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

warehouse he could Slide them to safety.
    He guided them past the central area. From what he could tell, nothing seemed off with those crates. And he remembered the distant sense of lorcith from the night before, trying to track where he had sensed it. They wound between stacks of crates, these not nearly as old as those in the center, the writing still in a language he couldn’t read, but faded rather than gone.
    Jessa pulled him to a stop as they reached an intersection of crates. “Look here,” she whispered. She pointed at one of the crates, biting her lip as she did.
    Rsiran held the lantern out so that he could more easily see what she tried to show him. The crate looked no different from any other. It took him a moment to see what Jessa saw.
    The crate reminded him of the one he had seen last night, where the wood had been pounded in from nails being replaced. He saw splintering around one of the side panels and pulled on the edge. It pried away with a soft squeal.
    He set the panel on the floor and held the lantern up so that he could see inside, not knowing what to expect. The glint of light reflecting off metal sent his heart fluttering momentarily, until he realized that it was nothing more than pale green vases, the flowing lines clearly of grindl. Rsiran could use the metal, melt it down and reshape it, but the vases as they were shaped were probably just as valuable as anything he could make. Other than that, all he saw were a few rolls of cloth.
    Still, he didn’t understand why someone would have taken the time to open and reseal the crate. Nothing inside was valuable enough.
    “I don’t understand,” he said, turning to Jessa still holding the lantern in front of him.
    She pushed it down and away from her face. “Should I be surprised?”
    “Take a look for yourself.” He moved so that she could make her way to the crate.
    She looked inside and pulled out one of the vases, twisting it in her hands. “This isn’t valuable?”
    “Not that it isn’t valuable,” he said. “But so much of what we’ve found here is more valuable. These are pretty enough, but I expected… something different.”
    “Because it’s been opened a few times?”
    He nodded. Rsiran had come here hoping for something of an answer, an explanation about who might have attacked them last night, or at least some evidence of what their attackers had wanted. But he didn’t see anything that looked unusual.
    Starting down the line of crates, he wandered away from their usual path. Each time he had been in the warehouse before, he had come to the main door—or Slid to it—and made his way to the center of the warehouse where the oldest, and presumably more interesting, crates were stored. He hadn’t wandered farther through the warehouse.
    “Where are you going?” Jessa asked.
    “Just curious. I haven’t been toward this end of the building before. The crates near the door keep us from it. Have you?”
    Jessa frowned and shook her head. She followed alongside him, keeping a soft hand on his arm. “Never really had the need. I’m sure Brusus has explored the entire building. Think he practically owns the place.”
    Rsiran laughed softly. “In a way, he does. But you’re right. I’m sure Brusus has explored the entire building.” Only the warehouse was massive, and the crates created a maze that seemed to guide them toward the center, as if determined to keep them from making their way anywhere else in the warehouse.
    They followed the crates until it turned again. Through the narrow alley of crates, he saw the vague dark outline of the far wall. A stack of crates rose nearly to the ceiling here, forming a secondary wall on one side. On the other side of the walkway, the crates stacked only two or three high.
    Rsiran stopped. Swinging the lantern from side to side, he looked for an opening in the wall of crates but didn’t see one. “Do you see any way to get through there?” he asked Jessa.
    “Through