The Dark Ability (18 page)

R
siran emerged
from the Slide into a familiar room. The fire crackled in the hearth along the wall. The scent of incense and smoke hung in the air, mixing with the metallic tang of Brusus’s blood. The small cot was folded against the wall.

He staggered, more drained than he ever had felt after emerging from a single Slide. The effect of carrying another with him had almost been more than he could manage. He did not want to think what would happen if a Slide failed. Had he a mentor, someone who shared his gift, he might better understand the limitations. Instead, he had to fumble along, learning what he could alone.

Brusus groaned at his feet.

His face had gone pale and his eyes were closed. Blood slowed from the wound on his chest but still flowed. One hand somehow had managed to keep hold of his sword. Quality steel and finely made. Where would Brusus have acquired such a blade?

Brusus groaned again and jerked. Then he went still.

Rsiran prayed to the Great Watcher that the healer was home.

“I will not heal you of your foolishness again.”

Rsiran spun. Della stood in a small doorway, her greying hair wild about her head, a thin blue scarf wrapped around her neck as if she prepared to leave.

“Della—”

She frowned, as if realizing something was off. “Not you?”

He shook his head. “Brusus took me to…”

He trailed off. How much would Brusus want to trust the healer?

Rsiran shook away the question. Already he trusted her with more than he trusted anyone else. Of all the people in Elaeavn, she alone knew nearly everything about him, from his ability to Slide, to the attacks, to his return to the mines to harvest lorcith for Brusus.

He needed her to help Brusus now, do whatever it was that she did for him, to save Brusus.

Della watched his face, and her eyes widened as she saw Brusus lying on the floor. “Brusus?”

The healer hurried over and knelt beside Brusus, running her hands along his sides. With a strong grip, she ripped his shirt away, revealing a deep wound near the center of his chest. The edges had blackened, and dark lines ran out from the wound, twisting like vines.

She touched the flesh and winced. Her jaw tightened, and Rsiran saw her eyes flare a bright green. Then the bleeding slowed.

“What happened?” She did not look up at him.

“A sellsword.”

“Neelish blade?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

She turned and looked up at him. “You were by the warehouse?”

Rsiran was relieved that she already seemed to know. He nodded. “Right outside. The sellsword seemed to appear from the shadows, almost as if he Slid.”

She turned back to Brusus, pushing her finger into the wound. “They are not of Elaeavn, Rsiran. They cannot Slide. That is a gift from the Great Watcher to our people alone.”

Rsiran watched, uncertain what to say to the healer. She continued to insist that his ability was a gift. Without his ability, would he have been sentenced by his father to Ilphaesn? Would his family have turned away from him?

Would Brusus have a chance of survival?

Della’s mouth tightened, and her eyes flared again. Some of the darkness around the wound seemed to fade, slowly turning a shade of pink.

“Can you help him?”

“Neelish blades are tipped in poison. Rare to survive an attack. Most are dead before they see a healer, even if they survive the wound.” She poked her finger into the hole in Brusus’s chest. Drying blood stained her finger. “And this wound is particularly nasty. I am not yet certain what poison was used, but unlike some I have seen recently, I can slow it.” She flicked an accusing gaze at him, as if to remind him of his own wound. “Had you left him by the warehouse, he would be dead already.”

Rsiran swallowed.

Della looked over. Her eyes were moist, and she blinked away the welling tears. “Without your
ability, he would have been gone from this world, returned to join the Great Watcher.”

She focused on Brusus, running one hand along the skin of his chest while the other remained plunged in the hole. As Rsiran watched, the skin slowly faded, and the hole gradually seemed to shrink, the edges pulling together. She murmured softly as she worked, one hand moving over his body, the other staying in the wound, as if plugging the flow of blood.

She was a skilled healer, but he had thought she used mostly potions and powders. What she was doing with Brusus was different and much like any other ability. Only he had never seen a healer with abilities given to them by the Great Watcher. After how she had fixed his back, he should have known better, but hadn’t thought to question.

“He has lost much blood already. There remains a chance that he does not awaken.” Her voice became hushed. “And if he does, he will be weakened for quite some time. I do not know what he had planned with that warehouse, only that he was foolish enough to take the job.” She looked down at Brusus with an affectionate expression. “This time he took on too much. Always thinking he can compensate with his abilities.”

Rsiran frowned. Abilities? What did the healer mean? “Della,” he began. “The sellsword seemed upset with Brusus over something. Said he was Pushing him.”

She glanced up at Rsiran and her eyes flared. She seemed to consider how to answer. “We all have our secrets, Rsiran. Each of us is more than we present ourselves to be, and even the most honest still hides something.”

Rsiran recognized the truth in that statement. “What did he mean? What did Brusus do that upset him so much?”

“Brusus did as he always does. He relies on his abilities, thinking they will get him out of every problem. Unfortunately, he found a problem where that didn’t work.” She looked up and saw the confused way Rsiran was looking at her. “Neelish sellswords have a particular type of training that hardens their minds. Once, such training was essential to keep their people and their soldiers safe. Now, it serves simply as tradition. Still, it serves a purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“It makes them valuable around men like Brusus.”

Men like Brusus. Rsiran eyed his friend, wondering what Della meant. “What is Pushing?”

Della ran her hands along Brusus’s chest again, as if smoothing the skin. All traces of the blackened skin were now gone, leaving pale, unmarked flesh. He didn’t move, but his breathing was steady and regular. His face looked slack and waxy, and his hair seemed to have gone a deeper grey in the last hour.

She stood slowly, using her arms to push up from where she knelt beside Brusus. The effort of healing appeared to have weakened her, similar to what he felt after Sliding. Had this been how she had felt after healing him? Was this why she had been unable to fully heal his neck? Was she a Healer rather than simply a healer?

“Pushing is rare. Very few can manage and fewer learn to control it.” She sighed. A debate seemed to rage behind her eyes as she considered her answer. She frowned at Rsiran, the corners of her mouth tightening. “It is where a powerful Reader can influence a thought, making someone do something they didn’t know they wanted to do.”

“But Brusus isn’t powerful…”

She laughed. The sound was weak and thready. She limped to the small wooden chair in front of the fire and slumped down into it. “That is what he chooses to project.”

“Brusus has been Pushing
me
?” Is that why he had been helping him, why he left the mines?

“Do not take affront, Rsiran. He Pushes everyone. He has been doing it so long that he no longer has to think about what he does. Only in moments of great stress does he slip.”

Like when he fought with the sellsword, Rsiran realized, remembering how his eyes flared a deep green that seemed almost impossible given all that he knew of Brusus. Now, it seemed he knew very little of Brusus.

Like Brusus knew very little about him.

Della smiled. “You have a quick mind, Rsiran.”

Rsiran started thinking about all that he knew about Brusus. “I thought he was Sighted.” All those times he had thought he felt a Reader creeping through his mind, he had suspected Jessa. What if it had been Brusus all along?

“He is Sighted.”

“But you said he was a Reader.”

She looked at him, a hint of disappointment written on her eyes.

“And a Pusher,” Rsiran realized. “But to have such abilities would take one with Elvraeth blood.”

“Yes, it would.”

Rsiran jerked his head around at the sound of Brusus’s voice. He had opened his eyes. They were a deep green and looked much the shade of Della’s. His face looked weathered and some of the waxy look had gone from it.

“Brusus?” Rsiran said.

Brusus tried to smile but failed, his head flopping slowly to the side instead.

“You’re Elvraeth?” Why would one of the Elvraeth live in Lower Town? Why would he want to break into a warehouse that he had every right to access?

“No,” he said. His eyes fluttered shut.

“But—”

“Della?” Brusus croaked.

Della sighed and pointed for Rsiran to come toward her and sit. He glanced at Brusus who seemed to have fallen back into a deep sleep, his breathing steady, and his chest rising and falling slowly. He had only awoken to manage those few words.

Rsiran sat on the soft carpet next to her chair and looked up at her. Sitting as he did reminded him of when he was a child, sitting by his mother’s knee as she knitted and told stories. It was a time before he had changed. Or they had changed. A happier time.

“I would not share this without his permission. As I will not share your secret without your permission. He trusts you.” The words hung between them. “I would guess that he Read you—in some ways, he is more skilled than I—but it is clear even without Reading that you care for him.” She waited for Rsiran to nod before continuing, turning to stare at the dancing flames in the fire. “Brusus has Elvraeth blood but is not Elvraeth.”

Rsiran shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

She smiled bitterly. “Pray that you never understand fully.” Her voice had changed, losing some of the thready quality and becoming a bit stronger, her tone edged with anger or regret. “Though I suspect you will understand better than most. Brusus shares the same bloodline, the same lineage, as any who live up in the palace. Were he to want to, he could trace his bloodline all the way back to the first Elvraeth.” She sighed, and her eyes slipped closed, as if what she said next was difficult to say. “Had he been born a century earlier, he would have lived there as well, would never have known anything about Lower Town or the harbors, would know only life within the walls. Had he been born to any other, he would have been spared his fate.”

“What fate?”

“Brusus is the child of an Elvraeth Forgotten.”

“Forgotten?” Rsiran repeated the word, looking from Della to Brusus. The Forgotten were those banished from Elaeavn, stricken by the Elvraeth council from all records so that they simply ceased to exist. Only the most corrupt, the most impossible to reform, were Forgotten. Usually the threat alone was enough for reform. He had never heard of the Elvraeth subjecting one of their own to it. “The Elvraeth banish their own?”

Della opened her eyes. The flames reflected there. “The practice began within the palace. It was a means of punishment and control, but over time, as with much within its walls, it twisted into something political and corrupt.” She looked over at him. “Few outside the palace understand the politicking that takes place there. For such a beautiful place, many within its walls can be ugly.” She shook her head. “All are family, but I think that makes it worse. Most are more cruel to family than they would be to friends.”

Della sighed. “Or perhaps it only seems that way. Living here in Lower Town, I have seen many ugly things as well, but almost as much beauty.” She smiled at him. “Think of how you were taken in, how Brusus and his friends helped you,
saved
you when you were injured and near death. Such a thing would not happen within the palace. No, sometimes I wonder if it is best he never lived up in the clouds. Living so high leaves you far to fall. Many Elvraeth have been Forgotten over the years.”

Jessa had said the same to him. “I don’t understand how… why?”

“The reason is often fear. Fear of losing power. Fear of disruption of alliances. Fear of the council. Most often, one’s own family is responsible for the banishment.”

Rsiran remembered what Brusus had told him of the Elvraeth. He had wondered at the time how Brusus had known so much about them, had been impressed by the ease with which he discussed them. Had he only known!

“There are really five families that live within the palace,” Della went on. “Each claims the surname Elvraeth, each claiming to be descendants of the first. Those five families each have a seat on the council.” She shook her head. “There are exceptions, but most within the Elvraeth are no better than school children. They fight. They scream. They form friendships. Some lose out. Fewer are banished, Forgotten. Stricken from their families and sent away from the palace, away from the city.”

“And Brusus?”

As Della looked over at Brusus, some of the anger seeped from her eyes. “Brusus was but an infant when his mother was banished. Her crime was one of curiosity, a dangerous trait among the Elvraeth. Earlier attempts at reform had failed, and she was deemed too risky for her house. So she was Forgotten. Her name was stricken from all records of the Elvraeth as if she never existed. Her parents turned their backs on her for their own protection. Her husband was taken from her and betrothed to another. Her child—Brusus—was sent from the palace with her. There could be no traces that she ever existed.”

There was something about the way she spoke, some hint of long-repressed anger and sadness, that combined with the way she looked at Brusus, left Rsiran with a sudden question. “Were you banished, Della?” he asked. “Are you Brusus’s mother?”

She smiled a sad smile and shook her head. “The Forgotten must leave Elaeavn, Rsiran. His mother left the city and cannot return. Doing so risks worse than banishment.”

Rsiran did not know what punishment was worse than banishment, but did not ask. “Then how did Brusus stay in the city?”