by to check if he wanted another. Jessa only watched him.

  Rsiran lost track of the time before Brusus finally arrived. He swept into the Barth, his eyes surveying the tavern, flaring slightly darker green as he did, before he pulled off his cloak and hung it on a h
ook near the door. When he took a seat across from Haern, he pulled a stack of coin from his pocket and set it next to the dice.

  When no one reached for it, he shrugged. “Thought we’d dice, but you all seem a bit somber tonight. Maybe it’s the music?” he asked, turning toward the bandolist. He motioned to the man, and the song changed, getting a little louder, and bawdier. The song picked up in rhythm, and the singer’s voice rang loudly through the tavern.

  Brusus leaned forward, the amusement in his face gone. “Rsiran,” he started.

  Rsiran took a long drink of his ale and slammed it down with more force than he intended. “I’ve been waiting for you. Jessa won’t tell me what’s bothering her, and Haern remains silent. Seems like you still want to hold us all under your control.” The words spilled out, more influenced by drink than anything. Rsiran flushed and sighed. “I’m sorry, Brusus. I don’t mean—”

  Brusus shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Jessa didn’t want to say anything to you until I got here because I suspect she wanted to wait to know if I learned anything different than she had.” Brusus glanced at Jessa, who nodded.

  “Learned anything about what? Why wouldn’t she tell me what she’d learned?”

  “Because she’s afraid of what you might do, I suspect,” Brusus said.

  “Do?”

  Brusus looked over at Jessa and leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Even after everything you’ve been through, you’ve proven to be far more forgiving than most,” Brusus went on. “Most of us don’t really understand, and that’s why Haern has been working with you, wanting to harden you a bit.”

  Rsiran looked around the table. Everyone here was his friend, but they all watched him as if afraid of how he might react.

  What did they know?

  “Forgiving of what?” he asked. He looked to Jessa, but she wasn’t willing to meet his eyes. Instead, she picked the dice off the table and shook them again, rolling them in her hand. “You mean my father, don’t you?” he asked.

  That had been the point of contention between him and Jessa. She never understood why he had been so willing to forgive his father, even if Rsiran didn’t really consider it forgiving. He couldn’t find it in himself to hate his father, even after everything that he’d done.

  Jessa looked up and met his eyes. She shook her head and set the dice down, not rolling them across the table this time. “Not your father.”

  “Then who?” he asked.

  Brusus answered for her. “It’s your sister, Rsiran.”

  “What about my sister?” The last time he’d seen Alyse, she had been making her way through Lower Town. Alyse had always been the most blessed of them, gifted by the Great Watcher with both Sight and Reading. Dual abilities were uncommon outside of the Elvraeth, enough to ensure that Alyse would marry well.

  Or it had, until their father lost the smithy. Then she had suffered a fate similar to Rsiran. She had been forced to find work, something that Alyse was particularly ill prepared for.

  “When you learned that she was in Lower Town,” Jessa started, “Brusus asked me to keep an eye on her.”

  “Like you did with my father?”

  “It’s not like that, Rsiran,” Brusus said.

  He turned to Brusus. “No? It seems to me that when my father lost the smithy, you knew long before I did. How long ago did you learn about Alyse?”

  “Only today. Jessa has been watching for her, helping if she can—”

  “You’ve been helping my sister?” he asked her.

  “Not so that she would notice,” Jessa answered. “But I’ve been doing what I can.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s your sister,” Jessa answered. She reached toward him, and he let her take his hands. “I know how you feel about her. You never wanted to see her hurt, even though they hurt you. And I know that you still care what happens to her.”

  Rsiran didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t seen his sister in months, and had even made a threat to his father that he would allow Alyse to be harmed, but Rsiran would never have really done anything to her. Regardless of what Alyse had done to him, she was his sister. It was the same reason he struggled with his father’s disappearance. “And my mother?” he asked. He’d thought so little about her since he’d been sentenced to the mines. She had never stood up to his father and had never been willing to argue when his father drank too much, or said too much, or any of the dozens of other things that his father had done over the years. Like Alyse, she had never intervened on his behalf, almost as if she didn’t care what happened to him.

  “She remains in Lower Town,” Jessa said. “She’s safe, if dirtier than you remember.”

  “What happened?” he asked. “Where is Alyse?”

  Jessa looked over to Brusus and let him answer. “When Jessa sent word that she’d gone missing, I began my search,” Brusus said. “Lower Town can be dangerous, especially to someone who’s not prepared for it. Like you, she lived her entire life above us, sitting closer to Upper Town than the docks.”

  “I’ve been safe enough,” Rsiran said.

  Brusus smiled sadly. “You’ve had help. You have people who care about you, and who want you to do well. Do you think that your sister has the same? You came to Lower Town because you wanted to. Your sister came here because she had to. There is a difference, and it is not insignificant.”

  “How do you know that she’s gone?” he asked.

  He presumed that she was still working for whomever she’d been working for when he’d run into her, hidden in some part of Lower Town where they would never find her. What if Jessa had simply overlooked her?

  That didn’t change the fact that, something had happened to her, Rsiran wanted to know. She was his sister, even if she never managed to get past the fact that he could Slide. There was a connection there. One that she might not understand, but one that if Rsiran were honest with himself, he still felt.

  “Because the man she was working for hasn’t seen her in the last week,” Brusus said. “And the others working for him don’t know where she might have gone.”

  “You don’t know what that means,” Rsiran said. “We should go talk to the man she’s been working for together… find out what he knows—”

  “There’s no need to do that,” Brusus said.

  “But if he knows something about Alyse—”

  “He doesn’t. I’ve asked.”

  Rsiran pushed back from the table. “How do you know he’s telling the truth? What if he’s trying to keep something from you?”

  “I can be persuasive,” Brusus said simply.

  Rsiran stared at Brusus, realizing that Brusus could have Compelled or simply Read the person Alyse worked for. Brusus would know, even if someone didn’t want to talk. There weren’t many with his ability to augment their minds with heartstone, or even lorcith, to keep from allowing a Reader access. Some man along Lower Town would certainly not be able to protect himself if Brusus wanted answers.

  “What do you know?” Rsiran asked.

  Brusus leaned forward and rested his hands on the table. “She hasn’t been there in days. She’s considered reliable, a good worker, and has never not shown up for her work. The fact that she didn’t tells him that something either happened—not all that uncommon in Lower Town—or that she simply decided not to come to work for reasons known only to her.”

  “She needed the work,” Rsiran said.

  Brusus nodded. “That’s the way it appeared.”

  Rsiran looked to Jessa. “What do you think happened? Was it Josun?”

  But even as he asked, he wondered if maybe it might not be. What reason would Josun have to reappear in the city after Firell freed him? Rsiran doubted that Josun would risk coming after him so quickly, but what did he really know? And if it was Sarah and Valn…

  Jessa might not want to answer, but she would. For him, he knew that she would.

  Jessa sighed. “I don’t know. I thought maybe she’d moved on, gone to another j
ob,” she started, looking over at Brusus. “From what I can tell, it wouldn’t have been the first time she’s changed jobs since moving to Lower Town, but the last time was for a much better position. The man she had worked for before this one… well, he wasn’t very nice.”

  Rsiran didn’t like the idea of someone hurting his sister. Even after what he’d been through, he didn’t want her to suffer. It was bad enough that his father had lost the smithy, but for Alyse to suffer because of it—and possibly for something that he had done—that bothered him.

  “But I can’t find any evidence that she’s moved on to another job. All the other businesses with openings in this part of the city haven’t seen her.”

  “What if she took a job in Upper Town?” Rsiran asked.

  He could imagine his sister trying to move up from Lower Town. It was a better fit for her, anyway, with better opportunities than she’d find in Lower Town, but then he didn’t know what kind of work she had done. When he’d seen her before, she had been returning from the market, carrying a basket of fish toward some house near the docks. She had still had the same strength that he’d always seen in her, but some of the arrogance had been shaken. Losing their father had affected her and had forced her into a role she never had thought that she would have to play.

  “I don’t think that’s likely,” Haern said. His eyes had gone distant like they did when he used his ability. The green to them took on a faint film, and the scar along his cheek twitched. “I don’t See much of her, but were she in Upper Town, I suspect the visions would be clearer. That they are not…”

  Rsiran swallowed a lump in his throat. “Then what?”

  “I think,” Brusus began with a sigh, “that whoever is trying to reach you thinks to use her to get to you.”

  He couldn’t shake the memory of Sarah and Valn, and the way they had appeared in the forest. They would have been able to find Alyse if they wanted to.

  He would have to find them to get answers. Or find Alyse. Either way, he already knew he had to do something.