The Dark Ability (25 page)

“Something else. Something where he can’t force us to help him again,” he said, a plan forming in his mind.

Jessa waited, and then nodded as he told her his plan.

R
siran gripped
Jessa’s hand tightly as they Slid. He had fixated on an open area outside the walls. He was aware of the warmth of her skin, the slight moisture on her palm, and the extra effort the Slide took.

They emerged on the outside the palace. He had not dared attempt a Slide from atop Krali Rock into the palace, preferring to see where he was Sliding before risking that. Rsiran was not certain he could do it anyway. Sliding to someplace new required some knowledge of where he would emerge. As he had never been here, the only place he could safely emerge would be the clearing near the dark stone building. That would leave them exposed and visible, especially to the Elvraeth where all were likely to be Sighted.

He looked up at the tall stone wall that circled the towers rising high overhead. Jessa squeezed his hand. A small alcove atop the narrow wall looked like an ideal place to emerge from the next Slide.

Once they emerged, Rsiran caught himself from teetering forward. Already the effort of the Sliding wore on him. How many more Slides could he manage? Alone, he suspected he could try a couple. With Jessa along?

Yet he would do as many as needed to keep her safe, even if it meant he could no longer stand. Even if it meant he was captured.
She
would be safe.

Moonlight filtered through the remnants of clouds and glimmered off the pale stone. A soft breeze gusted in from the sea, nothing like the heavy wind that buffeted them atop Krali. The wall circled the outer aspect of the palace more for camouflage than protection.

This close, he felt a renewed sense of anxiety.

What was he thinking, attempting to enter the palace? Looking from a distance the idea had seemed reasonable, but now that he was close enough to see the stone towers rising over his head and could almost feel a sense of energy around him, he did not know if he could go through with it.

“Rsiran?” Jessa whispered. “You don’t have to do this.”

He looked over at her. She crouched next to him on the wall, none of the anxiety he felt showing on her face. She had looked more scared simply standing atop Krali than she did here on the low wall. “This is the only way, Jessa. With what Josun wants…” He didn’t know how to finish. “I… I don’t know how else to keep you safe.”

Somewhere in the darkness a cat yowled. Rsiran waited but another did not follow. He shivered. Bad luck.

She smiled. “Not alone. I’ll help make sure you get where you need to go,” she said and squeezed his hand. “You shouldn’t linger here for long, though. I don’t know much about the Elvraeth security. Few have ever tried to break into the palace.”

“None are foolish enough.”

But that wasn’t true. Somehow, the boy had snuck into the palace, or so he had claimed. Sitting atop the wall, Rsiran wondered if that truly happened. He thought of him in the mines, remaining behind trapped in all that darkness by choice, and decided that he no longer mattered. Rsiran was free from that.

Jessa shrugged. “None have ever had the need.”

Rsiran shifted on his feet and crouched low against the wall. Even crouching as he did, he felt exposed. The dark pants and shirt he wore left him outlined on the wall, visible to anyone inside who dared look out.

The wall positioned him so he could see much of the inner portion. The wide clearing stretched in front of him. The dark squat building near the middle looked more rounded on top up close than it had from afar. Even here he could not tell if it was made of lorcith. The rest of the palace was made of the same brown ivory stone as those of Elaeavn. The towers seemed to rise from the ground, as if grown. Windows worked into each tower, marking the various floors. Most were covered with silvery bars that crisscrossed the opening, as if to keep the Elvraeth from escaping.

There was a symmetry to the windows along the sides of the towers and the main portions of the palace, almost a pattern, but he could not quite place what it was.

A figure moved along the ground opposite them. He wore a dark cloak, either deep green or black, that barely moved as he walked. Pants were of the same dark color. A long sword shifted from beneath his cloak occasionally. He gripped a crossbow in his hand.

They had to hurry before this guard saw them. And if there was one, how could they be certain there weren’t others?

Jessa pointed, and he nodded. “My Sight isn’t that bad.”

She grunted, as if telling him she couldn’t be sure.

As Rsiran looked around for the place to Slide, he felt the presence of lorcith. It was a different sense than he had felt within the mines, less an awareness and sense of the ore calling than a presence designed to push them away.

At first, he thought it might be from the dark building, but as he shifted his focus, he realized that was not the case. The pressure seemed to come from everywhere around him.

Several moments passed before he realized it was the bars on the window that he felt.

Rsiran took a deep breath. Jessa was right; they shouldn’t sit atop the wall much longer. Choosing one of the towers, he focused on the upper portion, imagining what the floor would look like inside the window. That should be far enough to get them into the palace but not so far that he overshot. If he was wrong—if the Slide took them inside a wall or worse, simply Sliding over the tower—then they might not survive. Rsiran was careful to maintain his focus.

Then he pressed into the Slide.

And was pushed back.

The sense was like a soft pressure against his whole body. Since he had learned how to Slide, always he had been able to navigate the space between the planes that allowed him to take a single step and travel. The only time he had failed was when Haern had held him in place. This felt different.

Rather than held in place, he simply couldn’t step forward. Before they even tried, they would fail.

But the pressure was not completely unfamiliar. Something about it reminded him of the sense he had from the lorcith.

“Tell me what you see of the windows,” he said, looking at the bars covering the windows.

She glanced at him and frowned. “You want to sneak in through one of the windows? I thought you were going to Slide into the palace.”

“I’m not sure I can.” The sensation, the pressure, was strange, but the longer he stood atop the wall, the more certain he became that it was the lorcith itself, as if the metal itself worked to exclude him.

“I don’t understand. You got us here. You took me to the top of Krali. I can see the palace…”

“I’m not sure I understand either,” he admitted. “I feel like there is something pushing against me, blocking me. I think it has to do with the windows.”

Never before had lorcith prevented him from Sliding. He had even Slid huge nuggets from the mines. He had Slid with forged lorcith. He had forged lorcith with him
now
. But somehow it held him back.

And if he couldn’t Slide into the palace, Josun would make certain they suffered.

Jessa looked toward the towers. “They’re windows. Probably large enough for us to crawl through if we can make it across the clearing without being seen. The bars might make it difficult, but we could probably pry them off.”

“What about the bars? What do you see there?”

She shrugged. “They are thick and silver. They look twisted, like a braided rope. Where they meet in the middle there is a small circle. I think something is engraved or printed on the circle, but I can’t make it out.” She sounded surprised by that fact.

“How are they attached to the stone?”

Jessa squinted, her brow furrowed in concentration. One hand went to touch the flower on her shirt, almost stroking the petals. “Can’t tell that, either. Maybe they come out of the stone, almost like they are buried into the wall itself.” She looked over at him. “That might make them a little hard to pry off.”

Another of the dark-cloaked patrols moved across the inside of grounds. The guard patrolled on this side of the wall. Was it the same person or another?

He pulled Jessa back a step. Much closer, and they would have to Slide away.

“I don’t know how I’m going to get inside.”

Jessa smiled. “I told you that you would need me.”

“If I can’t get through the windows, then how will I get inside?”

She pointed toward the dark stone building in the center of the clearing. “The door.”

Rsiran looked but didn’t see any sign of a door on the dark stone. And starting from there meant they would have to somehow sneak through the entire palace to reach the council. Once inside the palace, he wasn’t entirely sure how to find his way. He hoped the lorcith would guide him, but what if it didn’t?

“Are you sure?”

Jessa sniffed softly. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that,” she said. “Center of the building. Can you get us down there?”

“Us?”

“If you have to sneak through the palace, you’re taking me.” Her tone allowed no argument.

Rsiran decided he could Slide her to safety once he knew where they were going.

The guard was drawing closer to where they crouched. Rsiran scanned the yard but didn’t see any others. He focused on the area in front of the building. Pressing forward with his Slide, he didn’t meet any resistance like he had earlier. Squeezing Jessa’s hand, he took a small step and emerged outside the building.

The effort of the Slide made him lean forward as a wave of dizziness threatened to overcome him. Jessa pulled on his arm to keep him upright. As he stood, he noticed she had been right. A door was cut into the face of the building, barely more than a simple line around the frame marking its border. A silvery handle, clearly of lorcith and folded like his knives to make it look like the metal was liquid, was at waist high.

“Are you sure this connects to the towers?” he whispered.

Jessa shook her head. “Not sure about anything here.”

She went to work, ducking down in front of the door. The folded leather lockpick set was already out, and she pulled out a slender rod and stuffed it into the lock.

Rsiran looked across the courtyard. Soft grass grew all around, green even in the light of the moon. The five towers loomed high overhead. Blue light glowed behind a few of the windows. He saw no sign of the guard who had been patrolling near them, but they needed to hurry. The demonstration would be over before they started if they got caught in the open.

Up close, the dark building behind him was not the same color as lorcith as he first thought. Rsiran set a hand on it and found the surface cool and smooth. A faint humming pulsated in the wall, as if coming from a great distance. The sense was familiar and reminded him of the way lorcith seemed to call on him when he had been in the mines, but different.

His breath caught. Not stone at all, but a form of lorcith, an alloy. But Rsiran did not think that possible.

Jessa stepped back and bumped into him. “Can’t open it. There seems to be something in the lock.”

Rsiran slipped past her and looked at the lock. Oblong and thin, more like a slit than any lock he had seen. A simple round hoop sat above it. On an impulse, he pulled one of his forged knives out of his pocket, the folds flowing and sliding in the light of the moon, and pushed it into the slit.

At first, there was resistance, but then the knife pushed past it, as if stabbing through a barrier, and he felt a soft click. The door opened.

Jessa glared at him. “How did you do that?” she whispered, moving past him and into the doorway.

Rsiran shrugged. “Guess you’re not the only sneak.”

She elbowed him in the side as she hurried into the building.

Before following her through the door, he pulled the knife out of the slit and stuffed it back into his pocket. Rsiran saw a shadow move and pulled the door closed behind him. It shut with a soft
click
.

“This better be part of the palace,” he suggested as darkness surrounded him.

Not for the first time, he was thankful Jessa was with him. Without her Sight, he was not sure that he would even be inside already. Now that he was, he would need her Sight to guide him. Hopefully Haern’s vision wasn’t accurate.

The darkness around him was complete, somehow seeming even darker than what he had experienced in the mines. There seemed to be a distant sound, like a humming or a buzzing, and he felt a soft thrumming through the soles of his boots that vibrated through him.

Jessa grabbed his hand, and he gripped her tightly.

She led him forward. “Stairs.”

The sudden sound almost made him jump. With her warning, he dragged his feet forward, feeling his way along the smooth floor. Everything about it reminded him of being in the mines. Even the sense of lorcith around him was like the mines.

“How will we find where we’re going?” Jessa asked after they had taken several dozen steps.

“I’ll feel it,” He hadn’t told her that part yet.

“What do you mean?”

He pulled on her hand as they walked and pulled her closer so he could feel her next to him. She smelled like the flower on her shirt, sweet and perfumed but with a hint of spice. Even scared as he was, Rsiran couldn’t help but smile.

“Lorcith is different from other metals.”

“You’ve said that.”

He shook his head, wishing he could see her face as she could see his. Always he felt so limited with his ability. “It is different for me,” he told her. “I can… feel lorcith. That is how I did so well in the mines. That is why I was attacked.”

“You can
feel
it?”

“I don’t know why.”

“I’ve never heard of such an ability.”

They had stopped walking. The air around them was still, nothing like the steady breathing in the mines, and almost heavy, as if damp. A hint of the bitterness of lorcith hung in the air, but Rsiran didn’t know if that was from the knives he carried or the palace. Somewhere far ahead came a faint blue glow, so dim that it was almost imagined.

“I think my father has it too. Maybe all the master smiths.” Rsiran shrugged. If only his father had told him more about
that
gift rather than chastising him for his ability to Slide.

Jessa grunted. “Must be why it is so hard to get an apprenticeship with the guild.”