Free The Heartstone Blade (The Dark Ability Book 2) by D.K. Holmberg

arm.
    When they nearly reached the shore road that ran along the bay, Rsiran saw Shael ambling toward the docks. His wide back was hard to miss, but his brightly colored shirt and pants would have stood out, regardless.
    Rsiran pulled Jessa toward the line of buildings along the street. “Just saw Shael.”
    “You sure?”
    “Who else wears such bright clothing?” It was the deep red shirt that drew Rsiran’s attention. “Where do you think he’s going?”
    “Probably same as us.”
    “And where are we going?”
    She tilted her head toward the water. “I wanted to check with Firell. Something about that crate last night still bothers me.”
    “He’ll be on his ship. You won’t be able to get there.”
    A smile played across her lips. “You sure about that?”
    “You want me to Slide us onto the ship?”
    He wasn’t certain whether he could even do it. Usually Sliding required him to know where he was going, either by seeing it or having been there before. Trying to do it another way risked him missing his target. And if he missed the ship… they would end up in the water. Rsiran didn’t know whether he could Slide them back.
    “You don’t think you can?” Jessa seemed surprised.
    “I’ve never tried it,” he admitted. “If I had better Sight, I might feel more comfortable trying it. At least then I could see my target. But what if I miss or overshoot?” At least there wasn’t the same risk of ending up stuck in walls of rock like he’d had when Sliding in Ilphaesn or of ending up stuck in a crate as he would have had attempting to Slide in the warehouse.
    As they neared the docks, Jessa pulled something out of her pocket and handed it to him. An amused smile crossed her face, pulling at the corners of her mouth.
    “What is this?” What she handed him was made of a silvery metal, but not steel. Long and cylindrical, it felt cool and lighter than he would have expected. It reminded him of the cylinders he had seen when Brusus first took him to the warehouse, but didn’t seem as long as those. One end tapered more than the other. “Is this…”
    She shrugged. “Just a part. Look through it.”
    “Does Brusus know?”
    They stood on the rocky shoreline, away from the docks but near enough that they could see them. Water splashed up around them, sending soft splatters of cool water onto their arms. Rsiran remembered the first time he’d come to the shore with Jessa, thinking how different things were now.
    A half dozen ships were moored out on the water. A few smaller boats ferried people to and from the larger ships. At the dock, a single-masted ship slowly made its way toward the shore. Flat bottomed, from what Firell had said, and clearly from Elaeavn.
    “Does he have to know everything?” Jessa said.
    Rsiran laughed. “I know how he’d answer that.”
    “Just look,” Jessa urged.
    He held the cylinder up and turned it, realizing that a piece of glass capped each end. A spyglass, though he’d never seen one like this before. Rsiran smiled and place the narrow end up to his face and looked through.
    Waves cresting on the bay suddenly jumped into view. Rsiran’s smile deepened. The clarity surprised him. The only other spyglasses he’d used were blurry, with impurities tainting the glass. This was as if everything were simply magnified. He turned so that he could look through the spyglass at the other ships. Most of the ships in the bay sailed from Elaeavn, though a few came from other port cities like Asador and Thyr.
    Without the advantage of Sight, he had never been able to really see the exotic ships up close. Elaeavn sailors stayed mostly in the bay where fish were plentiful, but the interesting ships were the ones that couldn’t reach the docks. On one, a triple-masted boat with a sharp prow shaped like a massive bird, several men walked on the deck. Most had thick beards, and they worked the lines with experienced hands. Another ship had wide square sails, but Rsiran didn’t