Blood of the Watcher (The Dark Ability Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “You ever see anything like this?” Brusus asked Haern.

  Haern’s scar twitched, and he rubbed his fingers over it. “Not like that. Venass don’t use maps like that. Don’t need to,” he said. His fingers ran along the surface of the scar—a memento of his escape from the clutches of Venass.

  “You’ve been other places besides Venass,” Brusus suggested.

  Haern shook his head. “Map like that, you’ve got to know what you’re looking at to know why it’s important.”

  “Are you sure it’s a map?” Brusus asked.

  Haern touched the page again. As he had when Rsiran had first shown it to him—when Haern had come to resume his training—he tipped his head to the side, and his eyes went distant. “It’s a map,” he said. “Can’t See what it is. Rsiran blocks it.”

  Brusus sat back and waved over the waitress. She was an older woman, with gray hair pinned up. The green in her eyes had a softer hue, less intense, and almost muted compared to everyone other than Brusus. He whispered something to the woman and she nodded curtly, making her way back to the kitchen.

  When he turned back to the table, he smiled sheepishly. “Have to keep the tavern running, you know?”

  Jessa looked up from the dice she spun on the table. “Tell Rsiran he should let this go,” she said to Brusus.

  Brusus met her eyes and something passed between them. Silence settled over the table for long moments. The sound of the music and the voice from the few other patrons around the tavern filled the silence.

  “She dies if he does,” Haern said.

  Jessa looked over. “Who dies?”

  Haern nodded to Rsiran. “His sister. Can’t See it well, but what I See tells me that if he does nothing, she dies.”

  “And if he goes looking for her? Who dies then?” Jessa asked.

  Rsiran hadn’t realized that Jessa felt so strongly about him trying to find his sister. He knew that she didn’t feel that he owed his family anything, but more than that, she hadn’t shared. Did she fear losing him, that he’d return to his family if he tried to help? She should know him well enough by now to know that he had no interest in that.

  But how could he leave his sister? Especially if she would die if he did nothing?

  “Can’t See that, either,” Haern said.

  Jessa slapped the dice and swept them into her hand. She shook them forcefully and spilled them across the table, letting them go skittering across, stopping when they clinked against Rsiran’s mug. “You can’t See much of anything, now can you? There’s not much good to your visions if they don’t help us, Haern.”

  Haern frowned, the long scar on his face twitching again. “Never said there was much good to what I See. Sometimes, all they offer is fear. But I’m not telling you what might happen. I’m telling him.”

  Jessa pushed on Haern’s arm. “And what about me? I thought you cared what happened to me.”

  When Jessa finally relaxed, Haern put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her against him. “You know that I care. I know what you been through, girl. And I know what happened, how it eats at you. You can’t want the same for him, not if you have a hope for more.”

  Jessa lowered her head and didn’t meet Haern’s eyes. Rsiran reached for her, but she pushed him away as well. “How can we even think about more when all we have in front of us is darkness? Everything we do leads us deeper in, doesn’t it? First with Josun, then with Venass, and now what will this bring?”

  Jessa had never shared her concern with him before, not like this, and not with such sadness. Rsiran had many of the same concerns, but he had thought Jessa would support him with what he needed to do. If she didn’t, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to go alone.

  “Don’t know where this will end,” Haern said. “I’ve been trying to See that since we first met Josun Elvraeth. But those visions are closed to me. Too dark, or… something. I can focus only on what I can See. That’s all I can do. And she dies if he does nothing.”

  “Can you See where she is?”

  Haern shook his head. “Not that clear. I think your connection to her blurs her. When I focus on her, try to See her, I get flashes of color, and then darkness. When I add you,” he said, nodding to Rsiran, “the flashes continue. Without you, she’s gone. With you, she’s got a chance. Don’t even know what that is, though.”

  Jessa laughed bitterly. “Flashes of color. That’s what you want Rsiran to base his decision on? What if those flashes of color are wrong? What if he tries something and she dies anyway?” Her voice caught. “What if he tries something and he dies?”

  No one spoke for moments. Brusus finally broke the silence. “What do you intend to do? I can see from your face that you have a plan.”

  Rsiran caught Jessa’s eyes and tried to hold her attention, but she shook her head and looked away. “I can’t do nothing,” he said. Even before Haern had shared his vision, he knew that he couldn’t simply do nothing, not if his sister was in danger, and not if there was something that he could do that would help.

  “What you plan means going after the Forgotten,” Brusus said.

  He’d thought about that, but there was no guarantee that the Forgotten were responsible for abducting Alyse. The more he thought about it, the less the Forgotten made sense. His mother wasn’t Elvraeth, and the Forgotten—those he’d found in the Forgotten Palace—had all been Elvraeth once. So while his family might have been exiled, they were not Elvraeth, and not like the Forgotten they’d faced before. In that, he was more like Jessa with her parents, and less like Brusus.

  The Forgotten had wanted to use his father, though. That much was undeniable. Rsiran might not know why, but he needed to understand if he wanted to help his sister. Which meant he needed to reach his father. Either he needed to get word to him, or he needed to find someone who could.

  And he thought he had a way of finding someone who could.

  “Not the Forgotten,” Rsiran said. “They may have been responsible for taking Alyse, but there are too many places for them to hide her. I need to know what they want from my father.”

  “You can’t intend to try and pull him from Venass,” Brusus said.

  The thought had crossed his mind, but he didn’t think that would be possible, not without help, and knowing more than he did about Venass. He’d been working with Haern, but he still had far to go before he was even as skilled as Haern. And if a single man without the ability to Slide could deter him, what would happen if he tried going to a place where there might be several, dozens even?

  “Not that.”

  “What then?” Haern asked.

  Rsiran scanned the tavern, then directed his answer to Haern and lowered his voice. “You know about my connection to lorcith and heartstone,” he started.

  Haern’s mouth tightened. Rsiran worried what Haern might say about his plans even more than Brusus or Jessa.

  “I can use that connection to find the metal. It’s easiest when I’ve sensed the metal before. Well, really it’s easiest if I’ve forged the metal before, but if I’ve sensed it, there’s a certain signature that I can follow.”

  “Aw, damn, Rsiran,” Brusus said. He glanced at Jessa whose face had turned into a neutral mask. Rsiran noted the tension in her shoulders and the set of her jaw and knew that she was angry. “You think you can find your father, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “I need someone who knows Venass—”

  “Haern knows Venass,” Jessa said.

  “Who knows it today. And Thom knows Venass. They must trust him, or at least control him enough for them to have sent him after us. If I can find him”—he caught Jessa’ eye—“if we can find him, use Thom to either reach my father, or get word to him. Either way, I think that’s the first step to learning what happened to Alyse. Maybe finding out who’s after me in the city.”

  “First of all, why do you think he’ll do your bidding? And secondly, do you not remember what happened the last time you encountered him?” Brusus looked a
t Haern as he asked. “If he’s that skilled with Compelling, you put yourself in danger. What if he’s able to Compel you? Or Jessa, since I assume that she’s going along with you.”

  “I’m going to have to find a way to convince him to help,” he answered, but didn’t yet know how. “And I don’t think he can Compel me.”

  “You place a lot of trust in your ability to prevent a skilled manipulator from reaching your mind. Trust me when I tell you that it can be more difficult than you realize.”

  Rsiran solidified the barriers in his mind, adding the connection to lorcith and then adding a hint of heartstone. He’d always thought that he did it by imagining the connection to the metals. Lately, he wondered if maybe he pulled on something in the metals themselves, almost as if whatever arcane properties they possessed that allowed him to reach them, to push on them, also allowed him to draw on their strength as he protected his mind.

  “Try to Compel me,” Rsiran said.

  Brusus smiled and shook his head. “You know that I can’t Compel—”

  Rsiran snorted. “You Push, but I think it’s all part of the same ability. How long has it been since you’ve been able to Read me?”

  Rsiran used lorcith constantly to hold his mental barriers in place. It was the easiest for him to connect with, and almost as secure as heartstone. There had been a time when Brusus had claimed his thoughts were too loud, and he realized he was at risk when his barriers were down. Since then, he’d taken to maintaining a constant barrier, strengthening the connection with heartstone, trying to silence his thoughts, at least to prevent other skilled Readers from accessing them. Had he not, some of the things that he knew, that they’d learned, would be dangerous for them.

  “It’s been a while,” Brusus admitted. He shifted his attention to Haern and then Jessa. “Not that I try often, but Rsiran was challenging. When we first met him—”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Rsiran said. He remembered how Brusus had tried Reading him, and how he had used the barriers that he’d learned to form in his mind because of Alyse. That had mostly blocked Brusus. When he’d met Josun, he realized that he was able to crawl beyond those barriers, as if they were no obstacle to him whatsoever. “But try Compelling me,” he said.

  Brusus shrugged and rested his arms on the table. His eyes flared a deep green. Like when he used his abilities, he could no longer focus on Pushing out the image of pale green eyes as he hid his natural strength. Pressure built in Rsiran’s head, and he felt the attempt and used a combination of lorcith and heartstone to push back. Brusus grunted and let out a frustrated breath.

  “Fine. I can’t.”

  Rsiran nodded. “When we were in the Forgotten Palace, Evaelyn tried and failed. Della said that she’s incredibly skilled. Thom might have honed his ability to Compel, and might even have learned something in Venass that makes him even more dangerous, but I can keep him from affecting me.”

  Brusus nodded slowly. “You can’t go by yourself.”

  “No.”

  “I should be safe as well,” Brusus said. “With a shared ability, it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to Compel me, either.”

  “He’s not leaving me here,” Jessa said.

  “If you come,” Brusus said, “you run the risk of being used against us.”

  When Rsiran and Jessa first met Evaelyn Elvraeth, she had used Jessa that way. That was when Rsiran realized he needed to be more careful with what he shared, even with Jessa. She might not want to betray him, but if she was Compelled, there might be nothing she could do to stop it.

  “There might be a way,” Haern said.

  They all turned to him.

  “When I was in Venass,” he started, touching the scar on his face, “when I still had my… implant… I was protected from men and women like Thom. Whatever Venass did to me kept me from being used.”

  “What do you suggest, Haern?” Brusus asked. “You want us to place something inside Jessa to keep her safe? I know she trusts Rsiran, but I think that might be straining it a bit, don’t you think?”

  Haern actually smiled. “You could always ask Della,” he said.

  “You’re serious?” Jessa asked, shooting Haern a dark look.

  “Not serious, at least not about that,” Haern said. “But you don’t need implants for some of the things that are done in Venass.”

  Rsiran remembered the piercings that the scholar had. Lorcith bars that went through his lip, his eyebrow, his stomach, and probably places that he hadn’t seen. “I’m not going to do that to Jessa.”

  “Not a piercing,” Haern said. “Though contact is important. Don’t know why, but that’s what I was always told.”

  “You think Rsiran can make something that might keep her safe?” Brusus asked.

  “I already have,” he said, pointing to her charm. Between that and the heartstone alloy necklace, she wore his forgings. Then there was the long-bladed knife that he’d forged from the lorcith he’d heated when trying to decipher the map. She had that strapped to her thigh. Another layer of protection, and one that he approved of. “It didn’t keep her safe when we were in the Forgotten Palace.”

  “There is a certain shape that’s needed for it to work,” Haern said. He ran his finger along the scar on his cheek. “Not sure that I fully understand, but it’s keyed to each person differently. You have a connection to lorcith, Rsiran. You should be able to figure out the shape, don’t you think?”

  He thought that it was possible, but that meant he’d have to somehow get the lorcith to understand what he intended, and then create the shape. If it worked, Jessa might be protected from someone Compelling her. If it didn’t… well, then she’d be controlled, and possibly a danger to them.

  As he looked over to her, he realized that she wouldn’t let him leave her behind. That left only one answer: Rsiran would have to get it right.

  Chapter 14

  The forged glowed again, this time heating the entire smithy, pushing back the growing chill that threatened to work through the cracks in the building. It reminded Rsiran of when he’d first taken over the smithy, and all the repairs that had been required before the smithy itself had been functional. They had repaired holes in the ceiling, and cracked and crumbling brick, but all from the inside of the smithy. They couldn’t have the outside looking too well kept. There was value and secrecy in the dilapidated structure.

  He had not lit the hearth, so Jessa curled in a chair, wrapping her arms around her legs close to the forge itself. She had spent countless hours with him as he worked in the time since they first met, and had more than a passing familiarity with the rhythmic hammering of metal on metal. Rsiran suspected that she would be able to replicate some of his workflow simply from watching, though she had never once made an effort to pick up a hammer. She usually had other tasks elsewhere, for which her skills were more valued, leaving him for stretches of time to work alone.

  He stood in front of the large bin of lorcith. Every time he looked into the bin, he thought of Shael, and the way that he’d sneaked the ore into the smithy. At the time, Rsiran feared that he was committing himself to whatever Shael had wanted of him. Now he was thankful for the ore, and the fact that he would not have to return to Ilphaesn any time soon.

  Strangely, there was a part of him that missed the mine, that longed for the familiar scents and sounds found within the mine itself. He had nearly died several times over while working there, but no longer did he feel the same fear about its emptiness. Now he could use the lorcith to guide him, much like he did with the heartstone in the map that he now possessed. His strengthened Sight helped take away the sheer overwhelming blackness that often greeted him in the mine. Would it be so bad if he had to return? There was much he could learn there; he still hadn’t explored the mines Josun used, or determined why the supply coming from Ilphaesn had been constrained. Nor had he spent the time to figure out where Josun had gone.

  He pushed those thoughts away from his mind and focused on the sense
of lorcith, holding an image in his mind of what he wanted to accomplish. Haern suggested that lorcith could be used, something that could help protect Jessa from influence, from whatever Compelling that Thom might attempt. Had he only known what to make, Rsiran might be better equipped to forge it.

  One lump called to him more than the others.

  Rsiran had experienced that often enough that he had counted on the lorcith itself guiding him somewhat. When he first began working with lorcith, he had selected the ore at random, and it had called to him, demanding he create specific forgings. The longer that he worked with it, the more he recognized the connection, so that now when he wanted to create a specific shape, he knew to search for lorcith that was willing to work with him and take on that shape. Doing anything different would have required forcing it into shapes that it wouldn’t want to take. That was the way other smiths worked.

  He pulled the lump of lorcith from the bin. It was of average size, but it sang to him, drawing him to the forge. Rsiran held onto the desire that he had, the need to create something that would protect Jessa, as he brought it to the coals and began to heat it.

  When it glowed with red-hot heat, he moved it to the anvil. This was the part that he was least certain of. If this worked, the lorcith would guide him, and he would simply follow the forging. If it didn’t… there would be wasted lorcith.

  Rsiran began hammering. At first, he worked with an irregular pattern. He tried keeping in mind what he wanted of the lorcith and the fact that he needed something that would protect Jessa. If he failed in this, he wouldn’t feel comfortable with her coming with him to find Thom.

  The longer he worked, the more he fell into a pattern. The desire he held in mind began to fade as he was seduced by the song of the lorcith. It took over, much like it used to do when he was first learning to work with it.

  Rsiran lost track of how long he worked. He hammered, the steady, rhythmic pull on the metal, periodically bringing it back to the coals to heat it again. His mind was blank, nothing but the call of the lorcith.