The Dark Ability, Tome 2: The Heartstone Blade

CHAPTER 1

Rsiran Lareth looked at the hard lump of lorcith sitting unshaped on the gleaming anvil of his shop, thinking of all he had been through to get that single hunk of metal. He no longer noticed the bitter bite to the air of the smithy from the lorcith, not like he once had. There were many things he no longer noticed. Since leaving his family, he had changed much. Nearly dying did that to a person.

He crouched in front of the anvil, studying the lorcith and wondering where in the Ilphaesn mines it had come from. Each nugget he worked made him think back to the time his father had forced him to serve there, the attacks he had endured while serving penance for his ability, even from the boy Rsiran had left behind who shared one of his gifts.

He could already feel the lorcith pulling at him, demanding a shape. He had to patient, though, and wait for it to tell him what it wanted to become. That was one of his abilities, a gift of his bloodline: he could hear the lorcith sing to him.

With a sigh, he set the lorcith aside, knowing he couldn’t give it the time it needed. As much as he longed to heat it to glowing red, slowly work the shape from the ore, a nugget of this size could take nearly the entire night to forge, and he didn’t have time, not if he was to meet with the others as planned.

Yet… something about this piece drew him.

Knowing he should not take the time, Rsiran could not help himself. Lorcith was in his blood. And the others knew he would be late; he rarely arrived at the same time as Brusus or Haern. Before he fully knew what he was doing, he heated the small lump of lorcith and began working it with the hammer. The ore sang to him with a quiet voice, and he quickly folded it into a longer shape as he listened to it. As usual, Rsiran didn’t fight what the metal demanded of him, letting it fill him with a vision.

His father had spoken of controlling the ore, of learning mastery over lorcith. That had been part of the reason he had sent Rsiran to Ilphaesn, as punishment for his inability to control the lorcith, rather than succumb to its demands. Instead of learning how to master it, Rsiran allowed it to speak to him and became more attuned to it, better able to listen. Some might say the roles were reversed, and the lorcith controlled him.

The work did not take long. A pattern emerged that delicately spiraled in a lacy sort of charm that reminded him of the flowers Jessa wore. Under the influence of the lorcith, he envisioned it hanging from a necklace. After it cooled, he brought it to the long table cluttered with his other forgings. This would not have the same market as the knives or the sword he’d made, but he had another purpose for it anyway.

Then he checked the dwindling stack of lorcith near the forge. Eventually, he would need to Slide for more. Doing so meant visiting the mines and risking the others who mined at night, including the strange boy. After everything the boy had done to him, Rsiran still feared him, but would not put him in danger; nor would he risk being discovered by others who mined at night, He’d heard them, but did not know their location. And taking from anywhere else in Elaeavn would shine attention on himself that he didn’t need, attention from the miner or smith guild, or worse, the ruling Elvraeth family.