The Shadowsteel Forge (The Dark Ability Book 5) by D.K. Holmberg

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take. But I’m not staying here.”
    He took her hand and pulled them in a Slide toward the faint sense of lorcith.
    When they emerged, they were in a wide chamber that appeared to be similar to the other side of the wall. The gray stone had a ridged texture that had been added to it. Lorcith flared in his mind. Rsiran turned toward the source of the lorcith and found it on the far side of the room, glowing softly.
    A stout oak table, heavily lacquered, held a collection of sharp instruments. Scissors, a few slender knives, and needles. All were made of bright steel that shone from the light of his heartstone sword. None of them held his attention.
    Next to the instruments, were small items of lorcith. A few sharp, barbed pieces of metal, paired. A slim, curved plate about the size of his fist. A few circular disks of the same size with strange patterns etched into them.
    “What is this?” Jessa asked.
    “This is where Venass used the lorcith to modify the Forgotten,” he answered. He hesitated even touching the lorcith. Even knowing that it couldn’t harm him wasn’t enough to make him willing to touch pieces of metal that were meant to go inside of the Elvraeth.
    Jessa touched the plate and pulled her hand back. “It’s hot.”
    Rsiran looked at each of the items. “These need to be destroyed,” he realized. Even the lorcith begged for that release.
    “What are they?”
    “These,” he said, pointing to the paired lorcith piercings, “are what Venass uses to control lorcith.”
    “Like the scholar had through his lips.”
    “Not only his lips, but yeah. That’s what they do. He also had piercings in his stomach, and arms, and…”
    Rsiran struggled to remember where exactly the scholar had them, but couldn’t. Inna and the other Forgotten had used a similar technique to gain power over lorcith. And now he knew where they had done it.
    But it required the skill and knowledge of Venass. It wasn’t simply that you could take the metal and use it on anyone, he didn’t think. The shaping of the lorcith was important. Rsiran thought of how he had created the bracelets he and Jessa wore, and how they inhibited Reading and Compelling.
    The bracelets drew his gaze, as he realized how similar what he had done was to what Venass did with lorcith. But not the same, was it? With the lorcith that he used, he asked the metal to assist him. There was a partnership to it that Venass had not had. With the piercings on the table, there had been no partnership, only the desire to force it into the patterns and shapes that the forger had desired.
    “What about this?” Jessa asked, pointing to the plate she’d touched.
    “I think that’s like what Thom had.”
    “And Haern?” Jessa asked.
    Rsiran nodded. “Before…”
    She blinked and turned away, leaving Rsiran feeling guilty for reminding her of what her father had done for Haern.
    “And these?” She pointed to the circular shapes that didn’t really seem to fit in with the rest of what they saw out on the table.
    “I don’t know.” He listened to the lorcith within them, but didn’t have a good sense of what they would have been used for.
    As he listened, he realized there was other lorcith here, but not out on the table. He searched around the room until he came upon a rolled piece of parchment. Rsiran slowly unrolled it and noted that it appeared to be a schematic of sorts, plans for something much like what Shael had asked him to build.
    “What is it?” Jessa asked, looking over his shoulder.
    “I… I don’t know. Shael had something like these.“ He stared at the page a moment more and then folded it up to stuff in his pocket to study later. His eyes scanned the rest of the room and fell upon a strange box, one that was not formed from lorcith or steel, but a combination of many different metals.
    He listened for lorcith, but detected none present in the box. But there was other lorcith here, only… he traced