The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  He forced himself forward, pulling them with him. Were he to linger too long, he feared he might get stuck in the space between Slides.

  Had he not been relatively rested, he would not have managed. Every ounce of strength he had went into completing the Slide.

  Slowly, they Slid forward, practically oozing.

  But it was not enough. Already he could tell that he didn’t have the strength he needed. They would be trapped, stuck someplace in the city or, if lucky, perhaps he would reach the outskirts of the Aisl. Or end up stuck in the space between. Rsiran did not know what would happen then.

  Fear coursed through him. More than for himself or Brusus, he would not condemn Jessa to that fate.

  Rsiran surged his effort, pulling them with him.

  With a sudden pop, they emerged from the Slide. Rsiran crumpled to his knees.

  Brusus took Lianna and carried her to a small clearing just past the edge of massive trees towering over them. Rain pattered against leaves overhead, though didn’t reach the forest floor. Soft leaves and grasses grew underfoot. The air smelled different, the salt of the sea changed to one of earth and rotting leaves. Something howled distantly.

  The Aisl, at least as close as he could come. He hadn’t Slid as far as he’d intended. He’d meant to reach the clearing where Brusus carried Lianna, but the effort had been too much, and he hadn’t managed to reach it. What would have happened had he not even made it this far? Where would they have ended up?

  “How do you know of this place?” Jessa asked.

  He didn’t answer at first. He didn’t know if he could answer.

  “I used to come here.” His voice sounded weak and distant to him. Rsiran rested his head back on the ground and looked up at the canopy of trees above, rain gently filtering through. “When I was young. Before.” He shook his head, unable to explain how it had been before he learned to Slide, before his father had decided he had a dark ability, before his family condemned him to the Ilphaesn mines. Jessa didn’t need him to explain. “My sister and I used to love coming to the Aisl. Our mother,” he started, wondering what had happened to her after his father lost his smithy, “thought it was important for us to know where our people used to live. She brought us here often. I think she liked the quiet.”

  He took a deep breath and looked up into the trees, trying to envision a time when their people would have lived there. Hundreds of years before, when Elaeavn still did not exist, they lived in the heart of the Aisl. When they were children, Alyse used to play at living in the trees, climbing through the forest, pretending to build her home, while Rsiran romped through the forest floor, unable to reach Alyse in the treetops while their mother wandered alone. Even then, he had not been allowed in her home. Those were some of Rsiran’s happy memories, a time before Alyse manifested her gifts and he manifested his.

  “Never really understood how we once lived among the trees. But we used to play here, running along the river…” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Did I ever tell you about how I got lost here once? Cried and cried until Alyse found me. Then I cried more when she scolded me for not having the sense to stay near her. But she wouldn’t let me up into the trees with her.” He never knew where his mother had gone, and by the time she returned, Rsiran had stopped crying.

  “You should rest,” Jessa said, touching his head and smoothing back his hair.

  He looked up at her and smiled. His head felt full, almost as if he’d drunk too much ale or stayed awake all night, though it mostly reminded him of the way he felt as the poison from the mines set into his body. Della had almost lost him then.

  Another strange howl echoed deeper in the forest. When he had come as a child, he never heard those cries. Only once he learned to Slide here did he begin to hear them. They should frighten him—Jessa tensed every time she heard one—but he felt differently, knowing he could Slide to safety. At least, most times he could.

  Some of his strength had returned, and he pushed himself up. In the clearing, Brusus knelt before a heaping mound of dirt.

  “Would she have wanted more?” he wondered. “The Servants would offer a prayer…” Rsiran didn’t really know what else the Servants did. He’d never attended a burial. Few were allowed access, only those closest to the deceased.

  “I don’t think so. Other than Brusus, the Barth was the most important thing to her.”

  Brusus didn’t move as rain washed over him.

  “I… I never knew how close they were.”

  “Still just a babe.” Jessa leaned and kissed him on the cheek. “But some things don’t need Sight to see.”

  “I see you.”

  Jessa laughed softly. “Only because I make certain you do. Only because I know how little you see.”

  Rsiran debated whether to be offended but decided that it didn’t matter. “Della pulled me to her house tonight.”

  “What do you mean she ‘pulled’ you?”

  Jessa watched him, a worried frown on her face. “She said she can feel it when I Slide. I create… ripples, she called it. Somehow, she was able to use this and pull me to her.”

  “Has she done this before?”

  Rsiran shook his head. “I didn’t know it was possible. I’ve never been pulled someplace I didn’t intend to Slide.” At least, he didn’t think he had, but what if that was what had happened when he first Slid out of Ilphaesn? He didn’t think Della had a hand there, but she said others also could feel the ripples. How many could influence his Sliding?

  “What did she want from you?”

  “To warn me, I think.”

  “Warn you?” Jessa frowned. “Della doesn’t simply warn. There must have been another reason for her to pull you.”

  Rsiran shrugged. The rain lightened somewhat, slowing to a soft pattering in the branches overhead. “I think she meant for me to know that it is possible to influence Sliding.”

  “Everything has a weakness. That is how the Great Watcher intended.”

  Rsiran laughed, though it felt hollow. With everything that had been happening around him the last few days, he struggled appreciating value in weakness. Besides, being Sighted didn’t seem to have much weakness. He didn’t think Listeners had one, either. Readers could be blocked, but that didn’t seem the same.

  “Della said something similar.”

  “And that was it?”

  Rsiran thought about what Della told him. As far as he could tell, the most important message had been that she could detect him Sliding, could influence it. “Well, she also warned me that Josun Elvraeth might still live.”

  Jessa squeezed his hand. “She can’t know, Rsiran. If he lived, he would have come after us—”

  “I told her the same thing, but Della figures that if he had died, the Elvraeth would have come looking for me. Or the others with him. That they didn’t…” That wasn’t quite right, he realized. She said a “faction” of the Elvraeth would have come looking for him.

  His heart fluttered, and he very nearly didn’t hear the next thing she said.

  “What if he’s the Elvraeth I overheard on Firell’s ship? What if he’s the one smuggling lorcith out of the city?” And what if there was more to what Josun did than what Rsiran had known?

  “But if he’s alive, why would he go after Lianna? I’m not saying I agree, but he already knows of your abilities and knows you were the one who nearly killed him, so why not just attack you?”

  “Because he is smart.”

  Brusus stood near them. His eyes were still reddened, but an angry determination crossed his face. Vibrant forest-green eyes, the whites now streaked with red, stared at them. For once, Brusus didn’t mask his abilities.

  “And he almost died underestimating you once. He will not make that mistake again.”

  Chapter 20

  “You think Josun still lives?”

  Brusus reached out dirt-stained hands to help pull Rsiran to his feet. Brusus’s eyes flashed with more heat than Rsiran had ever seen from him. “I have wonde
red that for some time, yes.”

  “You told me not to worry about him. That Haern saw him dead. That the Elvraeth fight among themselves so often that he would not be missed, that—”

  “I did. When I thought him gone.”

  “But you don’t know.” Jessa ignored Brusus’s extended hand and scrambled to her feet.

  “No. I began to suspect shortly after I recovered. No rumors came from within the palace of a deceased Elvraeth. Nothing that indicated he had ever died. And no word of a rebellion,” he said, looking to Rsiran.

  “And you would hear from the palace?”

  Brusus hesitated, glancing at Jessa. “Why do you think I’ve asked you to make so many knives, Rsiran?”

  The question took him aback. “I thought you wanted the money.”

  Brusus breathed out heavily. “That, but there is another reason.”

  Rsiran thought about what Jessa had told him about Brusus, how he had spent time in Upper Town. “You used the coin for bribes?”

  Brusus shook his head and Rsiran frowned. “I’ve used the knives for bribes,” he said. “The Elvraeth have enough money, but they don’t have knives like you make. A thing like that… well, a thing like that is worth information. After what happened with Josun, after what he showed me when he took me to the warehouse and used me, information was worth more than anything.”

  “And you haven’t heard that Josun died.”

  He shook his head and sighed. “We need to get back. Can you…”

  “Not for a while. Getting us all here took too much out of me.”

  “Then we walk.”

  Brusus started into the forest, heading west, back toward Elaeavn. Rsiran didn’t question how he knew which direction to go. Standing in the dense forest, for most, one direction looked much the same as the other. But Rsiran felt the lorcith in the city like a distant awareness in his mind, just enough that he knew which direction to go to. Either Brusus simply guessed right, or he knew a different way to determine how to reach the city.

  They walked a while in silence. Jessa kept near him, careful to ensure he had enough strength to keep going. Brusus stayed ahead of them, picking his way through the forest. At times, they had to climb over massive tree trunks or weave around thick thorn bushes. Once, they were forced to wade through a wide stream. From when he was a child, Rsiran knew the streams eventually all ran together, twisting into the Lneahr River that eventually dumped into the sea.

  “How long have you known?” Jessa asked Brusus when they stopped at one stream.

  Rsiran cupped water to his mouth to drink. Fatigue from the walk mixed with his exhaustion from Sliding to the Aisl, but he felt his strength returning, slowly building back to where he might be able to Slide himself if needed.

  “I didn’t know, not with any certainty.”

  Brusus stood near one of the massive sjihn trees common to the Aisl, one hand resting on the trunk. His face still had an anguished look to it, but he had taken the time to make his eyes a pale green. Rsiran hadn’t learned how he managed the trick of masking his true abilities. Some method of Pushing, though he hadn’t learned quite how.

  “You said you suspected from the time you recovered?” she asked. “You didn’t think we had a right—a need—to know? And that he might come after Rsiran?”

  “But he didn’t! He came for Lianna, didn’t he?”

  Rsiran laid a hand on Jessa’s arm. “I’m sorry she’s gone, Brusus. We all cared for Lianna. You know that we did.”

  Brusus took a deep breath and then sighed. “I know you did. I… I shouldn’t let emotion take me like that. It’s just…”

  “I know,” Jessa whispered.

  Brusus looked at her with an unreadable expression that slowly softened. “Tell me what you remember from the night you broke into the palace.”

  “We told you everything that happened already. What more do you want to know?”

  “I know you did. Just tell me again. I want to know how much fits with what I have learned.”

  “Which part? The part where Rsiran Slid me to the top of Krali Rock where I nearly fell off and died or the part where we snuck into the palace?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re unbelievable! You’ve been hiding a danger to us—to Rsiran—when you knew what we went through. And you know why we did it!”

  “Do you know why you did it?” he asked.

  “Because you were lying at Della’s, trying not to die.”

  “But you know Josun planned that. Once he learned of Rsiran’s ability, he planned that attack to encourage Rsiran to play a role.”

  “What if he hadn’t?” Rsiran asked.

  She turned to him. “No, Rsiran. I’ve told you how I feel about this. Brusus needs to know the same. We can’t keep helping him if he wants to keep us in the dark. How many people need to get hurt by Josun? You? Me? Haern?” She shook her head angrily. “No. No more secrets.”

  “If Rsiran hadn’t agreed to go to the palace, I suspect Josun had another plan in place.”

  “What if we hadn’t gotten in?”

  “But you did.”

  “Brusus—”

  “Then he would have staged it to look like you did.”

  “Is that why he poisoned the council?” He knew little about the poison that Josun had given him to use, other than what Della told him. Whistle dust would have made the council sick, but would not have killed them. But, introduced into the blood as Rsiran had done by pushing one of his knives through the powder and into Josun’s leg… that was supposedly deadly. Only maybe it had not been. Della said it was possible to recover from whistle dust poisoning. And somehow Josun had found the antidote.

  Unless he had it all along.

  Rsiran hadn’t considered that before, but Josun had been the one to give him the poison.

  “You were able to Slide within the palace?” Brusus asked.

  “Short distances.”

  “And Josun?”

  “He Slid.”

  “And he told you that he poisoned the rest of the council?”

  “He thought he had us trapped. Damn, Brusus, he practically killed me while we were waiting!” Jessa snapped.

  “But he didn’t.”

  “Only because Rsiran threw one of his knives at him.”

  Brusus ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. “But that’s what I’m getting at. What if none of it happened the way we thought it did?”

  “Why do you think that, Brusus?” Rsiran asked.

  Brusus let go of the sjihn tree and started pacing. Rsiran had seen him do the same when trying to work through a problem or when he was having a particularly bad string of luck with dice. “After you escaped from the palace, I kept waiting to hear that something had happened. I suspected some of it would be covered up. Either the Elvraeth council getting poisoned or the death of one of the Elvraeth. Maybe even both. But too much happened that night for all of it to be suppressed. Nothing leaked out of the palace about the attack on Josun. Nothing about the council. And I heard nothing about a break-in.” He stopped pacing and looked at Rsiran. “And I should have heard something. When I didn’t, I started to wonder what I might be missing. That’s when I started using the knives to trade,” he told Rsiran.

  “So?” Jessa asked. “What did you find?”

  “That’s just the thing. I didn’t find anything. No evidence of anything happening that night. As if none of it happened.”

  Jessa reached for her neck where Josun’s knife had drawn blood. “It happened.”

  “I know it happened. But I don’t know why I can’t learn more.”

  “Then what? What does Josun want?” Jessa asked.

  Rsiran thought he knew, just not why. If Josun lived, and he was the same Elvraeth he’d overheard on Firell’s ship, then he wanted lorcith. But what for? Lorcith would not be useful for Josun, not as it was for Rsiran. How did that help his rebellion?

  “I don’t know. And that bothers me. You wonder why I’ve been
so secretive? Well, I don’t want either of you to get hurt. If Josun is still out there, he knows about Rsiran, knows what he can do, and…”

  “Why send us to the warehouse?” Jessa asked.

  “I sent Rsiran to the warehouse.”

  Jessa frowned. She gripped the charm he’d given her. “Do you know what we found?”

  Brusus’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You know which crate was missing?”

  “Not missing,” Rsiran answered. He would let Jessa tell Brusus her theory on a crate added to the warehouse. “Just my knives.”

  “Josun?” Brusus said.

  Rsiran shrugged. “Someone used my knives. It was dark. They were probably Sighted. Lorcith suddenly appeared. Then I felt the knives.” At the time, he hadn’t connected it to Sliding, but it made sense now.

  “He Slid and then attacked?” Brusus said. “I had been there just the day previously. Never had a problem. I didn’t even notice any sign of someone else there.”

  Jessa still didn’t say anything about how a crate might have been brought onto shore rather than from the warehouse. What was she hiding from Brusus? Rsiran wouldn’t say anything—not without knowing why she remained silent—but she clearly had a reason.

  “What have you been doing?” Jessa asked Brusus. “You said you’re trying to understand what Josun wanted with the warehouse, but this is more than that.”

  “It’s always more than that.”

  “Is that why he went after Lianna?” Jessa asked.

  Brusus didn’t answer. He simply turned and started back into the forest.

  The walk back to the city took most of the night. None of them spoke much. As they neared the outskirts of the city, as the trees begin to thin, massive sjihn trees slowly giving way to elms, Rsiran felt strong enough to Slide.

  When he told the others, Brusus turned to him and said, “There’s something I must do. Please take Jessa. Return to your smithy. Wait for me.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jessa asked.

  He smiled at her sadly. “Nothing foolish.”

  “Brusus—”