“What happened to your singer?” Haern asked.
The man glanced over at him, looking him up and down. “Why?”
“She took something of mine.”
“We’re not responsible for any lost items.”
“I’m not trying to make you responsible. I’m just trying to find her. Where did she go?”
“How should I know? We’re not responsible for her, either.”
Haern tensed, squeezing his hands into fists. He wanted to grab the man, slam him against one of the tables, and force him to help, but that would do nothing other than make him feel a little bit better.
Instead, he hesitated. “Do you know if she had other jobs?”
“Most of our singers have other jobs. We aren’t the only tavern in town.”
“Can you at least tell me her name?”
“Why?”
“So it’s easier to find her.”
There was a part of Haern that feared she had given him a fake name, and if so, then he would be even more inclined to believe that everything had been a scam, including the possibility that they were Binders.
Haern cocked his head, waiting for the servant to answer, and finally he shook his head and sighed. “She called herself Mindy Lee.”
“Do you know if she’s from here?”
“We have many people that come through Dreshen. I can’t tell you if she’s from here or not.”
“Do you think she’s from here?”
“Like I said, we have many people who come through here, and I can’t tell you if she is or not.”
Haern suppressed frustration that continued to surge through him. It was mixed with a nervous sort of energy that made him feel as if he needed to hurry. He needed to find the girls before something happened to them. As he had no idea what the Forgers intended with them, he didn’t know how long he had.
Maybe they were no different than Rally, intending to use them, to enslave them, sell them off, but that had never been his experience with the Forgers.
The servant took a step back. “Are we done?”
“I guess we are.”
The man glared at him as he spun around, disappearing.
Haern backed out of the tavern, feeling a sense of helplessness. He had come here thinking he would find the Binders, thinking that he would find help for Elise and the others, and even if he had found the Binders, he wasn’t convinced he had found help.
Once out in the street, he looked for anything that might give him a clue about where Mindy had gone. He continued through the city, searching, before shifting his focus to lorcith.
There was quite a bit of lorcith all around, and despite that, he needed to ignore it, to focus on the lorcith he had made. Had Galen not helped him train to push away the sense of the metal all around him, he might not have been able to do it. Instead, he was able to push the surrounding metal to the back of his mind, leaving only the lorcith he had a hand in creating. As he held on to that sense, he focused on the various aspects of it. There was the lorcith of the knives and the sword. They seemed to be far away from him, but still together. That gave him hope that the girls either still had the weapons or they were still in the city. Then there was the sense of lorcith that came from the coins. A few had been scattered, left throughout the city. That surprised him as he had thought he had grabbed the coins as he had been traveling, but maybe he hadn’t.
Then there was another coin.
That was the one that he wanted—and needed—to find.
He let the focus of that coin draw him. He didn’t pull on it; instead, he let it pull him. He wandered through the streets, focusing on it, moving toward it. At one point, a building got in his way, and he had to drop a lorcith coin and jump over it. When he landed, he waited a moment before the sense of the lorcith coin returned. When it did, he continued onward.
As he went, he felt increasingly certain that he was heading in the right direction, and yet he was moving away from the temple.
Was that a good sign?
Continuing this way, he paused and felt the sense of lorcith once again. It was close enough he thought that he could get to it.
Haern closed his eyes, focusing on lorcith only, ignoring all the other metal he detected within the city around him, determined to find where they had brought Elise.
As he went, the sense of her coin was closer.
Up.
His gaze darted to the second story of a nearby building, and he saw movement shadowed in the window.
Pushing off on a coin, he reached the rooftop. Once there, he paused.
He could feel the coin in the room below him.
Haern hesitated. How was he going to get in there and get to Elise?
He had enough experience with the Binders—and with Carth—to know the Binders were talented, possibly enough that they would be able to overwhelm him. Then again, they wouldn’t have the ability to push on lorcith.
Plus there was the woman he had encountered. He was certain that she was from Elaeavn, even if she didn’t know it. Her ability to Heal, along with her green eyes, gave her away. She had to be from Elaeavn.
He looked for a way down. A trapdoor led into the building, and Haern tested it, not surprised that it was locked. He shoved one of the coins into the lock and twisted, using his connection to lorcith to help him. A loud snap sounded, almost too much in the night, but he ignored it and lifted the trapdoor, hurrying down the stairs. Once down, he paused, focusing on the sense of lorcith. It was near.
A door blocked him from whatever was on the other side.
Haern reached for the handle.
It would be much easier if the doors weren’t locked, but at least he had a way to get past them. Once again, he put a coin against the door and pushed. The leverage forced the door open, a loud crack too noticeable in the quiet around him.
Jumping into the room, holding on to his connection to the coins, he prepared for the possibility that he would need to push on the coins, but there was no one here other than Elise.
She lay motionless on the bed. Her hands clasped over her stomach made it seem almost as if she had died, but he could tell that her breathing was regular. It was just her eyes that were closed.
Haern let out a relieved sigh, heading over to Elise. It wouldn’t be long before the women arrived, and when they did, he wanted to be prepared for the possibility that he would need to disappear quickly.
Scooping her off the bed, he turned to the door and saw one of the Binders framed there.
“How did you find us?”
“Why did you take her?”
“You led them to us.”
“Led who?”
“The Ai’thol.”
“I didn’t lead anyone. I was trying to help others, and I thought you were going to help.”
“We did.”
“You saved her, but you sacrificed the others. The Forgers—or Ai’thol, whatever you want to call them—have them.”
“Then they are lost.”
“They’re not lost. They’re at the temple, and I intend to go get them.”
“As I said, they’re lost.”
“Aren’t you willing to fight? The Binders I know were willing to resist.”
“You claim to know the Binders, but you know nothing.”
She took a step toward him, and Haern noticed something.
It was a shimmer. A Slide.
His gaze darted toward her eyes, but hers were a deep brown, almost a black.
He shifted his focus, realizing that there was other lorcith in the room with him.
Not just in the room with him, but within the woman.
“You’ve been augmented by them.”
She froze, meeting his eyes. “What did you say?”
“I can feel it. They augmented you. Are you with them?”
She glared at him. “You know nothing.”
“I know what I can feel. I feel the metal within you.” He pushed on it, and she stumbled backward, a muted scream com
ing from her. The metal was wrapped around her shoulders, an unusual location, though he didn’t really know where the Forgers preferred to place the implant. In the case of Lucy, hers had been buried in her head. He wasn’t sure how many of the other Forgers had something similar, though he suspected it was more than just Lucy. And then there was the Forger he had encountered out on the roof. His implant had been along his spine.
“Do that again and you will die.”
“I told you I’m trying to help. There are eight young girls who have been taken by the Ai’thol. I intend to get them back.”
“Eight?”
“I told you I was helping others.”
“We didn’t know you were helping eight.”
“What did you think I was doing?”
“You brought her to us.”
“And I told you that I was going to bring others to you if you were willing to help.” He maintained his connection to the lorcith within her, ready to push if it came down to it. He thought he could react before she had the opportunity to Slide, though having never tested whether he could prevent someone from Sliding using their connection to lorcith, he didn’t know if that was true or not.
“You don’t get to make comments like that.”
“And why not?”
“You accuse me of an augmentation from the Ai’thol, and you use their magic against me.”
Haern laughed. “Use their magic against you? They’ve stolen the magic of my people, much like you’ve now stolen the magic of my people.”
He watched her, half expecting her to attempt to Slide, but she stood motionless.
Another appeared at the doorway.
Haern glanced over, recognizing Mindy. “I imagine you weren’t expecting me.”
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“You shouldn’t have taken the person I entrusted with your care.”
“We did nothing.”
“You did. You abducted her. And here I thought you wanted to help.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand. If I don’t understand, make it so that I do.”
“You can’t understand.”
Haern glared. “I understand that some of you have been augmented by the Forgers—the Ai’thol. I understand the girls I promised to protect have been abducted because you betrayed me. And I understand you took someone from me, hiding her here. Do I have it about right?”
“As I said, you don’t understand.”
Haern pushed on coins, sending them circling around him. He was prepared to attack if it were necessary. Would they try to stop him from carrying Elise out of here? If they did, he was ready to use the coins in whatever violent way necessary to get her to safety.
“Stop and we will help you,” Mindy said.
“Now you think I should believe that you are interested in helping?”
“We helped her, didn’t we?” She pointed to Elise. “You don’t understand what we risked to do so.”
“As far as I can tell, you risked nothing.”
“We risked the safety of our people. That isn’t nothing.”
Haern glared at her. “Tell me what happened.”
“You can sense the metal,” Mindy said.
Haern nodded. “I can.”
“And the Ai’thol have not given you that ability?”
“No. It’s an ability some of my people have.”
“None of us had any abilities,” Mindy said.
“No?”
She shook her head, glancing to the other woman. Haern maintained his connection to lorcith within her, prepared for the possibility that he might need to push on it, if only to prevent her from Sliding away.
“They experimented on us. They bought us, turning us into slaves, and brought many of us here. They used their strange magics, their control over metal, and forced their power into us.” She glanced at the other woman. “None of us wanted that power. It was imposed upon us, regardless of whether we wanted anything to do with it.”
“You have a choice now.”
“We don’t, not the way you would believe. We do everything in our power to keep ourselves safe. That involves working together, staying together, but it usually doesn’t involve helping outsiders.”
“You claim that you’re Binders.”
“Because we’ve heard the name.”
“So you’re not Binders.”
“No more than I imagine you actually know Carth.”
Haern glanced down at Elise. He shook his head, studying her breathing. He needed her to wake up, but maybe she wouldn’t. It was possible she was injured enough that she couldn’t awaken.
“I fought at her side, and despite what you might think, she does live.”
“How is that possible?”
“It’s possible because it’s true.”
Mindy glanced at the other woman. “In all the time we’ve been here, we believed Carth to be nothing more than a rumor.”
“I can assure you that she is not a rumor.” A thought came to him. “And if you oppose the Ai’thol, I imagine that Carth would welcome you.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t claim to know her as well as some, but my mentor considers her a close friend. If we can rescue these girls, I can put you in contact.”
There was a part of him that wondered whether or not that was a mistake. It was possible that doing so would only end up with him exposing Carth to danger, though as far as he knew, Carth wasn’t afraid of anyone.
“First, I’m going to need your help.”
Mindy took a deep breath. “We’ve been resisting them for a long time.”
“Then continue to resist. Help me. Let me get these girls back. Don’t let them be tormented by the Ai’thol.”
“Rescuing them will be difficult.”
“Maybe, but if what you say is true, they are at risk of the same thing happening to them as happened to you. Is that what you want?”
“We don’t want to have others experience that torment,” Mindy said, rubbing the back of her head.
When she did, Haern frowned to himself. “What ability were you given?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I think I might. What ability was it?”
“I have the ability to know what another person is thinking.”
“We call it Reading,” he said.
“There’s a name for it?”
He nodded. “There is, and there are others who have that same ability. They come from my homeland, though I don’t know why they would have given you those abilities.”
“We were experimented on.”
“How long ago was this?”
“A year or so.”
That didn’t make sense to him. Why would they need to experiment? As far as he knew, the Forgers had mastered the connection to lorcith long ago, having used it in the attack upon Elaeavn.
Something here didn’t quite fit.
“Help me and I will put you in contact with someone who can help you,” he said.
The two women looked at each other before nodding.
Haern set Elise back down on the bed. “How many will be willing to help?”
“I don’t know,” Mindy said.
“How many are you willing to ask?”
“There are a dozen of us in the city.”
“Then we should ask all of them.”
He glanced over to Elise, feeling like he should be doing more for her, yet if he could get help for the girls, then he was doing everything he needed to do, and then maybe—just maybe—he could figure out what exactly the Forgers were after.
Leaving the room, one of them closed the door, though now that he’d broken the lock, there was no way to seal Elise within. At least they couldn’t keep her here. If it came down to it, she could escape.
At the bottom of the stairs, Mindy brought him to a large room where he found several other Binders—or whatever they were. They weren’t Binders, not yet, but if t
hey served the same ideals, then they could be.
Two of them jumped to their feet when he appeared, looking to Mindy and the other but saying nothing.
“He needs our help,” Mindy said.
“Why should we help him?”
“Because his friends have been taken by them.”
“If they’ve been taken, then there’s nothing that we can do,” one of them said.
“I’ve told him otherwise.”
“You would speak on behalf of all of us?”
Mindy turned to the woman. She had long black hair, high cheekbones, and a narrow nose. “He can help us reach Carth.”
The other woman frowned, her brow furrowing. “How?”
“He knows her.”
“He claimed that before, but we have no reason to believe it.”
“No reason other than the fact that he knows her,” Mindy said again. “We need to trust.”
There was something about their comments that left him uncomfortable. He couldn’t tell if they were still keeping something from him or if there was something else taking place here. Regardless of the outcome, he wasn’t about to reveal where Carth could be found to these women.
Mindy glanced over, and he was reminded of what she had told him about her ability. If she was a Reader, then would she know what he was thinking?
Most of the time, he was able to seal his mind off from Readers, and he thought he could do so even now, but if she had some way of getting past those barriers, of bypassing his defenses, then maybe he wasn’t nearly as safe as he thought.
He would have to be careful.
“How do you propose that we get into the temple?” one of the women asked.
“Well, I’ve seen that some of you have the ability to Slide,” Haern said. “That’s how I would start. From there, we can determine if there is anything more that we can do.”
“How do you even know they’re still there?”
“He controls the metal,” Mindy said.
“Like they do.”
“No. I do it differently,” Haern said.
There was something unsettling here, but he needed their help. The longer they offered to help, the less certain he was that they had pure intentions.
The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3 Page 136
