The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  He nodded to Rsiran. “Him. And what he found.”

  A chill ran along Rsiran’s spine at the comment.

  “I think I know what the map is for,” Haern said.

  Rsiran tensed, thinking of the dimensions within the map, contours that were almost familiar, though he couldn’t piece together why they would be. That map had nothing to do with the other sheet of metal that he’d discovered, nothing that would tie them together with a unified purpose other than the fact that they both seemed similar.

  “What then?” Jessa.

  “I’m surprised he doesn’t know. He’s been there before. Hell, he’s the one who took me there.”

  Rsiran felt his heart stop, putting together what Haern said, and beginning to understand why the map might be familiar. The levels and dimensions to it and a place where he had led Haern. A hidden place, and dangerous.

  “The Alchemist Guild?” he whispered.

  Haern nodded. “I think your map is a way through it.”

  As Haern said it, Rsiran sensed the sudden connection of lorcith, a flash from the knife that he’d sensed from Valn.

  He grabbed Jessa and lunged for Haern, and then pulled them to Rsiran’s smithy with a quick Slide.

  Chapter 29

  “I don’t know how he found us,” Rsiran said.

  Haern sat near the hearth, moving a few small logs into place so that it took flames. He frowned as he worked, the irregular lump of heartstone from the explosion resting on the ground next to him. Every so often, he glanced down at it, and lifted it to inspect the heartstone as if something might change from the last time he’d checked it. Once in a while, his eyes wandered to the lorcith Rsiran had arranged around the smithy, before he turned back to the heartstone that had nearly killed Rsiran.

  Rsiran wondered what Haern Saw. Was there something about the heartstone? Haern didn’t have Jessa’s Sight or Rsiran’s ability with the metal itself, but he’d been drawn to it as soon as they emerged in the smithy.

  “You said they can’t detect you when you Slide with this new method,” Jessa said.

  “I don’t think they can. Della couldn’t.”

  “There are things Della cannot do,” Haern said without looking over at them. “Don’t tie your safety into what she can or cannot accomplish.”

  “I’m not tying our safety to it,” Rsiran said, “only that she’s proven capable of detecting and influencing me Sliding. If Della can’t do it, then it isn’t likely that it can be done.”

  Haern stood and dusted his hands off on his pants. “The others with your ability, you’ve seen them?”

  Rsiran nodded. “I’ve seen Josun and a few others, why?”

  “And you commented on how much stronger Josun Elvraeth was with Sliding than you.”

  The first time he’d seen Josun, he hadn’t even realized that he had been Sliding. He had moved so quickly with every step he took, that it had been nearly impossible for him to know.

  “Haern, I understand what you’re implying,” Rsiran said, “but this is Della.”

  “And she would be the first to tell you that she’s not the strongest in everything that she does, wouldn’t she? If we were talking about Healing, I might agree that there is no one like her. But we’re not. And you don’t know if these others can track your Sliding even when you do it this other way.”

  “But I heard what they said.”

  “Maybe they wanted you to hear that,” Haern suggested. “Maybe they knew you were there.”

  Rsiran didn’t think that likely, but it raised a different concern, one that he hadn’t considered as fully as he should have. Della wasn’t the strongest with all of her abilities, and he’d asked her to test Jessa’s bracelets. What if they worked against someone like Della, but wouldn’t work with someone stronger than her?

  Maybe he needed to create another set for her, one with heartstone infused inside them. Heartstone had blocked Brusus, and he suspected that they would keep even Evaelyn from influencing his thoughts, or Compelling him.

  “Even were that true, I didn’t Slide there, Haern,” he said.

  “Then it’s possible they have another way of finding you,” Haern said.

  Again, Rsiran wasn’t in agreement with Haern’s conjecture. Had they known another way of finding him, whether they could detect lorcith like he could, or even heartstone, they would have noticed him in the warehouse. But they hadn’t. And they had thought he’d disappeared.

  That meant that Valn had been at his father’s smithy for a different reason.

  He drew a handful of knives to him from the table and stuffed them into his pocket.

  Jessa jerked her head toward him and her eyes went wide. “Rsiran—”

  “I’ve got to see,” he said. “You can’t be safe with me, not if I need to move quickly.”

  “Don’t do this,” she begged.

  Rsiran stopped in front of her and slipped his arms around her neck and hugged her. He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—leave without making certain that she would be okay with him going. “If she’s there—”

  “You don’t know that she will be,” Jessa said. “And they’ve managed to follow you all over Elaeavn. What happens if they capture you? We wouldn’t know!”

  “They’re not going to capture me,” he said.

  “You didn’t think Shael was going to capture you, either. Or the Forgotten.”

  “This is different,” he said.

  “How can you say that?” She clung to him, refusing to let him go, knowing that if she didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to Slide without taking her with him. “How can you know this will be different?”

  Rsiran let out a steady breath. “Because I’m different. I don’t Slide the same way that they do, and if you come, I’ll be distracted.” He glanced over to where Haern again leaned over the hearth, still studying the misshapen piece of heartstone. “Haern is right. When it comes to you, I don’t always think straight. If I’m worried about you, I don’t know that I’ll be able to act as quickly as I need to.”

  “You did with Thom,” she reminded.

  “That was different. I was taking him away from you. I thought I was keeping you safer.”

  She shook her head and slapped him on the chest. “Didn’t work out as you planned, did it?”

  Rsiran forced a smile. “It usually doesn’t.”

  Jessa sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Rsiran emerged within the enclosed area outside his family smithy. It was a place he knew well, where he’d spent much of his days cleaning up scrap metal and arranging it so that his father would know that he’d been working. It was a place where he could get his bearings before Sliding into the smithy itself.

  Little had changed since he’d last come here. At the same time, so much had changed.

  The air smelled of metal. Iron and copper mostly, but there was a residual odor of lorcith, one that was not nearly as strong as what he sensed in his smithy. Under the metallic scent was the stink from stagnant water. Even with the dim light coming off the bracelets, he could make out a thin film that grew on the surface of the full bucket near the door.

  His father never would have tolerated leaving this area so messy. Rsiran would never have tolerated it, either. A part of him had the urge to start cleaning, to organize the scraps, but that wasn’t why he’d come.

  A narrow window opened into the shop, and Rsiran peered through it.

  Was there motion inside? He couldn’t tell. There was nothing that gave him any sign that someone was in the smithy. For all he knew, Valn had simply emerged along the street by chance.

  Rsiran wouldn’t know anything without Sliding inside.

  Before he did, he checked the door, but it was locked. It would have been too easy for it to be unlocked.

  He considered where to emerge in the smithy. After all the time he’d spent here growing up, he knew this smithy nearly as well as he knew the one he currently occupied. His attachment to it was different, though. This w
as to have been his some day, but he’d abandoned hope of that ever happening the moment he Slid away from Ilphaesn and did not return. The smithy he had now suited him. Even if it would never officially be his.

  Once he decided, he pulled the image into mind and Slid, emerging in his father’s old office.

  The last time that he’d been here, it had been empty except for a collection of papers that Rsiran still hadn’t deciphered. Much like the rest of the smithy had been empty. It was the best place for him to emerge, knowing that if the office were empty, there would be no place for someone to attack him from behind.

  He readied all the knives that he possessed, while at the same time fixing an image of the hidden mine within Ilphaesn in his mind. If he needed to Slide away, he would do so to somewhere they wouldn’t be able to follow. The bars of alloy prevented anyone but him from reaching there.

  Nothing moved.

  Rsiran started to allow himself to relax, but was that a sound he heard?

  He couldn’t be certain.

  He took a step forward, moving as quietly as he could. When he reached the door to the main part of the smithy, he hesitated. With the darkness—even with his enhanced Sight—he couldn’t see anything. He needed light.

  Or one of his knives.

  Rsiran pulled a small knife from his pocket, careful that it didn’t make noise jostling against any others. It glowed with a bright light that pushed away some of the nearer shadows, but not enough for him to completely see.

  He pushed against the knife, sending it across the smithy before he pulled it back.

  Rsiran wasn’t sure what he expected to see. The smithy was empty, no different from when he’d been here before.

  He sent the knife again, this time in a different direction, sweeping toward the forge. He didn’t let the knife sail fully across the smithy, and pulled back when it reached the door. Still nothing.

  Why had Valn been here?

  There was nothing in the smithy to explain why he might have come.

  And no sign of Alyse.

  That was the worst part for him. All of this, everything that he’d been doing, for a sister who didn’t care whether he lived. But Rsiran couldn’t simply do nothing, not if she was trapped, and not if she needed help that only he could offer.

  Rsiran stepped out of the office and into the smithy itself. As he did, the bracelets on his arms went cool, then cold.

  Someone was trying to Read him.

  Where?

  He pulled three knives from his pockets and sent them around the room, leaving them in each of the corners. Not for anchors, though they would work in that capacity if needed, but for the bright white light that radiated from them. He didn’t know if any others could see the white light—but since Jessa and Brusus could not, he didn’t think others could—but the light somehow gave him enough to see, to clear the shadows out of the smithy.

  Nothing moved.

  The bracelets remained cold.

  Someone tried to Read him, but they either weren’t in the smithy, or they somehow hid from him.

  He focused on lorcith, on the connection to the metal. When he’d detected Valn before, he’d carried one of Rsiran’s knives with him. Only the knives that he’d brought into the smithy resonated for him.

  But there was a distant sense of lorcith, one that he recognized, and different from all the others that existed throughout the city. With as much as he’d produced, there were many of his forgings scattered around the city, but that was around the city, this was under it.

  Beneath him.

  Like all buildings in Elaeavn, the smithy was built on the side of the rocky slope leading down to the bay. The palace stood above most—but not all; Krali Rock towered over everything, and there were a few buildings staggered around the base of Krali that rose higher than the palace—but like everything in the city, there was nothing but rock below the building.

  Or so Rsiran had thought.

  His father never revealed a lower level to the smithy, but what he sensed was unmistakable. It came from beneath him, and far enough that he could just barely get the sense of the lorcith.

  Rsiran could Slide to it, use the knife he detected as an anchor, but what would he find?

  Would he appear somewhere that Valn and anyone helping him would be? Or would it only be Valn?

  Rsiran made his way around the smithy, looking for sign of something—anything—that would help him find a way below the smithy, but there was nothing.

  Either he risked himself and Slid, or he didn’t go down.

  Chapter 30

  Rsiran returned to his smithy. Jessa and Haern stood talking silently near the hearth. She looked up as soon as he emerged, relief washing over her face.

  “What did you find?” she asked.

  Rsiran held the knives that he’d used for light around the smithy, and shook his head. “Nothing in the smithy.”

  Jessa glanced at Haern. “I’m glad you came back to us—”

  “I need to go back,” he said. “But I need your help.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t find anything in the smithy, but I sensed the knife—the same one I’ve sensed on Valn each time I’ve seen him—beneath the smithy.”

  Haern turned slowly. “Did you know there was a space beneath the smithy?”

  Rsiran shook his head. “There should be nothing.”

  A troubled expression crossed Haern’s face. “And you think to bring Jessa with you to find a way down?”

  “I could Slide,” Rsiran began, “but then I don’t know where I would end up, or what I would find. If they know I’ve discovered it, any advantage of surprise we might have is lost.”

  “What if the only way down is by Sliding?” Jessa asked.

  “There would be another way in,” Haern suggested. “If there is something”—from his tone, it sounded as if he wasn’t convinced—“then there would need to be a way in for those who couldn’t Slide as Rsiran does.”

  That had been Rsiran’s hope. Carrying someone else in a Slide was difficult enough. It got easier with practice, and he’d taken Jessa with him enough times that he did it without the same strain that he’d once experienced Sliding, but others who didn’t have someone like Jessa would have to exert themselves significantly. It made it more likely that there was some other way below.

  “I could use your help as well, Haern” Rsiran said.

  Haern stared at the misshapen lump of heartstone on the ground and shook his head. “Not this way. I need to find Brusus and look into something first.” He ran his finger along his scar, and his eyes went distant the way that they did when he attempted a Seeing. “I find him, then we’ll come looking for you.”

  “You won’t know how to find us,” Rsiran said.

  Haern frowned at him. “You think I can’t follow you?”

  “I don’t want to wait,” Rsiran started. “Not if they have—”

  Haern looked up and nodded once. “Don’t wait. What I can See tells me that you can’t wait.”

  Haern made his way past Rsiran, pausing at the table to grab a pair of his knives, and then left the smithy, pulling the door tightly behind him.

  Jessa locked the door, slipping the bars into place in the ground and over the frame. “What would he need to tell Brusus that was so urgent?”

  “I don’t know, but he told me not to wait.” What had Haern Seen that would make him rush out? And what was it about the piece of heartstone that troubled him so much? Haern had stared at it from the moment he’d emerged in the smithy.

  Rsiran lifted it from the ground and carried it to the table. As he did, he focused on the heartstone within it, connecting to the way the metal pulled on him. Was there something more to the heartstone than he realized? Was there something that Haern had detected that he had missed?

  Rsiran found nothing that made any sense. He could tell the contours and the layers to the metal, but nothing more than that.

  When he set it down, he turned to Jess
a and she nodded.

  Using his memory of the smithy, he Slid, pulling them forward, drawing them into the office of the smithy.

  Something was different than it had been even moments before.

  Rsiran raised a finger to his lips, warning Jessa to silence.

  He pulled a pair of knives from his pocket and sent them skimming through the smithy. The light from them let him see, enough that he noted the way the stone near the back of the forge appeared different.

  Had it been that way the last time he’d been here?

  Nothing else appeared different. He pulled the knives back to him and kept them out, ready to push again if needed.

  “What was that?” Jessa whispered.

  “I needed to see if something was different,” he said.

  “With your knives? That glow I can’t see?”

  He held them out for her to take. The glow wasn’t as pronounced as when he held them, but enough that it lit her face. “They give me light,” he told her. “That’s the change in my Sight.” He had thought that when holding the crystal, he’d somehow been granted Sight, and he had, only it was different from the kind of Sight that Jessa possessed. His worked together with lorcith—and heartstone—to give him his ability.

  “That’s… weird,” she said.

  He shrugged. “It’s what it is. Look near the forge. Tell me what you see.”

  Rsiran pushed one of the knives toward the forge as Jessa focused on it. She frowned, her brow furrowed deeply, and then shook her head. “I don’t see anything,” she said.

  With the light coming off the knife, Rsiran could make out the way the stone pushed slightly away from the floor, but not directly under the forge, only behind it, in a place that would be otherwise difficult to reach.

  “There’s nothing here, Rsiran,” she said.

  That had been what he had noted. The sense of lorcith remained, but if anything, was even more distant than when he’d sensed it before.