The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  Rsiran Slid them just past the doors, leaving the Forgotten Palace.

  They emerged in darkness. The air had a familiar bitter scent of unmined lorcith.

  Jessa pressed against him. “Why did you take us to Ilphaesn?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t. I meant to Slide us just past the doors.”

  He turned, listening to lorcith around him. It created a sort of map within his mind, painting the image of tunnels all around them. It was just like Ilphaesn, only no part he’d ever visited.

  Could his Slide have been altered? That was what Inna feared, the reason Sliding was so dangerous for the Forgotten, but Rsiran had never worried about Sliding outside of Elaeavn. Did he need to fear where he’d emerge?

  He hadn’t anchored his Slide. Could that be the difference?

  “This looks like when you took me to Ilphaesn. Like when he took me to Ilphaesn.”

  Rsiran tried listening to the lorcith. Could they be in another mine, one he hadn’t come across while working in Ilphaesn? As massive as the mountain was, it seemed possible. But how would the Forgotten Palace hide here as well, this close to Ilphaesn?

  Unless his Slide had been altered. It was the only explanation that made sense.

  “I told you how Della influenced my Slide? How she pulled me toward her?”

  “You did. Said she could sense when you were Sliding, sort of how I can see it, the slight shimmering as you begin your Slide.”

  “What if someone pulled us here?”

  “Or pushed?”

  “I guess.”

  “Why here? Why would they bring you to Ilphaesn, unless it’s only to show you that they can.”

  “But I already know my Sliding can be influenced.”

  “That’s the reason the Forgotten fear Sliding too.”

  “Yes, but who is influencing it? Della didn’t seem to think there were many with that ability.”

  “Does it happen when you…” she paused, searching for the word “…when you anchor?”

  He shook his head. “Not then.”

  “Maybe this is another mine. Someplace other than Ilphaesn.”

  If that were the case, then why would Josun have gone to such effort to mine lorcith from Ilphaesn and sneak it from the palace?

  “Can you Slide us from here? Can you find another anchor with all this lorcith around?”

  Rsiran took a deep breath and listened. The lorcith called to him, some asking for him to pull it from the walls around him, others seeming to tell him what the nugget could become, as if bargaining with him. Rsiran pushed it away, ignoring the sense of the unshaped lorcith.

  With as much as he sensed around him, it was difficult to do.

  This was not the same as Ilphaesn.

  “Where are we?” he muttered.

  Jessa gripped his hand, tensing. “Not Ilphaesn then.”

  He shook his head. “Within the mines, I can sense other lorcith. This is different.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s not Ilphaesn.”

  But where had he ended up? And how could this place have as much lorcith as in Ilphaesn? Did the Forgotten have their own mines? Why would they have needed what Josun mined if they did?

  Without knowing where he was, he hesitated Sliding blindly. Likely, he could get them back to Elaeavn. He knew it well enough that he could Slide there without an anchor, but what if someone influenced his Slide again? What if the next time, they ended up back with Inna? Or in Venass?

  No—he needed an anchor to Slide them safely. With it, he didn’t think he had to fear outside influence on his Slide. But how to reach an anchor with all this lorcith filtering his ability to sense one?

  He’d need to use a different type of anchor. The alloy. As he’d used the lorcith-forged sword before, could he use the heartstone alloy-forged sword as an anchor as well? If he could sense it, he could get them back to Elaeavn, and finally back to his smithy.

  He pushed away the sense of lorcith he felt all around him, focusing on his breathing. When he had control of the lorcith, when it was pressed into a corner of his mind, he listened for the heartstone alloy.

  Not pure heartstone. That he could sense it like he sensed lorcith still surprised him. He had none of the same connection to heartstone, not as he had with lorcith. Except, he had been working with it more often. As he’d folded the heartstone into the alloy, he’d worked it. How was that any different from how he first worked with lorcith, slowly growing his connection to it?

  The alloy in Jessa’s necklace called to him first. He pushed it away and listened.

  For long moments, there was nothing. Silence. Rsiran wondered if it would even work or if they would be forced to Slide blindly through the mines searching for a way out.

  Then he felt a distant thrumming on his senses, like a pinprick of light burning in his mind. Could this be his sword?

  Rsiran grabbed onto it and pulled it toward him.

  As he felt himself Slide, he realized he might have made a mistake.

  What if the alloy he felt was from the Floating Palace? What if he Slid them back to Elaeavn only to end up in the palace?

  Chapter 33

  Sliding with the connection to the heartstone alloy was different from his usual Sliding. That was a blur of motion and colors and a hint of lorcith. With the alloy, movement seemed slower. The colors more vivid. The scents around him different. Rsiran didn’t know why that would be.

  They emerged from the Slide into shadows.

  He tensed, releasing his connection to the alloy and listening for lorcith as he readied the broken knife. Lorcith bloomed around him, but different than it had within the mines. Unshaped lorcith stacked together. A row of forgings—all done by him—were nearby.

  They were back in his smithy.

  Jessa let out a shaky breath and let go of his hand. “That was… different.”

  “The Slide?”

  “What did you do that time?”

  He looked around, his eyes slowly adjusting. Using what he felt of the lorcith as markers for him, he made his way toward his bench and fumbled until he found the Elvraeth lantern. Flipping it open, blue light spilled around them.

  Rsiran shifted a pair of boards in the floor and lifted the heartstone-forged sword out from where he’d hidden it. “I used this as an anchor.” He carried the sword to Jessa.

  She took it carefully and twisted it. “This isn’t the one you made before. This is different. The color is wrong and the metal feels,” she frowned, turning the sword, “slippery and warm.” She looked up at him and handed it back to him. “Why would you make another sword?”

  Rsiran wasn’t sure how to explain the reason that he’d felt compelled to do it. He had wanted to see why Josun wanted the sword, to learn what the heartstone blade might do, but now?

  When he put the swords together, they had a strange connection, like they were paired, meant to exist together. He didn’t have an explanation for why that should be.

  He took the sword from Jessa and slipped it back into place beneath the boards. Hidden alongside the sword were four cubes of heartstone, each large enough to mix into a large nugget of lorcith for the alloy. Once, he’d thought the heartstone he had precious, that the metal was rare. What he’d seen in the Forgotten Palace made him wonder if that was true.

  A tapping at the door startled him.

  Jessa looked over and jumped to her feet. She grabbed a pair of knives off the bench and turned to the door. “Who would come looking for us? Brusus wouldn’t bother until we searched for him. And Haern… well, Haern finds us when he wants to,” she whispered.

  “I’ll check.”

  “Be careful.”

  He smiled but nodded in agreement, pulling three of his small blades from the bench to him and pocketing them. After what happened with the Forgotten, he didn’t want to be caught unprepared again.

  Rsiran Slid, emerging atop the roof of his smithy.

  Moonlight shimmered around him, fi
ltering through thick clouds. The air felt heavy and damp, smelling of rain. Waves crashed against the shore, the sound carrying well. Gulls cawed as they circled. A cat yowled somewhere nearby, a single cry.

  Rsiran shivered.

  He crept forward, using the slope of his roof as cover. The thick tiles were damp, and he had to move carefully so he didn’t tumble off. Rsiran didn’t dare Slide to the edge, not certain whether he would emerge safely.

  When he reached a point where he could look down, the alley below was empty.

  Rsiran frowned. There had been tapping on the door.

  He looked up the alley. Most of the buildings were abandoned, no one but squatters living in them anymore. That was the reason the smithy remained hidden. Nobody would report the sounds of his work to the constables for fear of being discovered themselves.

  The moonlight didn’t reach far enough for him to see well. Water pooled along the alley where the cobbles were pulled up. Shadows stretched outward, growing thicker the farther away from the smithy they went. Something moved below, small and slipping between the shadows. Likely the cat he’d heard.

  But he saw no sign of whoever tapped on the door.

  He should have brought Jessa. At least her Sight would have penetrated the darkness.

  Crawling back up the slope roof, he Slid back into the smithy.

  But emerged in Della’s house.

  He blinked. Fire crackled warmly in the hearth. Mint tea steeped in a steaming pot. Della sat in her chair facing the fire, a striped scarf wrapped around her shoulders and a cup of tea held between both hands.

  She looked up, unsurprised at his appearance.

  “Sit, Rsiran. I’ve got tea for you.”

  Rsiran shook his head. “Why did you pull me here?”

  She smiled. “Brusus has already gone to fetch Jessa so you needn’t worry for her. You and I need a few moments to speak.”

  “You knew I’d returned?”

  She tipped her head toward her cup and inhaled deeply. “I knew you’d returned. I knew when you left. I felt it each time you Slid while you were away.”

  “You can feel me Sliding from a distance?”

  She nodded toward the empty chair.

  Rsiran sighed and sat. With Della, he always felt like a child. How many times had he now sat before her fire, either injured or getting advice?

  “Can you feel lorcith from a distance?” Della asked. She handed him a pale white mug. It had a slight crack along the side, but it still held.

  “Usually. Unless something blocks me.”

  “Such as heartstone.”

  He frowned. “Heartstone doesn’t block me, not anymore, but sometimes, I need to have something to anchor. When I was in Venass, the walls were infused with lorcith. This is what made it difficult to sense other lorcith.”

  “Infused?”

  He shook his head, trying to come up with a better word. He hadn’t explained to Della what he’d experienced while in Venass. “It was like lorcith was worked into the rock itself, but that isn’t how lorcith is found in the mines. There, it’s only in lump form.”

  Della took another sip of her tea.

  “Could you tell where we were?”

  She shook her head. “That’s not how it works. I can sense the changes from your Sliding, but not where it takes you.”

  “Then how do you influence it? How did you pull me here?”

  She set her tea down. “It is imprecise, at least for me. I can draw you to me, but beyond that, my control is limited.” She shifted the shawl around her shoulders. “Did you find what you sought?”

  “We found Shael. We found the Forgotten.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Dangerous times if they’ve chosen to reveal themselves. What happened to you?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt him. He was poisoning me. Using slithca syrup on me.”

  Della turned slowly to face him. “Are you certain that’s what he called it?”

  He nodded. “The Forgotten were trying to incapacitate me, to break down my defenses so they could Read me. They wanted to learn how I was able to reach the palace.”

  “How you could Slide past the barrier?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you tell them?”

  Rsiran wrung his hands together and looked over to the fire. “I don’t know what I told them while the slithca syrup worked through my system. There was one woman—a Reader—who might have learned everything in my mind while I was incapacitated.”

  Della shook her head. “A foul thing to do, especially to one like us. Few know how to make slithca syrup. And a good thing. Low doses pull you away from your connection to the Great Watcher. Higher doses…”

  “I couldn’t talk or move. I couldn’t Slide.” He shivered, thinking of how helpless he’d been. Had Jessa not come for him, he didn’t know what would have happened.

  “As I said, a foul thing. And to use it to Read you while under its effects?” She shook her head.

  “I’m not sure how well they were able to Read me. I could still sense lorcith.”

  “Your were able to shroud your thoughts?”

  Rsiran noted she used the same term as Brusus for blocking his mind. “I don’t know. I infuse my barrier with lorcith to strengthen it.”

  The twitch of a smile told him she knew he also used heartstone. “There’s that word again. Do you know how you do it?”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t feel any different than when I pull on lorcith to move it.”

  Della watched him for a moment and then took another sip of her tea.

  “Shael injected me with the syrup. I think… I think he waited too long between injections. I was able to use my lorcith knives.”

  Della closed her eyes and sighed. “You had no other choice, Rsiran. Shael chose a dark path, one that carried with it many risks. Perhaps darker than you even realize.”

  “I still regret what I did.”

  She opened her eyes and looked into the fire. “You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.”

  Rsiran took a sip of the mint tea. A wave of warmth washed through him. “There was another person we met.”

  She sighed and turned, meeting his eyes. “That is why I called you here.”

  Rsiran gripped the cup tightly. Had Della Read him, even with his barriers in place? “You know Evaelyn?”

  Della nodded. “I knew her many years ago.”

  “Who is she?”

  Della turned back to the fire. “I don’t know what she considers herself these days. She always had an inflated view of what the Great Watcher had in mind for her, but always wanted to put herself before others. That is why she was exiled.”

  “How did you know her?”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  Rsiran shook his head. “She said you were the reason she was exiled.”

  “That is partly true.”

  “Then who—”

  He didn’t get the chance to finish. The door to Della’s home opened and Jessa rushed in, hurrying over to him. Brusus followed after and closed the door behind her.

  “Are you—”

  “I’m fine. Della wanted to remind me that my Sliding wasn’t always safe.”

  “We already knew that from what happened when we Slid from the palace.”

  Della frowned at him. “You returned to the palace?”

  Brusus leaned against the wall. Since his poisoning, he hadn’t seemed entirely the same. A weariness worked across his face as if he still hadn’t shaken the effects of what happened. One hand fingered the cloth of his pants, twisting it around the ring he wore. “I thought you went to find Shael.”

  Rsiran looked up at Brusus and nodded. “We did. And we found the Forgotten.”

  Brusus’s hand stopped moving. “You found them. Where are they?”

  “Asador probably. But more than that, I don’t know.” And Rsiran wasn’t about to go searching for them again. They had been lucky to escape this time.

  Brusus looked from Jessa
to Rsiran. “How did you find them if you don’t know where they are?”

  “When we were escaping from where I was poisoned—”

  “Excuse me?”

  Rsiran glanced at Jessa. “You didn’t tell him?”

  She shrugged. “Thought we’d tell him together.”

  Rsiran laughed softly. “When we were escaping, I grabbed onto the one thing I could sense. It took us to this… palace. Like the Floating Palace, only different.”

  Della sighed. “And that is where you met Evaelyn.”

  He nodded. “You said you knew her, but how? Who is she?”

  Della took a sip of her tea. “Evaelyn is my sister.”

  Rsiran nearly dropped his tea. “Your sister?” But he reminded himself that the resemblance between them had been enough that he’d confused Evaelyn with Della when he first saw her.

  “She said you were responsible for her exile!” Jessa said.

  “As I said, partly true.”

  “How?” Rsiran didn’t ask about how it meant Della was Elvraeth or why she no longer lived in the palace. Those were questions for another time.

  “As I imagine you learned, she is not without abilities of her own.”

  Rsiran nodded, remembering how she Compelled Jessa to nearly attack him. Jessa touched his shoulder and looked straight ahead. “I was able to block her from Compelling me,” Rsiran said.

  Della smiled. “I wonder how she handled that?”

  Jessa’s face darkened. “She twisted my mind so that I nearly attacked him.”

  Della nodded toward Rsiran. “If you are able to keep her from Reading and Compelling you, your friends become your weakness.”

  Rsiran swallowed. That was what he’d feared, the reason he hadn’t wanted to share with Jessa his plan. But it left him feeling empty.

  “But your friends are also your strength. That is something I am not certain she understands.”

  He looked up to Jessa and took her hand.

  “It felt like someone else was in my head,” Jessa said.

  “For that type of influence, you need to exert more direct control. It is never subtle,” Brusus said.

  “Is that what you do?” Rsiran asked.

  Brusus’s eyes flashed a bright green. “I have never Compelled you. I have only made suggestions.”