The Great Betrayal (The Lost Prophecy Book 8)

by D. K. Holmberg

  As with Gareth’s sword, there was resistance, but he pushed, and with a heave of energy, he managed to overcome the polarity of the sword and shifted it to the positive.

  He lunged, sweeping with his sword, decapitating the first groeliin. He pulled on the ahmaean, slowing time, and quickly attacked the other two. Both fell before him.

  There were other groeliin here. Thousands of them.

  He had worried that he wouldn’t find Raime, and ultimately it would seem Raime had come to him.

  Would his plan work?

  Ahmaean appeared, and he detected that of the Magi.

  Jakob noted Alriyn and others from Vasha, using their connection to ahmaean to push back the groeliin, keeping them away from the forest.

  Other ahmaean flickered into existence, and he recognized Malaya.

  She brought other damahne with her, but more than that, she brought Deshmahne.

  There was another flickering of energy, and hundreds of groeliin appeared.

  There was something different about them. Isandra stood at the head of them, and he saw Roelle there with her.

  They all crashed against the attacking groeliin.

  Jakob ignored the groeliin, though, knowing Raime had to be here somewhere. He wanted power, and he had come here, thinking to steal it. Where would he be?

  Not at the edge of the forest.

  He shifted, appearing in the center of the forest, where the daneamiin had made their home. His brother lay there, his face ashen, his pants tattered. Tattoos marked the skin of his legs.

  Not tattoos. Brands.

  Raime had branded his brother.

  Jakob shifted, drawing upon the ahmaean to try to detect where Raime had gone.

  He felt it near the largest tree at the center of the forest.

  “It won’t work for you to take from damahne, not like that,” Jakob said.

  Raime shifted, appearing before him. The darkness that swirled around him was familiar, as was the man. Jakob had thought that walking back along Raime’s fibers would give him a greater insight into the man, but all he had was more questions. Why would he believe that he served the gods through his actions? Why would he think that destroying daneamiin—and the Magi—would serve them?

  “What makes you think I intend to take from them in that fashion?” Raime asked.

  “Because you have only wanted power.”

  “I have wanted to take what should not have been given to those such as yourself. I have only wanted to purify the ahmaean on behalf of the gods.”

  “The gods? If you served the gods, you would not have acted in this way.”

  Raime shifted, and Jakob followed him. He realized there was another damahne lying near a tree, a similar brand upon him. It was a man Jakob barely knew, but he had seen him in Chrysia.

  How many were here? What did Raime intend?

  Raime shifted again, and Jakob trailed him. There was another damahne, a woman, and she lay like the others, unmoving with brands on her feet.

  Raime was bringing them here from somewhere.

  Why would he need to bring them here?

  When he had branded others in the past, their ahmaean poured into the person holding the branding tool, but it didn’t seem to be his intent here. He was pouring it into the forest.

  After a moment, he thought he understood. Raime was adding to the forest, granting more ahmaean to it, and with that, he would pass it on to Gareth, if he could.

  Jakob had to counter him. Would he be strong enough?

  He lunged toward Raime, but Raime shifted away, moving more quickly than Jakob.

  Another damahne appeared, and another.

  Each time Raime shifted, he brought another branded damahne to the forest.

  He had to stop Raime, but how?

  Jakob shifted away and found Aruhn. He cowered with the other daneamiin, hiding from Raime, and hiding from the battle. “I need the daneamiin to prevent Raime from shifting.”

  “We cannot fight, Jakob Nialsen.”

  “If you don’t, he will destroy your people. He will destroy all people.” Jakob had thought the intent was to purify the ahmaean, and it was, but not in the way that Jakob had imagined. Raime—and Gareth—intended to drain all creatures of their ahmaean, and pour it into the Old Forest.

  Purity.

  That was Gareth’s intent, but that was not what the Maker wanted. Jakob was certain of that. Balance. That was what the Maker wanted.

  “Please. We need to hold him. If we don’t, he will empty all of the ahmaean in existence into the forest.”

  Jakob noted the fog of ahmaean growing thicker within the forest. When he tried to pull on it, he found it resisting him. Was he no longer granted the ability to use the ahmaean of the forest? Was what Raime did somehow pleasing to the forest?

  “Jakob Nialsen, it is not our way to fight,” Aruhn said.

  “Not your way? There are daneamiin fighting now. Had you fought long ago, the groeliin might have never become what they are. How can it not be your way to fight? How can you be willing to let this happen? How can you sit back while this occurs?”

  Aruhn blinked the strange, exotic way of the daneamiin. “Jakob Nialsen—”

  Anda came running into the clearing and cut off Aruhn.

  “We have to help. Our damahne are being slowly captured,” she said. “The Magi are being captured.”

  Jakob looked around and realized that Magi, as well as damahne, were lying scattered around the forest, each of them branded. Suddenly there were groeliin, massive creatures that should not have taken on brands, but they were lying alongside the others.

  “Please,” Jakob said. “You need to be a part of this.”

  Aruhn glanced around and finally sighed. “We will do what we can.”

  The daneamiin flickered away, moving to the edge of the forest.

  Jakob didn’t know if it would work, but all they needed to do was capture and hold Raime, and he would have to do the rest. Was he prepared for it? Could he end Raime? Jakob had to be willing to do that.

  Raime appeared, dragging one of the massive groeliin, and Jakob lunged at him. Raime shifted.

  Jakob turned away, looking to see where he might appear next.

  Could he anticipate Raime?

  Jakob watched, holding onto his connection to ahmaean, and felt it as Raime shifted into the forest once more.

  The fog of the forest had grown much thicker. It was difficult for him to see the ground. He felt some pressure, but was that from the ahmaean, or could it be from what the daneamiin were doing?

  He felt pressure again, a tearing sensation that pulsed against his eardrums, and he remembered that sensation from Scottan in his vision of his brother.

  Jakob shifted, appearing where he had detected that pressure.

  Raime would be there. He had to be there.

  He found Raime attempting to shift, but something prevented him.

  Jakob lunged at him, but Raime spun, blocking him with a length of neutral teralin.

  It surprised Jakob that Raime would use neutral teralin much like Gareth had.

  “You won’t succeed,” Raime said.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “For the purity of ahmaean. You don’t understand. You haven’t lived long enough to understand.”

  “I don’t have to have lived as long as you to know that what you do is wrong.”

  Raime swung his staff, but Jakob blocked it.

  Raime attempted to shift, but he couldn’t.

  “What you intend to do is going to fail,” Jakob said.

  “Fail? It has already succeeded. Can’t you see?”

  Jakob looked around, and there was nothing around him other than the fog of ahmaean. It was so thick that he couldn’t see anything else.

  “All of this is returned to the source. The ahmaean will be pure again.”

  Jakob attempted once again to draw upon the ahmaean of the forest, but it resisted him.

  Raime swung his staff a
t Jakob, but he deflected it.

  Raime danced in a deadly series of movements. Jakob was forced back, recognizing that Gareth must have taught Raime, and likely had taught the groeliin he’d faced. The groeliin’s skill with the sword began to make sense now.

  He needed to draw upon the ahmaean of the forest. Somehow, he needed to reach it so that he could defeat Raime.

  Raime struck him, catching him on the leg. Jakob fell.

  Jakob watched as Raime raised his staff high in the air then brought it crashing down onto Jakob’s arm, shattering it.

  He still held onto his sword. Raime smiled. “You have failed, damahne. Everything he saw of you has come to fruition.”

  Jakob would not be the reason that darkness occurred. He would fight—but could he?

  He couldn’t stand, and his other arm was now useless.

  There was one way he hadn’t tried with Raime.

  Jakob pulled on the ahmaean of his sword.

  The sword flashed with power. One side blazed brilliantly bright, and the other was dark.

  Balance.

  He had never thought of it in that way before, but the sword was balanced. It wasn’t teralin, but it was something else.

  Balance.

  Jakob pulled through Neamiin, reaching for the ahmaean in the forest, and it surged into him.

  Power exploded in him. His arm healed. The pain in his leg faded.

  He leaped to his feet, wrapping Raime in swirls of ahmaean.

  Raime’s eyes widened as he tried to attack, and Jakob felt pressure as he attempted to shift but failed.

  “You’re wrong. You’ve always been wrong. And this ends now.”

  Raime attempted to strike, but Jakob stepped forward and slid Neamiin through Raime’s chest, ahmaean pouring from the sword and through Raime.

  Jakob stood for a moment, unable to move, and realized there was a different sort of balance that was necessary. The forest couldn’t contain all of this ahmaean. It needed to be held by all who worked together to stop Raime: damahne, Magi, Antrilii, daneamiin, groeliin, and Deshmahne.

  He pushed back, taking the ahmaean that had been poured into the forest, and forced it back into those who had been injured. Using the enhanced connection he now had, he was able to restore it to those who had lost it.

  The fog began to fade, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed. Finally, Jakob could see the others filling the forest around him. Magi and damahne and Antrilii and daneamiin and groeliin and Deshmahne all were here.

  He looked around and found Brohmin staggering into the clearing, Salindra supporting him. Anda came toward Jakob. Roelle was there, too, though she stood staring with a blank expression.

  “You have done well,” Jakob heard from behind him.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Brohmin couldn’t take his eyes off of Raime’s body. He’d fought for centuries trying to find him. He was the Hunter, and Jakob had been the one to capture him.

  “You don’t seem pleased.”

  Brohmin looked up to Salindra and flashed a smile. “I’m very happy,” he said. He looked across the clearing and saw Jakob speaking to an older man. Brohmin blinked. Could it be Tresten? He looked much like the old Mage, but he was long dead… wasn’t he?

  “You seem as if you’ve lost… something.”

  Brohmin squeezed his eyes shut before returning his attention to Salindra. What did it matter that a long-dead Mage had appeared? He took a deep breath, inhaling the sense of the forest. There was a comfort in being here, a place the Conclave had long ignored. It had been ignored at Raime’s peril, and because of that, they had managed to defeat him.

  And it had been all of them. Without the Deshmahne and groeliin and Magi and Antrilii, would they have succeeded? Brohmin suspected they would not have.

  “I have lost something,” he said. But it was something he had been willing to lose. His purpose was over—at least the purpose for which he had served the Conclave. As he looked up at Salindra, he realized that he could find a new purpose. Perhaps he did have enough time remaining to enjoy with her. He took her hand and squeezed it in his, and smiled. “I found something, as well. And that’s all that matters.”

  Chapter Forty

  When the fog lifted, Isandra had gone searching for Jassan. She found him lying near the center of the clearing of the forest. All around him she saw strange beings that seemed to almost flicker as they moved. They resembled humans, but their eyes were oddly shaped, and they moved with a grace she’d never seen before. And more surprisingly, she sensed a power from them similar to what she detected from groeliin. There were other people nearby—those like Jakob and Malaya—and Magi, Antrilii, and even the Deshmahne that had been fighting alongside them.

  The groeliin had stopped attacking, and the restored groeliin had secured the others. One by one, the groeliin began disappearing, likely traveling in the same way that the damahne were able to travel.

  “What happened?” she asked, crouching next to Jassan. He had a bloody gash along his face, but he otherwise was awake and unharmed.

  As she pressed her manehlin through him, she realized that he wasn’t entirely unharmed. There were markings along his legs that reminded her of what had happened to her when the Deshmahne had branded her.

  She pulled up his pants and pressed her hands around the markings. They were cool but not cold as hers had been. She didn’t have the sense that manehlin poured from them. Had he already been restored?

  “Groeliin grabbed me and placed these markings.”

  “Are you restored?”

  Jassan squeezed his eyes together, and she felt his manehlin swirling for a moment. “When Jakob did… whatever it was he did… I am better now.”

  She helped him to his feet and looked around the clearing, noting other familiar faces. How had so many come here to fight?

  But she knew the answer. Jakob stood in the middle of the clearing talking to an older man that she had never seen before but knew with certainty that he was one of the gods.

  The gods had saved them. They had intervened and saved them.

  “I think… I think it’s over,” she said to Jassan.

  “What will you do now?”

  What would she do? She didn’t belong in Vasha, but could she belong in Farsea? That was home for Jassan, and she had felt welcomed there, in ways that she had not in other places.

  Perhaps her understanding of the groeliin would allow something else for her as well. If she went back with Jassan, could she join the House of the Yahinv?

  He looked at her, a strange expression on his face.

  “Now I think we go home.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  He turned, and Shoren stood there in the midst of the forest looming over them, the haze of ahmaean all around lessened from what it had been. Had Jakob pushed too much ahmaean back into those who had lost it?

  That would be a question for another time. For now, he had succeeded. He felt that he had succeeded. Balance. It was all around him, humming in the energy around him.

  “How is it that you’re here?”

  “It’s a trick of the fibers, one that required drawing on the power of each nidus, a lesson learned from the nemerahl. I am not here, not really, and neither was Gareth.”

  “Was?”

  Shoren bowed his head in a nod. “Was. I have ended his challenge. As you have ended his disciple’s challenge. You are everything I hoped you could be.”

  “Hoped? You barely wanted to help me.”

  “Perhaps you see it that way, but my experience has been different. I saw possibilities, and in them, you existed. Over the years, I have done all that I could to ensure that you appeared in this time when you could make a difference.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “In time, I suspect you will. In time, you will need to understand. For now, know that you have brought peace—a real peace—and that because of you, the damahne can thrive once more. What you have done is valuable.”
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  “Will you help me understand? Now that you’re here—”

  Shoren shook his head. “I am not here. It is a manifestation of power from the fibers, nothing more.”

  “It’s more than that. Gareth was here.” And he’d almost killed him.

  Shoren smiled strangely. “Perhaps it is more than that. For now, the fact that I appeared is enough. I would not have known to come had it not been for you.”

  Jakob’s mind spun. Had Shoren sharing with him been the reason that he had appeared? Had he always intended to appear? The circular nature of the fibers made it difficult for him to fully understand. “Is that why we never knew of Gareth?”

  “Likely it is. He linked to you, as did I, and when you appeared here having broadcast your intent, he followed. In that way, you summoned him and me.” Shoren smiled. “I cannot remain here. This is not my time. You know how to walk back and speak to me, so you will always be able to reach me.”

  Jakob considered the old damahne standing before him. “But not you. This person exists only in the fibers, doesn’t he? If I go back, you won’t recognize me from this time, will you?”

  Shoren smiled. “You have a natural understanding of the fibers, Jakob. Because of that, you have been able to do much more than any who have come before you. You need to continue your studies, and continue to rebuild the damahne.” Shoren glanced past Jakob, taking in Malaya, Adam, and dozens of others. “And you have a level of conflict in your time that reminds me of what I experienced in mine. You will need to find some way to help others move past what has happened.”

  “What if they can’t?”

  “I think that you must. It can’t be me. This is not my time. You have discovered things about the damahne that have proven this to be your time. I wish that I could see what you manage to do, but even in that, I think I will be unable to.”

  He took a long look around him, smiling to himself. Jakob wondered what Shoren was thinking. What did he think about when he looked at the daneamiin? They were markedly different from those he had seen during his time. What had he seen of the Magi? Or even the groeliin?