The Heartstone Blade (The Dark Ability Book 2) (12 page)

Firell watched him with a neutral expression.

Brusus turned and the frown returned. “What sorts of things? Did you find anything in the warehouse?”

Had it really been that long since he’d seen Brusus? But it had. So much had happened in the time between, and he hadn’t had a chance to catch Brusus up on any of it. Now, with Firell here, he hesitated saying anything. Until he knew what was happening with Firell, he didn’t want to say anything that might make Brusus angry with him.

“Nothing really,” he answered. “Crates looked pretty much untouched. Well, except for what you’ve taken out of there.”

Brusus laughed. “Still can’t believe all that the Elvraeth leave untouched there. Most of it is hard to move, but there are a few things…”

Firell nodded. “Thyr likes the ceramics you’ve found. You make me skirt around the issue of where they came from, but I am a smuggler.”

“So you’re saying you’re good at lying?” Brusus asked with a smile.

Firell spread his hands. “Guilty.”

Rsiran watched but said nothing. What would Haern see if he were here? Apparently, nothing if he hadn’t said anything to Brusus yet. Somehow, that didn’t make him feel any better about it.

Lianna came over to the table and set mugs of ale in front of Firell and Brusus. “Was worried you were going to leave this poor boy alone at the table.”

Brusus smiled at her, eyes sparkling. “Boy? We’d never let a boy drink ale!”

“But saving your arse is fine?” Firell nudged Rsiran and laughed.

Rsiran tried to smile back, but knew it didn’t spread across his face. If Firell was such a good smuggler that he could lie easily, what else had he lied about?

R
siran sat
in the smithy holding the small lump of metal on his lap, turning it over in his hand. He still didn’t recognize the metal, but had accidentally discovered how soft it was. One of the lorcith knives in his pocket had pressed against the long side, leaving a long indent where the knife had been.

He didn’t know many uses for metal so soft that you could practically deform it with your finger. Even the gold in the Elaeavn coins was too soft for his liking.

Standing, he made his way to his bench and set it atop the table. Next to forgings of iron and steel, it looked out of place. Next to the lorcith, it practically shimmered. Even the polished steel pan nearby looked dull in comparison.

“Was it worth it?”

Rsiran turned. Jessa stood behind him, one hand on her hips. She wore an olive shirt and tan pants with embroidery that matched what he’d seen Brusus wearing yesterday. The lorcith charm hung from her neck, a milky white flower tucked into it. Now that she stood so close, he felt the lorcith from the charm.

When she’d come to the Barth last night, he made a point of keeping her from saying too much in front of Firell. He’d managed to hold off explaining what he’d done until this morning. He’d only gotten as far as telling her about the warehouse before she’d stormed out.

“I’m glad you came back.” He knew she would eventually.

“Now you’re concerned with hurting me?”

“I’m always concerned with you getting hurt.”

She punched him on his shoulder and let out a soft sigh. “I know you are. But you shouldn’t be.”

“Why not?” he asked.

Jessa opened her mouth and closed it again, as if considering her answer. “Because it makes me nervous,” she finally said.

Rsiran laughed. She glared at him and the laugh died off. “Why would that make you nervous?”

“Before Brusus, no one ever really cared what happened to me,” she said. She didn’t meet his eyes.

He pulled her toward him, realizing that it was her past that bothered her most. “Do you care about the fact that my father banished me to the mines?”

“Of course not,” she said, shaking her head.

“Or that I have a dark ability?”

She glared at him again. “You know that’s not true. If not for what you can do, both Brusus and I would be dead.”

“Then what would you have to say that would scare me away?”

At first, he didn’t think she would answer. For so long, she had avoided talking about her past. All he knew was that she had something she hid from him. That she would open up to him now that she was angry with him surprised him.

“I haven’t always lived in Elaeavn,” she said.

“Where else would you live?” Few of their people ever left Elaeavn. She had told him that Haern had. He suspected that Brusus had.

“Many places,” she answered. “Cort for a while. And then Ilian.”

“I don’t understand. How did you live outside the city?”

Jessa started to turn away from him, but he wouldn’t let her.

“I’m like Brusus.”

At first, he thought she meant that she had Elvraeth blood. But he knew that wasn’t true. Jessa was Sighted, but had no other gifts. At least, none that he knew of. What she meant dawned on him slowly. A child of the Forgotten. “Who?”

“My father.” She swallowed and looked up to meet his eyes. “He was a thief. A sneak. That’s where I learned.”

“But thieves are sent to the mines first.”

She smiled bitterly. “Not if they try to break into the palace. But all that was before my time. When he was exiled,”—Rsiran noted how she didn’t say Forgotten—“my mother chose to go with him. I was born outside the city.”

“But why would you think I would care about that? I mean—my own father tried to exile me to the prison mines!”

Jessa didn’t say anything.

“That’s not it, though. Is it?”

She shook her head.

“Then what? What don’t you want to tell me? And how did you get back to Elaeavn?”

Jessa pushed away from him, and he let her go. He wouldn’t hold onto her if she wanted some space. “I told you that Haern used to be…”

“An assassin. Yes.” He didn’t mention how Haern had tried to kill him once. He might deny his intent now, but Haern had been pretty clear that he would do whatever was needed to protect Jessa.”

“You never asked how I knew. It’s not something he shares with everyone.”

“How did you know?”

“I was young. My father was in a prison in a small town in Granlon. Barely more than a village. The local constable thought he’d been trying to break into the jeweler. Knowing my father, he probably was. Mother was working with the constable to buy his freedom when they came for me.”

He didn’t understand. “Who came for you?”

A tear formed at the corner of her eye. “Outside Elaeavn, there can be great beauty. Some of the other cities spread out in ways Elaeavn will never know. But there is ugliness too.” She paused and swallowed, wiping away the tear that had escaped her eye. “The men who abducted me took me to Eban. Said there was a man who liked girls like me. They tried to… They tried to do things to me, but I kept fighting and kicking.” She shook her head and swallowed again. “I don’t know what would have happened had Haern not found me.”

A silent sob passed through her. Jessa forced herself to smile. “He rescued me from that ugliness. Said he would bring me to Elaeavn. At first… all I wanted was to be with my parents. But then I learned what the jailors did to my father. How they took his hand for stealing and left the infection to fester. I never learned what happened to my mother.”

“Jessa… I am so sorry.”

Rsiran began to understand why Haern felt so protective of Jessa. Why he hadn’t wanted anything to happen to her. What she’d already been through was more than anyone deserved.

He crossed the distance to her and pulled her close. She didn’t fight. “Nothing you’ve said will scare me away.” He squeezed her tight. “Well… maybe Haern could if he tried to kill me again.”

She rested her head against him and laughed. “Haern sees me as his responsibility. Not as much anymore, not since we reached Elaeavn and Brusus took us in.”

“Jessa…”

She shook her head. The sense of vulnerability faded, disappearing as if it had never been there. “So after what I’ve been through, it would take more than what you can dish up to hurt me. What does hurt is you thinking you need to be protecting me. If working with Brusus over the last few years has taught me anything, it’s that we’re stronger when we work together.” She pointed at his chest. “And that goes for you and me too.”

Rsiran began to understand her anger. Not all of it. There were things she hadn’t shared, but he had the sense that she would in time. “I wouldn’t have been able to take you with me when I went.”

“No? So you just had to go Sliding off to the warehouse by yourself? And if something had happened to you… if you didn’t Slide far enough or too far and got stuck somehow? You’ve told me how you need a sense of where you’re going to make sure the Slide is successful.”

He reached toward her again, hoping to pull her back into his arms, but she shook her head. The moment had passed. Her irritation with him had returned. Short brown hair flicked angrily.

“No.”

“Jessa—I didn’t leave to upset you. I knew there was something there. And there was!” He turned and lifted the soft metal off the bench and held it out for her. “I found this.”

Jessa took the metal and turned it over, frowning as she did. When she reached the indentation from the knife, she looked up at him. “Where?”

“Where I told you I needed to look. In the space between the crates.”

Curiosity melted some of her anger. “Just this?”

“There were some other things. What looked like crudely forged metal. Looked like someone trying to work with lorcith.” As he said it, he remembered that they weren’t just crudely formed items, but items made of a dull silver that reminded him so much of lorcith. Yet unlike most lorcith, he hadn’t felt it. “This is meant for an alloy,” he realized.

He took the lump of metal back from Jessa and pressed his thumbnail into it, watching it indent. But what kind of alloy? And at what ratio?

Were he a member of the smith guild, he could have gone to the alchemist guild and asked. Likely, someone there knew the answer. Possibly his father would have as well. He had known more about lorcith than most of the other master smiths. But he didn’t have that option.

Jessa frowned at him. “An alloy of what?”

He turned to the forge. Without an alchemist, would he be able to work that out on his own? Would the lorcith guide him in this as it had helped his forgings? But, remembering the sense he had from the lantern, that of coercion required to make the alloy, he didn’t think that likely. The ore hadn’t wanted to become an alloy. Doing so changed its purpose. Changed what it was. And in spite of that, it had still agreed. That had been the key to creating the alloy.

“With lorcith. This must be the metal used in the alloy that blocked me from reaching the palace. And Ilphaesn.”

And if he could learn how to make the alloy, could he learn how to bypass it? Maybe then, he could reach the hidden mines in Ilphaesn. Learn who Firell worked for within the rebellion. Get some answers about what they were after.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen this metal before. It’s soft. Pretty much useless for forging anything, except for making an alloy.” He looked back to Jessa. “I should have realized that sooner. That was what they were trying to make.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“In the space between the crates at the warehouse. There was a pan, ground scorched as if heated. A rectangle of something that looked like silver, and this lump of metal. I thought someone was trying to create a makeshift forge, but maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe they were just trying to create an alloy using this metal.”

“With lorcith? How could they have gotten it hot enough?”

Rsiran smiled. “You’ve been paying attention.”

She shrugged. “You get the damn smithy hot enough. Every time I complain, you just tell me that you need to get the lorcith to temperature. Different with iron.”

He nodded. “And steel. Each metal takes a different temperature.”

“So? You said you saw a pan and evidence of a fire.” Rsiran nodded. “Then how would someone working in the warehouse get lorcith hot enough? Because it takes your entire forge blowing at blast strength to get it hot enough here.”

She had a point. But he didn’t have any other explanation. “I don’t know.”

“Show me.”

“Show you how to make an alloy?”

She shook her head. Rsiran could tell she was getting annoyed with him. Or her anger was returning. The latter would be worse for him. After what she’d told him and how he’d snuck off on his own, he understood. And probably deserved it.

“Show me the warehouse. The space between the crates. Now that you’ve been there, you can safely return, right?”

Rsiran didn’t really want to return to the warehouse. After overhearing Firell on the ship speaking to someone he assumed was one of the Elvraeth, he worried about what would happen if they were discovered.

“I told you. You need to stop worrying about me. I can take care of myself.”

He smiled at her tightly. “I know you can. That doesn’t mean I have to put you in danger.”

“I do that pretty well on my own.”

He didn’t ask her to explain what she meant. “Jessa—”

“I will go whether you Slide me there or not. You’re not the only one in this, Rsiran.”

“How will you get past the stack of crates?”

She glared at him. “I’m a sneak. I’ve gotten past bigger obstacles than that before I ever met you.”

“I know. You’ve made a point of telling me.”

She looked at him as if she wanted to punch him again, and then laughed. She held out her hand, waiting.

Hating that they had to do this, Rsiran took her hand and Slid.

They emerged in the central clearing of the warehouse. He struggled with the sudden change in lighting. Though daylight pushed through the windows overhead, what light made it through was weak and dirty.

“I thought you were going to Slide us to the hidden space?” Jessa whispered.

“We’ll walk there.”

He hadn’t wanted to Slide directly into that space. If he made a mistake in the Slide, he didn’t want to risk her. Now that they were in the warehouse, the next Slide wouldn’t be as great a distance, and he should have tighter control. But rested as he was, he probably could have Slid directly to the spot.

Jessa led him along the wall of crates hurrying toward where they stacked to the ceiling. At one point, she paused, looking at the ground. “You weren’t subtle here, were you?”

Rsiran looked but couldn’t make out what she saw. “I made sure to Slide as I moved. Went to the top of the crates,” he said, pointing behind him, “looking for a different way in. Or at least a way to see where I was going. I didn’t walk through here much.”

She frowned, but didn’t say anything. Every so often as they made their way along the crates, she stopped and stared at the stacks. Her lips tightened and her eyes narrowed. With more light, Rsiran suspected he would see her frowning. What did she see?

When they nearly reached the end of the warehouse, the massive brick wall stretching up before them, he pulled her short and squeezed her hand. Jessa nodded.

He knew a moment of fear as he Slid past the crates, making certain that they would emerge in the middle of the space. When they did, Jessa let go of his hand. The darkness around him left him uneasy. Here, standing between the walls of crates, his eyes struggling to see more than shadows, left him feeling as if he had plunged back into the mines. Why had he not brought the lamp?

Rsiran immediately knew something was different. The air tasted different. Stale. But something else as well.

It took a moment to realize what it was. Lorcith.

“Jessa—” His voice came as a whisper.

“We’re alone.”

Some of the tension he’d suddenly felt quickly dissipated. “Do you see the objects?”

“I see one object.”