The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

Haern hadn’t spent enough time in Elaeavn to feel as comfortable in the city as he had within the forest, but he landed on the street and started toward the shore. Every so often, he used the sense of lorcith to draw himself forward, and he started practicing pushing on knives, using those to help him make his way along the street. When he had a knife in place, he would push off it, soaring into the air. While in the air, he pulled on the knife and moved it, trying to relocate it. It had him traveling in something like hops, and with each movement, he traveled much farther than he could by walking. It also took much less physical energy, though it took significant strength and connection to his magical energy.

  The more he used the technique, the easier he thought it would get.

  It was one thing Lucy had said to him about Sliding. The more she practiced, the easier it got for her. It was why Haern had wanted Lucy to practice Sliding with others, to make it so that they could work together, but Lucy had been more interested in other things.

  Sight didn’t work quite like that. There was no training it, trying to strengthen that ability. But then, he had used it his entire life. It was a part of him. His connection to lorcith was a part of him to, but that was one that took conscious effort on his part, an attempt for him to focus on it, to use it, and when he did, then he could gain more power over it.

  He reached the shoreline of Elaeavn before he knew it. He paused, walking along it. It was late enough that there wasn’t anyone out. Waves crashed, sending salty spray into the air, and the occasional ship anchored out on the sea bobbed in the waves. The only light and activity he noticed came from those ships.

  “I used to come here.”

  Haern spun to see his father standing behind him. How had he returned without Haern realizing that he was there? And how had his father found him so quickly?

  “There is something about looking out on the water that always calmed me.”

  “I prefer the forest.”

  “Because you’ve only known the forest.”

  “Did you only know the water?”

  His father stared out into the distance. “The water was a way out of the city.”

  “But you can Slide.”

  “It was different for me. I feared using my ability openly when I was younger. I eventually moved past that, but there was still the fear of what would happen if I was discovered. The Elvraeth would have banished me.”

  “I don’t really understand why that would be so bad,” Haern said.

  “At the time, it was the worst thing I could imagine. I didn’t want to know what it might be like to be forced away from the city, from everything that I knew. I didn’t know what was out there in the world.”

  “But you could Slide. If you had been exiled, nothing would have kept you from returning.”

  “Only the threat of death.”

  “Would they really have done that?”

  “I don’t really know. That’s not the point, at least not now. When I was younger, I believed the Elvraeth were everything. I believed they could do anything they wanted. They ruled over the city, as far as I understood. And that’s what they wanted others to believe. They wanted people to believe that they were in control, and that they had power. Having people convinced that they were the authority within Elaeavn made them powerful.”

  His father Slid and emerged on a rock high above the water. Haern dropped one of the knives and pushed on it, joining his father. Rsiran glanced over, nodding.

  “Even though they did all that, you were still willing to protect them from the Forgers?”

  “I wasn’t willing to protect the Elvraeth. I didn’t care about the Elvraeth. I cared about my friends within the city. I cared about the people. As I suspect you do.”

  Haern breathed out heavily. “I do care, but I don’t know what I can do.”

  “It was the same for me. I didn’t know what I could do, and I didn’t know what I should do. It didn’t stop me from trying. I think that was the part that your mother wanted me to understand. It’s your turn now. It might’ve been mine years ago, but the fact that the Forgers have come for you suggests that you have a role.”

  “I didn’t want to fight. I never wanted anything more than to just understand my abilities.”

  Rsiran arched a brow at him. “That’s not true. You wanted to be able to relax, to not feel the threats within the city. You wanted to have an easy life. And that was what I wanted for you too. Unfortunately, it seems as if what we want isn’t going to matter. I wanted to find peace for years. I wanted to make it so that we didn’t have to worry about the Forgers, and I’ve chased them for many years, though I think that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have been so focused on them. I should have been more concerned about who was directing them.”

  “This man that the Forger referenced.”

  “Him. A man named Olandar Fahr.” His father shook his head. “Do you know how long it took for me to even learn his name? Carth knew, though she kept it from me, the way she keeps many things. All I knew was that he had been directing them, guiding them in whatever plan he has, and we have been little more than part of the game he’s playing.”

  “Why would you call it a game?”

  “Maybe game isn’t quite right. I’m not entirely sure what it is, but perhaps not a game.”

  Haern watched his father. There was an intensity to his eyes that he hadn’t seen before. His mouth was pressed into a tight line, and he looked out into the distance, staring at the water.

  He was planning something.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What makes you think I’m going to do anything?” his father asked.

  “I know you too well.”

  His father glanced over. “I wish that were true, Haern. Really, I do. Unfortunately, I’ve made it so that you don’t know me as well as you should. If everything goes as I want, maybe when this is over, you will know me.”

  “Father—”

  “I think it’s time that I do what I can to end this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Since you rescued me, I’ve been trying to place whatever protections I can to ensure our safety, but maybe that was a mistake.”

  “I don’t know how effective those protections were,” Haern said.

  “No, I don’t know how effective they were, either, and now that we have this Forger, he could lead me to the person I’ve been chasing.”

  What would happen if they found him? What would his father do? Now that Haern had learned how his father had been captured before, he wondered if it was safe for Rsiran to go after this Forger.

  Then again, to his father, that probably didn’t matter. His father didn’t worry so much about his own safety. That much Haern had known about him. He was more concerned about doing what he thought was needed.

  “Would you do this on your own, or would you take someone with you?”

  “There’s no one I can take.”

  He turned to his father. “There is. Me.”

  “You?”

  “You can keep training me.”

  “I’m not sure I’m the right one to train you.”

  “It can’t just be the two of us. Not if you’re going after this dangerous Forger. We need to get other help.”

  “What sort of help?”

  “The kind that you’re not going to like.”

  His father clenched his jaw. “No.”

  “Father—”

  Rsiran shook his head. “No. I’m not going to ask Galen to travel with us. Even having you come along is dangerous.”

  “It’s dangerous for you too. It’s not only dangerous for me or Galen. And we survived Forgers already.”

  “Forgers, but this is about more than Forgers.”

  “The Ai’thol.”

  “Haern, you don’t understand what they are, or what they can do. You might think you do, and having heard from me and Carth and whoever else you’ve spoken to recently might have given you the impression that you can understand them, bu
t trust me when I tell you that you cannot. The Ai’thol are powerful and clever, and they have been around a long time. The more I learn about them, the more I fear them.”

  “I didn’t think you feared anything.”

  “I’m not so foolish as to think I shouldn’t fear anything.”

  “If you know them as well as you claim, then you would know that you can’t fight them on your own.”

  He didn’t like the idea of his father leaving him again, and more than that, he truly wanted to be a part of this. If his father believed that he needed to be involved, then he wanted to be involved. And he had been involved. He had faced Forgers. He had come out victorious. Because of him and what he had done, they had rescued his father after his capture.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Good.”

  “If we uncover what they’re after, then we can decide.”

  “I don’t know that we should wait until then.”

  “There’s nowhere for us to go until then,” Rsiran said. “We still have to figure out how to save the Elder Trees.”

  “Now that Della has returned, can the two of you work on them?”

  “We tried, but it requires significant strength from the two of us. Even if we can save one—and I’m not sure that we could—we don’t have the strength to do more than that.”

  “I thought you said your lorcith will work.”

  “I thought it might, but I’ve been trying to use it against the metal they placed, and it’s been ineffective.”

  “Sort of like what happened with Lucy.”

  Rsiran nodded. “When Della managed to remove the lorcith from you, I thought we might find a way, but that’s not to be. It hadn’t been implanted all that long in you, and we stabilized you quickly enough to reverse most of the effect. With the trees, the attempts at healing only made it worse.”

  That had been their experience with Lucy, too. Daniel had said that any attempt to Heal her had only forced the metal deeper into her head, making it harder for them to save her.

  She had grown stronger with her abilities, but was that the result of the attempt to Heal her driving the metal deeper into her, or was it something else?

  Could the same thing have been happening to the trees? Maybe that was why separating the metal from the trees now was impossible, or at least incredibly difficult.

  “We don’t even know what they intend to use the trees for,” Haern said.

  “I’ve tried to discover that, but he won’t answer.”

  “You questioned him?”

  “Eventually I’ll get the answers.”

  “And if your torment won’t work?”

  “Unfortunately, it might not. When I faced the Hjan, I had enough control over lorcith that I could remove the implants from them. They have adapted and no longer use straightforward lorcith implants to augment their abilities.”

  Haern’s breath caught. He knew his father had control over lorcith, but that degree of control shocked him. The ability to simply remove the implants without having a Healer?

  And doing so might harm the Forger, but Haern wasn’t certain that he cared. After what they’d done to him and the rest of the people of Elaeavn, he no longer felt any sort of remorse when it came to the Forgers.

  But maybe his father’s approach was wrong.

  “What if we treat him differently?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know that you can simply torture him for information.”

  “We have to get it out of him somehow,” his father said.

  “Probably, but it might not be the right way.”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “You’ve been looking for this person, and you haven’t been able to find him. You questioned the Forgers, and they haven’t answered. What if we follow him?”

  “It’s difficult to track someone who can Slide,” his father said.

  “I understand, but what if he couldn’t Slide?”

  “I’ve already told you I can’t remove his ability.”

  “You don’t have to remove the metal implant in order to make this work. All we need to do is keep him from Sliding, and then we can track him.”

  “What do you propose?”

  Haern considered for a moment. Would his father even attempt to listen? Haern felt much the same way as his father did about the Forgers, but perhaps without the same level of anger and agitation. He wanted to stop them, and he wanted to figure out a way to ensure that Elaeavn was safe, and if there was one person who was responsible for everything, his father might be right: finding him and capturing him could put an end to it.

  But they had to be better than the Forgers.

  And they had to be smarter than the Forgers.

  “We might need to let him go,” Haern said.

  His father frowned. “Haern, he nearly killed you. He nearly killed Galen. And now you would simply let him go?”

  “I wouldn’t simply let him go. I would use him.”

  “How would you use him?”

  Haern considered for a moment before sharing with his father his plan. As he spoke, his father regarded him intensely, but the longer Haern spoke, the more a dark smile spread across Rsiran’s face.

  32

  Haern

  The forest was dark at this time of night. Haern approached it slowly, carefully, feeling for the presence of lorcith as he made his way forward. It filled him, an awareness of the metal that was both overpowering and somehow wrong. All of it was because of what his father had done to the metal here. Whatever he had done had changed it, leaving it unpleasant.

  The longer he detected the sense of lorcith here, the more he wanted it away from him. He couldn’t imagine sitting within that cell, moment after moment, the pressure of lorcith pushing against him, the strangeness of it screaming at him.

  It had to be agony.

  His father hadn’t revealed to him whether or not he would even be able to access the cell, but he remained curious. This was a Forger, a man who was his enemy, and yet now he was captured, harmless, and could do nothing to Haern, confined as he was within the bars of the cell.

  Haern pressed his hand on the outside of the building. The sense of lorcith filled him, flowing around him, and the longer he stood there, the more uncertain he was of what he detected.

  Power filled the entirety of the structure.

  He pushed.

  He wasn’t sure it would even work. There was no reason for this lorcith to work for him; his father had made it clear that the lorcith was forged toward him and not toward anything else. Why would his father allow him to open the cell and risk releasing the prisoner? He wouldn’t, which left Haern surprised when the door opened.

  He stepped inside, pulling it closed.

  “You will find me in no better mood to speak at this hour… younger Lareth,” the Forger said.

  He turned to look at Haern. Without enhanced Sight, Haern might not have been able to See him clearly in the thin moonlight that streamed in.

  “Why have you come?”

  “I thought you could provide answers,” Haern said.

  The Forger laughed. “And what sort of answers do you think I’ll give you that I wasn’t willing to give your father?”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Ah, a basic question.”

  “It’s only basic because I don’t know why the Forgers continue to attack us.”

  “No? I find that interesting. Your father is the one who has instigated the ongoing attacks on my people.”

  “Only because the Forgers have attacked here.”

  “When was the last time you recall an attack on your home?” the Forger asked.

  “A few months ago.”

  Haern caught himself. The attack hadn’t been the Forgers at all, and though he knew it was the C’than who had instigated that attack, a part of him still blamed the Forgers.

  The Forger turned his gaze on Haern. In the darkness, it was difficult to tell, but t
he man had deep green eyes, dark enough that he could almost be Elvraeth, though he had no other features that made Haern think he was from Elaeavn. He had olive skin and sandy hair, and he was shorter and stouter than most people from the city. If he was of Elaeavn—or of Elvraeth birth—it was a distant connection.

  “There has been no attack from my kind over the last few months.” The Forger jerked on his chains, and Haern prepared for the possibility that he might need to jump out of the cell in order to confine the man, but the cuffs around his wrists and ankles held. The Forger chuckled. “So scared. Nothing like your father, are you?”

  “We captured you.”

  “By chance. Chance is not what you want to rely upon in order to defeat us. Already, plans are in place that you cannot begin to fathom.”

  “I can fathom more than you realize. If it’s so difficult for me, why won’t you answer?”

  “What is there to answer? You don’t believe what I’m saying, and I don’t believe what you’re saying.” He turned away from Haern.

  Haern made a slow circuit of the inside of the cell. The awful pressure of the lorcith all around him continued to squeeze upon him. “Why did you attack this time?”

  “What choice do we have? We have faced Lareth—your father—for years.”

  “And he has attacked because of the Forgers.”

  The man was silent for a few moments. “You know so little of what he’s done, don’t you?”

  “Then tell me.”

  “That is not my responsibility. You will see. All will see when the pieces fall into place.”

  There was something about what he said that resonated with Haern. “What pieces? What does Olandar Fahr plan?”

  The Forger met his gaze. “You do not get to speak the name of the Great One.”

  Haern smiled. “Great One? That’s a little pretentious.”

  “No more pretentious than your father believing he can understand the mind of the Great One. All of this is for a higher purpose.” The Forger looked up at him. “And you cannot begin to understand what he plans.”

  Haern grunted. “I was there when you attacked us in Asador. You claim that you haven’t continued to attack, and yet all the evidence is to the contrary.”