The Darkest Revenge

by D. K. Holmberg

  Haern ran his hand along the wall. It was slightly warm and completely smooth, like no forging he’d seen before.

  There were no hammer marks within it, and it was far too large to have been simply carved out of the space, especially here at the heart of the Aisl, where this would’ve been earth and nothing more.

  And it wasn’t a forging. It was something else.

  Haern stared at the walls, trying to imagine how much power his father would have needed to form this structure. That was what he had done, Haern was certain of it. Given what he knew about his father’s control over lorcith—and other metals—it was all too easy to believe that his father had been the one responsible for this. And if so, he could have crafted it without heating it the way any others of the Smith Guild would have needed to.

  “Why does he keep it here?”

  “The forest provides a certain amount of protection,” his mother said softly. “And then there are the protections that he has placed upon the city. The combination allows him the confidence to believe the Forgers aren’t able to fully reach here. At least, not easily. If they were able to reach this room and find where your father has been hiding the items he’s stolen from them, all of the Aisl would be in danger.”

  “I don’t understand. What is it that he hopes to learn from them?”

  “I don’t know. Over the years, I had thought your father wanted simply to defeat the Forgers, but as their attacks grew less and less frequent, his desire changed. He’s changed. He wants to destroy them, and he blames them for the attack that took place twenty years ago.”

  “And you don’t?”

  His mother stared at the floor. “They were probably responsible, but again, that was twenty years ago. There have been other attacks, and I’m sure there will be many more, but what he did…”

  “What did he do?”

  She looked up at him. “He’s destroyed everything they created. Everything he can find that they are responsible for, he’s brought down. There should be nothing left of the Forgers, and yet…”

  She didn’t need to finish. Despite everything he had done, his father continued to push, searching for closure that might not even exist, not when it came to the Forgers and their attack on the city.

  But then, he knew how his father could be and he recognized the intensity he had. He kept it to himself, and Haern didn’t fully understand it. Maybe he never would. Seeing this room, witnessing just how far his father would go to defeat the Forgers, Haern realized he might never really know his father.

  “Can you show me to this body?” his mother asked. Haern nodded. “And if the Forgers have reached us, we need to send word to your father.”

  He nodded again. “You have some way of doing it?”

  “Not easily, but there is a way.”

  He hoped that she might elaborate, but she didn’t. Haern only smiled. It had been that way his entire life.

  “When will he be done with all of this?” Haern asked.

  She looked around the room before her gaze settled on him. “I have to trust your father will know.”

  “What if he doesn’t? What if in his eagerness to continue to attack, he doesn’t know when to stop?”

  His mother smiled at him. “That’s where I come in.”

  “You think you can convince Father to stop?”

  She closed her eyes. “If I can’t, then no one can,” she said softly.

  5

  Haern

  The return to the forest happened in little more than the blink of an eye. Haern held on to one of the Sliding Guild—a stocky man named Jason—letting the man Slide him, trying not to focus on how much more capable Jason was. There was power to Jason. It was more than simply his ability to Slide; it was something that came from within him, a sense of power that Haern didn’t have. Or maybe it was simply a sense of purpose.

  His mother appeared with another Slide, accompanied by a senior guild member. Aria had a serious expression and managed to travel just as quickly as Jason, though she had brought two others with her.

  “Where now?” his mother asked.

  “It’s nearby,” he said. It had taken them a few attempts to find their way here. Without the Slider’s ability to know exactly where he’d gone, they had been forced to experiment, hopping from place to place without any real idea of where they needed to go. Reaching the river was easy enough, but going from the river to where he had left the body was trickier.

  The trees around here were much more familiar to him, and he found the tree that he’d climbed and hacked the branches from. He still held on to Lucy’s sword, stuffing it within his belt, feeling somewhat ridiculous carrying it in the first place. He wasn’t skilled enough to use it, but until he found Lucy, he wasn’t going to leave the sword behind.

  When Haern motioned to the tree, Jason Slid up to one of the upper branches, running his hand along the surface where Haern had cut off the branch. He returned with a flash of colors.

  “I could have told you what I did,” he said.

  “That was you?” Jason asked.

  Haern grunted. “That was me.”

  “How did you get up there?”

  “I climbed. Not all of us are blessed the same way you are.”

  Jason glanced at him, but Haern ignored him.

  “Where did you leave this body?” his mother asked.

  Haern guided them to the space near the trees. The branches had been pushed aside, and the body was missing.

  He crouched down in front of it, frowning. “It was here. I left her—”

  “Are you sure it’s a her?” his mother asked.

  “She had long hair and a narrow jawline. She was bloated, so it wasn’t that easy to tell anything else about her.”

  “Jessa, we don’t even know if—”

  His mother cut Aria off before she could finish, glancing over to him. Haern only shook his head. It figured that the Sliders wouldn’t believe him. As if he would make this up.

  “What else can you tell me about her?” his mother asked.

  “I pulled her from the water over here,” he said, leading his mother back to the shores. She had changed into deep green clothes, a jacket and pants that blended into the forest. They were made of high-quality wool and were almost as nice as what he’d seen on the woman he had pulled from the water. “She was dressed almost like you are,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She wore a jacket and pants, though they weren’t of the same kind of wool. They were a little nicer, if I’m being honest.”

  His mother clenched her jaw and breathed out. “Do you think your friend came back through here?”

  “If she did, why would she have moved her?” For that matter, why wouldn’t Lucy have returned to the heart of the Aisl? It still troubled Haern that she hadn’t come back, essentially abandoning him. That wasn’t the kind of thing Lucy would do.

  “Maybe she wanted to be the one to bring the body to us,” Jason said.

  Haern looked over at him. He didn’t know Jason well. He was about ten years older than Haern and knew his father far better than he knew Haern. He had short brown hair, and his deep green eyes were a reminder of how much lighter Haern’s were. Along with his ability to Slide, Jason had some affinity for lorcith, making him more like his father than Haern himself.

  “Let’s just agree that’s not what Lucy would have done.”

  “Then where did your friend disappear to?” Jason asked.

  “That’s just it. I. Don’t. Know.” He tried pushing down his frustration, but it was getting the best of him. Maybe it was nothing more than this situation, the body, and the fact that he had no idea what had happened to Lucy.

  “And now your friend and this body have disappeared?”

  He looked over to his mother, but she watched him, a question in her eyes. Did she not believe him either?

  “Do you think it could be one of the Forgers?” Aria asked.

  “They shouldn’t be able to reach us
here, not with everything Rsiran did to protect us, but the item Haern found suggests that they have.”

  Haern made his way along the shore, staring out at the water. He found the space where he had shoved the branches out into the water and pulled the body back to shore. The rocks left no trace of what he’d done, but there was a smear of mud along the shoreline, and he followed it back toward the branches. From here, he found nothing else to explain where the body had been dragged.

  He motioned to the dirt scattered all around where he had pulled her out. “There’s nothing beyond here. Whoever was here took her by Sliding.”

  “Then it was your friend.”

  “It wasn’t Lucy.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Haern breathed out in a frustrated sigh. He couldn’t be sure, but that wasn’t the point—at least not all of it. Lucy wouldn’t have disappeared. And she certainly wouldn’t have taken a body from here. If she wanted to do that, she wouldn’t have come for Haern in the first place. That suggested something else had happened.

  He cursed himself for not looking for Lucy before.

  Trailing along the water’s edge, he searched for signs of where his friend might’ve gone. When his mother called after him, Haern ignored her. He continued forward, following the current, wishing Lucy had kept her sword; Haern would have been able to detect it. Detecting something he had forged was easier than picking up on random lorcith.

  Could Lucy have had anything else on her that he could use? Closing his eyes, he focused on the sense of lorcith.

  As it often was, the sense was there. There was the nearby sensation that came from his knives and swords, and there was that of lorcith carried by the two Sliders. As far as Haern knew, it was made by his father, and with more skill than Haern possessed. His grandfather believed he had potential, though Haern didn’t think he cared enough to reach that potential. There was the sense of lorcith that came from his mother, who wore a ring given to her by his father. She had another trinket, a necklace that was exquisitely made, demonstrating the extent of his father’s skill. All of that was nearby.

  But there was something else.

  Haern hurried along the shoreline. He moved away from the water, heading toward the trees, and tracked the sense of lorcith. He should have done this before.

  A small lump of lorcith buried in the ground, nothing more, pulled on his attention. Haern reached for it when his mother’s voice called to him.

  When he reached her, she stood next to Jason. “There’s nothing here, Haern.”

  “There was.”

  “I believe you, but there’s not now. We’ll return to the city, see if I can’t get word to your father, and then figure out what you discovered.” She nodded to Jason, and he Slid her away.

  More than ever, he wanted the ability to travel the same way. Maybe there was some way he could hold one of the sacred crystals, to be granted that ability, though his understanding of the crystals left him thinking it didn’t work quite like that. They granted abilities, changing the people who held them, but they offered only the gifts of the Great Watcher, not those of the Elder Trees.

  Haern looked for Aria and found her near the shore.

  “This is where you pulled the body from the water?” she asked as he approached.

  The water burbled softly, somehow peaceful despite what had taken place here. “Yes. I don’t know how long—”

  Jason appeared, staggering toward Aria. Blood stained his shoulder.

  “What happened?” she snapped.

  “Attack,” he said, breathless. Aria clenched her jaw and disappeared with a shimmer of color. Jason turned to Haern. “Your mother wanted me to get you out of here, far away.”

  Haern looked toward the heart of the forest, his heart hammering. “She wanted me to go?”

  “Come. We’re going to—”

  “Take me back to the Aisl.”

  “That wasn’t what she wanted.”

  “I don’t care what she wanted. I can help.”

  Jason shook his head. “The attack is too much.”

  Haern reached into his pockets and pulled the knives out. He pushed on his sense of lorcith, hovering the knives into the air. It took a great effort of focus, but the metal responded to him. If nothing else, he had that aspect of his father’s ability, though not as pronounced.

  “I can help. I might not be a fighter, and I might not be able to Slide, but I’m not useless.”

  Jason studied him before grabbing his arm. When they Slid, Haern half-expected to emerge somewhere far from Elaeavn, but they appeared in the heart of the forest.

  As Jason had said, fighting came from all around them. More than that, he detected strange pulsations against him. It was lorcith, but unlike anything he had sensed before.

  Jason released him. “Don’t die,” he said.

  “Where’s the attack? I feel—”

  Jason shook his head. “The attack is everywhere.” He Slid away, disappearing with a flicker.

  The trees should prevent the Forgers from accessing them, shouldn’t they? And if not the trees, then the lorcith barriers his father had placed should do it.

  Haern heard an explosion and was drawn toward it.

  What had happened to his mother?

  What about others who didn’t have the ability to defend themselves? He thought of Nevrah, and couldn’t imagine how she might be faring. There shouldn’t be an attack on the Aisl. Everything he had been told suggested that his father had protected it.

  Unless something had happened to his father.

  He caught a flicker of movement at the edge of the forest. Between a pair of trees stood someone dressed much like the body he had seen before. They were short and slender and had black hair flowing down to the middle of their back.

  That was not anyone who lived in Elaeavn.

  He pushed on his knives.

  Haern had seen his father using knives in such a way. He was incredibly skilled and could manipulate the metal in a way that no others could, practically as if it were a part of him. Haern had practiced but had never really taken the time to master the same skills.

  It didn’t matter. All he needed to do was send the knives streaking toward the person.

  He had no control. They struck the figure in the chest, and blood bloomed around the blade. Their eyes widened, and they pointed in his direction.

  Haern pulled on the lorcith.

  From what his father had told him, the key was pushing and pulling on the metal, using his connection to it to make it a part of him. Never had he had a real need to do so until now. Everything had been little more than an exercise, with his father trying to demonstrate how he could use the connection to forge the metal.

  This was life or death.

  Another figure appeared, and as the knives returned to him, he pushed again.

  Somehow his father had the ability to change the direction in the air as the knives streaked away from him, but Haern didn’t have that much control. They went straight at the man, only none were aimed correctly. One knife sliced across the man’s shoulder, probably cutting deeply, but it didn’t slow him. Haern pulled on the knives, drawing them back to himself.

  Three people started toward him.

  Haern stood frozen in place. A power emanated from them, and as much as he tried to ignore it, he could tell it was similar to that of lorcith. Over the years, his father had described the way the Forgers used metal to steal power that should not be theirs, but Haern had never seen one before. He’d never felt their power.

  It startled him, leaving him uncertain how to move.

  The figures turned toward him.

  Get yourself together. Haern should be better than this. His father would be ashamed.

  He pulled on his knives, which came streaking back toward him. When they neared, he tried to split his attention, sending them off in either direction, but his control wasn’t enough.

  A shimmering appeared behind one of the men, and Jason appeared
, his sword slashing across the man before he disappeared with another shimmer.

  The suddenness jarred Haern, and he pushed on his knives again, sending them toward the nearest woman, targeting her legs. The blades cut through her thighs, carving deep, and she collapsed.

  Letting out a deep sigh, Haern drew them back to himself.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he managed to say.

  The Forger stalked toward him, and Haern had no choice but to push on the knives.

  Rather than crashing into the Forger, they stopped in midair, then went shooting straight up into the sky, no longer under his control. The Forger somehow managed to take control over his knives, and he stared after them, not knowing what he needed to do.

  Another shimmer appeared, and there came a Slide.

  The Forger twisted toward it, stabbing with a slender blade.

  Aria fell, dropping to the ground in a spray of blood.

  The Forger turned her attention back to Haern, holding the weapon out in front of her. Blood stained its surface, and spikes ran along the side. It was similar to what he had taken off the body, only that one didn’t have spikes.

  Or did it?

  Haern backed away, keeping his hands raised fearfully in front of him. The Forger approached steadily, slowly, and there was nothing he could do to get away from her. The strange weapon was aimed at him, and even as he held his hand up to avoid it, a surge of power came from it that left him trembling.

  When the attack came, Haern was scarcely ready. The barbed spikes shot out of the end of the wand and streaked toward him.

  He did the only thing he could think of: he pushed.

  The spikes were lorcith—or near enough that he could detect them—but for some reason, they didn’t react to his connection to the metal.

  There was no escaping the attack.

  One of the spikes pierced his arm. Haern screamed.

  Another shot into his shoulder. Still another struck his thigh. With each one, pain surged through him, and he cried out.

  The Forger continued toward him, each step a taunt.

  Haern collapsed to his knees, looking up at her. “Why?”