Blood of the Watcher (The Dark Ability Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “No trick. This is what father fears. This connection to lorcith. It’s this connection that’s kept me alive when so many have tried to kill me. Tell me, how could this be dark?” he asked.

  Her eyes fixed on the knives, as if unable to move away from them. “Stop that.”

  Rsiran sent the knives spinning. Since holding the crystal in the heart of the palace, his connection to both lorcith and heartstone had increased. Now he could easily spin and hold the lorcith in place, and could more easily detect heartstone around him.

  “Stop!” She smacked at the knives with her hand and they dropped to the table.

  Rsiran pulled them back to him, and slipped them into his pocket.

  “You’ve been around Father too long if you fear that,” Rsiran said.

  “Not your father,” she whispered. “You don’t understand anything, do you?” she asked. “Perhaps Neran was right. All this time, I thought that he had been wrong sending you to the mines, that he had made you suffer needlessly. I tried telling him that you could learn, that you needed time to understand, but he saw what I could not.”

  Rsiran’s back stiffened. “And what is that?”

  “That… what you just demonstrated… is dangerous. That leads to darkness.”

  He sat frozen for a moment, unable to even answer. How could his mother believe that his ability with lorcith was dangerous? It had been Sliding that they feared, not his connection to lorcith. Only when he’d begun listening to lorcith had his father decided that it was time Rsiran be punished.

  “Dangerous,” Rsiran said. “This dangerous ability kept me alive when I was trapped in the Ilphaesn mines. This dangerous ability helped save me when one of the Elvraeth thought to use me. And it helped keep me safe as I began to realize how much danger exists outside of Elaeavn.” He stood, knocking down the chair as he did. “Is there anything you wish me to tell Father if I see him again?”

  “You know where he is?”

  “I told you that I found him in Asador.”

  “Found. What does that mean?”

  Rsiran stepped back, moving toward the door. It had been a mistake coming here. All that he had done was dredge up the same feelings of inadequacy that he’d had all those years spent living at home, feelings that he’d managed to move past with the help of his friends, and Jessa.

  When his mother had first welcomed him into her new home, he had thought that she might have been happy to see him, but now he realized he’d been mistaken. She wasn’t happy to see him at all. All she cared about was what happened with his father, and how that had affected her. Did she even know about Alyse? How would she handle that news?

  “It means he was in Asador. He is not any longer.”

  “Where did they take him?” she asked. She stood and reached toward Rsiran. “What did they do to him?”

  “He’s in Thyr. I don’t know what they did to him,” Rsiran said.

  “What? Why would they have taken him to Thyr? That leads to nothing but…”

  “But what?”

  She shook her head. “What does it matter? You don’t care what happens to your father. You can leave, go back to wherever and whatever has become of you, and enjoy the finery of your new station. Leave me here in this part of the city,” she said, her nose turned up as she did, “and don’t worry about us.”

  Rsiran should have left, but he hesitated. “You think that I don’t care, but when I learned he was the man I’d brought from Asador—”

  “You brought him back from Asador?”

  He nodded.

  “Neran was here and he didn’t come for us?”

  “He wasn’t allowed.”

  “By who?”

  Rsiran crossed his arms over his chest. Brusus didn’t deserve the blame for what happened with his father. What had happened with him was on Rsiran. “Because of me. There was something I needed in Thyr, and when I learned that Father had been in Thyr before, I took him with me.”

  She sucked in a soft breath. “So you know.”

  “Know that he hasn’t spent his entire life in the city? Or that he feared me becoming what he already was?”

  Rsiran felt certain that part of his father’s concern with his ability with lorcith stemmed from his own ability, or possibly inability, to ignore the call of lorcith. Rather than ignoring it, Rsiran had embraced it.

  She turned away from him. “Did he tell you?”

  “Why don’t you?” Rsiran said.

  She leaned on the nearest chair as if for support, but didn’t turn back to face him. “You are more like him than you realized, you know that, Rsiran? Only, he was much harsher to you than his own father ever was to him.”

  Rsiran never knew his grandparents. They had been gone, returned to the Great Watcher long before he ever had a chance to meet them, but his grandfather had the smithy before his father. And his father before him. The smithy should have eventually passed to Rsiran, and now it never would.

  That would have bothered him more only months before. Now, he had grown accustomed to the fact that he would never know the smithy where he’d first swung a hammer, and would never work over the anvil of his forefathers, heat the same forge that his ancestors had heated. No, now he would only work at the hidden smithy, always fearing what would happen were the constables to discover his presence, and always fearing what his ability would compel him to create next.

  “Harsher how?” Rsiran asked. He didn’t want to know—whatever had happened no longer mattered—but a part of him needed to know. Had his father gone through something similar? If so, how could he have thought it fair to put Rsiran through the same? After what Rsiran had gone through, he could never do that to another, especially family.

  “Do you think you were the first to hear the way the metal called to you? Do you think that you were the first to struggle with control?” She sniffed and wiped her arm across her face. Rsiran realized that she was crying. He couldn’t find it in him to feel sorry for her.

  “Was Father sent to the mines by his father, like he sent me?”

  “No. And he recognized the mistake as soon as he sent you, but how could he call you back without sharing what you needed to learn on your own?”

  “I learned how to nearly die,” Rsiran said softly. “Was that the lesson he wanted me to learn?”

  “He knew what it was like. When he was about your age, he was sent from Elaeavn much like he sent you, only he was sent farther from the city. His father wanted him isolated from the call of the ore, and thought that sending him away would weaken it. Neran should have done the same for you. It would have been less cruel.”

  It wouldn’t have mattered where his father had sent him. With his ability to Slide, nothing weakened the call or limited him other than his willingness. And maybe, had his father sent him anywhere but Ilphaesn, the others who knew of Sliding, and how to control it, would have reached him sooner.

  Could it be that his father had protected him?

  Not intentionally, but nevertheless, maybe he needed to give up the anger and hurt that he’d been feeling since he was kicked out his home and focus on what he’d been given. Sometimes, it was easy for him to forget about all that he’d gained, the friends—family, really—and the understanding of his ability. That might be more valuable than anything else.

  “Where was he sent?” Rsiran asked.

  His mother turned to him. Tears streamed down her face, leaving her eyes streaked with red. “I thought you said he told you.”

  Rsiran stared at her and said nothing.

  “Thyr. His father sent him to Thyr. Far enough from the city that he wouldn’t feel the draw of it.”

  “Why Thyr?” Rsiran asked. His father had never answered that question for him, or told him why he’d left, but now that his mother had, Rsiran thought he understood.

  “There were craftsmen in Thyr who worked with him, men who knew how to work with other metals and helped turn him into the smithy that he is—or was. That was where we…”


  Rsiran could imagine what had happened. His father sent from the city and forced to ignore the drawing of lorcith, learning to work the forge until he no longer heard the draw of lorcith. Using iron or steel or any other metal, until using lorcith was a faded memory and his forging ability became second nature. Had Rsiran been forced to learn the same way, what would have changed for him? What would he have learned? Maybe the same skill as his father, or maybe less. Lorcith had turned him into the smith he was now, guiding him at first, helping him draw shapes from the metal that he wouldn’t have known possible.

  Something his mother had been about to say pulled on his attention. “What were you going to say about Thyr? That was where you what?”

  She wiped her arm across her face, smearing the tears that had streamed there. “It no longer matters, does it? All of that is in the past.”

  “It matters,” Rsiran whispered.

  “Thyr,” his mother said, “it is where we met.”

  Chapter 11

  The words took a moment to sink in. If his parents had met outside of Elaeavn, there could really only be one reason for it, but the reason made no sense, not given what he knew of his parents. They had always followed the Elvraeth rule and had served as expected, living quietly within Elaeavn, or had until Rsiran had been sent to the mines.

  “If you met in Thyr, that means that you’re one of the Forgotten,” he said.

  Her entire body stiffened. “You think that I could have been exiled?” she asked.

  Even the term she chose matched what the Forgotten used. Exiled, not Forgotten.

  But that meant that he had ties to the Forgotten. Had Evaelyn known? Was that part of the reason they had wanted him?

  No. They wouldn’t have poisoned him, trying to force answers from him if that were the case. Unless Inna didn’t know. Evaelyn had been upset at how she’d used the slithca syrup on him.

  He needed to find Della. She might know more.

  Rsiran turned his attention back to his mother. “What did you do?”

  She pulled her chair back and took a seat. “I did nothing but have the misfortune to be born outside of the city,” she began. “Your father returned me. Such a thing is allowed, but there is monitoring, and a price to pay.”

  “What kind of price?”

  “The kind your father paid,” his mother said.

  Rsiran frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that he had permission to return with me to Elaeavn, but there would come a day when he would be asked to do more. You, like your father, are descendants of the ancient smith blood. There is power in that.” She pointed toward the pockets of his cloak where he’d tucked the knives. “Even they know that.”

  “The Forgotten. Father was called to help them,” Rsiran said. “That was the price? That was why he was in Asador?”

  “He was called because the metal began to flow freely again. Whatever restriction had been on it was eased. As a smith—one of the true smiths—your father was summoned.”

  From what Rsiran had seen, he hadn’t been the only one summoned. Many of the smithies within Elaeavn had been shuttered. He had thought it due to the lack of lorcith, but his mother was right: the flow of lorcith had increased since the restrictions had eased. For the Forgotten, he knew Josun was their supplier, accessing Ilphaesn from the other side of the mountain. For the rest of Elaeavn, he was quite sure the mine he’d worked in was their only source.

  But someone had been controlling the output generated from Ilphaesn, hadn’t they? Why relax that control?

  Everything began to make some sense, though questions remained. He wished Brusus hadn’t gone. He was connected well enough to understand the strange politics and knew what questions needed to be asked.

  “That was why he was in Asador,” Rsiran said.

  She nodded.

  Rsiran made a slow circle around the inside of her home, pacing as he often did when in the smithy, trying to piece together what he knew. He had answers to why his father had been in Asador, if not the reason they had wanted lorcith forged. He might even understand why Venass wanted his father if they thought to either learn what the Forgotten wanted from the smiths or thought to prevent them from claiming it.

  That left Alyse.

  “Why did you come here, Rsiran?” his mother asked. “You knew about your father, but not enough to have come to me. Why now, when you clearly have known how to find me for some time.”

  He blinked, pushing away the questions. He would begin to work through them another time, but not on his own. Jessa could help, would have to help, and Brusus.

  “I haven’t known that you were here,” he said. “Only that you were in Lower Town.”

  She nodded. “Why today?”

  “Did Alyse ever tell you that she saw me?”

  The corners of her eyes tightened when he mentioned his sister’s name. Could she know where she was? If she was afraid of the Forgotten, could she have somehow found a way to sneak her from the city to keep her safe?

  But how would she have managed that?

  Here, in this part of Lower Town, she had no leverage, no capacity to reach help. Maybe once they would have had a way, but no longer.

  “She did not.”

  Rsiran sniffed. For whatever reason, his sister had kept his existence from his mother. Maybe he should do the same.

  “It’s Alyse, isn’t it?” she asked. “That’s why you came today. What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. She’s not been seen in a week.”

  “Seen?”

  “One of my… friends,” he said, “has been watching out for her, monitoring her location. And now we don’t know where she is.” Rsiran took a step toward his mother. “You wanted to know why I came here today. Well, it’s because I’m trying to find out what happened to Alyse.”

  He had thought her disappearance might have to do with him, but now he wasn’t certain, especially if his father had been working for the Forgotten. If they were trying to find him, wouldn’t it be possible that they would appear in Elaeavn and grab Alyse, thinking to draw his father back to work?

  She dropped her head to the table, resting her forehead on her hands. “Not Alyse as well,” she whispered. “Haven’t we been through enough already?”

  “You were afraid this might happen,” Rsiran realized.

  “You can go. You don’t have to pretend concern for your sister.”

  He snorted. “I came here, didn’t I? Is that not demonstrating some level of concern? I might not show it the same as you and father, but then, I didn’t realize that sending your son off to the mines was father’s way of showing concern for me.”

  She turned her head toward him. “There was always a threat that something would happen to you or your sister if your father didn’t answer the summons.”

  A summons sounded too much like what he expected to receive from Venass to be chance. So far, he’d received no summons from Venass since Thom attacked, but that didn’t mean that one would not come. Maybe that was what the two people he’d seen in the forest were sent to do, or those from the street when he had been with Jessa. Had they come to draw him back to Venass?

  “What can you tell me?” Rsiran asked.

  His mother shook her head. “There is nothing to tell, only that if she is gone, there is no way for me to find her. I had thought her protected from all of this, that by coming to this part of the city, we could disappear, but even that wasn’t enough.”

  “The Forgotten. Tell me what you know.”

  She took a deep breath and her back straightened. “If I tell you anything, I only put you both in danger. You’re better where you are, Rsiran. Stay with your friend in Upper Town with your fancy clothes and whatever you have decided to do with yourself. Find happiness.”

  He laughed bitterly. “You don’t understand, do you? I’m already mixed up with the Forgotten. They know about me, and about what I can do. And I’ve already escaped them once. Trust me when I tell you that i
t is unlikely Alyse will be able to escape from them.”

  His mother didn’t need for him to tell her how Alyse might get drugged and forced to share secrets about herself and her family, even secrets she didn’t realize that she possessed. Without the ability to protect her mind, Readers like Inna or any of the other Forgotten, would be able to torment her. And for what? Information on what happened to their father? Alyse wouldn’t know that.

  “Then you already know why I can’t say anything,” she said. “And they will not harm her.”

  Something about the way that she said it troubled him. “How can you be so certain that they won’t harm her?”

  She stared down at her hands. Rsiran wanted to shake answers out of her, but that wouldn’t get him any closer to knowing why Alyse had been taken or where she was now. “Who are you protecting?” he asked. “What do you know?”

  “You should go, Rsiran. You should not have come here.”

  He waited for something more, but it didn’t come. He stopped at the door and looked back at her over his shoulder. “Who was exiled?” he asked.

  She blinked.

  “Of your parents. Who was exiled?”

  She swallowed. “Both.”

  Both. That hadn’t been the answer he expected, but then, he hadn’t known what he should have expected. Not that his grandparents were Forgotten. Not that he shared something more with Brusus than he realized.

  He waited, hoping she might offer more but she didn’t. She turned her back to him, and Rsiran knew that he wouldn’t get anything more from her.

  He stood for a moment, debating what else he could say. His grandparents were Forgotten? Didn’t that change things for him?

  He thought of Haern’s warning that they would all have to pick a side. If he had to choose, shouldn’t he side with his family? Knowing his mother was born to exiles, and knowing his father had followed his orders to serve the Forgotten, it would seem they’d chosen their side long ago.

  But could he choose to side with the very people who’d been tracking him down? Attacking his friends? In that way, they were no different from Venass.