And could he even get Alyse to understand?
If she had been Compelled, it was possible that there was nothing he could say that would convince her of the type of person their mother had become—or always had been.
“I can Travel,” Rsiran said. “My body remains, but my mind leaves so that I can go other places and observe.”
Alyse stared at him before turning to Jessa. “You believe he can do this?”
“I have no reason to ever doubt Rsiran.”
Alyse took a deep breath and then nodded. “Then what you saw disturbed you enough that you fear sharing. Tell me what it was, Rsiran.”
“Grandfather and Mother. They have been working together and trying to find—” He debated whether he should share how they sought the Elder Trees, but decided that was something that he would not reveal to Alyse. “—something in the Aisl Forest. From what he said to her, it sounded like he’d assigned her a task… many years ago… She was to use Father… to find something out from him.”
Alyse blinked and then she laughed. “You expect me to believe that Mother used our father? After everything that you saw growing up, you think Mother was even capable of something like that?”
Rsiran hadn’t, and had he not observed her himself, he wasn’t sure he would have believed it if someone had come to him with the same story. But he had seen it. “She played a part,” Rsiran said. “She did what her father wanted of her. She used him. She used all of us.” He said the last softly and had to swallow back the lump that formed in his throat.
Jessa squeezed his hand, but he didn’t trust himself to look over to her. Even after everything his parents had done to him, they were still his parents. There had always been a part of him that had hoped that he would be able to connect with his family again, that he would be able to find some way of reaching them, but with what he had seen, that time was gone. There was no way he could ever forgive his mother for siding with Venass. When he’d thought that she and his father were Forgotten, he’d almost felt sympathy for them. But he had been attacked by the Forgotten, by a woman he was actually related to, and now… and now…
“Rsiran,” Jessa said.
He shook away the hurt and realized that he had been pushing on the lorcith knives. They floated away from him, sending Alyse back a few steps, as if he might use them against her.
Rsiran called the knives back to him and placed them in his pockets.
“You’re wrong,” Alyse said. “When I went to her the last time, Mother told me what happened with Father. She told me everything that she shared with you. She assured me there were no more family secrets.”
“Did she tell you how she tried to Compel him? Did she say that because of his smith blood, she could not?” His voice started to rise. “Did she share how when that failed, she encouraged him to drink, thinking to control him that way?” The door opened, and Brusus stood watching. Rsiran realized that he had been yelling. But his father turning to ale had been when his apprenticeship had changed. Could it have been because of more than just his father discovering that Rsiran could Slide. Could it all have been about his mother wanting to find out about the Elder Trees?
And his father had managed to hide that knowledge from her despite everything she tried. Rsiran had been the one who failed. He had been the one who caused the Elder Trees to fall. Venass and his grandfather had finally found them because of Rsiran, not anything that his father had done.
His father had been a true member of the guild. He had protected the Elder Trees, as he had been tasked to do. What had Rsiran done but expose them to possible destruction?
“That can’t be true,” Alyse said, her soft voice a sharp contrast to the anger and volume of Rsiran’s.
“It is true. And Father never was the person I thought him to be. Neither was Mother.”
Alyse stared at him before turning and running from the room.
Brusus reached for her, but she shook him off, and Rsiran heard her steps as they raced down the stairs. “Well, that was unexpected,” Brusus said.
“Why, because you weren’t—” Rsiran caught himself before saying something that he might regret. He’d already said too much to Alyse, and he didn’t want to send Brusus away as well. “I’m sorry, Brusus. I should have handled that more tactfully. I know how you feel about her. I’ll make sure I apologize when I see her next.”
Brusus flushed and his eyes widened.
“Wait… how does Brusus feel about her?” Jessa asked.
Rsiran shrugged. “It’s fine, Brusus. I see the looks you give her, and I’ve seen the way she looks at you. I’m… I’m happy for you.”
Jessa coughed. “You… and Alyse?”
“I haven’t said anything to her,” Brusus said softly. “With her being… well, who she is, I haven’t wanted to say anything. I was going to leave it well enough alone. Safer that way for all of us. Besides, I’m not all that certain that she’d be receptive to me, anyway.”
“You won’t know until you say something,” Rsiran said.
“And now you’re giving him romantic advice?” Jessa asked. “What happened to you while you were sick?”
Rsiran laughed. It felt good for him to be able to do so. “I told you. I held the crystal again.”
Jessa shook her head.
Brusus glanced toward the door before turning his attention back to Rsiran. “What happened with Alyse? I gather that you saw something, but I’m not sure why that would have affected her so much.”
Rsiran told Brusus about what he’d seen at his mother’s house.
Brusus became increasingly tense the longer that Rsiran shared. At least Brusus recognized the danger with what Rsiran had seen.
“And you’re certain that he knew you were there?” Brusus said.
“He knew. It was Thom,” Rsiran said. “The heartstone plate in his head reacted to me. He didn’t know what it was doing, but when he said it ‘buzzed,’ my grandfather knew someone had Traveled. And somehow, he managed to pick up that I was there.”
Brusus turned toward the door. “We need to find her.”
“Who? My mother? I know where she is, and I’m not sure that finding her now would be the right thing, especially considering that my grandfather might still be with her. There’s no telling what abilities he might possess.” They needed Della. She should know what her brother was capable of doing.
“Not your mother,” Brusus said, “though I think we will have to find her too. But Alyse. Your mother knows that she’s been with you. And now that they know how you’ve discovered them—”
Brusus didn’t have the chance to finish. A harsh scream rose from the tavern below.
Chapter 31
Rsiran Slid with Jessa to Brusus, and grabbed him. The next Slide took them into the main part of the tavern, where they emerged into chaos.
Tables were overturned. The musician cowered along the back wall, a gash in his forehead. Food and drink were spilled onto the floor. Those who had remained in the tavern backed against the wall.
Rsiran’s eyes were drawn away from all of that.
A trio of men stood arrayed around Alyse near the hearth. She’d lifted the sjihn tree sculpture and swung it something like a club, spinning to hold them back. A spray of light and pressure came from it as she did.
“Did you know that it could do that?” Jessa asked in a whisper.
He shook his head. “Watch for others,” he told Brusus.
“What are you going to do?”
“What Haern trained me to do.”
Rsiran pushed on three of his knives and sent them streaking toward the men facing Alyse. Without any of the men turning, the knives stopped and dropped to the ground.
He swore under his breath. At least he knew they controlled lorcith.
Alyse swung the sjihn sculpture in his direction. The light shooting from the base washed over him, a familiar sort of energy, and slipped harmlessly away.
The men attacking her were not left quite the same
way.
Rsiran felt a stuttering sort of power. It took a moment to realize what he sensed: they attempted to Slide. Somehow, the sculpture kept them from being able to.
But not him.
Rsiran pulled himself in a Slide and emerged near the hearth. As he did, he pushed on a pair of knives, sending them flying, at the same time he pulled on the knives that now rested harmlessly on the ground, drawing them back to him.
One of the attackers turned. With a wave of his hand, the knives Rsiran sent at them went flying. He pushed, keeping them from hitting any of the others still in the tavern.
Using lorcith wasn’t going to work.
And he couldn’t run, not like he had the last time that Alyse had been attacked. He might be able to get himself free, and possibly his friends, but there were too many others here. If he left them, they would be as good as dead.
That meant finding some way that he could contain and stop these attackers.
Just because they could control lorcith didn’t mean they could control heartstone.
Rsiran unsheathed his sword and swung it in a pattern that Haern had demonstrated.
The man who had deflected his knives smiled and drew a sword from beneath his cloak. The metal was a deep black and like nothing he’d ever seen. Could it be the shadowsteel that he’d overheard Thom mention? If so, he would need to study it to understand what it could do, and whether there was any potential to it that he could discover, especially if it was the reason that the Elder Tree failed.
Alyse kept the other two attackers at a distance as she swung the sjihn sculpture.
The man challenging Rsiran darted forward, swinging his sword in a quick cutting motion. Rsiran blocked it and Slid back a step. The other man attempted to Slide—Rsiran saw it as a stuttering type of motion—but failed, still controlled by whatever Alyse did.
“Better if you just leave,” Rsiran said.
The man grinned. “Like the last time you faced one of the Hjan?”
Rsiran frowned. That was a term Haern had used for the assassins of Venass. “I’m better prepared this time.”
“You’re lucky to be alive.”
The man slipped forward, gliding as if on ice, as he ducked low, stabbing with the sword.
Rsiran had been ready and slashed, blocking the movement. The man spun, bringing his sword around. Had Rsiran not Slid to the left, he would have been hit.
This time, he pushed his entire sword toward the man.
Since his attack, the connection to heartstone had changed. No longer did it have the same slippery quality. Now, Rsiran had a tight grip. When he pushed on the sword, it flew straight.
The sword pierced the man in the chest and he fell.
Rsiran pulled his sword back to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Jessa sneaking toward the attack.
“Careful,” he warned. “They can control lorcith.”
“So can you,” she said.
“Grab the sword. I might need—”
One of the men attacking Alyse spun and threw a knife at Jessa.
It wasn’t lorcith.
Rsiran reacted the only way that he could. He Slid, grabbing Jessa, and pulled her to the side. He wasn’t sure that he had been fast enough.
When they emerged, she was unharmed.
The man grabbed a sword and spun toward Rsiran.
Rsiran shoved Jessa behind him and held the heartstone sword out from him. When this man attacked, he moved faster than a snake. He didn’t even need to Slide to be deadly.
He pushed on his sword, but he knew he wouldn’t be fast enough.
Then the man fell to the ground. Two knives stuck out his back.
“Never cared for the Hjan,” Haern said, grabbing the knives, “even when I was one of them.”
Only one of the men remained, and Alyse had him confined with the sjihn sculpture, bathed in white light that spilled from the end of the sculpture.
Haern simply walked up to the man and smacked him on the back of the head with the end of his knife. The man crumpled to the ground.
Alyse swung the sculpture toward them before catching herself. She lowered it slowly, but didn’t set it all the way to the ground. “What happened?” Her voice trembled nearly as much as her arms.
“Seems that Venass thought it was time to attack you,” Haern said.
Rsiran glanced around the tavern. Brusus had shooed everyone else out, and blocked the door. When Brusus saw Alyse still standing, Rsiran watched relief flood his eyes.
“Why would I be attacked?” Alyse asked.
“Because of him,” Haern said, pointing a thumb at Rsiran. Haern turned to Rsiran. “What changed? I See… something is different. I can’t tell exactly what.”
Rsiran glanced to Alyse. That she would be attacked so soon after Rsiran had overheard their grandfather meant the Venass were no longer going to hide their intent. And if Alyse could be attacked…
“We need to get to Della,” he said.
Brusus nodded. “Go. I’ll stay here and find out what he might know,” he said, nodding to the fallen man, “and I’ll keep her safe. Take Haern.”
Haern smiled. “Seemed like she’s the one who kept herself safe.”
Rsiran Slid, grabbing Haern. He turned to Jessa. “Stay with Brusus and keep each other safe,” he said.
“You shouldn’t…”
“Haern will be with me.”
Jessa looked like she wanted to say something else, but she bit her lip and shook her head. With a nod, she went over to Alyse.
“You ready?” Haern said.
“I’m not sure we have a choice but to be ready,” Rsiran answered.
They Slid, emerging in Della’s home.
A body lay on the floor near the hearth. Rsiran Slid to it and checked for a pulse, but there was none. He rolled the person, and didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t one of the guild members that Ephram had asked to keep watch over Della.
“Hjan,” Haern said.
“Like you?”
Haern tapped his scar. “Not anymore.”
Haern traced a finger over a scar on the man’s chest. Rsiran listened for lorcith, and then for heartstone, but detected neither.
“What did they use to augment their abilities?”
“Some were lorcith, others heartstone.” Haern traced a finger over his scar again. “Others… well, the most dangerous of the Hjan used something else.”
“Shadowsteel,” Rsiran said.
“What kind of metal is that?”
“When I Traveled and overheard my grandfather. They spoke of shadowsteel.”
Haern inhaled slowly. “Not sure that I ever heard of that.”
Rsiran started toward the back room, where he’d last seen Della. With a dead body by the hearth…
When they reached the back room, they found it empty.
“Where is she?” Haern asked.
“She was here. Resting after we went into the Aisl.”
Rsiran made his way around the bed, looking for sign of where Della might have gone. And had she fled from the Hjan attacker? With one dead on the floor, would that mean there’d been more than one, and that maybe Della had been taken? Or worse?
“Where do you think she went? Do you think she’s in danger?” Rsiran asked.
“Not much I can See with her. She’s too powerful for one like me.”
He noticed a trail of blood near the bed and leaned to it. Not only blood, but a silvery mixture mingled with it. “She’s hurt.”
Haern leaned over him. “Hmm.”
Rsiran stood and returned to the main room. There were no other signs in the home to help them determine what happened.
“We need to find her.”
When Haern said nothing, Rsiran turned.
Haern stood in the doorway to the back room, staring at Rsiran with a blank expression. Behind him was Thom.
“Didn’t expect to see you up and around so well,” Thom said.
Rsiran Slid forward in an
ger before catching himself. “And I didn’t think that you were foolish enough to face me again.”
“What’s foolish when you have the advantage?”
“What advantage is that?”
“You still don’t understand what I can do, do you?”
Rsiran pushed on a pair of knives, sending them toward Thom. “And you still don’t understand what I can do.”
Haern spun and Thom’s eyes widened. He dropped and kicked at the same time, sending Haern flying toward Rsiran. Something cracked as Haern landed.
“You won’t be able to Compel him,” Rsiran said to Thom. “And you remember what happened the last time you tried to Compel me.”
“Interesting. It almost makes me want to capture you alive.” He spun a pair of knives in a blur.
“They don’t want me alive?”
A dark smile passed over Thom’s face. “They did, but you’ve proven more troublesome than you’re worth. And they think they now understand what they needed, anyway.”
Thom took a step toward Rsiran.
Rsiran pushed on his knives.
Thom blocked two of them, but he wasn’t quick enough to block the pair that Haern had been carrying. Those Rsiran pulled, and caught Thom in his arms, and pushed hard enough to drive him back, forcing him all the way to the wall where the knives sank into the wood.
His face darkened, and he writhed in place, kicking toward Rsiran, straining against the knives that held him against the wall, but Rsiran used the strength of Ilphaesn, imagining the lorcith in the mountain itself, and held him down.
“Where is Della?” Rsiran asked.
Thom stopped moving.
Rsiran kept himself far enough away that Thom wouldn’t be able to reach him. “Where is she?”
Thom lifted his chin. “You know, when I first met you, I thought you were soft. You came looking for your father, thinking that he might have some answers for you. It was then that we thought maybe he had more of a hold over you than we’d anticipated. But you left him to Venass. Never went after him. And we realized that hold might not have been so strong, after all.”
“Where is Della?” Rsiran asked again.
The Shadowsteel Forge (The Dark Ability Book 5) Page 23
