But Brusus had been right when he said that his father wouldn’t have left him messages. The man had spent the last few years trying to change Rsiran. For him to suddenly count on him to find something hidden… It made no sense.
There had to be another explanation, but Rsiran had none.
“How you doing with the rest?” Brusus asked.
“The rest of what?”
Brusus motioned toward the sword. “Needing to use that. The fighting. The killing.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “Something like that can change a man. Trust me. I’ve been there. You don’t have to hold it in if you need to talk.”
Rsiran shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, well I know that you will. And I think Haern was right in teaching you. You’re skilled, and you have potential, but there are others out there with more skill, and more experience. With everything that we have going on, you’re going to need to keep practicing.”
Rsiran nodded. “I get the feeling that Haern enjoys that a little too much.”
Brusus smiled. “Probably he does. It was the same when he started teaching me, you know?”
“Haern taught you?”
“As much as he could. Figured the more we got involved with, I should know how to use knives and a sword. In Elaeavn, you don’t really get the chance to use a sword very often, but the knives have come in handy. He’s never taught me some of the other skills he acquired, though.”
“I think he wants to forget them as much as he can,” Jessa said.
Brusus shrugged. “Some things are useful, even when you want to forget.” He paused then clapped Rsiran on the shoulder and leaned into him to whisper in his ear. “I know you don’t like what you did, but you had to do it.”
“I know.”
“You did only what was needed to keep us safe. I need to find Haern. He was worried about us going to Thyr.”
“He probably thought we’d get pulled to Venass again,” Jessa said.
Brusus nodded. “I think that was a part of it.”
As Brusus started to the door, he tipped his head to Jessa. She released Rsiran’s hand and made her way over to Brusus where they leaned together and spoke quietly for a moment. In the smithy, surrounded by lorcith and the alloy, their voices carried. Rsiran didn’t think that they really intended for him to hear.
“Make sure he knows that we’ll still help him,” Brusus said to her.
“Are you sure that’s the safest thing to do?” Jessa asked.
“We promised him that we’d help. And if Venass has her—”
“You don’t know that they do,” Jessa said.
“No, but there was an awful lot of protection there for some reason. And Thom seemed to be expecting… well, if not us, then someone. Just don’t let him go off after the Forgotten again without help.”
Jessa said something more, but Rsiran couldn’t hear it. Brusus turned from her and walked from the smithy. Jessa closed the door and locked it tightly. The locks were all that kept them safe within the smithy. The bars of lorcith would block someone from Sliding, but a skilled lock picker could still manage to sneak past the door. It was the reason he’d set another couple of bars through the door that could be set into the floor and up around the doorframe. That way, the only way into the smithy was by Sliding.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked. “I saw your face after… after the first attack.”
Rsiran turned away. His hand went to his pocket where he’d tucked the second map. “What’s there to say? I saw you in danger, and I reacted. Haern was right. I needed to learn how to protect us.”
Jessa motioned toward the hearth at the far end of the smithy and started setting a few logs in place, getting the fire crackling softly. Their bed was shoved into the corner near the hearth and she knelt on it, patting a spot to motion for him to sit.
When he did, he curled his arms around his knees. Jessa leaned on his shoulder. “There’s something more than what you’re telling me. I can see it in the way your eyes tightened.”
“Brusus and Haern want to make sure that I won’t hesitate if it’s needed. How can I argue with that?” he asked. “Especially now, after what happened today?”
She sniffed and smacked him softly on the shoulder. “Brusus doesn’t always know what he’s talking about. If you go in, knives flying all over the place, what does that make you but a killer?”
“He’s right, though. What happens if I hesitate? Too often, we’ve been in danger because I hesitated. What happens when that puts you in danger—”
“I think we’ve already seen me in danger. And you didn’t hesitate this time. Damn, Rsiran, but you jumped out into the hallway, Sliding with your knives flying as if you were excited to be there.”
There had been a part of him that had been excited to be there, the same part that had enjoyed the challenge, the test of his abilities. If he could Slide, and throw his knives, could he keep them safe?
So far, the answer was that he couldn’t. As much as he thought his abilities gave him some advantage, the skill of others mitigated it.
“You can’t be so willing to go into danger,” Jessa said. “You took Thom away, and you don’t know what he might have been able to do. What if he’d managed to Compel you? What if he’d attacked?” She shook her head. “And then you jump into the hall as if you had trained your entire life to fight, but you haven’t. You’ve only been working with Haern a short while…”
Rsiran pulled her against him, only now understanding what bothered her. He might be afraid to lose her, but she was afraid to lose him too. He had focused so much on making certain that Jessa, and Brusus, and even Haern were safe, not caring as much if he was in danger. Since leaving his home, abandoning his apprenticeship, he had placed himself in danger enough times that he no longer feared it as he once had. Danger like that had taught him to listen to lorcith, had taught him to hear the call of the alloy and learn that he could control it, and had taught him that he could Slide past the alloy, even without a lorcith anchor.
But fear for Jessa changed that. It made him… almost reckless in a way. Haern thought he might hesitate, but that wasn’t what he did at all. When Jessa was in danger, he attacked with abandon. He didn’t want anything to happen to her and refused to be the reason that she was placed in harm’s way.
And when he had attacked, when he’d let himself go, he had enjoyed the fighting. He couldn’t hide that fact from himself. When he had saved Jessa from Josun, hadn’t he enjoyed harming him? And even with Shael, had he sent the knife at him with more force than needed?
Was he losing control?
Another troubling thought crept in, one that harkened back to claims his father made about him, and about his abilities. What if there was something to it?
What if they changed him in some way?
Holding the crystal had changed him. He could no longer question that, especially with the improvement in his Sight. But now he saw dark blue light glowing from his sword when there should not—and maybe, could not—be there.
Had he changed?
Did Sliding and using lorcith change him in ways that he still hadn’t understood?
When he first discovered his ability to Slide, he had thought that it was a curse. His father had convinced him that it was a curse. But he’d begun to believe—at least, to let himself believe—that it was not, and that Sliding could help and did not make him the thief and criminal his father feared.
What if he’d been wrong?
Rsiran thought about others he’d learned could Slide. Josun. Inna. The others within the Forgotten camp. Even those within Venass who had somehow coopted the ability to Slide, even if they never possessed it in the first place.
What if there was something about Sliding that twisted a person, that brought them to darkness?
Rsiran would never really have considered it likely, but that was before. He’d felt far too eager attacking, almost as if some sort of bloodlust had overcome him.
He swallowed. “Not entirely,” he admitted. Jessa wouldn’t want to hear about this concern, he was certain. She believed that his Sliding had saved them, and had helped them, but she couldn’t know what he felt.
“Then what?”
Rsiran hesitated. He wanted to share with her, but he couldn’t. That would only open old arguments, ones that he didn’t want to have again.
But if he couldn’t tell Jessa, who could he tell? They had been through everything together. She was the reason he hesitated, the reason that Brusus and Haern thought that he had a soft heart. Without her, what would have happened to him? Would he have become a monster sooner?
“When I first learned to Slide,” he started, thinking back to the time when he’d awoken atop Krali Rock with the wind blowing against his face. He’d been terrified, but also exhilarated at the same time. How long had he looked up at the tall rock peak, wishing he could reach the summit? Atop Krali, he could look over all of Elaeavn and see the city as a different place, and for the first time, he felt he was meant to be something. The terror had forced him to climb down the side of Krali slowly, always afraid that he would fall. And when he’d told his father what happened… “My father called it a dark ability, and said that it would turn me into a thief, or worse.”
“You’ve told me this before,” Jessa said. “Besides, what’s so wrong with being a thief?” She smiled as she said it, but there was an edge to the question as well.
Rsiran shook his head. “When it first happened, I didn’t know you, or Brusus, or Haern. All I knew was my apprenticeship.” He looked over at the forge, his eyes lingering on the anvil and the tools arranged neatly on the bench alongside it. “That was all that I wanted to be. That was my future. I would take over his smithy, and then…”
He couldn’t finish. That future was gone, taken from him. Most days, he knew that he was better off without having taken over his father’s smithy. He would never have learned what he had about lorcith had he listened to his father. He would never have learned how to control heartstone had he listened to him. But then, he might have been safe. He might have had a home.
Only, it would have been one without Jessa.
And he would never have known about his parents, would he? How his mother was the child of Forgotten parents, allowed to return to the city because of his father. Or how his father had committed his service to the Forgotten.
Would he have been drawn in, regardless?
She watched him, waiting for him to be ready to go on.
“When he called it a dark ability, I didn’t know what to think. I felt cursed by the Great Watcher, gifted with something that I couldn’t use.”
“But it’s not a curse. We can’t keep going over this, Rsiran. The things you do, the way that you’ve helped us…” She shook her head. “There’s nothing dark about it. It’s… It’s beautiful.” She glanced toward the door, and her eyes narrowed as they often did when she was thinking. She tipped her head down to sniff at the flower she had within the charm. “When I was younger, I wanted nothing more than to return to Elaeavn. I remember my parents telling me that we couldn’t return, and I never really understood. They said it was better outside the city. That we were able to see things that those within Elaeavn never experienced.” She smiled at the memory.
“And then they were taken from me, and I was nearly… nearly sold into prostitution.” She swallowed. “Haern… Haern saved me. There was darkness in him that night, too, but without it, I wouldn’t be here. And now I understand that what you can do, the way that distances don’t matter, that’s a gift from the Great Watcher that is greater than any other. You can see the other places in the world, and you can return home. Wherever that is.”
Jessa patted him on the chest and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “You have a gift. You may have darkness, but we all do. It’s a part of what we’ve experienced, not because of some gift the Great Watcher gave us. These gifts are simply that. We choose how to use them. When we fail, it is because of us, not because of something the ability does to us.”
Jessa fell silent. Rsiran watched her, waiting for her to say something more, but she didn’t. Instead, she rested her head on his chest and breathed slowly.
“You’re right,” he started. “Of course you are. Back then, back when I first learned of my ability and what I could do, I was different than I am now. I believed what my father told me. Only when I learned what Josun said of Sliding did I think that maybe he’d been wrong, that maybe he’d only listened to the same superstitions about Sliding that the Elvraeth put out there.”
“That is what happened, Rsiran.”
He shook his head and turned toward the fire glowing in the hearth. He didn’t feel the warmth from it, not as he should. After the way he’d killed, the way that he willingly attacked, and the surge of satisfaction that he’d felt when he had, he wondered if he really should feel warmth. Maybe he didn’t deserve to know warmth, or comfort, or a home.
“That’s what I thought, but then I learned my father had spent time outside of Elaeavn, and had been to places like Thyr. If he’s been to Thyr, what are the chances that he knew others who could Slide? I’d never heard of my ability before waking up atop Krali. It’s not so common that a simple smith should know about it.”
Jessa’s brow creased and she watched him. “I hadn’t, either,” she admitted.
And neither had Brusus, or Haern, and they had been away from the city. Only Della knew anything about his ability, but Della was turning out to be someone much more than she ever let on.
“What if my father wasn’t afraid of my ability because of some superstition placed out there by the Elvraeth? What if he’d known others who could Slide and had seen what had happened to them?”
Jessa shook her head. “You mean the Forgotten.”
Rsiran shrugged. “I don’t know how deeply drawn into the Forgotten he had been, but what if it’s possible?”
“Don’t you think Della would have said something if that were true? If you trust anyone, trust her and what she knows.”
Rsiran breathed out softly. Della had told him more about Sliding than he’d learned from any other, and had been the one to make a point of showing him how his Sliding could be influenced and detected. But she kept enough secrets that he wasn’t entirely certain that he could trust her. He wanted to trust, and he knew that he probably needed to, especially given all that she knew about what had happened to him, but what if she kept something back from him, something like the crystals hidden within the palace?
Had they known about them sooner, they might have understood what the Forgotten wanted. They might have understood why Venass was so eager to replicate the abilities the Great Watcher had given them.
“Maybe she would,” he said softly. He couldn’t share those concerns with Jessa. She viewed Della differently than he did, and trusted her more than Rsiran now did. “Or maybe there is something about my ability when combined with what I can do with lorcith that makes it darker. Maybe that’s what my father feared.”
If only his father hadn’t been claimed by Venass. He needed to find him. If not for the answers to those questions, then to find his sister.
But would he allow more darkness into his heart if he went searching for Alyse? Would he fight as hard as he had for Jessa if Alyse were in danger?
Jessa pulled him toward her and hugged him for a long moment. “You can’t think like that, Rsiran. There’s nothing that the Great Watcher would give us that we shouldn’t use. I think of all the good that you’ve done with your ability, and I know that there is nothing to Sliding and what you can do with lorcith that makes it wrong.”
Rsiran squeezed his arms around his legs. If it wasn’t his ability, or the lorcith, then what if the problem—and the darkness—cam
e from him?
Chapter 23
Rsiran stood over the anvil, holding an iron pot of molten heartstone. The air smelled of the sweet metal, and he breathed it in. He’d feared his Sliding ability was turning him dark, but what of his ability with lorcith? What if that was as dark as Sliding?
He couldn’t think like that, not when that ability had saved him nearly as much—or more—than his ability to Slide.
The form that he’d created to hold the metal sheet that he’d found in the small room in Thyr was more secure than the last one that he’d used. Rsiran had taken the time to create a tighter seal, not wanting to waste any of the heartstone, and suspecting that the silver would meld to the heartstone when they touched, fusing much like the grindl had. With the last map, the iron had been the harder of the two metals, with this, it would be the steel.
Jessa had disappeared while he worked, leaving him alone in the smithy. Rsiran kept track of her charm, noting where she was within the city. Working with heartstone to liquefy it didn’t require the same focus as attempting a true forging. With this, he simply had to heat it to the right temperature, and then he could pour it over the map.
Rsiran didn’t know what to expect. Awareness of the last map still burned in his mind, but he had the heartstone brick that he’d made to create it as well. He could use that to visualize the map again if needed, but it did no good if he couldn’t tell what the map was to be used for.
What if this one was the same?
But it was all that he had to go on. If this didn’t bring him any closer to figuring out what had happened to his sister, the next step was one that Brusus and Jessa didn’t want him to take, but it was the only one that he could think of: find a way to draw out Sarah and Valn. If he found them, he could force them to show him where his sister had gone.
Rsiran held the iron pot over the top of the form and hesitated. Heartstone was different from lorcith in many ways, not the least of which being the fact that it didn’t seem to care that he’d melted it to use simply for a form. It hadn’t mattered which piece of heartstone he used—and he’d gone with the smallest that would give him the information that he wanted—not like it would with lorcith. With lorcith, he would have needed to listen to the metal and find the one piece most willing to work with him.
Blood of the Watcher (The Dark Ability Book 4) Page 17