The Shadowsteel Forge (The Dark Ability Book 5) (18 page)

Ephram started away from him, and Rsiran called out. “If Venass nearly made it to the Smith Guild, you need to check the others.”

Ephram sighed again. “We sent word.”

“That’s not good enough. You can’t trust that you’ll know,” Rsiran said. “They can—”

Ephram came over to the bed again and leaned over Rsiran, pitching his voice in a whisper. “Each guild will require members to be Read. We will find those who sympathize—or side—with Venass.”

“And if you miss them?”

“Pray that we don’t,” Ephram said.

W
hen Della
finally came to visit him, Rsiran felt as if weeks had passed. Lying in bed, unable to move, barely able to see anything, made it difficult to tolerate the passing of time. Had he just been able to see… but the blurriness didn’t ease.

Jessa stayed with him, and Brusus came and went, keeping him company. Occasionally, even his sister stopped in, though her visits were brief, and mostly to bring food. She never lingered long enough to talk. Rsiran was thankful that she made the food. If he had to suffer, and linger, at least he would have good food to eat.

Della announced her presence by the strong odor of the mint tea that she brought to him. He hadn’t heard her enter, but when the distinctive scent drifted to him, his eyes opened.

“You haven’t visited,” Rsiran said.

Jessa squeezed his hand, and he suspected that she tried to stifle him from saying anything more.

“Are you certain? A man Healed needs his sleep.”

“You’ve been coming while I’m sleeping?”

Della approached and touched his cheek. “Drink.”

She lifted his head and placed a mug to his lips. When the tea washed down his throat, he felt a steady relaxation wash over him, and sighed.

“Ephram doesn’t know how to help me,” Rsiran said.

“So he says,” Della answered.

Rsiran took another drink at Della’s prompting. When finished, he asked, “Does it mean that I’m paralyzed?”

Della pulled the mug away and set it somewhere nearby. “It means that I must keep trying to find a way to help you.”

Rsiran closed his eyes. What would happen if he was never able to see again? If he could never walk? If he never regained the same connection to lorcith?

He had feared what would happen were he captured, but in many ways, this was worse.

“You can’t give up,” Della said, “or you have already lost.”

“You’ve just told me that I’ve lost.”

Della touched his cheeks and a tingle raced through him, for a moment pushing back the steady throbbing of pain that he still felt. “For now. You may have lost for now. But Ephram is not the only one we can ask.”

“I suggested Seval—”

“The master smith does not hear lorcith well enough yet to be of any use.”

“Who do you suggest?” Rsiran asked. He heard Jessa gasp. “What is it?”

“You can’t have him here, Della. I know that you think that he’s Healed, but his mind… he’s still not there.”

“Quiet,” Della admonished. “Luca has progressed since he’s come back to Elaeavn, and he has Rsiran to thank for much of it. I don’t think that he would have returned as completely as he has without Rsiran’s help.”

Luca. Rsiran hadn’t even considered asking the boy, but he
could
hear lorcith. Seval might be a master smith, but the Smith Guild had attempted to push away the connection to lorcith. Seval had only now begun to reclaim it, but his connection would be nothing compared to what Luca possessed, let alone Rsiran.

“Does it still sing to you?” Rsiran asked.

He couldn’t see Luca, and could barely detect the lorcith that Rsiran knew that he’d have with him. The boy answered from the door. “The song is so familiar,” Luca said softly. “I never thanked you for it.”

“What is he talking about, Rsiran?” Jessa asked.

Rsiran tried to move his head, but couldn’t. “Could you show her?”

Luca shuffled forward, and Rsiran heard Jessa gasp. “This was yours?” she asked Rsiran.

“I made it for him.”

“This is Ilphaesn.”

Rsiran sighed. He could picture the lorcith sculpture clearly in his mind, even if he couldn’t see it. “He needed something that reminded him of Ilphaesn. He needed to hear the same song he heard in the mines. The lorcith there, all of it together, it has a specific song. And that,” he said, wishing he could see it, “with that, there’s an… echo… of the song.” Rsiran tried to smile. The memory of the song filled him, and he closed his eyes, trying to hear it again. Since the injury, he could hear the lorcith, and sense it, but everything was muted and diluted, nothing like the sense of lorcith should be.

“It’s beautiful,” Jessa said.

“That it is,” Della agreed. “He takes it with him wherever he goes. He tells me the song guides him.” She leaned toward Rsiran, and he smelled a bitter odor that was more potent than what he usually detected from her, and nothing like the mint tea that she preferred. “Without you, he would not have returned. As I told you, Rsiran, only you could bring him back.”

Rsiran sighed. “Maybe once. But no longer.”

Della sniffed. “And now it is his turn to see if there’s anything he can do to help you.”

“How?” Rsiran asked. “If Ephram couldn’t find a way to pull on the potential trapped in my spine…”

“I hear the song,” Luca said.

“We know that you hear the song,” Jessa snapped at him. “What does that have to do with helping Rsiran?”

“Easy, Jessa,” he said to her.

“No, Rsiran. I can’t stand this anymore! You got hurt because you thought that you needed to be the one trying to do everything! You wanted to help Seval. You’re working with Luca. And you wanted to figure out what’s going on with Venass. Why does it have to all be you?”

“Jessa—”

She shook her head and started to turn away. “I can’t stand to see you like this,” she whispered to him.

“And I can’t see you. I guess we’re both miserable.”

Della grabbed his hand and pulled Jessa’s hand into his. She did something, and the same steady tingling washed through him.

“I hear the song,” Luca said again. He was closer to them now.

“I know that you do,” Rsiran said. “And I’m glad that you haven’t lost that.”

“But I hear it,” Luca said.

Rsiran tried to look past Jessa and Della, to see Luca, but he saw nothing more than the blur. “What do you hear? From the sculpture I made you?”

“Not that,” Luca said. His voice had gone softer, and he shuffled closer to the bed. “In you. I hear the song. You never had the song in you before. It’s there, but it’s wrong.”

“What’s he talking about, Rsiran?” Jessa asked, suppressing a sob.

“I think he hears the lorcith in my back,” Rsiran answered.

“In you,” Luca repeated.

“What does he mean that it’s wrong?”

Rsiran licked his lips. The lorcith in the spheres Rhan used against him had felt wrong too. Was that what Luca detected? “I can’t help. Since my injury, I haven’t been able to hear lorcith the same way. It’s as if whatever Rhan did muted it for me. I can sense it, but nothing more than a vague awareness, not the focus that I should have.”

“The song is wrong.”

“Can you fix it?” Della asked.

Luca now stood next to her. “I’ve never tried to fix the song before. It’s always been there, but I’ve never had to do anything but listen.”

If Luca could somehow change the song and guide Della, would she be able to remove the lorcith from his back? And if so… “If the lorcith were gone, could you Heal me?” he asked Della.

“The lorcith prevents me from completely helping you,” she said. “I could remove the spikes, but if I pull them out in the wrong order, then you won’t survive. It’s safer to leave them for now.”

“But if Luca can guide you?”

“Rsiran,” Della said, “it’s still possible that even if we remove the lorcith from your back, that I won’t be able to Heal you. Some injuries… some are more permanent than others. Venass would know this. I suspect it’s the reason they chose to use a weapon like they did.”

“But if you could.”

“It’s possible,” she said with a sigh.

Rsiran closed his eyes and tried to listen for lorcith, to sense it in him. This close, he should be able to detect something, but it still was nothing more than a vague awareness. And he hadn’t sensed anything from the lorcith that Jessa wore or the Ilphaesn sculpture. It was as if they weren’t even there.

While recovering, he’d tried Sliding a few times, just to see if he could move even a little, but he had failed at that too. All of his abilities were limited, or gone. Venass had taken them from him, taken all that he was, leaving him stuck in something like a shell. It was a prison, and one far worse than any other that he’d ever experienced.

“Let him try,” Rsiran said.

Jessa squeezed his hand. “Rsiran!”

“What’s it going to hurt?”

“You could die,” she said.

He took a deep breath. “I’m dying now. I can’t move. I can’t see you. I can’t sense lorcith. And I can’t Slide. There’s nothing for me.”

“There’s me,” she sobbed.

“There’s you,” he agreed. “But if I don’t try, I’d be a burden to you. To everyone. I can’t do that.”

“You’d be no burden,” Della said. She pulled Jessa and Rsiran closer together. “I will attempt this if you both agree, but I won’t if you can’t.”

Rsiran already knew how he’d answer. Trying was the only thing that he could do. If he did nothing, if he remained in his current state, he might as well be dead.

Jessa said nothing as she sobbed, squeezing tightly to his hand. He couldn’t even move enough to squeeze back.

“I hear the song,” Luca said.

Jessa sobbed louder. “Do it,” she said.

Rsiran licked his lips, and swallowed. “Please.”

Della sent a wave of tingling through him again, and when it eased, he felt nothing. No throbbing. No pain. Nothing. “For this, you must be on your stomach,” she said. “Jessa, you can hold his hand, but you need to be on the other side.”

Rsiran was aware that he was being moved, but nothing more than that.

Della maneuvered herself into his line of sight. “Breathe. I will talk you through what I am doing.”

Rsiran closed his eyes. “Listen to the song,” he said to Luca. “You know how it should be and you must be the one to find the way to fix it.”

“I can hear it,” Luca said.

Hands touched him, running across his back. For a moment, whatever Della had done to remove his pain held, but then it faded and fire bloomed anew in his back.

“This one and this one,” Luca said.

“What about them?” Della asked.

“They’re wrong.”

Rsiran wished that he could see where Luca pointed, and what Della would do, but what use would that have been? Without being able to sense the lorcith, seeing it wouldn’t help. And he wasn’t certain that he could watch, anyway.

“I will remove the first,” Della said. “Breathe, Rsiran.”

He focused on his breathing, slow and steady breaths. Fire suddenly surged in him, working out from the middle of his back and radiating to his feet and hands. Then it eased, fading once more.

“Is it done?” he asked.

“Only the first,” Della answered.

Rsiran strained for whether he could hear the lorcith any better now that one of the spikes had been removed, but there was no change. The song and his awareness of lorcith remained a faded and distant sense.

“What next?” Della asked Luca.

“The song is different.”

“Can you tell what it should be?” Della asked.

A few moments passed with Rsiran squeezing his eyes shut, focusing on the throbbing in his back. “It’s… softer,” Luca said.

Hands moved across his back, and twinges of pain would occasionally shoot through him. What must Luca be sensing? Was there anything that he found with the lorcith that would help Della know how to help him, or was Rsiran destined to remain broken like this?

“Here,” Luca said softly.

“Breathe,” Della said.

Rsiran steadied his breathing once again, trying to forget the pain that had come when the first spike was removed from his back.

Pain seared through him again, and Rsiran gasped and bit back a scream, hoping that he didn’t move accidentally. Then he nearly laughed. He
couldn’t
move. That was the entire reason they attempted this.

The pain seemed to last for hours and then faded, but not completely. His back still throbbed, but
something
had changed. Rsiran recognized the sense of lorcith differently. It was there, buried in his back, and for the first time since he’d awakened after the attack, he could pick out the individual spikes that remained. He couldn’t hear them as Luca did, not yet, but did he dare hope that it was possible he would?

“Here,” Luca said.

“Are you certain?” Della asked. “The last one was…”

Rsiran didn’t hear what the last one was. Pain suddenly shot through his back again, blinding and bright.

“Hurry!” Jessa’s voice broke through some of the pain. Rsiran thought that she squeezed his hand, but couldn’t be sure.

“Patience,” Della said. “If I hurry, and remove the wrong one, he’ll be left…”

The pain exploded again.

“Where is he going?”

Rsiran didn’t know who spoke. Maybe Jessa.

The pain intensified. He thought that he screamed.

“I’m here, Rsiran. I’m with you.” Jessa spoke soothingly to him, whispering softly in his ear. Rsiran knew her well enough to know that she strained to keep the fear from her voice, but her words still held an edge to them, enough for him to know how much she worried for him.

The pain changed. There was no other word for it. It was there, then—fleetingly—it was gone, long enough for him to think that he might recover. Then pain like nothing he’d ever experienced before tore through him.

He screamed.

“This is not working,” Della said.

“Take them all out,” Jessa cried.

“As I’ve said…”

Rsiran couldn’t hear anything more. The pain prevented it.

He tried to relax, to focus on the things that he could control: his breathing, the sense of Jessa’s hand in his. But that was not enough to help him ignore the pain.

Rsiran shifted his focus to the lorcith. Now that he could sense it, even slightly better than before, maybe focusing on it would help him.

Each of the spikes in his back was distinct. He held onto his focus of them, drawing them to the forefront of his mind, focusing on them and nothing more. As he did, he could sense an intent to each of them, one that had been forced upon the lorcith. It, like the way that Venass used lorcith, was wrong, but was there anything that he could do?

Not until they were out of him.

The metal in his back caused the pain. He was certain of that, even if he couldn’t tell if there was a sequence he needed to follow to remove them. They all needed to come out.