The Guild Secret (The Dark Ability Book 6) Read Online Free Page B

and Valn were with me.”
    Della took a step toward him, batting a hand at his knives. “You left Jessa here?”
    “We’ve been making trips outside the city for a while, trying to find out what Venass might be up to. Jessa came with me on a few of them, but I think she realizes that Valn is a better fighter than she is.”
    “And Sarah?”
    “She can help if someone Slides.”
    “I’m glad to hear that you’ve not been attempting this on your own.”
    “We all have to deal with Venass.”
    Della surveyed the street. “You can almost imagine what it must have looked like before the city was here. In some ways, it is actually beautiful.”
    “The attack was anything but beautiful,” Rsiran said.
    “I didn’t mean the attack, Rsiran.”
    “Venass used a new way to attack us this time.” He described the sphere and the shadowsteel sword. “I worry that they might have discovered a way to counter my ability.”
    Della smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “They were always going to find a way to counter your ability, Rsiran. You have become powerful, but they have studied for years. Some would say centuries. In all that time, they have sought the secret to power, longing for more than what they possess. Does it really surprise you that they would find new and deadly ways to attack?”
    “How can I stop them if they always manage to stay a step ahead of us?”
    “You cannot do so alone.”
    “I didn’t mean to imply that I wanted to.”
    “And yet you said ‘I.’ You are one man, but you are part of something more now. You are a guildlord, and that connects you in ways that you have never been connected.”
    “I don’t always feel like part of the guild.”
    “That doesn’t change that you are.” She studied him, and his bracelets went cool for a moment as she tried to Read him. “That isn’t the only thing that bothers you, is it?”
    Rsiran swallowed. He hadn’t told Sarah or Valn about what he’d discovered. They wouldn’t understand what Josun had put him through, but Della would. “When we were in Thyr, I found a knife. There is something about the knife that tells me who last possessed it.”
    “Do you have that connection with all lorcith you forge?”
    “I didn’t think so. It’s almost as if the lorcith tried sending me a message.”
    “There are times when you speak of it as something almost sentient.”
    “Jessa says the same thing. I don’t know any other way to describe it.”
    “Perhaps there is no other way to describe it. Perhaps the Great Watcher has connected through lorcith to you, giving you some of his abilities.” She sighed. “What did you find that troubles you so much, Rsiran?”
    “Josun had the knife. He was the man I chased through Thyr, almost as if he knew that I was there and that I followed him.”
    Della remained silent for a moment. From the light of his knives, he saw her rub her chin and adjust the shawl around her neck. “Well, we knew that he was not dead. I am unable to See him, though, and do not know what it means that he has reappeared.”
    Rsiran Slid away from the wall, emerging in a clearing where he pulled his knives toward him. The ground had ash residue from the attack, leaving it blackened. This had been where he had faced his grandfather, and where he had nearly died. He had managed to push on the lorcith in the spheres he carried then, stopping Danis from harming him. What had Venass changed in those spheres that kept him from being able to do the same in Thyr?
    “I should have gone after him as soon as I discovered he’d escaped the mines,” Rsiran said. “I knew that he would come after us again. That he was in Thyr…”
    Della approached him carefully, eyeing the knives he held suspended in the air. “You did what was necessary at the time.”
    “Necessary? Had I been more decisive, we wouldn’t be facing the possibility that Josun Elvraeth accepted implants from Venass, thus cementing his alliance with them. I wouldn’t