by Amalie Jahn
“It’s all going to be okay,” he told Mia, reaching out to take her hand, smooth and warm in his own.
“Jack and Stella and Owen?”
He searched his heart and found the stillness he was looking for. “Yes. But not just them.”
“Jose and Andrea?”
“Yes. Them too.”
She squeezed his hand. “You and me?”
“All of us,” he told her. “I can feel it, in my gut, just like with the bad stuff.”
She turned to him. “Like with your ability?”
He smiled. “Yeah. I’ve been practicing, feeling for the good stuff, and it’s there now. I don’t know how we’re gonna do it, but I feel like we have a chance.”
“A chance to what?”
“A chance to save the world,” he said.
What if a group of psychic strangers came together to save the world?
Please enjoy this sneak peek of
beyond the sanctified
book three of the sevens prophecy series
CHAPTER
1
AKANTHA
Friday, October 14
London
Akantha heard the chains rattling inside the wall, alerting her that a meal was coming. They’d been feeding her using this pulley system for many days. So long in fact that she had given up trying to get their attention. She snatched the new plate of food as soon as it appeared in the wall niche. This time it was a fish filet and cooked vegetables. For days she’d sent flames up the chute, hoping her show of power would hasten her release, but no one had come to get her. At one point she’d returned her plate engulfed in flames, but the meals kept arriving at regular intervals regardless of her provocation, so she’d given up.
She had no memory of how she came to be in the stone room, without windows or doors. There was a hatch in the ceiling but she couldn’t jump high enough to reach it. Her last memory of the outside world was at the one they called Patrick’s estate where she’d been given a room with a bed and something called a television. She’d spent hours watching the pictures flash across the screen and was even beginning to learn some of the language that was spoken in her strange new world. She liked it there. It wasn’t hot like it was in the jungle and there were no bugs biting at her skin. She was grateful to her deliverer Patrick for bringing her there and considered him a friend. Especially since he hadn’t even punished her when she’d accidentally set a corner of her room on fire the week before.
He’d taken her out of his house a few times, around the city he called London, to places where she could set fires. They’d snuck away together in the middle of the night without her interpreter to abandoned places where he allowed her to light as many fires as she liked. Once, when another person crept unexpectedly from the shadows and caught her burning things, Patrick allowed her to set him on fire as well.
She’d thought perhaps they were going to set fires again on the night she was asked, via her new interpreter, to join the other gods downstairs. This was the first time she’d been with them all at the same time, as part of their group. She liked them much more than she had ever liked anyone in her tribe. They didn’t shun her or throw rocks at her; they treated her with respect and kindness.
In the sitting room she was offered something flaky, like bread, which she was surprised to find was sweet and delicious. So much better than any tortilla she’d eaten among her people.
But no, she had thought, correcting herself. These are my people now.
After she finished eating the sweet treat Lillian called a ‘pastry,’ one of Patrick’s servants began passing around a tray of beverages in tall, silver mugs. Upon reaching Akantha, only one remained and she plucked it greedily from the tray. The last thing she recalled before waking up on the floor of the stone room was the pleasant warmth of the liquid on the back of her throat as she swallowed it down.
She’d spent days going back and forth in her mind about whether one of the members of her new tribe was responsible for her imprisonment. Some moments she was convinced Lillian or the brutish-looking man was to blame; others times she was convinced of their innocence. Today, she was certain they could be trusted. If Patrick believed in them, she could too. They’d given her no reason to believe otherwise. She just couldn’t wrap her head around what had happened or why.
She was still finishing her vegetables, wondering how to escape, when she heard a sound she didn’t recognize. She realized the sound was coming from above her head and glanced up in time to see the ceiling panel lifting open.
Javier appeared in the opening and beside him was her interpreter, Irene.
“Akantha,” Irene called to her in her native tongue. “We’ve been sent by Patrick to come to rescue you.” Javier lowered a ladder into the room. “Climb up quickly! The time has come and we need you! The prophecy is about to be fulfilled.”
Thank you for reading Gather the Sentient E-book
on your Kindle device.
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Thanks again and happy reading!
Amalie Jahn
Also by Amalie Jahn:
The Clay Lion Series:
The Clay Lion
Tin Men
A Straw Man
The Sevens Prophecy Series:
Among the Shrouded
Gather the Sentient
Beyond the Sanctified
(Available Early 2017)
Dearest Reader,
When I decided to write the Sevens Prophecy Series, I knew I wanted to give a voice to some of the larger issues in our world which are difficult to discuss - the thousands of women and children who have been forced into sexual slavery, the pain and indignity of domestic violence, the tragedy of third world poverty and first world body shaming. Please know that although I’ve written works of fiction, there’s nothing fictional about the real-life anguish actual men and women facing these issues experience each and every day.
Here are some of the facts:
“An estimated 2.5 million people are in forced labor (including sexual exploitation) at any given time as a result of trafficking, the majority of these trafficking victims are between 18 and 24 years of age, and 98% of those used for forced commercial sexual exploitation are women and girls.
Worldwide, almost one third (30%) of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner, and globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner.
Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy, active life. That's about one in nine people on earth. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished. However, if women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.
In the United States, 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their life. The best-known contributor to the development of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa is the body dissatisfaction (40-60%) of elementary school girls (ages 6-12) who are concerned about their weight or about becoming too fat. This concern endures through life.”
I implore you to learn more about what you can do to increase awareness or help put an end to these issues by taking a few minutes of your day to read the information on the following websites which served as my fact sources:
www.ungift.org
www.unodc.org
www.unglobalcompact.org
www.who.int
www.wfp.org/hunger/stats
www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
In the words of the great 18th century abolitionist William Wilberforce:
“You may choose to look the other way but you can never
say agai
n that you did not know.”
Sincerely,
Amalie Jahn
About the Author
Amalie Jahn is the author of the Sevens Prophecy Series,
The Clay Lion Series, and many, many to-do lists.
Visit her online at www.amaliejahn.com.