Blood of the Watcher (The Dark Ability Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Time passed, and he had no way of knowing whether it was minutes or hours.

  Then he stopped.

  The forging was complete.

  He set the hammer down and wiped sweat from his brow, hot from the work he’d been doing. The smithy itself was cool. Rsiran looked at the table where he’d set the completed project and was somewhat surprised by what he found.

  Two small circular bands that looped around themselves and then back, the ends not touching, rested on the table. The metal was twisted, spiraling around in a symmetric pattern. One free end curved inward.

  “Is it done?” Jessa asked.

  She stirred from the chair where she sat, watching him. He held the forgings out to her, uncertain whether these bracelets would work. Never before had he gone to the lorcith with nothing but a desire in mind. He’d always wanted something in particular; he could envision its shape. Usually it was knives, or the sword, but this time, it had been a request to the metal to shape something to achieve a specific goal.

  “I think so,” he said.

  Jessa took the bracelets with a frown. “They look like the chains you put on Josun,” she said. “Only as usual, yours are fancier.”

  “Those were heartstone and lorcith,” Rsiran said.

  “You don’t think these will prevent my Sight?”

  “I don’t know how these will work. I’ve never done this before.”

  “Done what?”

  “Trusted the metal to show me what I needed to do.”

  Her frown faded and the hint of a smile tugged at her lips. “The way you talk about it… it’s always so interesting to me. Almost as if it’s alive, that it talks to you.”

  Rsiran listened for a moment. The lorcith in the bracelets did talk to him, and he could hear from it the entire history of the metal, from the point where it came out of Ilphaesn, all the way back to when it had been nothing more than a part of the mountain. “It is alive,” he said. “Not the same as us, but lorcith is alive more than any other metal. I can hear it, and I think I can talk to it.” He shrugged, letting go of the connection and the song of the lorcith from the bracelets. “I know it sounds strange, but…” He shrugged again.

  Jessa slipped one of the bracelets onto her wrist. The metal pulled on her palm before getting past her hand. She twisted it in place, tracing her fingers along the metal. “I don’t think they’d fit anyone else,” she said as she slid the second one over her other hand. “My hands aren’t the biggest. Had you made them any other size—”

  Rsiran chuckled. “They were made for you. I told the lorcith what I needed, and why. That’s the important part. There has to be a reason.”

  She tugged on each bracelet until she seemed satisfied with how they settled on her arms. “How do the other smiths use it? They don’t listen like you do.”

  “They ignore the call,” he said. “They force it in ways that they want. It’s why my father was so particular about lorcith when I was in my apprenticeship. In his mind, you have to ignore the call of lorcith, and you have to focus on what you want it to become. I think that weakens the forgings in some way.”

  He’d never really made the connection before, but now that he had, that seemed truer than he realized. The forgings that he’d made, the ones where he listened to what the lorcith wanted him to forge, seemed the strongest. His connection to the lorcith made it stronger. Forcing it as his father did seemed to make the metal more brittle. His forgings were never as brittle as what he’d known lorcith to be when he was growing up.

  “Will these work?” she asked.

  “There’s only one way to know.”

  “Brusus will be busy,” Jessa said. “And I get the sense that you don’t really want to wait to find out if these are going to work.”

  He smiled. She knew him too well. “I’ve got another idea.”

  Rsiran took her hand and squeezed.

  “Are you really sure it’s safe to Slide?”

  “We haven’t seen them for a while. And we’re starting from the smithy. I think that helps.”

  Just to be safe, he grabbed the heartstone sword and slipped it into a loop on his belt. Heartstone had to protect him, didn’t it? That was why he hadn’t been influenced before, other than by Della. And at some point, he’d have to make a more formal sheath, mostly to protect him. He was as likely to kick the blade and slice himself as he was to need it.

  Focusing on where he wanted to go, he Slid them to Della’s home.

  A small flame crackled in the hearth. Rsiran didn’t know what time of night it was, but wasn’t entirely surprised to see that she was up. Della often seemed to know when they would need her.

  “About time you came. I was getting worried that I was wrong.”

  She stood behind a long counter and tapped one of her jars, spooning powder out before tipping it into a mug. She took a kettle and poured steaming water into it and then stirred it.

  “You knew we were coming?” Rsiran asked.

  “Knew? There are things that I See, but knowing is something different. You make Seeing anything difficult, Rsiran Lareth.” She made her way around the counter and took a seat in front of the hearth. “Much like you make staying awake to wait for you difficult. I’m not as young as I once was, you know. What was easy for me years ago is no longer quite the same. Now sit, let us test what you have made.”

  Rsiran glanced over at Jessa and she shrugged. Della had often managed to know things that she shouldn’t. “Did Brusus tell you what we were going to do?” he asked as he took a seat.

  “Not Brusus. Haven’t seen him nearly as much since he decided to take over the tavern. Can’t say that I blame him. It’s important to him.”

  “There are other taverns,” Jessa said. “Ones where the Forgotten don’t know how to find us.”

  “You think that’s true? That the Forgotten don’t know where you are, and that Venass won’t be able to find you if you don’t want them to?” She sniffed and took a sip of her tea. “You’re smarter than that, Jessa. You know that they can and will find you if that’s what they want to do.”

  “I still don’t know why he risks himself like that. Having the tavern puts him—and us—in danger,” Jessa said.

  Della smiled. “Memories. That’s the reason that Brusus risks it. There are memories in the Barth, and he’s afraid of losing them. Some might call that sentiment, but to Brusus, it’s just a part of him.” She scooted to the end of the chair and reached for Jessa’s wrist. “These are what you made?” she asked, reaching for Jessa’s other wrist and looking up at Rsiran.

  He nodded. “We don’t know if they will work. That’s why we came here.”

  “You think I can Compel with enough strength to test this?”

  Rsiran didn’t know enough to say with any certainty. In addition to being a Healer, Della was a strong Reader, but that didn’t mean that she also could Compel with the same strength, not like they’d seen from Evaelyn or Thom. “I thought you might,” he said.

  A sad smile came to her face as she took a long drink of her tea. “Perhaps once I would have claimed skill with that particular talent, but it’s one that I haven’t practiced over the years. After what happened with Evaelyn… I could not bring myself to attempt it. Now it’s something I only use to keep myself safe.”

  Rsiran should have expected something like that. As a Healer, Della should have had countless others coming to her for help. And maybe she did, but only when they weren’t here. But from what he’d seen, she never Healed anyone else. She remained hidden, tucked away in this part of Lower Town, avoiding Healing others.

  “Why don’t you help anyone else?” Rsiran asked.

  Jessa squeezed his arm to silence him.

  Della sighed. “It’s okay, dear,” she said the Jessa. “There was a time when I helped all who came to me. It is… difficult to take on that much risk.”

  “The rest of us take on risk,” Rsiran said.

  Della nodded. “I know that you do, and I can on
ly think that the Great Watcher intends for you to assume such danger, but the last time I did, someone I cared about dearly was lost.”

  “You couldn’t Heal them?”

  She shook her head once. “There are some things you don’t Heal.”

  Rsiran frowned. “What kinds of things? You’ve managed to Heal pretty much everything that’s come through here.”

  She sat up. “Not everything is a physical injury, and not everything is poisoning,” she said. “There are times when even those you wish to remain can no long do so.”

  “You mean exile,” he said.

  Della nodded. “Exile. Forgotten. Either way, banished from the city or risk death.”

  “Who was it?” Rsiran asked.

  Della sipped at her tea and stared at the flames crackling in the hearth. “A friend. Someone with a good heart, but who risked himself when he did not have to.”

  She took another sip of tea, and Rsiran wondered if Della had lost someone as Brusus had, a lover, or someone else. Knowing Della as he did, it was hard to imagine either. She had always valued her friends and had kept them close, fighting for Brusus when needed. What would it have taken for her not to fight when someone she cared about was exiled?

  “Let me see these,” she said, setting her mug on the floor. She reached again for Jessa’s wrists and took the bracelets into her own as she seemed to study them. “Contact with the skin. Good. Venass would think you need it to pierce the skin to be effective, but this should be effective.” She trailed her thumbs along the metal twisted around Jessa’s wrists. “The symmetry to these is impressive,” she said with a soft breath. “I haven’t seen metalwork like this in… in a long time.” She looked up at Rsiran and shook her head. “You have learned much since we first met. Then it was all about knives and weapons.”

  “That was what I needed to make,” he said.

  She tapped a finger on her lips. “Perhaps. But this? These are exquisite. Even without knowing that you crafted them with intent, they would be considered valuable. You may have made them too valuable. If someone else sees them, they might find a reason to separate them from Jessa’s wrists.”

  “Do they work?” Rsiran asked.

  Della leaned back in her chair and took a few steady breaths. As she did, her eyes flared a deep green, darker than he’d ever seen before. Jessa gasped, and Rsiran feared that Della was harming her. Jessa shook her head when he squeezed her hand.

  “Just cold,” she whispered.

  Della sat for long moments. The bitter scent of lorcith filled the air for a moment, and the bracelets took on a soft glow. Then Della blinked, the color in her eyes fading, and shook her head.

  “She is obscured from me. I can’t say that they will work for all, but they work. She should be safe.” She leaned forward and rested her hands on her knees. “If the others learn of this, if they learn of what you are able to create… You are dangerous, Rsiran Lareth.”

  “Dangerous?” he asked.

  “You can do things that they cannot. I do not have to warn you to be careful, but I will, anyway. If they didn’t want to learn from you before, they will if they ever learn of those. Please. Be careful.”

  He nodded. “I will.”

  But as he said it, his mind raced. Was this the reason that the smiths had been taken from Elaeavn? Did the Forgotten think master smiths could forge items like this?

  Della glanced over. “How do you intend to find this man you seek?”

  “He’s from Venass,” Rsiran said. “Heartstone is implanted in him.”

  Della nodded. “Then find him. And find answers to your questions, Rsiran.”

  Chapter 15

  As he so often did when he needed to search for something, Rsiran stood atop Krali Rock and focused on everything around him. Krali stretched high above the city, high enough that he had the sense that he could see anything within the city from where he stood, as if he were apart from it, looking down much like the Great Watcher, observing much like he had when he’d held the crystal in the heart of the palace.

  Jessa remained down below in the city, waiting for him. She promised to find Brusus, but from here, he thought that he could find Brusus without her assistance. Like all of his friends, Brusus carried lorcith-made knives with him that Rsiran could find. There were dozens of his knives still in the city, many in the palace itself from when Brusus had used the knives to barter for information, but there were other forgings of his as well, such as those within the Barth, or in Della’s home.

  Lorcith wasn’t the reason that he came here, even though lorcith was everywhere all around him. From here, he could feel the pull of Ilphaesn, and even recognize that something about the mountain had changed. When he had more time, he needed to stop there. It had been too long since he’d been to the main part of Ilphaesn, and he felt a sense of possession about the mountain, and the lorcith within. Who else cared what happened to the ore as he did?

  Ilphaesn wasn’t the only place where lorcith in that quantity could be found. There were other locations, but Rsiran didn’t know how much of it he could find. Enough that he was drawn to it when he left the Forgotten Palace. How many others knew about those places?

  Not Josun, or he wouldn’t have gone to Ilphaesn to secretly mine lorcith. More questions— questions that must wait.

  Rsiran was here for a different purpose. He might be able to sense Thom’s heartstone implant from inside the city, but there was strength to standing on Krali, and perspective that he valued.

  The wind caught his cloak, making it flutter. Once, he would have feared falling from this height, but now he understood his ability better than before. He could Slide while falling, and could even Slide without stepping. He’d been afraid that he would end up trapped when he Slid, but if he didn’t have to take a step to Slide, that wasn’t even something to fear.

  Heartstone. That was the reason that he’d come here.

  Rsiran closed his eyes and pushed away the sense of lorcith all around him. As he did, he pulled the awareness of heartstone to him. Not the alloy, but pure heartstone.

  Awareness of it came gradually. There was the heartstone within the smithy, and it drew him. There was a small amount of heartstone—pure heartstone and not the alloy—in the palace. He had the distant awareness of heartstone in another location within the city, and suspected that came from the alchemists. They might not work with the alloy any longer—though he wasn’t convinced that they couldn’t—but that wasn’t what he searched for.

  He sensed no heartstone within the city with the same alloy signature that he’d detected within Thom. Rsiran hadn’t expected to find him in the city. Thom would have come for him sooner had he been here. Unable to sense him, he was relieved to confirm that he wasn’t here.

  Beyond the borders of the city, there was the sense of other heartstone. Heartstone had been plentiful within the Forgotten Palace, and he detected it now, far enough away that he would have to strain to reach it. The heartstone pulled on him, demanding his attention. At least Rsiran knew that he could find the Forgotten again when he wanted to.

  Was Alyse there?

  He doubted that she was. That would be too easy. Even if she were there, would he be able to Slide to her and then Slide away? Evaelyn now knew that he was able to reach her, when she’d thought herself safe inside the Forgotten Palace. He doubted that she would make the same mistake again. Sliding to the palace would place him in danger. Still, he considered it. If he could reach the palace and could find out where they had taken Alyse, his search would be over. He’d have no need of Thom, or even his father.

  His attention shifted to Lower Town, to his smithy where Jessa waited for him. He could tell her what he intended, bring her with him… but that risked her almost as much as if they went to Thyr. And before they went to Thyr, didn’t he need to determine whether he even should?

  Taking one of his lorcith knives, he pushed it into the stone, sinking it deeply in case he should need an anchor to return. Then he f
ocused on the sense of lorcith, casting it away before shifting his attention to heartstone. Without thinking about it too much, he Slid to the Forgotten Palace, transporting himself into the heartstone room.

  He emerged surrounded by the pull of heartstone. It was everywhere, filling the room. This had been where he’d first met Evaelyn and where he feared finding her again. He readied his knives, preparing to push them, but the room was empty.

  Rsiran looked around, glancing at the shelves lined with books, the plush carpet splayed onto the floor, even the paintings along the wall. All of it had the look of wealth.

  He’d been to the Forgotten Palace before and had barely escaped. Now that he’d returned, he wondered what he had been thinking. He should not have come here, not without Jessa or Brusus or Haern. Worse, no one even knew that he’d come. What would happen were he captured?

  Rsiran almost traveled back to Elaeavn, but hesitated. Now that he was here, what more could he learn? Would he find evidence of Valn or Sarah? Or his sister… he had been around her enough that he thought he could detect the lorcith chain that their father had forged for her, if only he could get close enough. Unless too much lorcith surrounded it, much like how Josun had hidden Jessa within the mine.

  Sliding carried him outside the heartstone room and into the main halls of the Forgotten Palace. With each Slide, he ensured his mental barriers were in place, not wanting to risk someone Reading or Compelling him. He should have made bracelets for himself, but thought the barriers he could erect kept him safe. Still, he wondered if that were strong enough. When he Slid, there was a moment when he lost the barrier, and had to reassert it.

  The hall was empty. Rsiran Slid, moving to the end of the hall, wishing that he’d brought someone with him who could Read, some way to keep himself safe.

  He paused, looking around. The next hall was darker than the last. Nothing moved.

  He focused on lorcith and detected large quantities of it distantly. But nothing nearby.