Shadows Within the Flame (The Elder Stones Saga Book 2) Read online

  “What were you thinking going after him like that?” he asked Brusus.

  “I was trying to draw him away from you, you fool.”

  “You can’t handle Forgers,” Haern said.

  Brusus coughed. “It’s been a long time since someone told me what I couldn’t do,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to—”

  Brusus coughed again and shook his head. “No. You’re right. I’m not the right person to take on the Forgers.”

  “I’m not sure that I am, either.”

  “I don’t know that we have much choice in the matter. We do what we must do, and face what we must face. And we…”

  Brusus grunted, and blood began to spurt from his wound.

  Haern lowered him to the ground, quickly pressing his hands on Brusus’s belly, keeping him from bleeding as much as he could, but there was only so much that pressure would stop. He had a choice. He could either stay here, continue to hold the pressure, and hope that he could stanch the bleeding long enough for Brusus to come around, or he could try to tie him off long enough to get Brusus the help he needed.

  If he waited, there was no way Brutus would survive.

  Haern ripped off a section of fabric from Brusus’s jacket and balled it up, stuffing it against the wound. He hoisted Brusus up and went running with him. He wasn’t sure if he would make it. Every step was difficult, and as he went, he began to wonder if he could move fast enough. Would Brusus die simply because he had agreed to come with Haern?

  Haern wasn’t going to be responsible for what happened to his uncle. He wasn’t going to let someone else get hurt because of him.

  He sprinted. His legs were burning.

  Brusus coughed, but then he stopped breathing.

  “Stay with me, Brusus. Don’t do this.”

  Haern didn’t stop running. He didn’t dare. Yet, the edge of the forest—and the heart of the Aisl—was too far away.

  12

  Haern

  The inside of Darren’s home was warm and cozy, the fire that glowed in the hearth crackling with warmth. But Haern didn’t feel any warmth. He wrapped his arms around his chest, hugging himself, trying not to think about whether Brusus would survive. His uncle had to survive.

  Darren crouched over Brusus, his hands roaming across his belly, his eyes locked in tight concentration. Every so often, he mumbled something, and the deep green of his eyes flared brighter for a moment.

  Could he not have been fast enough?

  The last stretch before reaching the city had been the worst. Brusus hadn’t breathed, and when Haern had staggered into the center of the clearing, no one had been there to help him. He had barely made it to Darren’s home, and when he had finally gotten in, the healer was missing.

  It had been a painful few moments before Darren reappeared, almost as if he’d sensed Haern’s need.

  And now he worked on Brusus, but it might already be too late. Haern watched, unable to say anything, afraid to do anything more than offer an occasional prayer to the Great Watcher, and even that was likely unheard. What would the Great Watcher do on his behalf? Did the Great Watcher even care about them?

  He couldn’t think like that. The Great Watcher had allowed him to reach the heart of the forest and Darren. That was enough. It had to be enough.

  The door opened and his mother poked her head in. Her gaze went to Brusus, and her jaw clenched, and then she saw him sitting in the back of the room.

  She took a seat next to him on one of the hard chairs, watching Brusus. “What happened?”

  “Forgers.”

  “Where?”

  “Out in the forest.”

  “What were you doing with Brusus out in the forest?”

  Haern sighed. “Looking for Forgers.” He told her about what he’d seen and how Brusus had wanted to go with him. “They managed to get past the barrier. When I was there before, they weren’t able to see through it.”

  “Was it the same one?”

  Haern frowned. “Not the one that was closest to me. But it might have been the one with him. I heard him, but I… I never saw him.”

  His mother sat with her hands clasped on her lap. Moments passed before she spoke again. “What else?”

  “There was nothing else.”

  “There had to be. Otherwise, Brusus wouldn’t have gone after a Forger.”

  “He said he was protecting me.”

  “Why would he need to protect you from the Forgers?”

  “Because the Forger claimed he was after me.”

  “Why would the Forger be after you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But that was what the Forger had said, wasn’t it? He had claimed he was there for Haern.

  “They shouldn’t be able to get past the barrier,” he said.

  “We like to tell ourselves that we know what the Forgers should and shouldn’t be able to do, but if history has told us anything, it’s that they are able to accomplish far more than we believe them capable of. So yes, I agree that they shouldn’t be able to get past the barrier. Your father has been working on that, trying to ensure that we are safe from the Forgers, but somehow they managed to do so. And if they have decided to target you because of what happened in Asador, then we need to protect you.”

  “Mother, it’s not—”

  She rested her hand on his leg, silencing him. “You can’t tell me what it’s not. I saw what it was when they first started attacking. I was here during that initial war. I know what the Forgers think to do, even if there’s not much I can do to stop them. I’m not your father, and I never will be. They fear him for a reason—and a good one. He was the first person who managed to stop them.”

  “He wasn’t the first. Carth was able to stop them.”

  “Carth is a unique case, from what I know of her. And I don’t know how much she stopped them and how much she simply directed them toward your father. We were all part of some plan she had.”

  “Why would she want to direct them to Father?”

  “Maybe because she knew that Rsiran was able to oppose them. Maybe because it was his grandfather who coordinated the attack. Maybe there’s a reason that I don’t yet see. In the days since then, he has been vigilant, wanting to ensure our safety, but obsessively so. You brought him back to us,” she said, smiling and patting his leg. “I thank you for that.”

  “I wish it was only for your benefit that I wanted him back.”

  “It’s not selfish for you to want to have your father around. He realizes that he made a mistake by being gone as long as he was,” she said.

  “He might have told you that, but he hasn’t told me,” he said.

  “You know your father.”

  He did. He had been back, but he remained distant. Part of it was because he was so focused on finding a way of preventing the Forgers from gaining access to the city, and part of it was a single-minded determination to create some sort of protection for the Elder Trees. Either way, even though his father was here, he was missing, too.

  “They aren’t going away,” Haern said.

  “None of us expected them to have simply gone away,” his mother said.

  “I thought… I thought that by defeating them, we might have given ourselves a chance, but it seems as if nothing really has changed, has it?”

  She smiled. “Hasn’t it?”

  “I’m saying in a good way.”

  “How do we determine what’s good and what’s bad? We can evaluate it at the time, but we don’t really know how to characterize anything until we are much farther along. In this case, it may take years before we know whether something was good or whether it was bad.”

  Haern stared at Brusus. “Losing him would be bad.”

  “You won’t lose him,” Darren said. He looked up, and though his brow was knitted into a deep frown, there was an expression of relief upon his face. “I think he’s stabilized. And he will live.”

  “When will he come around?”

&nb
sp; “It’s unpredictable. With an injury like this, it may be hours, or days.”

  His mother patted him on the leg again. “I’ve seen Brusus in much worse shape than this.”

  “I don’t know that that’s a good thing.”

  “Not good, but certainly reassuring that I have seen him bounce back from injuries that seemed like they would claim him.”

  Haern dragged himself out of the chair and went to stand near his uncle. His face was pale, but he breathed, each breath slow and steady. Darren touched Brusus’s brow, and that laborious breathing eased.

  “We need to let him rest,” Darren said.

  Haern patted his uncle on the hand before heading out of the healer’s home. Once he was gone, he stood watching the front door, waiting for his mother to join him. After a few moments, she did, and she blinked at the bright sunlight shining overhead.

  “What did you say to him?” Haern asked.

  “What makes you think I said anything to him?”

  “Because you waited behind.”

  “Brusus was one of my first instructors,” she said. “When I didn’t have a place, Brusus was there. I’ve seen him in terrible shape, and after the war, I swore to myself I wouldn’t see him like that again. He had been through too much already, and it was someone else’s turn to handle things.”

  “Father.”

  “Your father. Others. It wasn’t to be Brusus, not anymore. He was supposed to be able to settle down and find happiness, to run the tavern and not worry about where the next fight might come.”

  “He still can.”

  “He still could, and he should. And yet, Brusus is stubborn. I’ve tried to get him to stay out of things, but it’s difficult with him. He finds ways of getting involved even when he shouldn’t.”

  “I don’t think Uncle Brusus would like you to tell him what he should and shouldn’t be involved in.”

  “Someone needs to.”

  “At least he will be okay.”

  “He will, this time. I worry what will happen the next time, or the next. Each time your uncle gets involved, he runs the risk of something else going wrong. As capable as he is, he can be foolish.”

  There came a soft shimmering, and Haern looked over to see his father Sliding back into the heart of the forest. “Where is he?”

  “He’s in with Darren. He’s going to be fine.”

  “I thought we were done with this.”

  “That’s what I was just telling Haern.”

  His father turned to him, fixing him with an intense gaze. “You were attacked by Forgers?”

  “We were.”

  “On which side of the barrier?”

  “This side of the barrier.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I would’ve known if we had crossed the barrier, Father.”

  His father breathed out in a frustrated sigh. “Yes, of course you would have. I’m just letting my anxiety about Brusus get the best of me. I’ve seen him hurt before, and I hate it.”

  “How were they able to get past the barrier?”

  “I don’t know. They shouldn’t have, but the Forgers and those they work for have ways of studying our weaknesses. It’s not altogether surprising that they found a way to probe past the barrier, though I would have thought it would take more time. I have been working on it ever since our return.”

  “What if there’s something on this side that allows them to cross over?”

  “The trees have been sealed.”

  Haern turned his attention to the Elder Trees and tried to listen for the sense of lorcith, but there was nothing other than what he detected coming off the ring of lorcith surrounding each tree—nothing like the metal implanted in the trees, as there had been before.

  “What if it’s something else?”

  “What else do you think there could be?”

  “The C’than managed to get in the last time.”

  “They followed me.”

  “Could they have followed us again?”

  “I would’ve expected to have detected it…” His father Slid to one of the trees, and Haern glanced over to his mother before walking over. There were times when he resented his father’s ability to Slide so easily. The absentminded way that he simply Slid, ignoring the fact that others couldn’t, annoyed him. His friends never did that. Even though they could Slide, they didn’t make a point of doing it in a way that left him behind. With as powerful as his father was, he should be able to Slide others with him. Instead, he continued abandon them.

  Rsiran held his hand out, holding it above the surface of the nearest tree. He frowned. “I don’t detect anything. It should be completely sealed off.”

  “You don’t, but what if you aren’t going to be able to pick up on anything?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Haern chuckled. “I know there’s lorcith in whatever they used on the trees, mostly because I can detect it, too, but there is something else, another metal, or some other way they’re holding on to it. I’m not exactly sure what that is, but what if they can follow that other metal, but you can’t?”

  “This should still seal that off,” Rsiran said.

  “What if you can’t? What if there’s no way of sealing it off without using the same metal?” Why couldn’t his father see that he wasn’t infallible? Why did he believe that everything he did would work?

  “It’s possible,” his father conceded.

  “And if they’re using that to target us, we might be forced to remove these trees.”

  His father shook his head. “I did everything I could to save these trees. They were attacked one other time, and without them…”

  “I don’t want to lose them either, but the alternative is that we will continue to be in danger from the Forgers finding us, getting past the barrier you have placed. You don’t want that any more than I do, and I know you want to do everything you can to keep our people safe. It might be that we have to remove this danger.”

  Rsiran stared at the trees. “We sacrificed so much trying to keep them here,” he said softly. “We lost so many. And now we will lose them again.”

  “We don’t have to lose anyone this time,” Haern said. “We can move out of the forest.”

  “This is our people’s home,” Rsiran said.

  “It is, but they can return to the city. They can return to the safety there, and they can—”

  His father shook his head. “No. I’m not going to let them do this.”

  He started off, heading toward the forge in the center of the clearing. Haern went to follow, but his mother caught his arm. “Just let him be for now.”

  “Mother, if they’re using these trees to track us…”

  “Then we need to let him come to that conclusion. We can’t force your father. I’ve known him a long time, and I know that he can be stubborn, but I also know that he almost always comes up with the right decision.”

  “Almost always? What happens if he doesn’t?”

  “Then I intervene.”

  “And what if that isn’t enough?”

  She stared at the building in the center of the clearing. Smoke drifted out of the chimney. Haern suspected his father would begin working again, throwing himself into trying to find some way of preventing the Forgers from locating them, trying to find some way of saving the Elder Trees. The more Haern thought about it, the more he wondered if that was even going to be possible. And maybe it would be better—and safer—for them to return to the city. From there, they could find a way to defend it, and use that to keep themselves safe.

  “What did he mean about nearly losing the trees before?”

  “That was what the Forgers were after the last time. They wanted to destroy the trees and the power within them.”

  He’d always known the Elder Trees were important, but he’d never felt that they had power. How could the trees have power? “What sort of power is within the trees?”

  “That’s not something we ever really understood.”


  “Is it different from what’s within the sacred crystals?”

  “The sacred crystals are unique, and yet, they are just as much a part of our people as the Elder Trees.”

  Could the Elder Trees be another Elder Stone?

  His father had never said so, but it made sense, especially if the Forgers were so interested in them. That was part of the reason they had attacked before. Haern—and everyone else in the city—had believed the Forgers had been after the crystals, but what if they had really been after the power of the trees?

  Could they somehow have harnessed it with the metal surrounding it?

  If so, then they might have to destroy the Elder Trees. They couldn’t allow the Forgers to maintain their connection to them.

  “What does Father think he can accomplish?”

  “I think your father believes he can stop them.”

  “And what if he can’t?”

  “Then we may lose the trees, and we may lose the crystals.”

  “But the crystals and the trees are different, aren’t they?”

  His mother stared at him for a moment. “They are. The crystals have been a part of the Elvraeth for many years, but the Elder Trees have been with us from the beginning. They were here before our people moved out of the forest and built the city.”

  “Do we have some way of reaching the power within them, the way we can access the power in the crystals?”

  “There is no process like there is with the crystals. With the crystals, you go before them, and you wait and see whether they will respond to you. It’s not the same with the trees. It’s why we have made the Aisl our home. Living here, growing up around them, there is the hope that you can harness whatever power exists within the trees. It is the power of the guilds. Smiths. Miners. Sliders.” She waved her hand, motioning all around her.

  He glanced toward the forge where his father could be heard hammering now. If anyone knew some way of reaching the power within the trees, it would be his father.

  Would he share?