Blood of the Watcher (The Dark Ability Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Rsiran Lareth,” a voice said. It was deep and carried. “We’ve spent a long time trying to find you.”

  He reached for Jessa and found her still holding onto his arm. He wanted to be ready to Slide if needed. “What is this? Why does the Alchemist Guild have my sister?”

  A man appeared from the blue light. He had a long face and a thick graying beard. In some ways, he reminded Rsiran of his father when he’d found him in Asador. Beards were uncommon in Elaeavn. Traders, and men from outside the city wore beards, but those within the city, especially those who wanted to impress the Elvraeth, made a point of remaining clean-shaven. The man shifted a long, light blue robe around his shoulders and smiled.

  “You don’t deny that you’re him?”

  Rsiran shook his head. “Why would I deny? It seems you already know. You’ve sent your—” He hesitated, looking for signs of Sarah and Valn. Sarah stood against one of the walls, and the bright blue light made it difficult for him to tell clearly where Valn had gone. He still sensed the lorcith, but it moved. Either Valn paced nearby or, more likely given the way the lorcith flickered, he Slid from place to place. “Your Slider and whatever she is looking for me.”

  The man smiled. “Whatever she is? I thought that with everything you’ve been through, you’d have come to appreciate the role of a Thenar.”

  “Thenar? That’s what you call them when they can detect Sliding?”

  The man glanced at Sarah. “Oh, she can do much more than detect, though from what I hear, she hasn’t had the same success with you, now has she. May I ask why that would be?”

  Could that be the reason that they’d brought him here? It seemed strange if true. They wouldn’t have needed to bring him to the Alchemist Guild to ask, unless they wanted to prove something to him.

  “You can ask,” Rsiran said, noting that the bracelets on his wrists went cold. The last time he’d felt them go cold had been while in the smithy. Someone, either here or hidden where he couldn’t see them, was trying to Read him.

  He watched the man’s face, but it remained neutral, only the hint of a smile present. Not him, at least he didn’t think so.

  “Where are we?” Jessa asked.

  Rsiran looked over to her. With the blue light all around, she had an ethereal glow about her, making her look lovelier than he’d ever seen her.

  Jessa elbowed him. “Rsiran?”

  “This is the Alchemist Guild,” he said then nodded toward the man. “And I presume this is the guildlord.”

  It was a title that gave him even more power than almost anyone in Elaeavn other than one of the council. He’d never even seen the smith guildlord, though he knew that each guild had one.

  The bracelets flashed colder again.

  The man nodded his head. “Not the Alchemist Guild house, but close. And you may call me Ephram.”

  “Only Ephram?”

  He tipped his head. “Do last names matter?”

  “They do if you’re Elvraeth.” He gambled, not certain whether that was true, but the way that Ephram watched Rsiran left him with the impression that he had Elvraeth features that reminded him of Josun. That, and the fact that he attempted to Read him. Rsiran was certain that it was Ephram.

  Ephram’s smile tightened. “Now you make dangerous claims.”

  “How many of the guildlords are Elvraeth?” Jessa asked.

  Ephram turned to her, studying her. His eyes darkened as he did, and Jessa’s hand squeezed Rsiran’s briefly. He suspected that Ephram attempted to Read her as well, but the bracelets would have prevented it.

  “Interesting,” was all that he said. “You must be Jessa Ntalen?”

  “Where is my sister?” Rsiran asked.

  Ephram nodded to the end of the room, and Valn disappeared in a flash. Ephram paced a moment. “We have been searching for you for some time.”

  “Why me?”

  Ephram chuckled. “Asks the man able to manipulate lorcith and heartstone.” He watched Rsiran, but he made a point of keeping his face as calm as possible, not willing to reveal more than necessary. They might know what he was capable of doing, but he didn’t need to share anything that they didn’t know. “And who can travel through both. Such a man is dangerous. And useful.”

  “Others have tried to use me. They have failed.”

  Ephram nodded to Rsiran. “Oh, I understand that they have.”

  Rsiran cast a look toward Jessa. Were it not for the desire to see what they might have done to his sister, he would Slide away. “Which side are you with?”

  “Side? Doesn’t the guild side with Elaeavn?”

  “I don’t know,” Rsiran said. “If you sided with Elaeavn, you would bring me before the council.”

  Ephram pursed his lips. “And how would that serve Elaeavn?”

  Rsiran frowned.

  Colors shifted and he felt a soft surge of something like movement. Valn appeared, and with him, was Alyse.

  She looked different than she had the last time he’d seen her. Then she’d been dressed in clothing suited to Lower Town. She’d been carrying a basket full of fish, and had been working. None of it was what he would have expected from Alyse, not the sister that he had known.

  Now she looked… well. Her golden hair was pinned up, and she wore a deep green dress, cut to fit her well.

  When she saw Rsiran, her eyes widened, and her hand went to her neck to grab at the necklace that she still wore. It was lorcith—and pulled on Rsiran, now that he recognized it—and made by their father as a gift. It was the type of gift that Rsiran would never have received.

  “Rsiran?” Her voice was a near whisper.

  “Are you harmed, Alyse?”

  She shook her head. “What are you doing here, Rsiran? You shouldn’t have come… don’t let them—”

  With that, Valn Slid her away in a flash of colors and a shifting sense of movement.

  When she was gone, Rsiran focused on the sense of lorcith from the necklace that their father had made. It faded and then disappeared. Wherever they had taken her was likely surrounded by either too much lorcith, or enough alloy that he wouldn’t be able to reach it. It had been the same when Josun had taken Jessa to Ilphaesn. The lorcith charm she wore should have allowed him to find her, but surrounded by that much lorcith, Rsiran hadn’t been able to detect anything.

  “Where did you take her?” Rsiran demanded.

  “She is unharmed, as you can see,” Ephram said.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “We want your help.”

  “You think to get me to help by holding my sister hostage? Do you think that’s going to get me to help you with whatever you plan?”

  Ephram crossed his arms over his chest. “Hostage? We’re protecting her. Our plan is to serve the people of the city and to keep them safe. That has always been our plan.”

  Rsiran looked past Ephram to Sarah. The Thenar stood watching him, her dark eyes unreadable and a deep frown on her face.

  “Why me?”

  “We’ve already discussed the particular skillset that you possess, Rsiran Lareth. I’ll admit that I wasn’t certain, not until you demonstrated your ability so… clearly,” he said, his eyes sweeping around the room. The blue light had dimmed somewhat, but remained bright.

  “What was it?” Rsiran asked. “What did I take from here?”

  Sarah took a step forward. “You didn’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  She turned to Ephram. “Valn is right, Father. This is a mistake. If he didn’t know what he took, he’s not what you—”

  Ephram cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I think he’s exactly what we thought. Perhaps more raw than I realized. I thought your time on the streets had trained you more than this, but you have either proven lucky—and I doubt that given where I have seen you travel—or you simply do not fully understand the extent of your abilities yet.”

  “Where have you seen me travel?” Rsiran asked, his confusion—and frustration—rising.
He’d done so many things since leaving his parents, almost all of which would lead to the kind of punishment that he once would have feared. Rsiran no longer worried about exile. Banishment—making him one of the Forgotten—would not hold him from Elaeavn. Even were the council to use Elvraeth chains on him, the kind of punishment he knew had been reserved for those with the ability to Slide, such chains no longer held him.

  But there were other punishments that he feared. Anything that might be done to Brusus, Haern, or even Della. And anything that would be done to Jessa.

  Ephram’s smile widened. “So many questions. And answers will come, but after.”

  “After what?”

  “After you help us.”

  Rsiran stifled a laugh. “It seems you don’t want help, you want to tell me what to do. You’re no different than them.”

  “Not tell you, and we do want help.”

  “What kind of help? What do you want me to do for you that you can’t do yourself?”

  Ephram shifted his attention to Sarah and she nodded. “We have seen your ability to travel beyond barriers. The palace did not restrict you and it should. It is this ability we need.”

  “Why? If you’re Elvraeth, and since you haven’t denied it, I’m guessing you are,” Rsiran said, only vaguely aware of the way he was speaking to one of the Elvraeth. Once he would never have thought to speak so brazenly to them. “Then you know what’s inside the palace.”

  “Do you?” Sarah asked.

  Rsiran shook his head, backing up a step. “Yeah. I do. And I’m not taking anything from the palace for you, the Forgotten, or Venass.”

  Ephram focused on Rsiran, his gaze heavy and intense. “And you should not.”

  Rsiran hesitated. He’d prepared to Slide away. Jessa clung to him, so he didn’t fear losing her, and he could detect the distant sense of lorcith in the smithy, so he had the anchor he needed. Even were he not able to sense it, he thought that he could reach the smithy, anchor or not.

  “You don’t want one of the Great Crystals?”

  Ephram’s eyes narrowed. “Why would we want the crystals?”

  Rsiran laughed. “The same reason the others do. Power.”

  “You don’t understand, Rsiran Lareth.”

  “No, I think that you don’t understand. I’m not willing to be used. You’ve had your… daughter chasing me throughout Elaeavn, maybe outside of the city as well,” he said, thinking of what he’d detected when they went to Thyr. “And you’ve abducted my sister. I might not know where she is now, but trust me that I will find her. And I will get her back.”

  He turned to Jessa. “Are you ready?”

  She squeezed his arm.

  “Please…”

  This came from Sarah.

  The pleading note in her voice caught him off guard, and he paused.

  “We need your help. We didn’t take your sister to force you to help, but to keep her safe. That’s the only reason that she’s here.” She turned to Ephram. “Tell him, Father. Tell him that we don’t want to steal the crystals. Tell him what you do and why he needs to help.”

  Ephram watched Rsiran’s face. “I don’t know that it will matter. He’s been changed, hardened. There’s nothing that I can say that will make a difference.”

  “He needs to know that the guilds don’t want to steal the crystals.”

  Ephram motioned to Rsiran. “Look at him. He has held one. I see it in his face. He should know the truth then.”

  “What truth?” Rsiran asked. “What don’t you want to tell me?”

  Ephram eyed him with a hard expression. “We don’t want your help to steal the crystals because we already possess them.”

  Chapter 33

  Rsiran started laughing. “You expect me to believe that you possess the crystals?” he asked. “I’ve seen them. There’s no one who would be able to take them from that place.”

  Ephram nodded. “It is good you feel that way.”

  “And I know how hard it was to reach. You can’t expect me to believe that you have some way of accessing it to have taken them.”

  Sarah looked at her father, her eyes practically begging him.

  What weren’t they telling him?

  “Come with me then, Rsiran Lareth.”

  Ephram started toward one end of the room.

  Rsiran looked over at Jessa, and she shook her head. “We shouldn’t be here. I’m not sure what this is, Rsiran, but it’s dangerous.”

  “Please,” Sarah said to him. Her entire demeanor had changed. When Rsiran had seen her while she shadowed him, chasing him through Elaeavn, he had viewed her as angry, and hard, but that wasn’t the woman he saw before him. This woman was uncertain, and practically begging him to help.

  Why?

  It was nothing like the way that the Forgotten or Venass had demanded his help. And he had no fear that he couldn’t Slide from here. The connection to lorcith remained, and he doubted there was anything they would be able to do to prevent him from escaping.

  Then what did they want from him?

  The only way to know was to follow.

  “I have to know,” he told Jessa.

  She sighed softly, breathing in the fragrance of the flower tucked into the charm.

  Rsiran started after Ephram and exited through a wide doorway at the other end of the room, with Jessa by his side and Sarah following. A long hall opened up, with glowing blue lanterns hanging on the walls on either side. Elvraeth lanterns, much like he’d seen in the palace. Jessa pulled on his arm and motioned down the hall.

  Farther down the hall, Rsiran saw a small shape moving. At first, he thought it was a young child, but that wasn’t what he saw. Then the figure disappeared.

  “What was that?” Rsiran asked.

  Sarah motioned him to move faster.

  The hall changed. The walls were silver and dark gray, and he realized they were formed from lorcith and heartstone, but neither pulled on him, as if his awareness of the metals suddenly faded. He attempted to reach for the metal, but found nothing. As if they weren’t there.

  He began to feel uncertain.

  These were the alchemists he dealt with now. Even more than with Venass, if there was anyone with the knowledge of how to prevent him from reaching the metals, wouldn’t it be they?

  They turned down another hall. Carvings in the walls seemed to move, and to follow them. Rsiran had the sense of pressure all around him, but didn’t know where it came from. The air felt thicker and smelled a bit like lorcith, mixed with the sweetness that he associated with heartstone.

  Another door.

  Sarah pushed it open. Blue light spilled out from the other side.

  The light was similar to what he’d seen in the room at the Alchemist Guild, but less blinding, and with more a sense of purity from it.

  He had seen this light before.

  Rsiran started forward, but Ephram grabbed his shoulder.

  “You have already held one of the Great Crystals, Rsiran Lareth.” His voice was a reverential whisper. “You will not be allowed to hold another.”

  Rsiran stared, unable to believe that Ephram had simply walked him to the crystals. And that the tunnel that connected his father’s smithy, the one that essentially connected to the Alchemist Guild, connected to the crystals room in the palace as well.

  The crystals sat atop platforms much like they had the first time he’d seen them, only this time, none of them pulsed with any regularity, calling him to it. Rsiran didn’t even know which of the crystals he had held. From here, they appeared much the same.

  “You… you can access them?” he asked.

  He watched Jessa try stepping forward, as if drawn to the crystals, but something seemed to push against her. Not Ephram, and not Sarah, but a force. She winced, and tried again, but again she failed.

  “The crystals are only able to be held once, and only by those with the blood of the Watcher.” He studied Rsiran as he said it, as if waiting for some sort of reaction.

&n
bsp; “I don’t have the blood of the Watcher.”

  “And yet you held one of the Great Crystals,” Ephram said. He nodded, almost a bow, and then turned away from the crystals. Sarah motioned for them to follow.

  Rsiran started to follow, but Jessa held back. “I can see them… One. It’s like it’s drawing me,” she said in a whisper.

  Rsiran considered the crystals and wondered which of them drew Jessa. Would it be the same one that he’d held or would she be drawn to a different crystal? What would she see if she held one? Not lorcith and heartstone, as he suspected he had seen. Rsiran didn’t know the purpose of that vision, but that must have been what he’d seen. And his had been so different from what Della had described.

  “It’s like it wants me to go to them, but won’t let me,” Jessa said.

  Rsiran nodded. He could feel the presence now that he knew to pay attention to it, almost like a physical sense, an invisible barrier that blocked access to the crystals. Would he be able to Slide past as he had when he reached them the first time?

  He didn’t know. And he didn’t care to try.

  They turned and followed after Sarah. A door that he hadn’t seen closed behind them, moving as if on its own.

  They found Ephram and Sarah back in the room at the Alchemist Guild house. The blue glow had shifted, turning softer, less intense.

  “You can see that we have not stolen the crystals, nor do we need you to steal them for us,” Ephram said.

  “What then? What do you need me for?”

  Ephram motioned for him to follow. A different door opened, and they walked through a narrow hall. This was less ornate than the last, and the walls were stone rather than lorcith and heartstone. Rsiran didn’t have the same hesitation to follow as he had before, and Jessa trailed along with him silently.

  Rsiran lost track of the number of turns that he took. Enough that he could no longer remember them. The heartstone map, the one that he kept fixed in his head, didn’t help. The connection was either too weak, or the map didn’t include this place.

  Ephram led them to a simple room. Stone benches lined the walls and a massive table sat in the middle, filling the small space. Marks were made on the table, and Rsiran noted that some were done in lorcith. Others were made with heartstone. Still others were either metal or stone.