Blood of the Watcher (The Dark Ability Book 4) by D.K. Holmberg Page A

way to sneak her from the city to keep her safe?
    But how would she have managed that?
    Here, in this part of Lower Town, she had no leverage, no capacity to reach help. Maybe once they would have had a way, but no longer.
    “She did not.”
    Rsiran sniffed. For whatever reason, his sister had kept his existence from his mother. Maybe he should do the same.
    “It’s Alyse, isn’t it?” she asked. “That’s why you came today. What happened to her?”
    “I don’t know. She’s not been seen in a week.”
    “Seen?”
    “One of my… friends,” he said, “has been watching out for her, monitoring her location. And now we don’t know where she is.” Rsiran took a step toward his mother. “You wanted to know why I came here today. Well, it’s because I’m trying to find out what happened to Alyse.”
    He had thought her disappearance might have to do with him, but now he wasn’t certain, especially if his father had been working for the Forgotten. If they were trying to find him, wouldn’t it be possible that they would appear in Elaeavn and grab Alyse, thinking to draw his father back to work?
    She dropped her head to the table, resting her forehead on her hands. “Not Alyse as well,” she whispered. “Haven’t we been through enough already?”
    “You were afraid this might happen,” Rsiran realized.
    “You can go. You don’t have to pretend concern for your sister.”
    He snorted. “I came here, didn’t I? Is that not demonstrating some level of concern? I might not show it the same as you and father, but then, I didn’t realize that sending your son off to the mines was father’s way of showing concern for me.”
    She turned her head toward him. “There was always a threat that something would happen to you or your sister if your father didn’t answer the summons.”
    A summons sounded too much like what he expected to receive from Venass to be chance. So far, he’d received no summons from Venass since Thom attacked, but that didn’t mean that one would not come. Maybe that was what the two people he’d seen in the forest were sent to do, or those from the street when he had been with Jessa. Had they come to draw him back to Venass?
    “What can you tell me?” Rsiran asked.
    His mother shook her head. “There is nothing to tell, only that if she is gone, there is no way for me to find her. I had thought her protected from all of this, that by coming to this part of the city, we could disappear, but even that wasn’t enough.”
    “The Forgotten. Tell me what you know.”
    She took a deep breath and her back straightened. “If I tell you anything, I only put you both in danger. You’re better where you are, Rsiran. Stay with your friend in Upper Town with your fancy clothes and whatever you have decided to do with yourself. Find happiness.”
    He laughed bitterly. “You don’t understand, do you? I’m already mixed up with the Forgotten. They know about me, and about what I can do. And I’ve already escaped them once. Trust me when I tell you that it is unlikely Alyse will be able to escape from them.”
    His mother didn’t need for him to tell her how Alyse might get drugged and forced to share secrets about herself and her family, even secrets she didn’t realize that she possessed. Without the ability to protect her mind, Readers like Inna or any of the other Forgotten, would be able to torment her. And for what? Information on what happened to their father? Alyse wouldn’t know that.
    “Then you already know why I can’t say anything,” she said. “And they will not harm her.”
    Something about the way that she said it troubled him. “How can you be so certain that they won’t harm her?”
    She stared down at her hands. Rsiran wanted to shake answers out of her, but that wouldn’t get him any closer to knowing why Alyse had been taken or where she was now. “Who are you protecting?” he asked. “What do you know?”
    “You should go, Rsiran. You should not have