It was a dream she and Haern had shared, though she suspected Haern viewed her in a way that she didn’t view him. Theirs was a friendship, and she preferred to keep it that way. He might be interested in traveling outside of the city, but she wasn’t sure that she should be the one to Slide him when they did.
All she needed to do was get beyond the bindings.
Could she throw herself forward?
If she did, she might be able to generate enough movement to get through the Slide.
It would involve something more than what she thought she could do while confined, but as the footsteps neared, Lucy knew she had no choice.
She thrashed, focusing on the part of her that controlled the Slide. It was a deep and primal part of her mind, connected to something that was different from the Great Watcher and the abilities he had granted.
It failed.
Footsteps hammered faster.
Lucy thrashed again, attempting to Slide, and again she failed.
Someone was near. She could feel them. Their voice pressed in on her head, and she pushed it away, trying to close off all outside thoughts, wanting to focus only on Sliding.
She thrashed again, throwing herself against the bindings.
This time, she managed to Slide.
When she did, she found herself freed from the ropes holding her.
She fell to the floor, having only attempted to Slide a short distance, and got to her knees.
The door opened, and a man stood framed in pale light. He had dark hair, severe features, and a flash of metal around his neck that caught her attention.
Lucy Slid.
She did so blindly, thinking of nothing more than trying to Slide out of where she was, and traveled to the first place that came to mind.
The market.
That was where she had last been with Daniel. She didn’t expect him to be there still, but if he was, she could grab him and they could return to Elaeavn. She didn’t want to be outside of the city any longer. Everything felt wrong, and she was terrified of remaining here.
It was night. The market was empty save for a few people moving along the street. Her sudden appearance didn’t raise any notice, though in the darkness that was tempered by her enhanced eyesight, it was possible that they didn’t even see her. Lucy looked around, searching for any sign of Daniel, but she was in a strange city and there was no way of knowing where he would have gone.
She didn’t think this was Asador as they had intended, but where had they reached?
She hurried forward, looking around, and there came a strange stirring within her stomach, like a wave of nausea. She spun, feeling a flicker of movement, and along with it came a sense of familiarity.
The man she had seen in the room appeared.
“Why here?”
“Leave me alone,” she said.
“I think not. You are far too interesting for me to leave. You will be useful, I think.”
“Who are you?”
“I am no one.”
“You can Slide.”
“As can you.”
Lucy found herself fingering the metal along the back of her scalp. It no longer hurt the way it had at first, but she had a strange awareness of it at all times, as if she could feel how it burrowed beneath the skin, how it changed her. Already the awareness had begun to fade, as if her body was absorbing the metal. How much longer did she have before the effect became permanent? The entire reason they had left Elaeavn was to get help from Lareth, but if she took too long, it was possible that there would be no help.
She Slid, emerging on the far side of the market, but the other man was there waiting, as if he had anticipated her Slide. She spun but found that she couldn’t Slide again.
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 di
dn’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 wanted 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.�
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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.
The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3 Page 21
