The Shadowsteel Forge (The Dark Ability Book 5) (21 page)

T
he coals
of the forge were cold and Rsiran resisted the urge to fire it up to hammer some lorcith. He might be able to calm his mind, and to find a sense of peace, but he would find no answers, and he would only delay what he needed to do. And that was searching for answers. Right now, he had no answers about Venass. There was nothing but more questions.

Jessa rested on their bed, but she watched him. She had stared at him constantly since leaving Della’s place. Mostly, he thought, because if he figured out how to Travel at will, she wouldn’t be able to go with him. This wouldn’t be like Sliding where he managed to bring her along with him. This would be like when he first started to Slide, when he had to do everything himself. This would be on his own.

And it must be, he knew.

Rsiran held one of his lorcith knives gently in his hand. There was a reassuring presence to having the lorcith with him, though he still hadn’t discovered what had changed with his connection to the metal. Something was different, much like something with his connection to heartstone had changed. Become stronger in some ways, but he didn’t know why, or whether it mattered.

Had the injury changed the connection, or was it the fact that he had essentially held one of the Great Crystals a second time?

More questions for another time.

What he needed to know was whether he could learn to Travel when he wasn’t near death. Was it possible for him to pass beyond his body, to leave it behind as he Traveled? And if he could, what might he learn?

Rsiran could think of many uses, but so many reminded him of the way that Readers seemed to invade others minds. He didn’t want to do the same, though he would if it meant understanding Venass and finding a way to stop them.

He closed his eyes. When he had Traveled before, it had been nothing like Sliding. When he first started Sliding, that had been taking a physical step, and a sense of movement. Only later had he discovered that he could
pull
himself in a Slide, something that had to be connected to his ability with lorcith, only he didn’t really understand how.

But Traveling, at least what he remembered of it, had come from something almost like imagining where he wanted to be, and then he had been there.

Could he do that again?

Rsiran already knew where he would start. If it had worked the first time for him to reach the Elder Trees, he would attempt that again. Maybe there was something to the trees or the forest that helped him reach it. Or maybe it didn’t matter.

He took a deep breath and envisioned the forest.

At first, there was nothing. He sensed the smithy around him, the sound of Jessa’s steady breathing, and all of the lorcith around them.

Slowly that began to fade, growing more distant as his awareness of the smithy faded and the sense of the forest appeared.

Like before, there were no smells, and there was nothing like the earthy scent to the air that he knew when he Slid himself entirely. There wasn’t even a sense of movement. Only nothingness.

Rsiran again wondered if it was nothing more than a dream. Could he really Travel, sending only his mind from his body? Such a thing seemed more impossible than anything even the Elvraeth were able to accomplish.

The bright light appeared before him. As before, there were three such lights, and he felt drawn to each of them. Rsiran reached for them, recognizing the power from the trees, before floating away, back toward what he imagined was the center of the clearing. What of the dimly lit tree? Could he find that one as well? As he searched, he discovered it, but the light was more faded than it had been before. That made it less likely that the faint light was because of the lack of connection he shared with the tree, and more likely that it had something to do with why the other tree was dark.

He focused on the darkened tree and felt it loom near him, though he could not see it.

The temptation to return to the crystal room came to him, but that wasn’t why he had come here. He needed to understand if he could control this ability.

Would he be able to Travel to other places that he knew?

Rsiran thought of Ilphaesn, of the depths in the mine where he’d seen evidence of Venass. It had to be tied to their attack on him, especially with the paired lorcith they had used. As he thought of it, he was there. The cavern had changed since he was last there. The ground was still blackened, but the rim of metal was gone, and the other pieces of metal were gone. Whatever Venass had been doing here was no longer.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been important. If only he could determine what it was, he might figure out how to stop them.

Staying here gave no answers. Where else could he Travel?

He thought of the Barth. What better place to Travel than a place that he knew as well as his smithy?

His awareness reached the Barth, and he settled inside the tavern. Unlike in the forest, where there was nothing but the light from the Elder Trees, in the Barth, he heard the music as if he were there, and saw the tavern filled with people. Some sat at the tables and diced or ate, and laughed, but others danced.

Alyse appeared, and Rsiran attempted to reach for her, but he had no way of doing so. In this form, he had no body, and no way to even speak to her. He was limited to observing only.

She moved from table to table with that new sense of purpose that she had. Rsiran was pleased to know that she had found something, but wondered if she would ever find happiness.

She reached a table where Brusus sat with Haern. Rsiran saw how Alyse paused, and how her eyes lingered on Brusus, and then on how Brusus’s eyes lingered on her.

The shock at that was nearly enough to jolt him back to his body. Alyse and Brusus?

He shook away the surprise, and then shifted his attention and his focus, imagining another smithy, this one much like his father’s, the forge much like the one where Rsiran had first learned to swing a hammer, and first learned to work the coals, getting the temperature to just the right level.

Inside Seval’s smithy, he saw the master smith. He stood before his anvil, instructing a thin boy with short brown hair on where to strike. It wasn’t all that long ago that the boy had been Rsiran. As he watched, he realized that he recognized the boy. Luca.

“I hear it,” Luca said. “It wants us to hit it here.” This time, it was Luca who pointed to the lorcith. What Rsiran had presumed was Seval instructing Luca appeared to be something different. A type a teamwork that had not been seen in an Elaeavn smithy in many years.

“Where now?” Seval asked.

Rsiran found himself smiling. Seval wanted so badly to regain his connection to lorcith that he had been willing to work with Luca—a mere boy. And Luca had finally found a way to listen to the lorcith in a way that was useful. Perhaps some good might actually come from that.

Floating as he was, he turned to survey the smithy. He expected damage to it from the explosion, but saw nothing. No sign of anything that would indicate that the smithy had suffered any permanent harm.

He should return to Jessa and his smithy. Traveling appeared to work. So far, he had managed to see the forest and the Barth and even his new friends in their smithy. What more was there for him to see?

For a moment, he thought about going to the guilds, but that was something he needed to do in person, especially if he intended to engage the guilds in helping him with Venass. Or with helping
them
with Venass. Rsiran wasn’t even sure which it was anymore. They might know more than he did.

Just when he was about to return to his smithy, he decided there was another connection that he had that he should check on. It had been a while since he’d gone to her, and the last time had not gone well. But she was still his mother. As much as a part of him wanted nothing more than to forget about her and to leave her to whatever might happen, he couldn’t. If nothing else, Alyse would want to know.

Imagining his mother’s home was only slightly different from the other destinations. With the others, he had a connection to either the place or the people that made it easier. For some reason, that seemed to help him. With his mother, the connection might be biological, but not one that he had chosen.

Yet he reached her home, and settled inside.

A lantern glowed with a soft blue light. Elvraeth light. She should not have Elvraeth light.

That wasn’t the only surprise.

A voice came from the other end of the house, one that he hadn’t heard before.

“You should be more careful summoning me here.”

“There is nothing for us to fear in this place any longer. Now that he is gone…” Rsiran recognized that voice as his mother’s, but not the tone. There was no edge to it, not like there had been when was a child.

“Are you sure?” a man asked.

Rsiran focused on the voices and traveled toward them, floating through walls and doors until he managed to reach the tiny kitchen where he saw them sitting at the table. His mother sat with her arms crossed over her chest, a long bar of lorcith with patterns printed on it gripped tightly in one hand. Her hair was twisted into a braid that hung past her shoulder, making her look more severe than the last time that he’d seen her.

The man sitting across from her was older and wrinkled, with silver hair, and eyes that flashed as deep a green as Della’s. “The guilds were warned,” the man said. “Which means that he lives. And it is because of
her
. She should not involve herself in this. She will regret that she did so.” He set his hands on the table, palms down, as he took a few steadying breaths. “Do you remain committed to this task?”

His mother tipped her head. “Of course, Father. I have always been committed to this task.”

Father. The familiarity suddenly made sense. Rsiran had seen those features before. Not only with Della, but also with Evaelyn.

Could this really be his grandfather?

Rsiran knew that his grandfather was one of the Forgotten, banished for supporting Evaelyn. Della claimed that he was too soft-hearted. But why was he here, and what task did he refer to?

“You have not
always
been committed, my daughter.
They
have softened you.”

She bowed her head and closed her eyes. Rsiran wondered who his grandfather meant.

“You have seen to it that the connection to my children is gone.” When he got no response, he continued. “You understand what we’re after. And now, we are so very close.”

She looked up and glared at her father. “It’s
because
of them that you’re close.”

“It’s because of them that we were forced to act. Had he not shown himself…”

Rsiran’s mother turned her gaze to the ground and shook her head. “I have done all that you have asked of me. It is because of me that you’ve found the heart—”

“And how long has it taken you to find it? You said that Neran would lead you there years ago.”

“He wouldn’t. You know that I tried, but I was not strong enough with him.”

Rsiran frowned. What did his mother mean? Not strong enough for his father?

“Yet you manage to influence others.”

“There is something to Neran. And Rsiran. I have never been able to guide them as I could with Alyse, but even that has failed me the last few years.”

Rsiran started to draw away in shock. By guiding, his mother meant Compelling. He was certain of that. And because his father was smith born, and Rsiran as well, they had been immune to the effects of her Compelling.

But not Alyse.

His mother went on. “The drink helped. At least when he was drunk, I could direct his temper somewhat. But he never shared the location. He called it a guild secret and became angry whenever I would speak of it.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Did his mother imply that she had been trying to discover the location of the Elder Trees?

But of course she would have. That had been what she’d wanted his entire life, hadn’t it? She had always had a strange fascination with the Aisl Forest, one that no others in the city shared. All those times when she’d leave them alone and go off to the forest for hours… They made sense now.

Yet he couldn’t believe that had been the reason that she was with his father. That couldn’t be the reason that his father had taken to drinking. Could it?

“Where you failed with Neran, you succeeded with the son. Such irony, isn’t it?” his grandfather said.

“You asked me to follow him, so I did.”

“A good thing that you did. Interesting that it would be he who would lead us there. All these years, we’ve wondered, and all these years, the guilds have maintained the secret the ancient clans once kept. And now, we might finally see to their downfall.”

A knock at the door delayed Rsiran from returning to his smithy. He needed to return. There was too much that he had to think through, and had to understand, but he couldn’t, not without seeing who else might appear.

When the door opened, Rsiran nearly lost control.

The last time that Rsiran had seen Thom, he had left him above Thyr with the intent to return to him for answers. But the man had disappeared, somehow escaping from him.

This time, Thom had returned to Elaeavn, and was at his mother’s house.

“Master.”

His grandfather welcomed Thom into the house with a sweep of his arm.

As Thom came in, his eyes narrowed, and he swept his gaze around the small space. He passed over Rsiran, so far missing that he was here, but Rsiran didn’t want to risk remaining too long.

“He lives,” his grandfather said.

“He can’t. Rhan was there. And now Rhan is in Thyr. I am sure.”

Rsiran wondered if he would manage to remain so calm were he in his body. Hearing Rhan’s name, knowing where to find him if not how, would leave him angry. Because of Rhan, he had nearly died. Had Seval been in his smithy, it would have been likely that Seval
would
have been killed. Rsiran had almost been unable to do anything to save himself. Trying to help Seval would have proven impossible as well.

“But the guilds have become dark,” his mother said.