The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  “The Forgotten. Father was called to help them,” Rsiran said. “That was the price? That was why he was in Asador?”

  “He was called because the metal began to flow freely again. Whatever restriction had been on it was eased. As a smith—one of the true smiths—your father was summoned.”

  From what Rsiran had seen, he hadn’t been the only one summoned. Many of the smithies within Elaeavn had been shuttered. He had thought it due to the lack of lorcith, but his mother was right: the flow of lorcith had increased since the restrictions had eased. For the Forgotten, he knew Josun was their supplier, accessing Ilphaesn from the other side of the mountain. For the rest of Elaeavn, he was quite sure the mine he’d worked in was their only source.

  But someone had been controlling the output generated from Ilphaesn, hadn’t they? Why relax that control?

  Everything began to make some sense, though questions remained. He wished Brusus hadn’t gone. He was connected well enough to understand the strange politics and knew what questions needed to be asked.

  “That was why he was in Asador,” Rsiran said.

  She nodded.

  Rsiran made a slow circle around the inside of her home, pacing as he often did when in the smithy, trying to piece together what he knew. He had answers to why his father had been in Asador, if not the reason they had wanted lorcith forged. He might even understand why Venass wanted his father if they thought to either learn what the Forgotten wanted from the smiths or thought to prevent them from claiming it.

  That left Alyse.

  “Why did you come here, Rsiran?” his mother asked. “You knew about your father, but not enough to have come to me. Why now, when you clearly have known how to find me for some time.”

  He blinked, pushing away the questions. He would begin to work through them another time, but not on his own. Jessa could help, would have to help, and Brusus.

  “I haven’t known that you were here,” he said. “Only that you were in Lower Town.”

  She nodded. “Why today?”

  “Did Alyse ever tell you that she saw me?”

  The corners of her eyes tightened when he mentioned his sister’s name. Could she know where she was? If she was afraid of the Forgotten, could she have somehow found a way to sneak her from the city to keep her safe?

  But how would she have managed that?

  Here, in this part of Lower Town, she had no leverage, no capacity to reach help. Maybe once they would have had a way, but no longer.

  “She did not.”

  Rsiran sniffed. For whatever reason, his sister had kept his existence from his mother. Maybe he should do the same.

  “It’s Alyse, isn’t it?” she asked. “That’s why you came today. What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. She’s not been seen in a week.”

  “Seen?”

  “One of my… friends,” he said, “has been watching out for her, monitoring her location. And now we don’t know where she is.” Rsiran took a step toward his mother. “You wanted to know why I came here today. Well, it’s because I’m trying to find out what happened to Alyse.”

  He had thought her disappearance might have to do with him, but now he wasn’t certain, especially if his father had been working for the Forgotten. If they were trying to find him, wouldn’t it be possible that they would appear in Elaeavn and grab Alyse, thinking to draw his father back to work?

  She dropped her head to the table, resting her forehead on her hands. “Not Alyse as well,” she whispered. “Haven’t we been through enough already?”

  “You were afraid this might happen,” Rsiran realized.

  “You can go. You don’t have to pretend concern for your sister.”

  He snorted. “I came here, didn’t I? Is that not demonstrating some level of concern? I might not show it the same as you and father, but then, I didn’t realize that sending your son off to the mines was father’s way of showing concern for me.”

  She turned her head toward him. “There was always a threat that something would happen to you or your sister if your father didn’t answer the summons.”

  A summons sounded too much like what he expected to receive from Venass to be chance. So far, he’d received no summons from Venass since Thom attacked, but that didn’t mean that one would not come. Maybe that was what the two people he’d seen in the forest were sent to do, or those from the street when he had been with Jessa. Had they come to draw him back to Venass?

  “What can you tell me?” Rsiran asked.

  His mother shook her head. “There is nothing to tell, only that if she is gone, there is no way for me to find her. I had thought her protected from all of this, that by coming to this part of the city, we could disappear, but even that wasn’t enough.”

  “The Forgotten. Tell me what you know.”

  She took a deep breath and her back straightened. “If I tell you anything, I only put you both in danger. You’re better where you are, Rsiran. Stay with your friend in Upper Town with your fancy clothes and whatever you have decided to do with yourself. Find happiness.”

  He laughed bitterly. “You don’t understand, do you? I’m already mixed up with the Forgotten. They know about me, and about what I can do. And I’ve already escaped them once. Trust me when I tell you that it is unlikely Alyse will be able to escape from them.”

  His mother didn’t need for him to tell her how Alyse might get drugged and forced to share secrets about herself and her family, even secrets she didn’t realize that she possessed. Without the ability to protect her mind, Readers like Inna or any of the other Forgotten, would be able to torment her. And for what? Information on what happened to their father? Alyse wouldn’t know that.

  “Then you already know why I can’t say anything,” she said. “And they will not harm her.”

  Something about the way that she said it troubled him. “How can you be so certain that they won’t harm her?”

  She stared down at her hands. Rsiran wanted to shake answers out of her, but that wouldn’t get him any closer to knowing why Alyse had been taken or where she was now. “Who are you protecting?” he asked. “What do you know?”

  “You should go, Rsiran. You should not have come here.”

  He waited for something more, but it didn’t come. He stopped at the door and looked back at her over his shoulder. “Who was exiled?” he asked.

  She blinked.

  “Of your parents. Who was exiled?”

  She swallowed. “Both.”

  Both. That hadn’t been the answer he expected, but then, he hadn’t known what he should have expected. Not that his grandparents were Forgotten. Not that he shared something more with Brusus than he realized.

  He waited, hoping she might offer more but she didn’t. She turned her back to him, and Rsiran knew that he wouldn’t get anything more from her.

  He stood for a moment, debating what else he could say. His grandparents were Forgotten? Didn’t that change things for him?

  He thought of Haern’s warning that they would all have to pick a side. If he had to choose, shouldn’t he side with his family? Knowing his mother was born to exiles, and knowing his father had followed his orders to serve the Forgotten, it would seem they’d chosen their side long ago.

  But could he choose to side with the very people who’d been tracking him down? Attacking his friends? In that way, they were no different from Venass.

  Or were they?

  He cast one more glance to his mother before turning away. When he reached the door and pulled it open, he saw Jessa standing in the shadows just outside, waiting for him. A deep blue flower was tucked into her charm today, and she glared at him, punching him as soon as he stepped from the home.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

  “You run here, after everything they did to you, and don’t bother to tell me?” Her voice was higher than normal, and she punched him again to emphasize her irritation. “Is that the kind of relationship that we have now?”
/>   As he closed the door behind him, he saw his mother watching him. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “You don’t have to be alone, Rsiran,” Jessa said. “Haven’t I shown you that?”

  “I could always use a little more explanation.” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it, though punched him a third time as they started down the street.

  “I’m not sure that you deserve that,” she grumbled.

  “You found me fine.”

  “Well, Brusus told me you were here, and so—”

  “You knew where she was, too, didn’t you?”

  Jessa bit her lower lip.

  “It’s okay. I don’t think I was ready to see her before today.”

  “And now?” she asked. She tipped her head toward the flower in the charm and took a deep breath. It was times like this, when walking through these parts of Lower Town, that Rsiran wished he had something similar. At least then he wouldn’t have to smell the stink.

  “Now I know that we have more in common than I realized.”

  Jessa frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “Only that my mother’s parents were exiled.” He smiled at her. “Makes me a child of the Forgotten as well.”

  “Oh, Great Watcher,” she said, stiffening next to him.

  “What?”

  “Do you think they want to claim you because there is some sort of connection?” she asked. “They knew about my parents, and you saw how they treated me.”

  “Not a connection,” Rsiran said. “But it helps me decide something that Haern told me I’d have to.”

  “And what is that?”

  “He told me that we would have to pick a side.”

  Jessa pulled away from him and looked over. “And you want to side with the Forgotten?”

  “I…” He didn’t know. That was the problem. But knowing what he did about his family, and Jessa’s, even Brusus’s, he wasn’t sure that he knew the answer anymore. “I don’t know,” he said finally.

  “And your sister?”

  He wasn’t sure how Jessa would respond to what he would tell her next. She didn’t think that his family deserved his attention, not after what they had done to him, but then Alyse didn’t deserve to be abducted because of something their father had committed to. And it was Rsiran’s fault that their father was no longer in Asador. Had he left him there, the Forgotten wouldn’t have had any reason to come for Alyse. But he had had taken him from the city, drawn attention to himself, and in doing so, put Alyse in danger.

  How could he not try to help her?

  Chapter 12

  The smithy felt as much like home as anyplace ever had. He stood inside the door, now with the bars of heartstone slammed into the ground and over the doorframe, and surveyed the smithy, wondering if it ever could be home. There had been a time, especially after he first met Brusus and the others, when he had thought that it would be. But what if that could never be?

  “What do you think you’re going to do?” Jessa asked.

  He leaned against the door. It felt strange walking to his smithy rather than Sliding, but the risk of being tracked while Sliding was still top of mind. Now even more so. Until he knew whether they were actually in danger, or whether the two he had seen in the forest were people he needed to worry about, he would walk.

  But walking left him missing the experience of Sliding. He missed the movement, the speed, and—if he were honest—even the smells that came with the Slide. The bitter scent of lorcith had become calming, a familiar scent that reminded him of the forge, but also of the freedom he’d gained learning how to control his Sliding.

  “I don’t know yet,” he said.

  “But you intend to find her? How do you think we’re going to do that?”

  It was a question he didn’t have the answer for yet. He could find the Forgotten again, but what would he do then? Go and demand his sister? That would give them leverage over him as well, not that they needed any more leverage than they already had. But there was another reason to find the Forgotten, one that he could tell from the way Jessa watched him that she feared. A reason that had to do with all of them, something that unified them in some ways.

  But that would come later.

  First, he needed a better understanding of why his father had been in Asador in the first place. Short of returning to Venass and demanding access to his father, he wasn’t sure that he could figure out what his father had been up to there.

  He remembered that piece of metal that he’d found in the hut. Would that somehow provide him with answers?

  He hurried across the smithy to the table where he’d left the small piece of metal. Grindl and iron, a strange combination, and one that he couldn’t believe the Forgotten would have been interested in.

  He tried once again to examine the patterns in the metal. Even with his new Sight, he couldn’t see them well enough to understand if they meant anything. Jessa could see them, but she didn’t understand metal as he did. He thought if only he had her Sight, he could understand, but then he realized there might be another way.

  Rsiran took a small piece of lorcith from the bin that Shael had brought him. At least that had been a gift that had served him well, regardless of the fact that Shael had not intended it that way. Shael had wanted him to forge something for him, though Rsiran still didn’t know what that had been, other than proof of his ability to create the alloy.

  As he waited for the forge to heat up, he held the metal out to Jessa. “He hid his. There has to be a reason that he thought this important enough to hide.”

  “What if he didn’t hide it?”

  “You think Brusus put it there when he had the hut built?”

  “Not Brusus, but you know that your father wasn’t the only one in that hut.”

  “Thom?”

  She shrugged. “Can we be certain that it wasn’t Thom?”

  Rsiran looked at the metal and couldn’t think of any reason that Thom would have hidden it in the wall. “This has to be my father,” he said.

  “But you said you don’t know what it is. Why are you getting the forge ready?”

  Rsiran ran his hands along the surface of the grindl. The pattern created ridges that his fingers traced. “I can’t see what it is, and I can’t feel it, but if I use lorcith, I might be able to feel what this is for, and understand why he took the time to hide it in the wall.”

  She stared at the flat sheet of metal for a moment and then shrugged. “If you think so,” she said. She took a seat on the bed near the hearth, leaving Rsiran at the forge.

  He started by taking the small lump of lorcith and heating it, getting the coals glowing to a bright orange, and then red. As he waited, he considered the sheet of metal in his hand and realized that it would be a mistake to use lorcith. Lorcith took much greater heat than either iron or grindl. Were he to use it, he would end up destroying what his father had left.

  When the lorcith was ready, he listened to it a moment, gathering what shape it would take, before beginning the process of forging it. A long-bladed knife emerged. Different from the kind he usually forged, this knife was meant for throwing or pushing. It was intended to be carried for defense. The knife would be for Jessa.

  As he finished, he studied the sheet of iron and grindl again, convinced that lorcith wasn’t the answer.

  Some of the soft metals would work. Gold, if he had it, would be particularly effective. But it was too expensive to use on something like this, and it wouldn’t give him any more connection than he already had with the sheet of metal. The same went for silver.

  What he needed was something soft enough, but that wouldn’t destroy what his father had made, at least until he knew what it was for.

  The only thing that might work was heartstone.

  Rsiran didn’t know how well it would work. Heartstone was softer and required a lower temperature to work effectively, but it also was unpredictable. What would happen when he heated it and added it to the grindl?

&
nbsp; He didn’t know. But if he wanted to understand what his father had left behind, he would try.

  The box containing the remaining heartstone was nearly empty. He had acquired some that they’d found in the warehouse, but Rsiran hadn’t been able to come up with any more than what they had already discovered, even after reaching out for it with his ability.

  After finding the Forgotten Palace, he knew there were places that possessed much more heartstone, enough that it wasn’t nearly as rare as what he had thought, and in pure form. Likely that was because the Forgotten didn’t have anyone able to create the alloy. That might have been why they wanted the smiths, and part of the reason they had wanted him. From what he’d seen with Josun, the Forgotten wanted the alloy, but they had no way of obtaining it.

  He did not need a large section of heartstone. And unlike lorcith where he had to work the entire piece, leaving the rest unworkable once it had been heated, heartstone was different, allowing him to pry off only what he needed. For this, he didn’t need much more than a small piece of the soft, gray metal.

  At the forge, it took heat quickly. Rsiran set it into an iron pot, letting the heartstone turn to a softly glowing liquid. A faint, deep bluish color burned within the heartstone, much darker and hotter than it should be. Lifting the pot of heartstone away from the coals, he surrounded the iron and grindl sheet with long bars of iron, creating a box form. Then he poured the liquid heartstone onto it.

  He cleaned his work while waiting for the heartstone to cool. As he cleared the remaining heartstone from the iron pot, a flash of green and blue flame burst from the form holding the heartstone.

  “Damn!” he swore, dropping the iron pot and running over to the form. The heartstone glowed a bluish green, and flames flickered across the surface. He slapped the table in frustration.

  “What is it?” Jessa asked.

  She peered into the form, nose turned up at the stink from the burning metal, as she studied what he’d made.

  “The grindl. I don’t know the different temperatures required to heat heartstone and grindl.”