Blood of the Watcher (The Dark Ability Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  They emerged in the alley outside the tavern. The street was empty, and the lantern light dim, barely providing anything more than light to pierce the shadows. The dark, cloudless sky overhead didn’t help, either.

  Rsiran took one of the knives from his pocket and held it out. The knife had a soft glow to it and pressed back the darkness.

  “Thinking of attacking me?” Jessa asked.

  He waved with the knife. “You still don’t see it, do you?”

  “I see the knife, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Not the knife,” Rsiran said. “Well, the knife, but you don’t see how it glows?”

  “Nothing like what you’re describing. Whatever happened when you,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “held the crystal, it changed something. I can see it in your eyes.”

  Rsiran tensed. He’d been afraid that he might have changed, and that change might put him or Jessa or Brusus, or even Haern, in danger. Not only his ability to see the glowing light of the lorcith, or the dark blue glow of heartstone, but there was the way he’d jumped into the fight in Thyr. Jessa and Della might not think that the changes were all for the bad, but he wondered.

  And maybe it wasn’t his ability that changed him. Maybe it was just the fact that he’d held one of the Great Crystals when he was not meant to. Hadn’t Della said that only a few were chosen? Those few would have Elvraeth blood. Why would he think that he had the capacity to hold something meant for the Elvraeth?

  Rsiran took Jessa’s hand, thankful for the reassurance that she brought him. Without her, all of this would be much more difficult. Even with her it was difficult, but he couldn’t imagine attempting any of it without her.

  “You’ve got others who care too,” Jessa said softly.

  As she started toward the front of the Barth, Haern burst from the door and saw them. His eyes widened a moment, and he nodded to them.

  “Come. We need to go,” he said.

  “What is it?” Jessa asked.

  Rsiran readied to fight, pulling on the awareness of the knives he carried. He noted that Haern didn’t carry any with him. That would be the reason that Rsiran hadn’t been able to track Haern.

  “Something I Saw.”

  Haern pulled them along the street, guiding them up, away from the docks.

  “I could Slide us,” Rsiran suggested.

  “Don’t need you doing that,” Haern said. “Besides, you need to be better about walking, especially if these others can track you.”

  “Not when I Slide a different way.”

  Haern paused and glanced over his shoulder at him. “That’s not what Brusus tells me. Says you were with him in the warehouse and they appeared. Wouldn’t do that if they didn’t know how to find you.” He started back up the wide street leading away from the docks. “Seems to me that you might think you’re safer than you are. Dangerous to think that way, Rsiran.”

  Rsiran glanced at Jessa and saw her concern. “If they can follow you…”

  “Only when I’m careless,” he told her. “With Brusus, after he tried Reading me, he nearly fell, and I reacted out of instinct, not using my new method.”

  “And if you’re careless with Brusus, what makes you think you won’t be careless where this one is concerned?” Haern asked, nodding toward Jessa. “When it comes to her, you don’t always think clearly.” He looked around long enough to catch Jessa’s eyes. “Sorry, girl, but he doesn’t.”

  “What did you See, Haern?” Jessa asked.

  “Nothing different from what I used to See all the time.”

  “And what was that?” she asked.

  “Darkness. Danger. Death.”

  He pulled them onto a side street as they approached the middle of the city, a place between the wealth of Upper Town and the poverty of Lower Town. It was a place often referred to as the mids, and had been Rsiran’s home until his father exiled him to the mines.

  Music drifted down the street, the kind of up-tempo tune that came from taverns that Rsiran had never dared enter when he’d apprenticed to his father. He hadn’t dared, for fear that his father might find out and punish him, even though his father had never avoided the ale.

  “Why here?” Rsiran asked.

  He started to tense when they made another turn, switching to a street lined with storefronts. Bakers, seamstresses, candlemakers, and even smiths. It was the street where his father’s smithy had been.

  Rsiran slowed, but Haern barreled on, drawing Rsiran up the slope of the street.

  Jessa pulled on his hand. “It’ll be okay, Rsiran.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not going back there.”

  “How do you know that’s where he’s taking us?”

  He could think of nowhere else that Haern would be leading them along this street. Were he taking them to Upper Town, there would be easier ways to reach it.

  Seeing Haern stop in the middle of the street, Rsiran realized that he was right.

  He tipped his head to Haern. “See?”

  Jessa bit her lip. “I don’t know why he’d come here. The smithy is empty, isn’t it?”

  The last time that Rsiran had been here, the smithy had been empty. He didn’t expect that to have changed in the months since then. Other smiths might want access to the forge—his family smithy was one of the larger and best equipped—but it would take time for that to work through the guild, and the Smith Guild was nearly as difficult as the alchemists when it came to allowing movement like that.

  “Let’s see what he has to show us,” Jessa suggested.

  When they reached Haern, he still stood in the middle of the street. “You two think to take a little liaison before coming with me?”

  “Shut it, Haern. We’re with you, aren’t we?” Jessa said.

  “Only because you know better.”

  Jessa smiled. “Rsiran and I want to know what you think to show us here? Why did you bring us to this place?”

  “This place? I know you recognize it, Jessa. You spent long enough watching it, at no small measure of danger to yourself, I would add.”

  In the middle of the street, with the dim lantern light on either side, Rsiran noted how her cheeks flushed. He’d known that Jessa had watched his father’s smithy, but hadn’t realized that she’d put herself in danger to do it.

  “It was empty the last time I was here,” Rsiran said.

  “Yes. Empty. But why is it that I See movement around here?”

  “See or See?” Jessa asked.

  Haern only frowned. “I think you know the answer.”

  “I don’t know. The Smith Guild wouldn’t allow the transfer of the smithy until a specific amount of time has passed,” Rsiran said. “There’s an order to how that is done.”

  “Yes, unless they were under other orders to expedite it.”

  Rsiran wasn’t as connected to the guild as his father had been. As an apprentice, and one not even a journeyman, there had been no reason for him to understand the workings of the guild. His father had made that clear on more than one occasion, usually to journeymen asking questions about the guild that his father thought unnecessary.

  “Who would make such orders?” Jessa asked.

  Rsiran glanced up the street. There were three other smiths nearby, each having operated at a similar level to his father. They were all skilled, and sold their forgings throughout the city. But he sensed no lorcith here, nothing like he would expect to have detected from active smithies.

  “What about the others?” Rsiran asked.

  Haern nodded. “You begin to understand.”

  “I don’t know that I understand, only that I sense something is off.”

  “How?” Haern asked.

  Rsiran looked up and down the street before answering. Talking about his ability with metal wasn’t something that he usually did openly, much like Sliding wasn’t something he did openly. But it was late, and the street was empty.

  “There’s no lorcith,” he said. “With the smithies around h
ere, there should be some, even if the supply is constrained.”

  But that wasn’t true anymore. Ilphaesn no longer was constrained as it had been before. The massive amounts of lorcith stacked within the mountain were testament to that, but what were they for, if not for the smiths to use?

  “The other smithies in this part of the city have been closed for the last month,” Haern answered.

  “Closed?” Rsiran repeated.

  “Brusus tells me that they tried to remain open, but most relied on lorcith sales to the Elvraeth to remain open. When the lorcith stopped coming, and the sales stopped happening, most of the smiths weren’t able to keep up. The guild now possesses each of these smithies.”

  “What happened to them?” Rsiran asked.

  Haern shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know, or can’t See?”

  Haern sighed. “My ability isn’t like that, Rsiran. I can’t simply observe something like that without knowing more about it. Maybe it once was, back when I still served Venass, but not any longer. Now, I’m no different from anyone else with my ability.”

  “That’s not true,” Jessa said.

  Haern sniffed. “You’re right. Most with my ability are Elvraeth.”

  They fell silent for a moment. “I still don’t know why you brought us here,” Rsiran said. “What did you want me to see?”

  “First this. I don’t know what’s happening here, but the disappearance of smiths is important somehow, especially after what happened with your father.”

  But he didn’t understand why. His father might be able to work with lorcith, but he’d never been willing to listen to what the ore told him. Without that, anything that he’d make out of it was weaker than it could have been.

  His father would never have been able to listen to lorcith to make bracelets like Rsiran had made. Even if he were willing to listen to the lorcith, he would have to have a well-enough stocked supply to be able to find a piece willing to work with him.

  Would any other smith?

  “You said first this,” Jessa reminded Haern.

  Haern nodded, shadows along his face making the deep frown appear darker, and the scar on his cheek, the one where his implant had been, starker.

  “First this,” he said again, gesturing around them. “It wasn’t the only reason you needed to come here, but this was how I started to make the connection. When I realized what happened to these smiths, and pieced it together with what we know of lorcith, and what Rsiran has told us about Ilphaesn, I started to question other things that I’ve been hearing.”

  “What other things?” Jessa asked.

  Haern shook his head. “It no longer matters.”

  “Then what does?” Frustration came out clearly in her voice, making her louder than she likely intended. Jessa was always careful with noise. It’s what made her such an excellent sneak. “Come on, Haern, stop doing this to us. Why did you bring us here?”

  He nodded to Rsiran. “Him. And what he found.”

  A chill ran along Rsiran’s spine at the comment.

  “I think I know what the map is for,” Haern said.

  Rsiran tensed, thinking of the dimensions within the map, contours that were almost familiar, though he couldn’t piece together why they would be. That map had nothing to do with the other sheet of metal that he’d discovered, nothing that would tie them together with a unified purpose other than the fact that they both seemed similar.

  “What then?” Jessa.

  “I’m surprised he doesn’t know. He’s been there before. Hell, he’s the one who took me there.”

  Rsiran felt his heart stop, putting together what Haern said, and beginning to understand why the map might be familiar. The levels and dimensions to it and a place where he had led Haern. A hidden place, and dangerous.

  “The Alchemist Guild?” he whispered.

  Haern nodded. “I think your map is a way through it.”

  As Haern said it, Rsiran sensed the sudden connection of lorcith, a flash from the knife that he’d sensed from Valn.

  He grabbed Jessa and lunged for Haern, and then pulled them to Rsiran’s smithy with a quick Slide.

  Chapter 29

  “I don’t know how he found us,” Rsiran said.

  Haern sat near the hearth, moving a few small logs into place so that it took flames. He frowned as he worked, the irregular lump of heartstone from the explosion resting on the ground next to him. Every so often, he glanced down at it, and lifted it to inspect the heartstone as if something might change from the last time he’d checked it. Once in a while, his eyes wandered to the lorcith Rsiran had arranged around the smithy, before he turned back to the heartstone that had nearly killed Rsiran.

  Rsiran wondered what Haern Saw. Was there something about the heartstone? Haern didn’t have Jessa’s Sight or Rsiran’s ability with the metal itself, but he’d been drawn to it as soon as they emerged in the smithy.

  “You said they can’t detect you when you Slide with this new method,” Jessa said.

  “I don’t think they can. Della couldn’t.”

  “There are things Della cannot do,” Haern said without looking over at them. “Don’t tie your safety into what she can or cannot accomplish.”

  “I’m not tying our safety to it,” Rsiran said, “only that she’s proven capable of detecting and influencing me Sliding. If Della can’t do it, then it isn’t likely that it can be done.”

  Haern stood and dusted his hands off on his pants. “The others with your ability, you’ve seen them?”

  Rsiran nodded. “I’ve seen Josun and a few others, why?”

  “And you commented on how much stronger Josun Elvraeth was with Sliding than you.”

  The first time he’d seen Josun, he hadn’t even realized that he had been Sliding. He had moved so quickly with every step he took, that it had been nearly impossible for him to know.

  “Haern, I understand what you’re implying,” Rsiran said, “but this is Della.”

  “And she would be the first to tell you that she’s not the strongest in everything that she does, wouldn’t she? If we were talking about Healing, I might agree that there is no one like her. But we’re not. And you don’t know if these others can track your Sliding even when you do it this other way.”

  “But I heard what they said.”

  “Maybe they wanted you to hear that,” Haern suggested. “Maybe they knew you were there.”

  Rsiran didn’t think that likely, but it raised a different concern, one that he hadn’t considered as fully as he should have. Della wasn’t the strongest with all of her abilities, and he’d asked her to test Jessa’s bracelets. What if they worked against someone like Della, but wouldn’t work with someone stronger than her?

  Maybe he needed to create another set for her, one with heartstone infused inside them. Heartstone had blocked Brusus, and he suspected that they would keep even Evaelyn from influencing his thoughts, or Compelling him.

  “Even were that true, I didn’t Slide there, Haern,” he said.

  “Then it’s possible they have another way of finding you,” Haern said.

  Again, Rsiran wasn’t in agreement with Haern’s conjecture. Had they known another way of finding him, whether they could detect lorcith like he could, or even heartstone, they would have noticed him in the warehouse. But they hadn’t. And they had thought he’d disappeared.

  That meant that Valn had been at his father’s smithy for a different reason.

  He drew a handful of knives to him from the table and stuffed them into his pocket.

  Jessa jerked her head toward him and her eyes went wide. “Rsiran—”

  “I’ve got to see,” he said. “You can’t be safe with me, not if I need to move quickly.”

  “Don’t do this,” she begged.

  Rsiran stopped in front of her and slipped his arms around her neck and hugged her. He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—leave without making certain that she would be okay with him going. “If
she’s there—”

  “You don’t know that she will be,” Jessa said. “And they’ve managed to follow you all over Elaeavn. What happens if they capture you? We wouldn’t know!”

  “They’re not going to capture me,” he said.

  “You didn’t think Shael was going to capture you, either. Or the Forgotten.”

  “This is different,” he said.

  “How can you say that?” She clung to him, refusing to let him go, knowing that if she didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to Slide without taking her with him. “How can you know this will be different?”

  Rsiran let out a steady breath. “Because I’m different. I don’t Slide the same way that they do, and if you come, I’ll be distracted.” He glanced over to where Haern again leaned over the hearth, still studying the misshapen piece of heartstone. “Haern is right. When it comes to you, I don’t always think straight. If I’m worried about you, I don’t know that I’ll be able to act as quickly as I need to.”

  “You did with Thom,” she reminded.

  “That was different. I was taking him away from you. I thought I was keeping you safer.”

  She shook her head and slapped him on the chest. “Didn’t work out as you planned, did it?”

  Rsiran forced a smile. “It usually doesn’t.”

  Jessa sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  * * *

  Rsiran emerged within the enclosed area outside his family smithy. It was a place he knew well, where he’d spent much of his days cleaning up scrap metal and arranging it so that his father would know that he’d been working. It was a place where he could get his bearings before Sliding into the smithy itself.

  Little had changed since he’d last come here. At the same time, so much had changed.

  The air smelled of metal. Iron and copper mostly, but there was a residual odor of lorcith, one that was not nearly as strong as what he sensed in his smithy. Under the metallic scent was the stink from stagnant water. Even with the dim light coming off the bracelets, he could make out a thin film that grew on the surface of the full bucket near the door.

  His father never would have tolerated leaving this area so messy. Rsiran would never have tolerated it, either. A part of him had the urge to start cleaning, to organize the scraps, but that wasn’t why he’d come.