The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Will you help us?”

  “I’m an old man, Daniel Elvraeth. I’m not fit to fight anymore.”

  “We’re not asking you to fight. I don’t know that it’s even necessary. What we need is someone who can help us understand what it is the Forgers”—he glanced over to Rayen—“intend to use these metals for. What we really need is to know if there’s some way of us overpowering it.”

  “How long will you need me to be gone?”

  “I don’t know. Returning is nothing more than a Slide away.”

  Neran glanced over his shoulder, looking at the cold forge. “This has been a Lareth forge for the last twenty years. It’s a strange thing to leave it empty.”

  “I’m sure one of the Lareth will return to work at the forge again,” Daniel said.

  Neran smiled sadly, and there was something in the expression that told Daniel he wasn’t entirely certain whether that was true. With Rsiran’s absence, the one who had built this forge was gone.

  “I should take some time to prepare,” Neran said.

  Daniel shared a look with Rayen before nodding. They needed to be getting back. There was no telling what the Ai’thol were after or when they might attack again. The sooner he could get Neran to Nyaesh to study the stone, the better.

  When he and Rayen left Neran, he turned to her. “Before we leave, I’m going to try to visit the palace.”

  “Do you need my company with this, or can I stay here?”

  “I think I should do this myself. What will you do?”

  “I haven’t spent any time within this forest. I have something of a curiosity about aspects of it.”

  “Maybe you can figure out what’s going on with the Elder Trees.”

  “Seeing as how Rsiran Lareth has examined the trees already, I have a hard time believing I will uncover something of use.”

  “Just because Rsiran studied them doesn’t mean you might not have something to offer. You’ve traveled extensively, and it’s possible you’ll know something he might’ve missed.”

  Rayen arched a brow at him, and he shrugged.

  Daniel took a step, Sliding back to the palace.

  In the daylight, the palace caught the rising sun, giving it a majestic appearance. The pressure from the heartstone bars over the windows pushed upon him, a reminder that he wouldn’t be able to Slide all the way into the palace, though as he usually did when arriving here, he had no interest or need to Slide all of that way. He nodded to the guards, both of them different than the ones the night before, mentioning his name briefly before they stepped aside.

  At least his name still granted him access to the palace. Making his way from one section of the palace to another, he entered the wing his side of the family occupied. All families within the palace were descended from common Elvraeth ancestry, but his particular branch liked to claim they were among the oldest and still purest of the Elvraeth. His connection to his abilities was really no different than any others’, though. In some ways, Daniel was weaker than many of the other Elvraeth.

  Voices at the end of the hallway caught his attention, and Daniel approached slowly, almost cautiously, reaching the Great Hall and looking inside.

  Servants carried food from the kitchens, setting it on long tables with members of his family all arranged around them, many of them sitting quietly, introspective, but others murmuring softly to each other.

  An elevated platform at the far end of the room was reserved for the heads of the family. Boris Elvraeth—his father—sat alone on the elevated platform. A pair of servants dressed in the forest green of the Elvraeth household continued to ensure that his father had everything he needed.

  Where was his mother?

  Daniel approached carefully. Occasionally, people would glance over at him before returning to their food, but as he made his way through the tables, conversation began to die down. Daniel no longer fit in, and it was more than just his dress that set him apart. When he’d been in the palace, he’d been forced to come to these meals regularly. They served as a time where the head of the family would demonstrate their position, serving as a reminder. He understood the gamesmanship, even if he didn’t agree with it.

  He approached the elevated platform, watching his father eat. One of the servants set a tray of meat and cheese down in front of his father, and Boris waved his hand, sending the servant away.

  “What do you want?”

  Daniel smiled to himself. His father would have known that he was coming. Not only was he a skilled Reader, but he was a Seer. His ability there was considered unrivaled. It made him dangerous to his enemies.

  “I haven’t seen you in over a year and that’s how you greet me?”

  His father looked up then. He had deep green eyes, the depths of color within them so typical for the Elvraeth, and he paused, setting the biscuit he slathered with jam down on his plate. “Am I supposed to rejoice in your sudden appearance, Daniel? You abandoned your family.”

  “I did so to help Lucy Elvraeth.” Seeing as how his father and hers were friends, that should carry some weight. “And I would have thought you would be pleased to see your son.”

  “I would be pleased if you thought to assume your responsibility.” His father turned his attention back to the biscuit, chewing it with his gaze lowered to the table. “Why have you been gone so long?”

  Daniel was tempted to question his father about his role in what the C’than had done, but this wasn’t the place. “The Forgers—”

  His father slammed his fist into the table softly. It was enough to disrupt the conversation that had returned to the room, but only for a moment. “Do not speak of the Forgers. They have posed no threat.”

  Daniel kept his face neutral. There were many among the Elvraeth Council like his father who believed that the Forgers had truly posed no threat in the twenty years since their last attack. How did Cael manage to navigate the personalities? All they had to do was look out and see how those within the Aisl had prepared, to wander beyond the city itself and into the forest, and they could see the evidence of the attack. But too many of the Elvraeth had no interest in doing so. As long as the main part of the city, the traditional part, remained intact, there was no interest in trying to explore anything different. And why should there be? All they cared about was keeping things as they were.

  “Fine. I will speak of the Ai’thol.”

  “Am I supposed to recognize this term?”

  “If you were paying attention, perhaps you would.”

  His father looked up slowly. “Did you come here only to insult me, or was there some other purpose for your visit?”

  “I had hoped to have a conversation with you.”

  He finished his biscuit, licking his fingers clean before waving to one of the servants, who brought in a pitcher of freshly squeezed juice. The servant poured a glass of amber juice, and the sweet smell drifted to Daniel’s nose.

  “Why did you really come?”

  “Because I needed help.”

  “What sort of help?”

  He almost told his father that he hadn’t come to him for help but that he’d come to Cael Elvraeth, but he decided against it. There was already enough antagonism between his part of the family and Cael’s.

  “I needed help from one of the guild members.”

  “The guild?” His father looked up at him, meeting his eyes for a moment. In that brief moment, Daniel had the sense of a fluttering within his mind that passed as he placed a barrier in front of his thoughts, preventing someone from Reading them. His father was a skilled Reader, but Daniel knew he could prevent his father from getting into his mind, although there was always the possibility that he would slip past—or that he had somehow managed to increase his knowledge over the last year.

  The real challenge would be preventing him from Seeing something about him.

  “Why would you want one of the guild to help?”

  “Attacks outside the city have begun to use various metals.”
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br />   His father’s mouth twisted up in a look of disgust. “I suppose that is to be expected. After the guilds decided lorcith should flow openly, others would find reason to use other metals. Did they think that was the only one with any power to it? The Great Watcher granted us lorcith, but word has come to us over the years of other metals of power.”

  That surprised Daniel. The one thing he never would have accused the Elvraeth of being was worldly. “What other metals of power are you aware of?”

  His father turned his attention back to his food, continuing to pile it into his mouth. “Many over the years have thought to send us examples of their work. None of it has really mattered,” his father said while chewing.

  Was he referring to the C’than? “What examples have been sent?”

  “As I said, doesn’t matter.”

  Daniel decided not to push. All he would do would force his father into a defensive position, and that wasn’t what he wanted. It was time to try a different approach. “Where’s Mother?”

  His father set his hands down on either side of his plate, looking up at Daniel. “This is breakfast.”

  “I realize it’s breakfast. Where is she?”

  “Your mother has decided she would prefer not to enjoy breakfast with the rest of the family.”

  “Just today, or is this an ongoing thing?”

  “As you have been away for a while, I will not take it as an insult that you question me in such a way, but do not patronize me.”

  “I’m not trying to patronize you, Father. All I’m trying to do is—”

  “I know what you’re trying to do.”

  Daniel took a deep breath. “And I know what you tried to do.” He straightened, meeting his father’s eyes. “I know of the C’than. You’re the reason Lucy was—”

  His father stood up, the chair he’d been sitting on flipping to the floor with a loud crash. The conversation within the hall went silent again. His father leaned forward, meeting Daniel’s eyes for a moment. “If you weren’t my son, I would have you exiled for leaving.”

  “That punishment has been forbidden,” Daniel said.

  “And a mistake at that. As you are my son, I will tolerate your questions, but only because I hold out a sliver of hope that you will one day recognize you are needed to sit at these tables.”

  “I think we both know that day has passed. Soon yours will as well.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a statement of fact. You remember those, don’t you?” He was pushing too hard, but anger boiled up in him. If his father was partly responsible for what had happened to Lucy, he needed to be called out on it. “There’s a war out there, Father. The Council may wish to ignore it, but it’s real. Eventually, the Elvraeth will have to come to grips with their place in the war. The Forgers may have left this portion of the city alone, but it’s only through the efforts of those who live in the Aisl that the city has been safe.” Daniel’s voice was rising. “I’ve traveled much outside of Elaeavn. I’ve seen places where the Forgers have continued their attacks. I’ve seen places where the Ai’thol who lead them have overpowered other cities. All in the name of gaining additional power. Eventually, they will turn their attention back to Elaeavn. Our sacred crystals are far too much of a prize for them to abandon.”

  “I see no evidence that they have continued their attacks. Perhaps they’ve already gotten what they need.”

  All eyes were on him now. This wasn’t the time or place for this discussion.

  Daniel started turning away before hesitating. “What was that?”

  His father shrugged. “What was what?”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said that I see no evidence that they have continued their attacks. Do you think that we are so ignorant as to the happenings within the forest?” His father marched around the table, standing at the edge of the elevated platform, keeping himself looking down at Daniel. “We aren’t nearly as isolated as you would believe us to be, Daniel. We have heard the stories. There have been no attacks on the Aisl. None since—”

  “Since Rsiran was taken.”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t have to be so excited about that.”

  “Who said anything about being excited? He’s a disruptor. It’s because of him that we have maintained whatever battles with the Forgers we have over the years.”

  “Another possibility would be that it is because of him that the city has been safe from the Forgers over the years.”

  “We’ll never know, will we? What if he only encouraged them to continue paying attention to our people? What if we would have been left alone had Lareth not pressed the attack?”

  After what he’d seen, Daniel had a hard time believing that the Ai’thol would leave anyone and anything alone if attacking them served the purpose of power they sought. Rsiran might be many things, but he was serving Elaeavn, regardless of what the Elvraeth Council believed. Without him, without the pressure of his attack, they wouldn’t be safe.

  And it was something his father might not ever really understand—or appreciate.

  Regardless of whatever news they might hear out of the Aisl forest, it was different traveling there himself, speaking to the people who were impacted, walking the perimeter where Rsiran had placed the lorcith bars that created a barrier. Without doing that, how could anyone understand the extent of the danger posed by the Forgers?

  Something that his father had said triggered an idea, though he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  What if the Ai’thol already had what they wanted from here?

  The same had happened in Nyaesh. The Ai’thol had come, destroyed the wall around the palace, taking the stone that had already been infused by the Elder Stone.

  Could they have done something similar here?

  “Tell Mother that I visited,” Daniel said as he turned away.

  He hurried from the room, ignoring his father as he attempted to Read him, pushing his barrier into place to ensure that there was no pressure in the back of his mind. He raced through the halls, back out to the courtyard, where he emerged into bright sunlight. With a step, he Slid, emerging in the heart of the Aisl forest.

  He paused, looking around. The Elder Trees growing all around him, rising high into the sky, glittered with the metal that had been implanted in their trunks. He stared at them, feeling the strange pressure, the energy he’d been aware of the moment he had come here.

  “Rsiran wasn’t able to come up with any way of undoing the damage that has been done,” Jessa said, coming up from behind him.

  Daniel turned to her, seeing the sadness still burning within her eyes. This was a woman who had lost much over the years, and now she suffered with the possibility that her husband was tormented by the Ai’thol—or worse, dead. “I know he focused on removing it, but did he ever try to figure out what it was?”

  “When it comes to the Forgers, we often don’t know what they intend.”

  “This wasn’t the Forgers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The attack wasn’t the Forgers. At least not at first.” He frowned, looking at the trees. The Ai’thol had come and attacked. Their presence here had been for a purpose, but what was it? “This was the C’than. Or part of them.”

  Daniel’s gaze drifted from the base of the massive tree all the way to the branches hanging high overhead. Despite the metal embedded within the trunks of the trees themselves, there was nothing about the tree that looked at as if it were dying. Leaves remained bright and vibrant.

  “What if destruction was never their intention?” he whispered.

  “You don’t think they would destroy?”

  He tore his gaze away. “I don’t know that destruction has ever been their purpose.”

  “Daniel, you weren’t alive during the last attack, but I can tell you that they want nothing more than to destroy. When they came to the city before, their attacks destroyed much of it, all as a diversion for coming here, intend
ing to tear down the Elder Trees.”

  He had heard that often enough as a child that he believed it to be true, but there was something off about that belief. And with what he saw now, there was something about the possibility that they wanted nothing more than to destroy that didn’t feel quite right.

  “What if they aren’t trying to destroy the trees at all, Jessa?”

  “What do you think they’re trying to do, then? Look at this. Look at what they’ve done to our trees. They want to change them, much the same way they attacked others, trying to change that. They will destroy them.”

  “Maybe it’s not about destroying at all. Maybe it’s about using them.” Why hadn’t anyone seen that before? Daniel hadn’t returned after the attack, so he hadn’t considered it before, and even if he had come back, it was possible that he wouldn’t have noticed it. It might have taken him having seen other things in the world, having seen the way that the Ai’thol destroyed in Nyaesh, to recognize that there was something more taking place. He didn’t even know if he was right, but if he was, and if this was about more than simply destroying the Elder Trees, then the longer they left them alone, the more likely it was that the Ai’thol were gaining access to power they should not.

  “Using it?”

  Daniel looked all around. “When I returned to the city, I felt the energy here. It was different than anything I had felt before.”

  “What sort of energy?”

  “I’m not even sure how to describe it. All I know is that when I came, it felt different. It wasn’t that there was a loss of something, though perhaps that was a part of it. Instead, this was a sense that something had changed. I wonder if you might recognize it if you were to leave the city for a while and return.”

  “Even if we recognize that the power is different,” Jessa said carefully, “what does that matter? The attack was meant to weaken us.”

  “That’s just my point. What if the point wasn’t only to weaken Elaeavn, but to strengthen the C’than, and the Ai’thol discovered it and turned it to their advantage?”