The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  Then he realized it wasn’t lantern light at all, but a softly glowing light from the lorcith that Brusus held.

  Did his knives glow the same way?

  He pulled one from his pocket and held it out from him. The knife glowed just like the others, and with a brighter light than the blue from the heartstone of the bracelets.

  Rsiran smiled to himself. If lorcith would glow like this for him, he wouldn’t ever have to be in the dark again.

  He stuffed the knife back into his pocket. That would be something to understand another time. Now he had to focus on the lorcith that he sensed down on the floor below him.

  Another light, one that wasn’t Brusus’s, moved on the ground below.

  It came from the clearing of crates, the place where Brusus had first brought him when showing him what the Elvraeth possessed here in the warehouse, a way of demonstrating the wealth of the Elvraeth.

  It was a place that Rsiran knew well.

  Focusing on that place, he pulled himself forward.

  When he emerged, he searched for the light that he’d seen, looking for the glow that came from whatever lorcith they carried with them. He found it barely a dozen paces from him.

  “Where is he?” a deep voice whispered.

  Rsiran tensed. Josun’s voice wasn’t that deep. This reminded him more of the man Valn. But how would he have known to find Rsiran here?

  “I can only track him so far,” a woman answered. “He has something that prevents me following. I only catch it in glimpses.”

  That would be Sarah, the woman who could follow his Sliding.

  Had he been careless? Since learning that pulling himself rather than stepping into a Slide would keep him from detection, he had made certain to Slide in that manner only.

  Hadn’t he?

  Rsiran wasn’t sure. Sometimes, he Slid without thinking, so accustomed to simply stepping into the Slide, that he didn’t pay enough attention. It was possible that when Brusus had nearly fallen that he’d Slid to him without pulling himself along.

  Damn. If they had detected that, and come so quickly, then he really had to be more careful.

  But he wanted to know who they were, and why they were tracking him. He suspected that they were either from the Forgotten—which he considered the most likely—or from Venass. And hadn’t he noticed a flash of lorcith on the rocks outside of Thyr?

  Maybe they had warned Thom.

  Rsiran thought that he could incapacitate one of them, but both? And someone who could Slide as well as he could?

  He doubted that he would be able to. Haern had shown him how ineffective he was at defending himself when it came down to it, especially against someone trained as well as they would have to be if they came from Venass.

  Could he follow them? If he could, he might finally find out what happened to his sister.

  “He’s not here,” Valn said.

  The woman sniffed. “I would have detected had he left. He might travel quickly,” she noted, but her tone made it sound as if she found that unlikely, “but everyone who travels leaves a signature.”

  “He knows we’re here. It’s possible he’s chosen to avoid traveling.”

  The woman sighed. “You might be right. And we should get back. Tonight is your turn to guard her.”

  “Guard her? She’s not going anywhere.”

  “Still. You know what they want. And until we have him, we have to guard her.”

  With a flash, the sense of lorcith vanished.

  Rsiran stood there, a trembling sense rolling through him.

  He’d gone to Thyr in search of Thom so that he could find his father, in the hope that he could find his sister, thinking that whoever had come for her wanted his father. But that didn’t seem to be the case at all. They wanted Rsiran.

  But now he knew how to search. With the connection to lorcith, he thought he could find Valn, especially if he remained near the city.

  There was no guarantee, but he would look. And he would get Alyse back.

  Chapter 28

  The night was cool and the distant cry of a cat echoed through the streets. Rsiran lost count of how many he heard. Enough that it didn’t matter what kind of luck they indicated, even if he believed in such things.

  He held onto the sense of lorcith that he had. It was close enough that he could pull himself to it, but that risked revealing himself sooner than what he wanted.

  Jessa had asked him to wait. For her, and for now, he would.

  But he wouldn’t for much longer.

  She pulled on his arm. “Come on,” she urged.

  “Why?”

  “Haern wanted to talk to you.”

  Since leaving the warehouse with Brusus—Sliding back to the Barth—he had wandered the streets, focusing on the sense of lorcith until he found the distinct sense of where Valn hid. Once he latched onto it, he didn’t have to fear losing the connection, even when it jumped—likely when he Slid. Now, Rsiran could follow him.

  If only he had the Elvraeth chains. Then he’d have a way to hold Valn and keep him from Sliding, but he’d given them to Firell as protection against Josun.

  “Where is he?” Rsiran asked.

  “Back at the Barth. He arrived a little after you left.”

  Rsiran knew that he needed to speak to Haern, to understand what he might have discovered, but the sense of Valn was out there… He only had to Slide to him, and now that he had detected the lorcith Valn carried, he knew where to find him.

  “What is it?”

  Rsiran sighed. “I sense him,” he said.

  “Who? Thom? If you sense him, then we should get Brusus before you do anything—”

  Rsiran shook his head. “Not Thom,” he answered. He hadn’t attempted to detect the heartstone within Thom since they’d returned to Elaeavn. There were other things that he’d been focused on, especially now that he knew Valn and Sarah had his sister.

  He needed to follow the sense of lorcith with Valn and reach Alyse, but he didn’t want to do it alone.

  Would Haern help?

  More than even Brusus, Haern would be able to help with someone who could Slide. Haern had already shown him how ineffective his attack would be, and that was with Rsiran’s ability to push knives. Valn had nothing like that ability.

  “When I was with Brusus in the warehouse,” he started.

  Jessa nodded. “You told me that they were there.”

  “But I haven’t told you that I can sense him now. He has one of my knives.”

  Jessa frowned. “Why would he have one of your knives?”

  Rsiran shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably from something with Brusus—”

  “That’s not what I mean,” she said. “You’re thinking that they’re with the Forgotten or with Venass?”

  Rsiran nodded.

  “But both now know about your ability with lorcith. They wouldn’t carry it with them, would they?”

  Rsiran hadn’t considered that before, but now that Jessa said it, he realized that she was right. What if they carried one of his knives with them expecting him to come after them? If he did, he’d only be doing what they wanted then.

  “Come on,” Jessa said. “I can see that you’re upset. Let’s go to Haern and see what he found out. Then you can decide if you want to go running after this guy.”

  Rsiran smiled as he slipped his arm around Jessa, and then pulled them to the Barth.

  They emerged in the alley outside the tavern. The street was empty, and the lantern light dim, barely providing anything more than light to pierce the shadows. The dark, cloudless sky overhead didn’t help, either.

  Rsiran took one of the knives from his pocket and held it out. The knife had a soft glow to it and pressed back the darkness.

  “Thinking of attacking me?” Jessa asked.

  He waved with the knife. “You still don’t see it, do you?”

  “I see the knife, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Not the knife,” Rsiran said. “We
ll, the knife, but you don’t see how it glows?”

  “Nothing like what you’re describing. Whatever happened when you,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “held the crystal, it changed something. I can see it in your eyes.”

  Rsiran tensed. He’d been afraid that he might have changed, and that change might put him or Jessa or Brusus, or even Haern, in danger. Not only his ability to see the glowing light of the lorcith, or the dark blue glow of heartstone, but there was the way he’d jumped into the fight in Thyr. Jessa and Della might not think that the changes were all for the bad, but he wondered.

  And maybe it wasn’t his ability that changed him. Maybe it was just the fact that he’d held one of the Great Crystals when he was not meant to. Hadn’t Della said that only a few were chosen? Those few would have Elvraeth blood. Why would he think that he had the capacity to hold something meant for the Elvraeth?

  Rsiran took Jessa’s hand, thankful for the reassurance that she brought him. Without her, all of this would be much more difficult. Even with her it was difficult, but he couldn’t imagine attempting any of it without her.

  “You’ve got others who care too,” Jessa said softly.

  As she started toward the front of the Barth, Haern burst from the door and saw them. His eyes widened a moment, and he nodded to them.

  “Come. We need to go,” he said.

  “What is it?” Jessa asked.

  Rsiran readied to fight, pulling on the awareness of the knives he carried. He noted that Haern didn’t carry any with him. That would be the reason that Rsiran hadn’t been able to track Haern.

  “Something I Saw.”

  Haern pulled them along the street, guiding them up, away from the docks.

  “I could Slide us,” Rsiran suggested.

  “Don’t need you doing that,” Haern said. “Besides, you need to be better about walking, especially if these others can track you.”

  “Not when I Slide a different way.”

  Haern paused and glanced over his shoulder at him. “That’s not what Brusus tells me. Says you were with him in the warehouse and they appeared. Wouldn’t do that if they didn’t know how to find you.” He started back up the wide street leading away from the docks. “Seems to me that you might think you’re safer than you are. Dangerous to think that way, Rsiran.”

  Rsiran glanced at Jessa and saw her concern. “If they can follow you…”

  “Only when I’m careless,” he told her. “With Brusus, after he tried Reading me, he nearly fell, and I reacted out of instinct, not using my new method.”

  “And if you’re careless with Brusus, what makes you think you won’t be careless where this one is concerned?” Haern asked, nodding toward Jessa. “When it comes to her, you don’t always think clearly.” He looked around long enough to catch Jessa’s eyes. “Sorry, girl, but he doesn’t.”

  “What did you See, Haern?” Jessa asked.

  “Nothing different from what I used to See all the time.”

  “And what was that?” she asked.

  “Darkness. Danger. Death.”

  He pulled them onto a side street as they approached the middle of the city, a place between the wealth of Upper Town and the poverty of Lower Town. It was a place often referred to as the mids, and had been Rsiran’s home until his father exiled him to the mines.

  Music drifted down the street, the kind of up-tempo tune that came from taverns that Rsiran had never dared enter when he’d apprenticed to his father. He hadn’t dared, for fear that his father might find out and punish him, even though his father had never avoided the ale.

  “Why here?” Rsiran asked.

  He started to tense when they made another turn, switching to a street lined with storefronts. Bakers, seamstresses, candlemakers, and even smiths. It was the street where his father’s smithy had been.

  Rsiran slowed, but Haern barreled on, drawing Rsiran up the slope of the street.

  Jessa pulled on his hand. “It’ll be okay, Rsiran.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not going back there.”

  “How do you know that’s where he’s taking us?”

  He could think of nowhere else that Haern would be leading them along this street. Were he taking them to Upper Town, there would be easier ways to reach it.

  Seeing Haern stop in the middle of the street, Rsiran realized that he was right.

  He tipped his head to Haern. “See?”

  Jessa bit her lip. “I don’t know why he’d come here. The smithy is empty, isn’t it?”

  The last time that Rsiran had been here, the smithy had been empty. He didn’t expect that to have changed in the months since then. Other smiths might want access to the forge—his family smithy was one of the larger and best equipped—but it would take time for that to work through the guild, and the Smith Guild was nearly as difficult as the alchemists when it came to allowing movement like that.

  “Let’s see what he has to show us,” Jessa suggested.

  When they reached Haern, he still stood in the middle of the street. “You two think to take a little liaison before coming with me?”

  “Shut it, Haern. We’re with you, aren’t we?” Jessa said.

  “Only because you know better.”

  Jessa smiled. “Rsiran and I want to know what you think to show us here? Why did you bring us to this place?”

  “This place? I know you recognize it, Jessa. You spent long enough watching it, at no small measure of danger to yourself, I would add.”

  In the middle of the street, with the dim lantern light on either side, Rsiran noted how her cheeks flushed. He’d known that Jessa had watched his father’s smithy, but hadn’t realized that she’d put herself in danger to do it.

  “It was empty the last time I was here,” Rsiran said.

  “Yes. Empty. But why is it that I See movement around here?”

  “See or See?” Jessa asked.

  Haern only frowned. “I think you know the answer.”

  “I don’t know. The Smith Guild wouldn’t allow the transfer of the smithy until a specific amount of time has passed,” Rsiran said. “There’s an order to how that is done.”

  “Yes, unless they were under other orders to expedite it.”

  Rsiran wasn’t as connected to the guild as his father had been. As an apprentice, and one not even a journeyman, there had been no reason for him to understand the workings of the guild. His father had made that clear on more than one occasion, usually to journeymen asking questions about the guild that his father thought unnecessary.

  “Who would make such orders?” Jessa asked.

  Rsiran glanced up the street. There were three other smiths nearby, each having operated at a similar level to his father. They were all skilled, and sold their forgings throughout the city. But he sensed no lorcith here, nothing like he would expect to have detected from active smithies.

  “What about the others?” Rsiran asked.

  Haern nodded. “You begin to understand.”

  “I don’t know that I understand, only that I sense something is off.”

  “How?” Haern asked.

  Rsiran looked up and down the street before answering. Talking about his ability with metal wasn’t something that he usually did openly, much like Sliding wasn’t something he did openly. But it was late, and the street was empty.

  “There’s no lorcith,” he said. “With the smithies around here, there should be some, even if the supply is constrained.”

  But that wasn’t true anymore. Ilphaesn no longer was constrained as it had been before. The massive amounts of lorcith stacked within the mountain were testament to that, but what were they for, if not for the smiths to use?

  “The other smithies in this part of the city have been closed for the last month,” Haern answered.

  “Closed?” Rsiran repeated.

  “Brusus tells me that they tried to remain open, but most relied on lorcith sales to the Elvraeth to remain open. When the lorcith stopped coming, and the sale
s stopped happening, most of the smiths weren’t able to keep up. The guild now possesses each of these smithies.”

  “What happened to them?” Rsiran asked.

  Haern shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know, or can’t See?”

  Haern sighed. “My ability isn’t like that, Rsiran. I can’t simply observe something like that without knowing more about it. Maybe it once was, back when I still served Venass, but not any longer. Now, I’m no different from anyone else with my ability.”

  “That’s not true,” Jessa said.

  Haern sniffed. “You’re right. Most with my ability are Elvraeth.”

  They fell silent for a moment. “I still don’t know why you brought us here,” Rsiran said. “What did you want me to see?”

  “First this. I don’t know what’s happening here, but the disappearance of smiths is important somehow, especially after what happened with your father.”

  But he didn’t understand why. His father might be able to work with lorcith, but he’d never been willing to listen to what the ore told him. Without that, anything that he’d make out of it was weaker than it could have been.

  His father would never have been able to listen to lorcith to make bracelets like Rsiran had made. Even if he were willing to listen to the lorcith, he would have to have a well-enough stocked supply to be able to find a piece willing to work with him.

  Would any other smith?

  “You said first this,” Jessa reminded Haern.

  Haern nodded, shadows along his face making the deep frown appear darker, and the scar on his cheek, the one where his implant had been, starker.

  “First this,” he said again, gesturing around them. “It wasn’t the only reason you needed to come here, but this was how I started to make the connection. When I realized what happened to these smiths, and pieced it together with what we know of lorcith, and what Rsiran has told us about Ilphaesn, I started to question other things that I’ve been hearing.”

  “What other things?” Jessa asked.

  Haern shook his head. “It no longer matters.”

  “Then what does?” Frustration came out clearly in her voice, making her louder than she likely intended. Jessa was always careful with noise. It’s what made her such an excellent sneak. “Come on, Haern, stop doing this to us. Why did you bring us here?”