The Shadowsteel Forge (The Dark Ability Book 5) (27 page)

D
ella limped toward them
. Her eyes blazed a deep green that Rsiran had never seen from her before, a green so deep that it could nearly be black, and a color that reminded him more of what he’d seen of his grandfather.

“What happened to you? We went to your home to warn you…”

She nodded. “I know.”

“Haern is injured. He needs Healing or he might not survive.” For some reason, it was Haern that he thought of, and not the fact that he had trapped his grandfather in the Forgotten Palace. Della would need to know, but he would not do that in front of Ephram.

Della’s mouth tightened, and Rsiran realized that he wouldn’t have to. She Read him.

This time, he didn’t mind.

“And Haern will have it,” she said, though a troubled look clouded her face.

“Why are you here?”

Della took a deep breath and let it out. “I was called.”

“Called?”

Della smiled sadly. “I had forgotten so much about this place, and about the power within it. So much….”

“What are you talking about?” Rsiran asked.

“When you brought me here, it awoke something in me that even I had not known was buried.”

“What did it awaken?” Rsiran asked.

“Memories.”

She limped in a slow circle, leaving Rsiran wondering how badly she had been injured. Had her brother hurt her seriously? Della was always the one to Heal others, what would happen if she were in need of healing? Who would help her then?

“I was able to stop what I could,” Della started. “But the attack had already begun. You saw that, only I didn’t know what it meant,” she told Rsiran.

“What attack?” Ephram asked.

Della continued to move in a circle. “Danis shared arrogance with Evaelyn.” She met Rsiran’s eyes. “He thought to draw away the guilds. I Saw that, and came here.”

“But the attack—” he started, thinking of Venass in the tunnels near Ilphaesn. How many more had attacked?

“I am not as helpless as I might seem, Rsiran Lareth,” she said.

Rsiran smiled. “I would never call you helpless.”

She tipped her head. “But I was not in time. I prevented part of the attack, but not all. Not all,” she said softly. Della inhaled deeply and looked around the clearing. “I have been here before, only I did not remember the details. That troubled me, and I spent much energy attempting to Heal myself, focusing inward.” She tapped the side of her head with a long finger. “Such a thing is dangerous, even for me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Della sighed. “This place. A place of ancient power. A place our people once called home, before the first of us held the Great Crystals. I had not realized that they were the same, that the connection to the crystals was a connection to the Elder Trees, but when you brought me here… As I said, it awoke something inside of me.”

“But you told me that you’ve held one of the crystals before. You must have known about this place,” Rsiran said, a troubled sense rising within him.

“I knew
of
it, but I had not thought that I had been here before.” She smiled at him and stopped, turning her attention upward toward the treetops much like she had when she first came to the forest with him. “And yet I had.”

“What does this have to do with the poisoned trees?” Rsiran asked.

Della pulled her attention away from the treetops and met his eyes. “Perhaps nothing. And everything.” She nodded to Ephram. “They have fought against Venass, and failed more often than they would like to admit. The only success has been with you, or through you, Rsiran. I am not certain that I understand why, but there is something about you that thwarts my brother. I am sure that it bothers him greatly. Enough that he is going to great lengths to find a way to stop you.”

“I saw him at your house. And then at the Barth.” Rsiran swallowed, thinking of how he had nearly failed trying to confine his grandfather. And had Jessa been with him, what would he have done? Would he have managed to get free?

Della nodded. “Yes, he came to my home. They thought that I was weakened enough that they would be able to destroy me.”

“And they tried to use my sister.”

Della’s face darkened. “I Saw that as well. You were able to prevent her from succeeding?”

“I stopped that attack, and then we returned the lorcith necklace that my father had forged for her that prevented my mother from Compelling her. Did you See that as well?”

Della frowned. “Your father?”

“He must have known that my mother attempted something. Why else would he have made her the necklace like that? And Danis says that he lives.”

Della made another slow circle around the clearing. “Yes. I have struggled to understand the connection, Rsiran. I did not understand at first, but now… now I think that I begin to see what I might have missed. A connection older than any I would have realized, one that others have hidden.”

Ephram looked away.

“And now the Elder Trees begin to fail. She pulled something from her pocket, and Rsiran sucked in a surprised breath, recognizing one of the cylinders that they’d found long ago within the warehouse. The curve and the color to the cylinders reminded him of what he’d seen in the mine. “These. I struggled to understand why both the Forgotten and Venass wanted these.”

“Why did they?” Jessa asked.

But Rsiran thought he knew. “Those are how they make shadowsteel. That’s how they poisoned the Elder Trees.”

Della nodded.

“But Brusus thought those crates were hundreds of years old!”

“Most were. And that is what bothered me. Why were they
sent
to Elaeavn?”

“Only the guilds knew where to find the Elder Trees, and only the guilds would have access.”

She nodded. “Venass—or some form of Venass—has been trying to infiltrate the guilds for generations,” Della said. “Waiting to bring a way to damage the trees. I wonder if the crates were once intended for the guilds. Had the Elvraeth allowed them out sooner… but they did not. They sat, untouched until Brusus found them, secrets lost for many years until Danis discovered the location of the trees.”

Had the warehouse been the key to shadowsteel?

Rsiran had thought he was the reason the trees were damaged, but it went deeper than that, didn’t it?

He looked up at the trees. “The alchemist tree is dark,” he said. “Which other guild’s tree is damaged?”

“Ephram, will you still not reveal to Rsiran which tree belongs to each guild. Do you think the ancient traditions still matter?” she admonished.

Rsiran studied the Elder Tree nearest him. Like with the crystals, there was nothing about the tree itself that he could detect that gave any indication of what it aligned with. But did that matter? Was the tree itself important, or was it the fact that it was damaged?

“The ancient traditions are all that separate us from them,” Ephram was saying.

“I would argue that much more than that separates the two,” Della said.

Could he Slide up into the tree canopy? From here, it seemed impossibly high up, but their people had once lived in these trees, hadn’t they? There must be a way for him to reach the upper branches.

Only, Rsiran feared Sliding without knowing where he would emerge. What would happen if he attempted to Slide to the top of the tree and failed? Would he fall back to earth or would he have a chance to see the upper most branches, and adjust his Sliding?

“If we lose those traditions… if we lose the people that we were,” Ephram argued.

“How long have we lived in Elaeavn?” Della asked. “We have already lost those traditions. We no longer live among the trees. If there is anything that we can do to save them…”

Rsiran focused on the trunk itself. That part of the tree was massive, and wide enough to house a village…

“What is it?” Jessa asked.

Rsiran started toward the nearest of the Elder Trees.

“Rsiran?” She caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”

“The tree,” he said. “I’ve been trying to think about what I could have missed, how Venass could have poisoned these trees. They’re too large to even cut down. And we see no sign of damage to the trunk.”

“You said it was shadowsteel.”

“But how would they get it to the tree?”

He closed his eyes, focusing on the
inside
of the tree. He didn’t even have to risk himself with a Slide. Now that he could Travel, he could move with a different technique, one that might be safer for him, where he didn’t have to worry about emerging someplace that might kill him.

As when he Traveled, there was the sense of separation, and then he pulled free of his body. This time, rather than floating up, searching for the energy in the tops of the trees, he went forward, moving
into
the tree itself.

If this failed… if this wasn’t the missing secret that their people had lost, would he even be able to do it?

But he did. His mind floated into the tree, into a darkness and then… then there was a sense of great light all around him.

Rsiran stopped. The light was much like what he saw when he moved above the trees, only this encircled him and rose high overhead. This was the tree itself.

Had he a mouth and a body, he would have laughed.

Instead, he focused on the next tree, turning to the one that was dim rather than dark. He floated into the tree, and the trunk there glowed with a sickly green light. Occasionally, the light would flicker, before growing more solid again.

This was where he needed to be.

But not in this form. Traveling gave him no opportunity to change things. For that, he needed to be here in full. Which meant Sliding.

Rsiran returned to his body and his eyes snapped open. Della and Ephram still debated. He took Jessa’s hand and focused on the inside of the tree that he’d come from. “Hold on,” he whispered.

Then he Slid.

As he attempted to Slide, he felt
pushed
back.

The sense was nothing like when he had first been trapped in heartstone chains, or even with what Venass had done, trapping him surrounded by lorcith. This was a living pressure against him. The Elder Tree resisted him.

Rsiran tried again, and again he could not reach the inside of the tree. By Traveling, he knew that he
could,
only he couldn’t physically Slide himself there.

At least not with Jessa.

“Wait for me.”

“Rsiran—”

He released her hand and focused on Sliding, this time attempting to
pull
himself into a Slide. As before, it didn’t work. He met resistance, as if the tree itself kept him out.

But he could Travel there. Which meant the tree didn’t intend to completely keep him out.

Could he attempt the same as he had when escaping his grandfather?

He stepped into the place in between and stopped. Brilliant white and blue light surged around him. The scent of lorcith and heartstone were stronger than he’d smelled when he came before. Mixed within it, there was a sense of decay.

Rsiran took a breath, and then pressed
into
the tree.

As he did, he experienced a strange sense of movement, something akin to the separation he felt when he Traveled, and the movement he felt when Sliding, and then emerged inside the tree.

Beneath his feet, the ground was spongy, like soft dirt or sand. The air was still and stagnant, but carried with it the stink of rot. The space around him was enormous, a vastness that his eyes couldn’t fully grasp, but could he imagine his ancestors living here? Without the ability to Slide, how would they have reached the inside of the tree?

To his eyes, the inside of the tree glowed with a greenish hue, like moss or algae on stale water. Rsiran took a few steps toward the wall, and placed his hand on it. It felt warm, almost hot to him, almost as if the tree had a fever.

It needed Healing.

“We need Della,” he whispered to himself.

His voice carried up into the darkness overhead, and faded like a sigh.

All of this was the sickness of the tree. And if nothing was done, he knew that the tree would die completely.

But how would he reach the inside of the tree with another? When he’d attempted to Slide with Jessa, the tree had pushed him back. Traveling the way that he had was different, and Rsiran doubted that he would be able to pull another with him.

Which meant that there must be another way inside.

Rsiran focused on the clearing where the others were, and Slid.

Again, there came the strange sense, that of a separation, followed by movement, then he emerged in the clearing again.

Jessa breathed out a relieved sigh.

“Where have you been?” Della asked.

Rsiran focused on Ephram. “The guilds can access the inside of the trees, can’t they?”

Ephram’s face blanched, and Rsiran knew that he was right. Without Sliding, there would be no other way to reach the inside of the tree, but the guilds must know something. “How did you—”

Rsiran pointed to the tree he had been inside. “That one. It’s dying from whatever Venass did to poison it. And that one,” he said, turning toward the darkened tree, “might already be dead. I don’t know if it can be saved.”

“Only the guilds can reach the inside of the tree. There is a key…”

A key. Which meant that there
was
a way to reach inside the tree. “With the key, who can enter?”

Ephram shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“We’ve already lost one. Are you willing to risk losing another?”

R
siran stood in the clearing
, with Della and Jessa, waiting as Ephram went for the other guildlords. With the trees around them, there was a sense of weight, and great age, mixed with power, but the power had already begun to fade. Rsiran felt it, and felt the sputtering of the injured tree. The power flickered, already fading. If it went out, would they be able to rekindle it?

“We can’t wait,” he said to himself.

“Only the guilds can reach inside the tree,” Della said.

“Not only the guilds. I can too.”

But could he Slide Della with him, and stop in the space between Slides? Seeing the way Jessa watched him, he knew that she wouldn’t let him go without her as well.

Without overly thinking about it, Rsiran grabbed Jessa’s hand, and hooked Della’s arm, and then Slid.

When he stopped in the midst of the Slide, he found it harder than when Sliding alone. There was a pressure that pulled on him, but Rsiran drew upon the strength that he sensed around him, that of the brilliant white light he attributed to lorcith and the glowing blue that he considered heartstone. Strength and vigor returned to him, and stabilized him.

“What is this, Rsiran?” Jessa asked.

Her voice sounded different in this place, muted, but fuller as well. The contrast was strange, and striking. “This is the place between Slides.”

“How are you doing this?” Della asked.

In this place, he noticed that she glowed with a light of her own, different from the bright white and the blue around him. Della practically oozed power. Had he any question about her strength, he no longer did.

“I don’t know. This was how I escaped from the cell in the Forgotten Palace.”

“This is… this is something that has never been done before,” Della said. “I have never seen—or heard—of anyone able to stop their Slide in the space between.”

“Why did you do this?” Jessa asked.

“Because there’s something about this place that strengthens me. I don’t really understand, but it’s like when Della Heals me.”

Jessa squeezed his hand. He took another step and finished the Slide, emerging within the damaged tree.

Della gasped. “You should not have been able to do this.”

“This is what the guilds can access,” he said.

“Not this,” Della said. “The guilds… they can reach something like a guildhall with the trees. This… this is something else.”

“Can you Heal the tree?” Rsiran asked.

Della closed her eyes and turned her head toward the top of the tree. All around was the sputtering glowing of the tree. If they did nothing, the tree would fail. What would be lost then?

What had already been lost with the damage to the other tree?

“I do not know,” Della said. “I will… I will try. You will need to give me space.”

Rsiran nodded, and pulled Jessa with him. As they backed away from Della, Rsiran had the sense of something else near him. Not lorcith, and not heartstone, but something that he’d sensed before.

He followed the trail of what he detected.

“Where are you going?” Jessa asked in a hushed whisper.

He kept his attention fixed on it. As he approached, the sense grew stronger and stronger. And then he found it.

A darkness, blacker than night, plunged into the ground.

Shadowsteel.

“This is what harms the tree,” he said.

“What is it?”

He reached for the shadowsteel and Jessa grabbed his hand.

“Should you touch it? What if something happens to you when you make contact?” she asked. “Let me do it.”

“If you don’t think that I should touch it, I’m not about to let you be the one.”

“I can’t Slide. I can’t control lorcith and heartstone. I’m not attuned to them the same way that you are. Besides, when Venass attacked, they were able to carry it safely.”

She grabbed the black metal and pulled, grunting as she did, but the shadowsteel didn’t budge.

“I’m going to have to try,” he said.

Jessa shook her head. “I still don’t think that you should touch it, not without knowing what it might do to you.”

Rsiran unsheathed his heartstone alloy sword, and used the edge of the blade to try to pry the shadowsteel free, but it didn’t come.

What he needed was some way to
pull
on it.

Rsiran crouched before the shadowsteel, his sword held out. As he did, something about the shadowsteel drew the sword toward it.

Not the shadowsteel, Rsiran realized. The tree seemed to
push
the sword toward it.

He took the blade and set it alongside the shadowsteel bar. When they touched, there came a brief flash of orange light, and then the shadowsteel started to glow, but so did the heartstone sword.

“What did you do?” Jessa asked.

“I… I don’t know. The tree seemed to push these together,” he said.

He watched and realized that the metals were heating, and softening as they did. In that way, it reminded him of how he worked with heartstone. Could he fold the shadowsteel into the heartstone, and use that to
pull
it free from the ground?

Rsiran
pushed
on the heartstone blade. The sword sagged, and softened even more, and then he
pushed
, wrapping the metal around the shadowsteel. With another flash of orange, the heartstone enveloped the shadowsteel, and then both began to cool, losing the color quickly.

He listened for lorcith, and for heartstone. They were still there, muted, but present. There was another sense along with it, one that Rsiran wasn’t sure he really detected.

When he
pulled
, he felt the effect of lorcith, of heartstone, and of this other.

Slowly, the blended metal came free from the ground.

Rsiran held onto the connection, and then Slid.

He paused long enough to step into the place between and then emerged in his smithy. He stood long enough to inhale the familiarity of the bitter lorcith, the sweetness that was heartstone, and then
pushed
the now changed sword under his worktable. Later, he would try to understand what he had done, but now he had to return.

Stepping back into the Slide, again pausing and drawing strength and healing from this place, he returned to the inside of the tree.

Jessa waited for him. “What did you do with it?”

“The smithy. For now.”

“Do you really think that’s safe?”

“I need to understand it. And we need to know how Venass was able to use the shadowsteel to poison the tree.”

“Did it work? Did removing it help?”

The pulsing and flickering light that he’d seen had stopped. For a moment, Rsiran thought the tree was fading into darkness, much like the other, but then, slowly, he saw color begin to return. At first it was faint and weak, but gradually it came back more strongly.

“It worked,” Rsiran said.

He turned, looking for Della, and found her kneeling in the middle of the cavernous space with her head bowed. As he approached, he realized that Della shook slightly. Her eyes turned up in her head, and her body was rigid.

“Della?” Jessa cried.

She didn’t answer. Rsiran didn’t expect her to answer in her current condition.

“Can you do anything?” Jessa asked him.

Rsiran touched Della’s arm. It was hot and the muscles stiff. The strain of attempting to Heal the tree had taken too much of a toll on her.

“I…” He almost said that he couldn’t, but
was
there something that he could do? When he stopped in the place between Slides, he felt a Healing energy. Could Della be Healed the same way?

He took her arm, and grabbed Jessa, and Slid.

Stopping this time in the place between, there was no scent of decay. Only the brilliant white light that mixed with bright blue. Lorcith and heartstone, at least to him. Rsiran breathed in, and felt invigorated, strengthened by his connection to this place.

When they had been here last, Della had glowed. That light had faded, turned almost to nothingness. Whatever happened to her as she Healed the tree had left her diminished.

“Do you see it?” he asked.

“See what? All I see is darkness here.”

Why could he see it and not Jessa?

Was there a way for him to connect to the power that was here and help Della?

Rsiran breathed in the connection to the light and power all around him. As he did, it seeped from his hands, from his skin, even escaped with his breath.

Could he use that to help Della?

He took Della’s hands. They were frail and crooked, and for the first time, he realized just how old she must be. Older than she admitted. Old enough that she had lived through what others could only try to remember.

She couldn’t die now.

Rsiran
pulled
on the energy around him. He didn’t know exactly what he did, only that here, in this place, he felt connected to power in ways that he couldn’t understand. The light surged, blindingly bright.

If he could
pull
on it, could he
push
?

He tried.

Light flowed from him, directed into Della.

Nothing happened. Nothing changed about her, and the glow that he had seen in her before faded even more.

Rsiran
pulled
on more of the power around him, and then
pushed
again, sending that strength into Della. Light flooded into her once more.

She gasped.

He
pushed
power and light into her mouth, into her lungs, forcing her to breathe it in.

Della gasped again.

Light poured back out of her, and the stiffness in her arms, and the trembling through her body subsided.

“Della?” he asked.

She didn’t answer at first. Her eyes opened slowly, and she took a deep breath, this time drawing in the energy on her own. Light suffused her skin, leaving her glowing once more.

“I… I will be fine,” she said.

Rsiran let out a relieved sigh. “What happened?”

“Healing. The Elder Trees pulled too much from me. I should have known.” She started to stand, and leaned on him for support. “How? You should not have been able to pull me back.”

Rsiran motioned around him. “There is power in this place.”

Della looked around, and then nodded. “There is power in this place,” she agreed. “But how is it that you can access it?”

Rsiran shook his head. He wasn’t entirely certain how he accessed the power, and what it meant that he could
pull
it to him, but he had managed to save Della. And, maybe, he would be able to save the last Elder Tree.

Della sighed. “There is nothing that can be done for that one,” she said.

She must have Read him. “If it’s gone—”

“The Elder Trees are tied to the Great Crystals. If the tree is gone, the guilds will need to be even more vigilant in guarding them.” She took another breath, and light poured from her skin, making her appear ethereal. “Venass has weakened us, but they have failed in their plan for now. We will find a way to protect the power that has been entrusted to us.”

A shiver of fear coursed through him. What if they weren’t able to protect the power? What if now that one of the Elder Trees had died, Venass—or someone else—would figure out a way to take one of the crystals?

Della rested a hand on him, and a relaxing wave of warmth filled him. “Worry for another time, Rsiran. You have done well. That is enough for today. Let us go, and join the others.”

He swallowed and looked to Jessa. Taking her arm, and Della’s, he Slid them from the place between and back to the clearing with the Elder Trees.