The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  Rsiran hadn’t considered it, but it made sense. “What kind of protection?”

  She shook his head. “We don’t know the details. Those of us who’ve lived outside the walls of Elaeavn know some of the effects. We’ve seen how Sliding can’t be consistently used. It’s a rare enough ability, but one that—outside of Elaeavn—is dangerous to utilize.” She smiled, studying Rsiran. “Or, is for most of us.”

  “What of other abilities?” Jessa asked. “Sight or Reading?”

  “For those recently exiled, there is no change.”

  “What of others?”

  “They fade. Within a generation, abilities begin to slip. Over enough time, there are only weak abilities.” She nodded toward the men holding the crossbows. “Naeln and Maven were both born to parents whose parents were banished.”

  Rsiran looked at the two men and only now realized the color of their eyes. They had faded green eyes that looked even paler than what Brusus projected when he Pushed. Rsiran had never seen eyes so pale. Within Elaeavn, they would be very weakly gifted.

  He looked at Jessa before turning back to the woman sitting across from him. Rsiran noted the color of her eyes, the depths of the green. “Were you banished?” He didn’t say Forgotten, worried he might offend her.

  “I was born in Elaeavn. When my father was exiled, I went with him. There could be no evidence of him passing on his lineage.”

  Rsiran wondered about the woman’s mother. As he did, he realized why Brusus’s mother would have left him in Elaeavn. Now it made sense. Had she taken Brusus with her, his abilities would have faded.

  Rsiran had come looking for the Forgotten, and found more than he expected. How much did Brusus know? How much did Haern? He’d wandered outside of Elaeavn more than any of them. Did his visions tell him what happened to the Forgotten?

  And if Brusus knew, why hadn’t he shared that with Rsiran?

  “You see why we’d like to know how you can safely Slide?”

  He shook his head.

  “Because we’re under attack, Rsiran Lareth. We have been for centuries, only now the attacks have grown stronger. And the Elvraeth will do nothing to help.”

  “Under attack? From who?”

  The woman shook her head. “There are those with abilities that rival those gifted to us. They would steal from us, claim a desire to learn from us.”

  “You mean Venass,” Rsiran said. Which meant that the Forgotten and Venass didn’t work together.

  She sighed. “You were a fool to come here, Rsiran Lareth. It is fortunate you did, but you were a fool.”

  Something struck the back of his head and he fell forward.

  The last thing he felt was Jessa squeezing his hand.

  Chapter 27

  Rsiran awoke but didn’t. Not really.

  He felt a haze around him. Colors swirled as if he were Sliding. He smelled nothing like the Slide, though, and had no sense of movement.

  Vaguely, he remembered what had happened. The back of his neck hurt and his head throbbed. He tried to move but couldn’t.

  Panic started through him, making his heart race. As far as he could tell, nothing bound his arms or his legs. He simply could not move.

  Rsiran tried to force calm upon himself and focused on his breathing. He’d been trapped before and escaped. If he could sense lorcith, he would be able to Slide and free himself.

  The air smelled damp and different than it had been before. A sweet edge hung to it, almost nauseating, like the edge of rot. The air didn’t move, still as his limbs.

  There was no light. That, more than anything, sent fear coursing through him.

  Lorcith thrummed nearby, pressing on his senses. He felt his knives still strapped to his waist. They hadn’t bothered removing the knives, thinking that he couldn’t do anything with them if he couldn’t move. It was a start.

  At least his ability to sense the lorcith was not taken from him as it had been the times he’d been trapped before.

  He listened for other lorcith, finally feeling it distantly. There were knives he’d made and others he had not. The crossbow tip he’d sensed earlier was somewhere nearby as well. A few lumps of unshaped lorcith, large enough to forge into swords, were near.

  Rsiran ignored all of it, pushing it away.

  He listened for a small piece of lorcith, one dear to him.

  For long moments, he couldn’t sense it. During that time, Rsiran felt afraid. He’d failed Jessa again, brought her into danger himself. And now the Forgotten would do what Josun first tried to do to him.

  A sound came from behind him. Or above. Everything lost meaning as he lay unable to move. A dark shape hovered nearby. Rsiran smelled the sweet rot more strongly.

  “Awake already?”

  The Forgotten woman. As much as he wanted his freedom, he wanted to know who she was. What she wanted from him.

  “This should help. Can’t have you Sliding away before we get a chance to know how you escaped the chains.”

  Rsiran tried to open his mouth to speak, but it didn’t work and sleep overwhelmed him again.

  When he came around again, light streamed all around him. As much as he tried, he still couldn’t move. His neck throbbed where he’d been struck, and his head ached. Other than that, he felt nothing else.

  He could still hear.

  Someone rustled nearby. From the occasional grunt, it sounded like a man. Rsiran listened for lorcith, and found he still wore his knives. There was more lorcith in the room, a long, slender blade. And not one he’d made.

  Could he still pull on it?

  He reached for the lorcith and tried. At first, he thought he touched the lorcith, that it would respond, but then it slipped away. He could sense lorcith but do nothing more with it.

  A deep laugh came from where the person worked. “Can’t be usin’ your abilities, now can you?”

  Rsiran would have lunged at Shael had he been able to move.

  “Don’t be worryin’ about your girl. She be fine. And she’ll stay fine so long as you help.”

  Rsiran tried to speak but couldn’t move his lips. Sound escaped anyway, something that sounded like a low growl.

  Shael laughed again. He came closer, splitting the bright light so it bent around him. “I do be rememberin’ how you got out of the chains. Not going to make the same mistake again, am I? This be better. Can’t escape if you can’t move, now can you?”

  Rsiran smelled the sickly sweet scent that was edged with rot again and began to understand.

  They poisoned him.

  Only enough that he couldn’t move, but it was enough that Rsiran couldn’t touch his abilities, either. They separated him from his gifts as surely as the Elvraeth chains.

  “Need you to rest a bit more now, Rsiran. Do be needing to give them more time to work.” He pulled on something. Rsiran realized he took his knives from his waist, but didn’t find the others he had hidden on him. “You won’ be needing these anymore, now will you? Probably fetch a few silvers for the pair.”

  Rsiran swallowed. His tongue moved, not much but some. “Why?”

  The question came out as a croak, nothing more.

  Shael leaned toward him, the sweet stench growing stronger, and laughed again.

  He lost track of how many times he started to come around, only to be dosed again. Most of the time, it was the woman. He’d come to hate her visits and the satisfied smile she wore as she looked at him.

  In some ways, Shael was worse. The man had already harmed him once, and that was when he was supposed to be his friend. Now he allowed Firell to be trapped as well.

  This time, Rsiran awoke slowly. Blackness swirled around him laced with grey and deep green. His neck still throbbed, but it was distant, less than before. His head ached, pulsing with a steady pain that reminded him of what he felt while in Venass. Rsiran shivered with the memory.

  He could still sense the knives on him and tried to push them but failed.

  Was Shael still here?


  He heard no sign of the smuggler.

  Shael knew of his secrets, knew enough to poison him to keep him from moving, but why would they want to keep him immobilized if they needed to know how he Slid into the palace? He still didn’t understand how they could learn anything if he couldn’t move.

  But they didn’t need him to move to Read him, did they?

  He pushed up his barriers, and found it more difficult than usual to do. As he did, he became aware of a crawling in his mind, subtle but clearly a Reader.

  Would they learn all of his secrets? That he could move lorcith, and the way heartstone answered him as well? Would they learn how much Jessa meant to him, or that he would do anything to see that she came to no harm?

  Rsiran felt violated in a way he never had before. Drugged so they could access his mind.

  He focused on his connection to the lorcith. He might not be able to push it, but could he use it to support his barriers?

  With an effort, he strained to push them into place, trying to seal out the Reader. The Forgotten woman, he had no doubt. Lorcith infused the barriers as he squeezed, pressing them into place. Slowly the sense of another presence, the crawling sensation he felt, disappeared.

  Rsiran’s breathing quickened as he held onto the barrier. Years spent living with his sister—a Reader of only minor skill—had taught him to keep his mind barricaded, but not in the way that he needed to around the more powerful Readers, those Elvraeth and Forgotten. And he didn’t know how to maintain the connection even when asleep. When they dosed him with their poison again, he worried that the lorcith-infused barrier would fall again.

  He heard movement. A door and then soft footsteps. Someone leaned close.

  Rsiran feared it was Shael again, but he felt a warm breath and smelled a mix of spice.

  The woman.

  “You won’t be able to keep me out indefinitely,” she whispered. “Already, you have given me much.” She crouched, leaning over so he saw her as little more than a vague shadow. “I confess I thought Shael had inflated his claims of what you can do with metal. After what I’ve learned, I see he didn’t know everything, now did he?”

  Rsiran tried to slam heartstone into the barrier in his mind, but wasn’t sure he succeeded.

  He smelled the sickly sweet scent, and then he went out.

  Chapter 28

  Rsiran awoke to an absence of pain. He didn’t know what it meant that he felt nothing. No throbbing of the back of his neck. No pulsing of his head. Not even the ache from lying on the floor. Simply… nothing.

  He still couldn’t move.

  And he was alone. No one made any sounds around him, not like there had been before. The air smelled only damp, none of the sickly sweet scent he’d come to associate with the poison.

  His heart hammered in his chest. That they’d left him alone meant they’d likely gotten what they wanted.

  But what did they want?

  He checked the barriers in his mind, but they were still in place. Somehow he’d held them while the poison worked through him, keeping him from moving. Rsiran was no longer sure that meant anything. What if the woman could crawl past his barrier, even infused as it was with lorcith? Why hadn’t he pushed heartstone into it? Then he remembered that he had.

  Rsiran tried to swallow but couldn’t. How long had he been here, separated from Jessa, trapped with the Forgotten?

  Long enough to feel the effects of the poisoning over and over. Too many times to keep track. And long enough for them to learn everything about him.

  He had thought to fear Venass, but they had not tormented him the same way the Forgotten did.

  He was comforted by the thought that knowing how he Slid past the heartstone alloy didn’t mean they would be able to do it. Unless they had others with his ability to sense lorcith.

  But then what?

  If that was all they wanted from him, they could have it. Knowing his abilities didn’t mean they actually use them as he did.

  Except he was trapped here. As long as they kept dosing him with the poison so he couldn’t move, there was nothing he could do to escape.

  And what of Jessa? Where was she? Shael claimed she was unharmed, but once they got what they needed from Rsiran, what reason would they have to keep her alive?

  He had to think there was some reason; otherwise she’d already be dead. Maybe they wanted Josun back. And if they’d Read him, they already knew where Rsiran had left him. They might not be able to safely Slide—if what the woman told him was even true—but there were other ways to reach the mine. And once Josun was free, he would come for vengeance.

  If only there was something he could do.

  When Shael had captured him the first time and put him in the Elvraeth chains, he’d been cut off from lorcith. When he could reach it again, he’d been able to escape, freeing himself. That had been a different sense of hopelessness. This—the ability to sense and hear the lorcith but not push it—was a failure of his abilities.

  Rsiran felt the lorcith of the knives he had strapped to his calf. There was a misshapen item an arm’s length from him. Somewhere nearby were the knives Shael had taken off him. And then there was the charm.

  He felt it differently than the rest, attuned to it in a way he wasn’t to the knives. It was more like the sense he had with the sword, but different at the same time. If only he could anchor to the charm and pull himself as he had when he’d been trapped in Venass, but the poison kept him from being able to focus on the metal long enough to anchor.

  Rsiran did nothing but listen to the charm. After a while, he realized it moved. If the charm moved, it meant Jessa lived; he refused to consider any alternatives.

  The charm seemed to be closer than before. Were they taking her somewhere?

  He wished he had some way of communicating with her. If only he had some of Brusus’s abilities, he might be able to send her a message. Instead, he had to lie there motionless and wait. Eventually, the Forgotten woman would return, or Shael, and they would dose him again. And then he’d awaken, unable to move, cycling through again and again.

  The charm came closer.

  Rsiran felt his tongue loosen a little. Had they forgotten about him?

  He managed to swallow. And then blink.

  He prayed to the Great Watcher they gave him enough time. Maybe they’d miscalculated the effect. If it wore off before they returned, could he Slide to safety? Somehow grab Jessa on the way?

  There was a sound near the door.

  His heart hammered faster and louder. He blinked again, willing his body to move, but it didn’t obey. Would it be Shael this time, or the woman? At least he’d discovered that Jessa still moved. Hopefully that had been Jessa.

  A click came from near the door, soft but distinct.

  Rsiran reached for lorcith, trying to anchor and Slide, but failed.

  He moved his tongue, trying to work moisture into his mouth and his lips. It didn’t work as it should.

  The door pushed open with a soft burst of air. Did he smell something sickly and sweet or was it only his imagination? Then the door shut with another soft click.

  Footsteps sounded softly across the floor. Too light for Shael. That meant the woman. The Forgotten. Would she push past his barriers this time or did it no longer matter?

  A shifting of shadows crossed over his eyes, not enough for him to see. He waited. There was nothing else for him to do.

  And then the voice. “Rsiran?”

  Jessa.

  He listened frantically for the lorcith of her charm. It dangled just over him, close enough to reach if his arms worked. He tried to make his mouth work, but it refused.

  A fearful thought crossed his mind. What if this was another trick? What if she was Compelled?

  “Rsiran? Can you move?”

  He thought she touched him but couldn’t be certain. He felt nothing other than his tongue, and it felt thick and swollen in his mouth.

  The lighting shifted. He realized she lifted him
, propping him up. Rsiran didn’t know what she intended. He was too heavy for her to carry.

  “We have to move. I don’t know how long we have before they find I’m missing.”

  He licked his lips, moving his tongue slowly, and swallowed. “Jessa.”

  Her name came out more like a grunt, but he heard her sigh.

  “I don’t know what they gave you. Something to weaken you and prevent you from moving. Shael has come to me several times and said that if I told them where you’d hidden Josun, they’d let me go. The other”—she practically spat the word—“said he didn’t matter. They wanted to know how you managed to reach the palace. There’s something there they want.”

  Again, Rsiran listened for lorcith around him. He sensed the knives still hidden on him. Jessa wore the charm, but no longer had the knives she’d carried when they first came. If he could find the lorcith knives Shael had taken from him, he would find Shael.

  He felt it close by. How much longer before Shael discovered Jessa was gone? How much longer before he came for Rsiran? Then she would be poisoned as well, left immobile as he was, unable to do anything. They would both be trapped.

  “Shael.”

  It was the only word he could get out.

  “I know about Shael, Rsiran. We need to get you moving. Can you Slide?”

  He blinked and tried to move his head. Did it twitch? He couldn’t tell. “No,” he grunted.

  She swallowed. “Whatever they gave you keeps you from your abilities. They know the Elvraeth chains won’t hold you. No other way to keep you here.”

  Rsiran didn’t think that was the real reason they poisoned him. At least, it wasn’t the entire reason. They wanted his defenses down. They wanted to Read him.

  “Read me,” he said.

  Jessa leaned toward him. He knew from the way the charm moved against his senses and that he could smell her. All he wanted to do was pull her close and hold her, but they’d taken that from him.

  “What do you mean?”

  His vision seemed to be returning. Shapes blurred in front of him. The dark shadow that was Jessa now had hazy borders, lines that made up her face.