The Dark Ability: Books 1-4

by D. K. Holmberg

  Without touching it, and without making a mold as he had with the sheet of metal he’d found in the hut, he wondered if this would be another map.

  If it was, it meant his father had been here.

  Rsiran pocketed the piece of metal and Slid back to the other side of the wall, returning to Jessa.

  As soon as he emerged, she punched him. “You can’t go off like that!” she hissed.

  “There was something on the other side of the wall,” he told her.

  “What did you find?” Brusus asked.

  “A map. My father was here, I think.”

  “Another map?” Brusus asked. “Like the first?”

  Rsiran nodded, not certain whether they could see it in the darkness. “Like the other, but different. This is steel and silver, I think.”

  “Anything else?”

  Rsiran shook his head. “Nothing other than a small piece of heartstone.”

  “Show us,” Brusus said.

  Rsiran grabbed them and pulled them through the wall, Sliding with more confidence now that he knew what was on the other side of the wall.

  Brusus grunted as they emerged. “How did you see anything in here, Rsiran? Thought you barely had any Sight.”

  “I don’t,” he said. He pulled his sword from under his cloak and held it out. The blue light again pushed back some of the shadows in the small room, making it easier to see everything around them.

  “Rsiran?” Jessa said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why do you have your sword out?”

  “You don’t see it?” he asked. He twisted the sword, letting the blue light play off her cheeks, catching the charm she wore. Brusus appeared as little more than a shadow.

  “See what? All I see is you holding a sword out toward the two of us.”

  Brusus stepped back. “Damn, Rsiran. Put that thing away! We’re in a tight enough space as it is.”

  He slipped the sword back into the loop on his belt. “You wanted to know how I saw anything in this darkness. You don’t see the light coming off the sword?” He kept his cloak pulled back so that the light of the sword still managed to spread around him. The longer he was here, the more his eyes adjusted to it, and the easier it became for him to see.

  Brusus frowned and shook his head.

  Jessa touched him on the shoulder. “I don’t see anything, Rsiran. Are you sure that’s what you’re seeing?”

  He looked down at the sword, wondering if he was imagining the dark blue glow from the blade. It was there, and it let him see the concern on Jessa’s face, and the way that Brusus paced from side to side, though he didn’t really need the sword to see that. He had a sense of that from the knives Brusus carried, and how they moved with his steps.

  “Look,” he said, pulling the sheet of metal from his pocket and handing it to Jessa. “This is what I found.”

  She took it and held it up to her face. “I don’t know how you managed to see this in here. I can barely make it out. All I can see are slivers of shadows,” Jessa said.

  Rsiran took it back and pocketed it. He would have to make another mold like he’d done with the first one so that he could understand what the map was designed to show. “If it was here, that means that my father was,” Rsiran said.

  “Or they want you to think that he was,” Brusus countered. “Think about it. Why would your father leave another map for you? This is the man who wanted nothing from you for years, and now he’s suddenly leaving things for you to find?”

  Rsiran had to agree that it didn’t make sense. “Then why is this here?” He didn’t have an answer, only more questions, and he was no closer to finding his sister.

  Rsiran went and picked up the small piece of heartstone that he had sensed originally. Had he not known where to find it, he could have stepped on it. Other than someone like himself able to sense heartstone, he doubted that anyone else would have been able to find it.

  But if it wasn’t left for him to find, then who? As far as he knew, he had a unique ability to detect heartstone.

  “We should go,” Brusus said. “If we wait too long…”

  He didn’t need to finish. Thom waited outside the city and Rsiran was determined to get answers from him, anything that might help him reach his father, find out what he was involved in, so that he could find his sister.

  And then… Then it would be time for Rsiran to find a way to keep his friends protected.

  Taking Jessa’s hand, and grabbing Brusus’s arm, he Slid.

  They emerged outside the city, standing on the rock overlooking Thyr, with the Tower of Venass in the background.

  Rsiran readied a pair of knives, half-expecting Thom to leap at them.

  “Where did you leave him?” Brusus asked.

  Rsiran thought that Thom would have been here, but there was nothing. Not even a drop of blood that would make it seem like anyone had been here.

  Nothing. How was that possible? He was sure he’d knocked him out enough such that he’d be here when Rsiran returned.

  He focused on heartstone, pushing away all the sense of lorcith and the alloy as quickly as he could, and listened for heartstone. There was nothing.

  Since Thom seemed to have some way to avoid Rsiran’s ability to sense him, Rsiran hadn’t expected to find anything to explain where Thom might have gone. Likely as not, he’d disappeared into Venass. Rsiran wasn’t willing to chase him there.

  And now there was no way to find what happened to his father, or to learn what happened to Alyse.

  Because he hadn’t taken the time to bind Thom, she might be gone for good.

  Rsiran was surprised at how much that thought hurt.

  Chapter 22

  After searching the area for Thom, they Slid from Thyr, returning to Elaeavn and his smithy. Brusus had expected to find something that would reveal where Thom had gone, but Rsiran didn’t. The fact that Thom disappeared should not have surprised him at all.

  Could Venass have been monitoring somehow?

  Rsiran knew so little about what they were capable of doing, only that they trained deadly assassins. If they were able to control lorcith and direct his Sliding in spite of his best abilities to protect himself, why couldn’t they monitor one of their own and rescue him?

  And now that he’d lost Thom and was unable to detect the heartstone implant any longer, he had nothing. Whatever Thom did to shield himself was effective.

  As always when he returned to the smithy since placing the bars of alloy all around it, there was a steady drawing sensation, as if Sliding through the narrow slats of the alloy that he’d arranged around the smithy threatened to pull him apart. Each time returning got easier for him. In that way, Sliding with the alloy, and through the alloy, was much like with lorcith: the more he practiced, the stronger he became.

  Brusus glanced around as they emerged and shook his head, a hint of a smile on his mouth. “Still not used to that.”

  “Do it enough times, and it’s not so bad,” Jessa said.

  “Easy enough for you to say. You want to be around him.” Jessa shot Brusus a glare and he smiled, spreading his hands apart in a shrug. “You know I’m kidding.” He watched Rsiran, concern wrinkling his brow as he fixed him with a nod. “You going to be okay? I know you wanted to find out what Thom might have known, but chances are good that he didn’t know anything.”

  Rsiran nodded. But if that was true, he couldn’t shake the sense that he’d missed an opportunity. Whatever had been held in that room had been meant for someone with the ability to sense heartstone. Like him.

  But Brusus had been right when he said that his father wouldn’t have left him messages. The man had spent the last few years trying to change Rsiran. For him to suddenly count on him to find something hidden… It made no sense.

  There had to be another explanation, but Rsiran had none.

  “How you doing with the rest?” Brusus asked.

  “The rest of what?”

  Brusus motioned toward the sword. “N
eeding to use that. The fighting. The killing.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “Something like that can change a man. Trust me. I’ve been there. You don’t have to hold it in if you need to talk.”

  Rsiran shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah, well I know that you will. And I think Haern was right in teaching you. You’re skilled, and you have potential, but there are others out there with more skill, and more experience. With everything that we have going on, you’re going to need to keep practicing.”

  Rsiran nodded. “I get the feeling that Haern enjoys that a little too much.”

  Brusus smiled. “Probably he does. It was the same when he started teaching me, you know?”

  “Haern taught you?”

  “As much as he could. Figured the more we got involved with, I should know how to use knives and a sword. In Elaeavn, you don’t really get the chance to use a sword very often, but the knives have come in handy. He’s never taught me some of the other skills he acquired, though.”

  “I think he wants to forget them as much as he can,” Jessa said.

  Brusus shrugged. “Some things are useful, even when you want to forget.” He paused then clapped Rsiran on the shoulder and leaned into him to whisper in his ear. “I know you don’t like what you did, but you had to do it.”

  “I know.”

  “You did only what was needed to keep us safe. I need to find Haern. He was worried about us going to Thyr.”

  “He probably thought we’d get pulled to Venass again,” Jessa said.

  Brusus nodded. “I think that was a part of it.”

  As Brusus started to the door, he tipped his head to Jessa. She released Rsiran’s hand and made her way over to Brusus where they leaned together and spoke quietly for a moment. In the smithy, surrounded by lorcith and the alloy, their voices carried. Rsiran didn’t think that they really intended for him to hear.

  “Make sure he knows that we’ll still help him,” Brusus said to her.

  “Are you sure that’s the safest thing to do?” Jessa asked.

  “We promised him that we’d help. And if Venass has her—”

  “You don’t know that they do,” Jessa said.

  “No, but there was an awful lot of protection there for some reason. And Thom seemed to be expecting… well, if not us, then someone. Just don’t let him go off after the Forgotten again without help.”

  Jessa said something more, but Rsiran couldn’t hear it. Brusus turned from her and walked from the smithy. Jessa closed the door and locked it tightly. The locks were all that kept them safe within the smithy. The bars of lorcith would block someone from Sliding, but a skilled lock picker could still manage to sneak past the door. It was the reason he’d set another couple of bars through the door that could be set into the floor and up around the doorframe. That way, the only way into the smithy was by Sliding.

  “You want to talk about it?” she asked. “I saw your face after… after the first attack.”

  Rsiran turned away. His hand went to his pocket where he’d tucked the second map. “What’s there to say? I saw you in danger, and I reacted. Haern was right. I needed to learn how to protect us.”

  Jessa motioned toward the hearth at the far end of the smithy and started setting a few logs in place, getting the fire crackling softly. Their bed was shoved into the corner near the hearth and she knelt on it, patting a spot to motion for him to sit.

  When he did, he curled his arms around his knees. Jessa leaned on his shoulder. “There’s something more than what you’re telling me. I can see it in the way your eyes tightened.”

  “Brusus and Haern want to make sure that I won’t hesitate if it’s needed. How can I argue with that?” he asked. “Especially now, after what happened today?”

  She sniffed and smacked him softly on the shoulder. “Brusus doesn’t always know what he’s talking about. If you go in, knives flying all over the place, what does that make you but a killer?”

  “He’s right, though. What happens if I hesitate? Too often, we’ve been in danger because I hesitated. What happens when that puts you in danger—”

  “I think we’ve already seen me in danger. And you didn’t hesitate this time. Damn, Rsiran, but you jumped out into the hallway, Sliding with your knives flying as if you were excited to be there.”

  There had been a part of him that had been excited to be there, the same part that had enjoyed the challenge, the test of his abilities. If he could Slide, and throw his knives, could he keep them safe?

  So far, the answer was that he couldn’t. As much as he thought his abilities gave him some advantage, the skill of others mitigated it.

  “You can’t be so willing to go into danger,” Jessa said. “You took Thom away, and you don’t know what he might have been able to do. What if he’d managed to Compel you? What if he’d attacked?” She shook her head. “And then you jump into the hall as if you had trained your entire life to fight, but you haven’t. You’ve only been working with Haern a short while…”

  Rsiran pulled her against him, only now understanding what bothered her. He might be afraid to lose her, but she was afraid to lose him too. He had focused so much on making certain that Jessa, and Brusus, and even Haern were safe, not caring as much if he was in danger. Since leaving his home, abandoning his apprenticeship, he had placed himself in danger enough times that he no longer feared it as he once had. Danger like that had taught him to listen to lorcith, had taught him to hear the call of the alloy and learn that he could control it, and had taught him that he could Slide past the alloy, even without a lorcith anchor.

  But fear for Jessa changed that. It made him… almost reckless in a way. Haern thought he might hesitate, but that wasn’t what he did at all. When Jessa was in danger, he attacked with abandon. He didn’t want anything to happen to her and refused to be the reason that she was placed in harm’s way.

  And when he had attacked, when he’d let himself go, he had enjoyed the fighting. He couldn’t hide that fact from himself. When he had saved Jessa from Josun, hadn’t he enjoyed harming him? And even with Shael, had he sent the knife at him with more force than needed?

  Was he losing control?

  Another troubling thought crept in, one that harkened back to claims his father made about him, and about his abilities. What if there was something to it?

  What if they changed him in some way?

  Holding the crystal had changed him. He could no longer question that, especially with the improvement in his Sight. But now he saw dark blue light glowing from his sword when there should not—and maybe, could not—be there.

  Had he changed?

  Did Sliding and using lorcith change him in ways that he still hadn’t understood?

  When he first discovered his ability to Slide, he had thought that it was a curse. His father had convinced him that it was a curse. But he’d begun to believe—at least, to let himself believe—that it was not, and that Sliding could help and did not make him the thief and criminal his father feared.

  What if he’d been wrong?

  Rsiran thought about others he’d learned could Slide. Josun. Inna. The others within the Forgotten camp. Even those within Venass who had somehow coopted the ability to Slide, even if they never possessed it in the first place.

  What if there was something about Sliding that twisted a person, that brought them to darkness?

  Rsiran would never really have considered it likely, but that was before. He’d felt far too eager attacking, almost as if some sort of bloodlust had overcome him.

  Jessa pushed away from him and rested her hands on his shoulders as she looked at him. With her Sight, she saw things that he couldn’t even imagine. “Something else is bothering you, isn’t it?”

  He swallowed. “Not entirely,” he admitted. Jessa wouldn’t want to hear about this concern, he was certain. She believed that his Sliding had saved them, and had helped them, but she couldn’t know what he felt.

  “Then what?”

/>   Rsiran hesitated. He wanted to share with her, but he couldn’t. That would only open old arguments, ones that he didn’t want to have again.

  But if he couldn’t tell Jessa, who could he tell? They had been through everything together. She was the reason he hesitated, the reason that Brusus and Haern thought that he had a soft heart. Without her, what would have happened to him? Would he have become a monster sooner?

  “When I first learned to Slide,” he started, thinking back to the time when he’d awoken atop Krali Rock with the wind blowing against his face. He’d been terrified, but also exhilarated at the same time. How long had he looked up at the tall rock peak, wishing he could reach the summit? Atop Krali, he could look over all of Elaeavn and see the city as a different place, and for the first time, he felt he was meant to be something. The terror had forced him to climb down the side of Krali slowly, always afraid that he would fall. And when he’d told his father what happened… “My father called it a dark ability, and said that it would turn me into a thief, or worse.”

  “You’ve told me this before,” Jessa said. “Besides, what’s so wrong with being a thief?” She smiled as she said it, but there was an edge to the question as well.

  Rsiran shook his head. “When it first happened, I didn’t know you, or Brusus, or Haern. All I knew was my apprenticeship.” He looked over at the forge, his eyes lingering on the anvil and the tools arranged neatly on the bench alongside it. “That was all that I wanted to be. That was my future. I would take over his smithy, and then…”

  He couldn’t finish. That future was gone, taken from him. Most days, he knew that he was better off without having taken over his father’s smithy. He would never have learned what he had about lorcith had he listened to his father. He would never have learned how to control heartstone had he listened to him. But then, he might have been safe. He might have had a home.

  Only, it would have been one without Jessa.

  And he would never have known about his parents, would he? How his mother was the child of Forgotten parents, allowed to return to the city because of his father. Or how his father had committed his service to the Forgotten.