The Darkest Revenge

by D. K. Holmberg

  She turned, looking around, but there was nothing here.

  How were they holding her back from Sliding?

  It wasn’t the same as before. Before, she’d had no connection to her abilities, as if they had separated her from them, but this was something else. This was as if they were trapping her.

  Surprisingly, it reminded her somewhat of the heartstone bars around the palace.

  That wouldn’t make sense. If there were heartstone here, she wouldn’t have been able to Slide here in the first place.

  Unless it had been arranged in such a way as to prevent her from Sliding away again.

  If that was the case, then they knew where she was going to go, and they knew how to hold her.

  How?

  Lucy ran, heading off into the darkness, suddenly aware that she was barefoot as the cobblestones scraped her feet. She ignored the pain, hurrying as quickly as she could to get ahead of these men. Whatever they were after, she was determined to avoid them, to get to safety before they did anything to her.

  If they captured her, they would likely sedate her again. They had made a mistake once, and somehow she had a hard time believing that they would make the same mistake again. They would realize that she needed more of whatever it was they had given her to prevent her from Sliding in the first place—probably because of her implant. There would be no escape next time.

  She turned a corner, and the strange dark-haired man was there. He smiled at her. “Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”

  “Leave me alone!”

  He smiled at her. “Do you think that anyone here will come for you?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “You will be incredibly useful to me—I don’t think they realize how useful.”

  Lucy turned, heading around the corner and crashing into a massive man. He was immense, made entirely of muscle, and she slammed into his chest, bouncing back and falling onto her buttocks.

  She scrambled to her feet, backing away and attempting to Slide, but as before, the attempt failed.

  She noticed a side street and raced toward it.

  As she did, she realized her mistake. It wasn’t a side street but an alley. She hurried down it, but the buildings squeezed closer and closer together, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to escape from here very easily.

  She attempted to Slide and once again failed. With each step, she tried the Slide again. When she reached the end of the alley, there was no place for her to go.

  Lucy turned around, but she didn’t need to do so to know that the men were approaching.

  The dark-haired man came toward her, his hands out, and she realized that he held something in his other hand.

  It was a chain.

  “No.”

  Her voice caught, and she trembled, trying to back away, but she couldn’t go anywhere. If she could scramble up the side of this building, she would.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let them use you the way they prefer to use others from your homeland. No… I have something far more interesting planned for you.”

  Lucy shook her head, and when he reached her, she thrashed and fought violently, but it only seemed to increase his interest. She screamed out, but a hand clamped over her mouth, silencing her. When the cold of metal snapped around her wrist, she began to cry. She continued to scream, but there was no point. Even if anyone was out there, even if anyone was listening, it seemed unlikely that they would be able to help her.

  That was, if they were even willing to try.

  The dark-haired man slammed something else along her other wrist, and she realized that her arms were bound together.

  “You will find that this is a much more tolerable way to keep you home.”

  “Let me go.”

  He smiled. “Not yet. Soon. But not yet.”

  With that, he Slid, dragging her with him.

  17

  Lucy

  Lucy paced around the inside of the small room, trying to keep her mind off what she had experienced so far. Her wrists throbbed, but after she had slipped out of her cuffs once before, her captor had made sure to keep them on tight. They prevented her from Sliding, and though she hated that, it was better than the alternative.

  At least they didn’t sedate her. She figured that would be far worse, and the fact that she still had her wits about her gave her hope that she would eventually figure out some way of getting out of this. But so far, she hadn’t managed to come up with anything.

  The room was small, only a few paces across in either direction, large enough for a narrow bed and a small table with a washbasin resting on top of it. A mirror hung on the wall, and there were strange letters etched on the surface in a language she didn’t understand. Regardless, they felt almost like a warning, as if whoever had occupied the space before her had wanted to alert whoever else might be here to what they might encounter.

  She was dressed in a simple cotton gown, plain white other than a stripe of blue along the hemline. Surprisingly, it fit her fairly well, and she wondered how many others they had to have captured over the years for them to have known her size without measuring her.

  Unless they had measured her while she was out. There was a period of time she didn’t remember.

  Actually, there were several periods of time she didn’t remember.

  Not only did she have no memory of the first day after her capture, but when they had chased her out into the city and brought her back here, they had used some sedative on her that had stolen her ability to think, making her complacent. It had taken away her desire to fight, something she suspected they had counted on.

  What they hadn’t counted on, as far as she could tell, was her ability to handle those sedatives as quickly as she did. Lucy didn’t know if it was something about her or something about the metal that had buried itself in her head, but either way, she was thankful. Were it not for that, she likely would have lost herself by now.

  Every so often, she attempted to Slide, but the cuffs held her in place. They were likely heartstone, but if so, they were a different alloy than what existed in Elaeavn. The heartstone there had a bluish hue to it, and it made for a lovely color, one that adorned the walls of the palace in a way that was both decorative and functional. The cuffs were more of a flat gray, almost a silver.

  When she had first been brought here and come around, she’d hoped she might be able to escape, even if her hands remained cuffed together. If she could escape, then she would be able to find someone—likely Daniel—who would be able to free her from her cuffs.

  That hadn’t been her first mistake, but it was the one that hurt the most, even now.

  There was something about the cuffs that caused a rebound when she attempted to Slide. It left her in pain, a strange sort of throbbing agony that echoed within her mind. The metal diminished some of her other abilities too, though not all. Her Sight was unchanged, though in the room, there was little benefit to it. Any ability to Listen was diminished, muted, though not gone completely, but there was very little to be gained from hearing the muted voices all around either. And as the cuffs also seemed to diminish her ability to Read, she wasn’t able to distinguish the various voices she heard all around her.

  The only other ability that remained was one she didn’t fully understand yet.

  Lucy had never been much of a skilled Seer, but ever since the implant had been placed, that ability had been augmented like so many others, increased so that she saw the possibilities before her in ways she hadn’t before. The challenge was in understanding how to use that gift, and seeing as how she didn’t comprehend what was involved in it, she hadn’t been able to discover the key to uncovering the various possibilities.

  Now was as good a time as any to try.

  Maybe they didn’t know about that ability, though she found that unlikely. They seemed to know all about her other abilities, so ignorance in that would be particularly surprising.

  It was also possible that they wante
d her to have her ability. They hadn’t told her what they intended for her, but she suspected it had something to do with her Elvraeth abilities. They had provided food and water and had not laid a hand on her other than to place the painful cuffs on her wrist—nothing that put her in any immediate danger. Just as surprising was the fact that they hadn’t brought her out of the city as far as she could tell. The moment they did, she feared she would be lost forever. She had no illusions about her ability to fight her way to freedom, and if they sedated her—even intermittently—she doubted she could free herself if it came down to it.

  Their people had many talented Seers over the years, and particularly powerful visions had been documented, though for the most part, they were difficult to interpret. Those that were more likely—and more actionable—were typically the clearest. Other versions were far more difficult to understand, and it was something that the Elvraeth scholars, few as they were, had studied extensively. There were some who believed that their people’s future could be found in the visions of the very first of the Elvraeth.

  Lucy didn’t know if that was true or not. If the very first Elvraeth visions were anything like the one she was having, they wouldn’t be very useful. Those visions were difficult for her to parse, and while there were possibilities, they were overwhelming, making it difficult for her to understand them.

  If she could figure out what they meant, she might be able to find some way of escaping. That was her hope, faint as it was. All she needed was to discover one possibility that led to her freedom.

  Closing her eyes, focusing on the possibilities, she tried to think through what would be necessary for her to escape, but the longer she thought of it, the harder it was for her to come up with anything of use. Every time she focused on escaping from the cuffs, she had a strange series of visions that involved her attacking other people from Elaeavn. In some of them, she saw Rsiran, but he was weak and haggard and looked as if he had been beaten.

  She tried to focus on other possibilities. Her captors. If she could figure out what they intended for her, she might be able to plan, and figure out how much she needed to fight. But the various visions that flashed in her mind were impossible to piece together. Partly because they happened so rapidly, but also they were so much stronger than any vision she’d had before. Always before, when she’d had a fluttering of a vision, there had been the hope that it was real, but never the expectation. Her ability to See was not that potent.

  Lucy breathed out.

  It didn’t seem she was going to uncover anything this way, which meant she would have to come up with another way out.

  As she had before, she focused on the cuffs. There had to be a lock to them, but she hadn’t found one. Perhaps the key was some kind of control over the metal itself. From being around Haern, she understood that was most likely the case. It would be an incredibly effective lock, as only those with the right ability would be able to unlock it.

  But then, it wouldn’t be effective against someone like Rsiran, who would likely be able to unlock the cuffs, free himself, and escape.

  In which case, she imagined they would use another way of preventing his escape. Probably the same sort of compound they had administered to her when they’d first captured her.

  Muted sounds of footsteps approached, and she turned to face the door. She wasn’t about to get to her feet, not intending to greet them with any sign of respect. They didn’t deserve it, and she wasn’t about to show them that she feared them. It was better to come across as unafraid, though she was terrified.

  When the door opened, the dark-haired man poked his head inside. He saw her sitting there, her arms resting on her legs, and a grin spread on his face.

  “Have you discovered the secret?”

  Lucy considered ignoring him, but there was value in trying to draw him into a conversation. Without being able to Read, the only way she would find out what she needed would be to convince him that she wasn’t a threat.

  “You have control over this metal.”

  The man tipped his head in a slight nod. “We do.”

  “And you knew that I didn’t.”

  He shrugged. “We have been working with various alloys over the years to find one more difficult for your kind to manipulate.”

  Lucy held his gaze for a moment. “My kind, or Rsiran Lareth?”

  His eyes twitched at the name. “Is there a difference?”

  Lucy shrugged. “You do realize that not all of my people are like him, don’t you?”

  “Quite so. If they were, we would never have been able to push as far as we have.”

  “And how far have you pushed?”

  “Do you think that you can manipulate the conversation to get me to reveal something that I would not?”

  Lucy’s heart hammered for a moment. It was almost as if he were Reading her, but even trapped as she was, she made a point of holding her mental barriers in place. She didn’t know if it was effective, but they would have to be incredibly powerful Readers in order to overpower her.

  Then again, if they started with someone like her, someone with even a middling strength at Reading, and used their horrible augmentations, they could turn them into an incredibly powerful Reader.

  “You don’t think I can?”

  “I don’t think you are as skilled as you should be.”

  “Why should I be?”

  “Your kind have always depended upon your connection to your abilities, and once you have them, you’ve never pushed to try to gain more strength. It’s why you fear the gifts we offer when instead you should embrace them.”

  Lucy was tempted to reach for the back of her head, but with her hands bound together, she couldn’t. Nonetheless, she could feel the metal. With each passing day, it felt as if it changed, as if the metal was something alive, pressing into the back of her head in order to transform her, to make her into something else, something that the Forgers wanted but that she very much did not.

  “Do you force all of your followers to take such a gift?”

  “Most come for them willingly. You are unique. Be thankful that we offer you such a gift.”

  Lucy glared at him. “I’m not sure that I feel particularly lucky.”

  The man stared at her for a long moment. “Why did you come to Eban?”

  Before, he had tried to gather information about her and her family, and even tried to understand more about Daniel, but so far Lucy had managed to avoid those questions. If they had someone capable of Reading, she had no idea how long she would be able to do so. Given enough time, a strong Reader might eventually get those answers regardless of what she wanted.

  “We were trying to go to Asador.”

  Why had she said that?

  It was as if she were compelled to answer, but that didn’t feel right. She’d wanted to keep from this man why they were out of the city; she hadn’t wanted him to know they were here to find a way to get this implant removed.

  “Lareth,” the man breathed out.

  He had Read her. She was certain.

  Now she understood what he was after. He was trying to force her mind down one track. It made it easier for someone to Read you if you had a singular thought at the forefront of your mind rather than the usual jumble that made it difficult to know the answers to particular questions. She might be far more gifted as a Reader than she had been before, but that didn’t mean she could find any answers she wanted. That required time and skill and, in this man’s case, apparently a way of digging for answers.

  He smiled at her. “See? You have much to learn.”

  “Why do you have me here?”

  “I’ll admit, we would not have captured you, but as the device had already been used on you—and effectively, I might add—you became something unexpected. A gift.”

  Lucy clenched her jaw. She tried to slam her barriers into place, but the same time, she forced a dozen different thoughts into the forefront of her mind. It was another trick, a way of confounding a powerf
ul Reader, and it took considerable skill. Had she not spent so much time around the Elvraeth, she might not have been able to manage it. If she couldn’t disarm him, at least she would try to make it difficult for him to follow the train of her thoughts.

  “That is an interesting trick. Not many of your kind ever learn to master it as well as they could. Some of these memories you offer are quite impressive. You don’t really care for your sister, do you?”

  Lucy shook with anger. The memory of her sister was an old one, buried deep, and should be harmless. In that memory, her sister had tormented her and Lucy had snapped, throwing a plate of food at her. She had the sudden realization that memory would tie to other memories of her sister, and someone with any skill could harvest those memories in a way that would allow him to fully understand the way she thought.

  “You really do catch on quite quickly,” he said.

  Lucy tried to force him out of her head. She thought of rocks and sand down the beach, but other thoughts kept intruding. She knew it was dangerous. Any thought that came to mind could lead her to reveal things she didn’t want to. She had to hold on to that knowledge as if it were a prize; otherwise, he might learn enough about her that he could target people she cared about.

  “What did you think Lareth would be able to do for you?” the man asked.

  “I want this out of my head,” she said.

  “Lareth wouldn’t be able to help with that.”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “I know him better than most.”

  Lucy regarded the man for a long moment. “Who are you?”

  “Someone who was called to Eban because of your potential.”

  “And you know Rsiran?”

  “He and I have had interactions over the years.”

  “You must be thrilled that he’s gone.”

  “Is he?”

  Lucy frowned. Had she just revealed something she shouldn’t have? As far as they knew, the Forgers had been the ones who’d captured Rsiran, but this was a Forger standing before her.

  “You know what happened to him,” she said.