The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  Would he have been drawn in, regardless?

  She watched him, waiting for him to be ready to go on.

  “When he called it a dark ability, I didn’t know what to think. I felt cursed by the Great Watcher, gifted with something that I couldn’t use.”

  “But it’s not a curse. We can’t keep going over this, Rsiran. The things you do, the way that you’ve helped us…” She shook her head. “There’s nothing dark about it. It’s… It’s beautiful.” She glanced toward the door, and her eyes narrowed as they often did when she was thinking. She tipped her head down to sniff at the flower she had within the charm. “When I was younger, I wanted nothing more than to return to Elaeavn. I remember my parents telling me that we couldn’t return, and I never really understood. They said it was better outside the city. That we were able to see things that those within Elaeavn never experienced.” She smiled at the memory.

  “And then they were taken from me, and I was nearly… nearly sold into prostitution.” She swallowed. “Haern… Haern saved me. There was darkness in him that night, too, but without it, I wouldn’t be here. And now I understand that what you can do, the way that distances don’t matter, that’s a gift from the Great Watcher that is greater than any other. You can see the other places in the world, and you can return home. Wherever that is.”

  Jessa patted him on the chest and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “You have a gift. You may have darkness, but we all do. It’s a part of what we’ve experienced, not because of some gift the Great Watcher gave us. These gifts are simply that. We choose how to use them. When we fail, it is because of us, not because of something the ability does to us.”

  Jessa fell silent. Rsiran watched her, waiting for her to say something more, but she didn’t. Instead, she rested her head on his chest and breathed slowly.

  “You’re right,” he started. “Of course you are. Back then, back when I first learned of my ability and what I could do, I was different than I am now. I believed what my father told me. Only when I learned what Josun said of Sliding did I think that maybe he’d been wrong, that maybe he’d only listened to the same superstitions about Sliding that the Elvraeth put out there.”

  “That is what happened, Rsiran.”

  He shook his head and turned toward the fire glowing in the hearth. He didn’t feel the warmth from it, not as he should. After the way he’d killed, the way that he willingly attacked, and the surge of satisfaction that he’d felt when he had, he wondered if he really should feel warmth. Maybe he didn’t deserve to know warmth, or comfort, or a home.

  “That’s what I thought, but then I learned my father had spent time outside of Elaeavn, and had been to places like Thyr. If he’s been to Thyr, what are the chances that he knew others who could Slide? I’d never heard of my ability before waking up atop Krali. It’s not so common that a simple smith should know about it.”

  Jessa’s brow creased and she watched him. “I hadn’t, either,” she admitted.

  And neither had Brusus, or Haern, and they had been away from the city. Only Della knew anything about his ability, but Della was turning out to be someone much more than she ever let on.

  “What if my father wasn’t afraid of my ability because of some superstition placed out there by the Elvraeth? What if he’d known others who could Slide and had seen what had happened to them?”

  Jessa shook her head. “You mean the Forgotten.”

  Rsiran shrugged. “I don’t know how deeply drawn into the Forgotten he had been, but what if it’s possible?”

  “Don’t you think Della would have said something if that were true? If you trust anyone, trust her and what she knows.”

  Rsiran breathed out softly. Della had told him more about Sliding than he’d learned from any other, and had been the one to make a point of showing him how his Sliding could be influenced and detected. But she kept enough secrets that he wasn’t entirely certain that he could trust her. He wanted to trust, and he knew that he probably needed to, especially given all that she knew about what had happened to him, but what if she kept something back from him, something like the crystals hidden within the palace?

  Had they known about them sooner, they might have understood what the Forgotten wanted. They might have understood why Venass was so eager to replicate the abilities the Great Watcher had given them.

  “Maybe she would,” he said softly. He couldn’t share those concerns with Jessa. She viewed Della differently than he did, and trusted her more than Rsiran now did. “Or maybe there is something about my ability when combined with what I can do with lorcith that makes it darker. Maybe that’s what my father feared.”

  If only his father hadn’t been claimed by Venass. He needed to find him. If not for the answers to those questions, then to find his sister.

  But would he allow more darkness into his heart if he went searching for Alyse? Would he fight as hard as he had for Jessa if Alyse were in danger?

  Jessa pulled him toward her and hugged him for a long moment. “You can’t think like that, Rsiran. There’s nothing that the Great Watcher would give us that we shouldn’t use. I think of all the good that you’ve done with your ability, and I know that there is nothing to Sliding and what you can do with lorcith that makes it wrong.”

  Rsiran squeezed his arms around his legs. If it wasn’t his ability, or the lorcith, then what if the problem—and the darkness—came from him?

  Chapter 23

  Rsiran stood over the anvil, holding an iron pot of molten heartstone. The air smelled of the sweet metal, and he breathed it in. He’d feared his Sliding ability was turning him dark, but what of his ability with lorcith? What if that was as dark as Sliding?

  He couldn’t think like that, not when that ability had saved him nearly as much—or more—than his ability to Slide.

  The form that he’d created to hold the metal sheet that he’d found in the small room in Thyr was more secure than the last one that he’d used. Rsiran had taken the time to create a tighter seal, not wanting to waste any of the heartstone, and suspecting that the silver would meld to the heartstone when they touched, fusing much like the grindl had. With the last map, the iron had been the harder of the two metals, with this, it would be the steel.

  Jessa had disappeared while he worked, leaving him alone in the smithy. Rsiran kept track of her charm, noting where she was within the city. Working with heartstone to liquefy it didn’t require the same focus as attempting a true forging. With this, he simply had to heat it to the right temperature, and then he could pour it over the map.

  Rsiran didn’t know what to expect. Awareness of the last map still burned in his mind, but he had the heartstone brick that he’d made to create it as well. He could use that to visualize the map again if needed, but it did no good if he couldn’t tell what the map was to be used for.

  What if this one was the same?

  But it was all that he had to go on. If this didn’t bring him any closer to figuring out what had happened to his sister, the next step was one that Brusus and Jessa didn’t want him to take, but it was the only one that he could think of: find a way to draw out Sarah and Valn. If he found them, he could force them to show him where his sister had gone.

  Rsiran held the iron pot over the top of the form and hesitated. Heartstone was different from lorcith in many ways, not the least of which being the fact that it didn’t seem to care that he’d melted it to use simply for a form. It hadn’t mattered which piece of heartstone he used—and he’d gone with the smallest that would give him the information that he wanted—not like it would with lorcith. With lorcith, he would have needed to listen to the metal and find the one piece most willing to work with him.

  Pouring the heartstone carefully, he made certain that it covered the entirety of the steel and silver plate. Unlike with the grindl, he hadn’t been able to feel any pattern with his fingers. He could see the pattern, but if this didn’t work, he risked destroying the plate.

  With the heartstone lay
ered over the plate, he stepped back and brought the iron pot to the coals to keep heating it so that he could clean the remaining heartstone from it. As he did, there was a flash of yellow light from the form, and the four sides framing it fell away, hitting the floor of the smithy with a clatter.

  The heartstone exploded outward, and Rsiran was thrown back.

  Hot metal flew toward him.

  He ducked, but as he did, he pushed against the heartstone. Had he not had a connection to it, and probably if he had not held the crystal, he wouldn’t have been able to do it. As it was, he barely managed to keep it from hitting him.

  Taking a few steadying breaths, he released his connection to the heartstone where it fell harmlessly to the ground around the anvil.

  Rsiran dusted himself off, cursing aloud, as he reached for a blob of heartstone with the tongs. He needn’t have bothered. The heartstone had already cooled, but the explosion left it running toward the edge of the anvil, covering the plate entirely.

  Rsiran lifted it, forced to pry it free from the surface of the anvil.

  As he stood there, the door to the smithy opened and Jessa slipped inside. Once in the door, she flipped the bars in place that locked the door more securely. She watched him, an amused smile on her face. “What are you doing with that?”

  “Trying to keep it from exploding,” he answered.

  “It… exploded?”

  He motioned with his leg to the frames of the form lying on the floor. “After I poured the heartstone over it. I should have paid closer attention.”

  “Did you know that it would do that?”

  Rsiran turned the twisted lump of heartstone pinched between the ends of the tongs from one side to the other. “Heartstone doesn’t react to steel. And I’ve never had silver to test it with.”

  “But it did something similar with the grindl.”

  Rsiran nodded.

  “Should it have done that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think that Venass…”

  Rsiran didn’t know. With all the protection around the building, it almost seemed as if they didn’t want him reaching the metal. But what if that was the point? What if Venass had tried to draw him to it?

  “Who would know?” she asked.

  “Not a smith. They rarely mix metals. That was the purview of the Alchemist Guild.”

  Jessa’s smile faded. “Oh, no. Not the alchemists.”

  “I’m not going to go to them for help with this,” he said.

  She stared at him as if she didn’t believe what he said. One hand reached for her charm, and her fingers played with the violet flower she’d found today. “Did you figure anything out from it?”

  Rsiran touched the heartstone with his free hand and noted that it had cooled. He set it back on the anvil and picked it up with his hands, turning it. The metal might have exploded from the form, but what remained had taken on a distinct shape.

  “That’s strange,” he said.

  Jessa leaned over his shoulder and studied the heartstone. “What is? The crazy lump of metal you’re holding or that you nearly got blown up by a small sheet of metal?”

  Rsiran smiled. After the chaos within Thyr, it felt good to smile again. He tried not to think of what might have happened had he not had the ability with heartstone. “Both? But not that,” he went on. “There’s a pattern to the way the metal expanded.”

  “Expanded?”

  He held the heartstone out and shook it. “That’s what happened here. When the metal got hot, it expanded. Usually it does that, but there’s more control to it. This,” he went on, “this was an uncontrolled expansion. I’ve never seen it with heartstone.”

  When he worked with heartstone before, there hadn’t been any unusual properties to the metal. It always reacted the same. The only time it hadn’t had been when he attempted to combine it with lorcith.

  “What’s the pattern?” Jessa asked.

  Rsiran studied the heartstone, pushing away the sense of lorcith, ignoring the louder draw that it placed on him. He focused on the shape of the heartstone, straining for the connection.

  When it came to him, he frowned. There was no map, not like with the other plate.

  “This isn’t what we needed,” he said.

  “No? Then what is it?”

  Rsiran couldn’t tell what shape the heartstone had taken, only that there was a pattern, and the pattern was one he didn’t recognize.

  If he had better Sight, he might be able to see what shape the heartstone had taken, but then had he better Sight, he wouldn’t have needed to create the form and combine the metals in the first place.

  He set it down and surveyed the various forgings on the table. There was the other brick of heartstone, the shape of the map still drawing him. Nothing else of heartstone called to him in the same way, not even the sword that he’d made.

  The table contained dozens of other creations of his. The oldest were knives of different sizes, but the newer creations had taken on a different complexity as he began to master lorcith. Now when he worked with it, he often had something in mind, an intent of what he wanted to make, and selected the metal based on whether it would be able to help him form the shape.

  “Did you find anything,” he asked Jessa.

  She shook her head. “Found Brusus, but not Haern. He hasn’t seen him since we returned.”

  Rsiran wondered if that should worry him. With everything that they’d been through, any time they couldn’t find one of their friends made him nervous. It shouldn’t; if they were attacked, Haern was the most skilled of any of them, and would be the ablest to deflect an attack. Unless it came from someone like Thom. He’d shown that he could control Haern.

  He would need to make something like the bracelets for Haern.

  Rsiran turned to the bin of lorcith and focused on what he wanted, much as he had when trying to make the bracelets for Jessa. He placed the image of Haern in his mind and focused on the concept of protecting him, of preventing someone from Reading and Compelling him.

  None of the lorcith responded.

  Rsiran tried again, listening, knowing that at least one of the dozens of lumps of lorcith in the bin would have to respond, but none of them did. All ignored his request.

  Either the lorcith didn’t want to help Haern, or Rsiran wasn’t convincing enough in his desire to help Haern.

  He sighed, and leaned on the table.

  “What is it?” Jessa asked.

  “I wanted to help Haern. I wanted to find something like I made for you.”

  She held up her wrists, studying the bracelets. “I wasn’t sure about them at first. They dig into my arms, you know? But when Thom came at us, they went so cold that they burned. It was as if they absorbed whatever he tried to do to me.” She smiled. “Glad you made them for me. After what happened with Evaelyn, I don’t want to risk anything like that happening again. I don’t want to risk anything happening to you.”

  “That’s why I thought I could try to forge something similar for Haern, but none of the lorcith responds.”

  “Maybe none of these pieces are meant to help him.”

  He nodded, a part of him wondering if it was something about him, or whether the metal didn’t want to help Haern.

  Since meeting Haern, Rsiran had conflicted feelings about him. Haern made no attempt to hide the fact that he wanted to ensure Jessa’s safety, going so far as to essentially attack Rsiran under the guise of trying to help her. That had helped Rsiran learn about his connection to the lorcith, but a part of him remained uncertain about how much he could truly trust Haern.

  Maybe the lorcith responded to that.

  Rsiran pushed the thought away. Maybe all he needed was to find a different piece of lorcith that would be more responsive. But that meant going to the mines.

  And he needed to return to the mines, anyway. It had been too long since he’d last been there, and too long since he felt the breath of the mines blowing against him, something
that he once would have found difficult to believe that he’d miss. Besides, he still hadn’t learned why the supply of lorcith had been controlled and limited by the Elvraeth.

  “Anyway,” Jessa said, tugging on his hands and drawing his attention back to her, “Brusus said that Upper Town seems agitated.”

  “Agitated?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t know what it means, only that’s how he described it. You know Brusus, though. He can be dramatic at times.”

  Brusus was usually pretty well connected to the goings on throughout the city. Some of that was through the bribes that he made, and some came from other connections that he had. Brusus kept most of that to himself.

  “Are you still trying to convince yourself that you’re some kind of horrible person?” Jessa asked.

  Rsiran inhaled deeply. When he worked at the forge, regardless of what metal he chose, there wasn’t the opportunity to allow himself to feel bad. Standing in front of the heat pushed away all thoughts, good and bad, leaving him with nothing more than a blank mind. And peace.

  “Not right now,” he said.

  Jessa studied him for a moment. “Does that mean that you’re going to find a way to feel bad about yourself later?”

  Would he have to kill again? Would he feel the same surge of excitement when he did, a thrill that he should not have, if he did?

  Those were questions he had no answers for, and wouldn’t until it came to actually confronting whatever he would be faced with, and whether or not it meant that his friends—what he considered his family now—were in danger.

  And if they were in danger, could he really feel bad about what he might be asked to do?

  When answers didn’t come, Jessa smiled at him. “Come on, Rsiran. We’ve got a different issue to work through.”

  “What issue is that?”

  She focused on the table where many of his forgings rested. She touched a few of the more recent creations, shaking her head as she did. “Such skill,” she whispered. “You didn’t have this same skill when you first started.”