The Shadowsteel Forge (The Dark Ability Book 5) Read Online Free Page A

Jessa to come along with him. At least with her, he’d have her Sight, and would be able to follow it more easily. Tracking it this way required him to almost crawl in certain places. It looked strange enough for him to be crouching on the street, but when he got down on his hands and knees to track, he looked even more ridiculous.
    When he lost the trail, Rsiran searched toward the docks. Going farther into Lower Town seemed the most likely. The man had the look of a seaman, and from there, he could have slipped onto one of the ships leaving port, and gone anywhere. Jessa had noted that he was not of Elaeavn. If he intended to abduct Alyse, going to sea would have been the easiest way out of the city.
    He found nothing that indicated that he had gone this way.
    Up the street?
    Rsiran’s gaze turned toward the Floating Palace. In this part of Lower Town, the illusion didn’t hold quite as well as it did other places, but parts of the palace still seemed to float, stretching off the rock high above him. Blue lights glowed in a few windows. Once he would have been impressed by the lanterns there. Still was, he supposed. But now, he understood how the lanterns worked, and that it was heartstone generating the blue light. Strange that he’d broken into the palace twice, and now, working with the alchemists, he could move unfettered beneath the palace.
    He found the trail again and followed it up the street, as if toward the palace.
    That made no sense. Why would the man have been moving up the street and toward the palace? He wouldn’t have been able to leave the city from there, at least not easily, and not without passing through the Aisl Forest, taking a road that was considered one of the more dangerous ways from the city.
    The forest provided protection to Elaeavn, but also isolated the city. The Elvraeth never seemed to mind that isolation, but now, Rsiran wondered if that had more to do with the fact that some—likely the council and the guildlords—knew about the Forgotten and their organization, as well as Venass. Having the protection of the forest was another layer that prevented access to the city.
    He continued along the street, following the trail of blood. It began to space out, making it more difficult for him to follow, and he wondered if the man had paused long enough to bandage his wounds. Rsiran’s knives had cut him a few times, but apparently, not badly enough to stop him.
    “Why are you staring at the ground?”
    Rsiran looked up to see Sarah standing along the edge of the road. He hadn’t realized it, but he neared the middle section of the city, with Upper Town not far from him. The guild houses were in Upper Town, but he had grown up in this part of the city, and his father’s old smithy was still here, empty now.
    “Nothing,” Rsiran said. He hadn’t seen Sarah much since their attack on the Forgotten, and then learning about his family history. Mostly, that was his choice. He didn’t like the way that Sarah had looked at him, questions in her eyes when she did, as if she wanted to study him. In some ways, she made him feel no different than he had when captured by Venass.
    “Nothing? Not even the blood that you seem to be following?” She skipped across the street and tapped the most recent streak with her toe. “I thought it might be yours, but it’s dry. It looks like you’re following someone.” She met his eyes and smiled. “Almost like a wolf tracking a wounded animal.”
    He considered denying what he was doing, but that wouldn’t help when Sarah simply followed him. Sliding might take him away from her, and he’d proven that he could mask his Slides, even from her, but he couldn’t avoid the guilds forever. Now that they knew about him—and he had helped them—it seemed unlikely that he would be able to avoid them altogether.
    “There was an attack last night,” he started. “My sister.”
    Sarah’s mouth tightened into a concerned frown. “Why would your sister be