Endric grunted, squeezing the grip of his sword, and surveyed the empty tunnels. When he turned his gaze back to him, he nodded. “Novan was right. You would have made an excellent historian.”
Alriyn narrowed his eyes. “I am a Mage scholar. I don’t need to be a historian.”
“I think you take insult when none is implied. All I’m saying is that you have a keen mind.” Endric moved past him, gripping the teralin bars, standing in place. “The Antrilii have defended the north for over a thousand years.”
“A thousand years?” It couldn’t be coincidence. The timing coincided with their Founding.
“A thousand years,” Endric repeated. “The Antrilii believe that they have been placed in the north by the gods, and that they have been given a mission, an assignment that requires they maintain the peace.”
“Why would they believe they were given an assignment by the gods?” Alriyn asked. “Haven’t you said the gods don’t exist? Why haven’t you shared that with them? Why hasn’t the Conclave shared that with them?”
“Because what they do is necessary.” He sighed and looked over to Alriyn. “The Antrilii and the Magi are descended from the same soldiers over a thousand years ago. They share that heritage. The Magi came to Vasha and Founded this city; the Antrilii went north and have hunted there all these years, protecting the city.” Endric sighed. “According to the Conclave, I should not have shared any of this with you.”
“Then why have you?”
“Because you are needed, Eldest. If Jostephon is freed, and the Deshmahne have not abandoned their plans, you are needed.”
“By who?”
“The Conclave.”
The air held the stink of pine and some of the cold crispness of the neighboring mountains. Jostephon hated it. He had lived here long enough that he wanted nothing more than to be away from the mountains. Thankfully the Highest had rescued him. Many of the faithful remaining in the city had been lost getting him free, but it was a price they had willingly paid.
Now he waited.
He hid in a small cavern near the path. Once he managed to get to freedom, he would no longer hide. He would rule. That was the gift he had been given. It was foolish of Alriyn to think that he could stop anything, but then he had managed to defeat him. It was a surprise, but Jostephon would not allow it to happen again.
“You have finally made it.”
He stood, bowing his head. How had the Highest managed to appear so easily?
“You freed me.”
“With your abilities, you remain needed.”
“I will serve however you need, Highest.”
He managed to look up. When he’d last seen the highest, his eyes had burned with a bright intensity, but that was gone now, as was much of the power he’d once detected from him.
How had he been defeated?
Even defeated, Jostephon didn’t dare challenge him. The Highest had lived far longer than he had, and knew secrets Jostephon still wanted to learn. When he did… then he could challenge.
“Good. You need to head north. I need your hand in the breeding.”
“The breeding? They haven’t needed your servants before.”
“They have not, but this time is different. They will be more powerful. I have summoned many resources from the south to make certain this will succeed. Do not be the reason it fails.”
Jostephon bowed his head. “I could serve you in the south.”
“Do you think you can serve better than those who have known me longer? Don’t forget your place. You can be powerful, but you are not there yet.”
Pain surged though him.
Jostephon had thought the Highest weakened, but that proved that he was not. The pain lasted for longer than he could track, before finally fading.
“I will serve as you need, Highest. What… what of you?” He hated that he couldn’t ask it directly, but that was the effect the Highest had on him.
“I am working to regain strength stolen from me. It will return in time.”
Jostephon bowed his head, and was forced even lower by the strength of the power the Highest commanded.
“Do not fail me as you failed in the city.”
Jostephon’s breath caught. “Had Alriyn not learned—”
“Teralin. He learned of teralin. It is too late for that now, but your task in the north will require you to understand it as well. That is the key to breeding with power. Go. Others will join you.”
With that, the Highest disappeared.
Jostephon didn’t dare risk disobeying. Doing so would only lead to the Highest finding him, and he didn’t want to risk not following his orders.
That meant heading north. Toward the hated mountains.
It was a price he would pay for the knowledge the Highest possessed. That knowledge led to power, and that was what Jostephon truly craved.
Chapter One
The trees of the Great Forest were unique in many ways. Their enormous branches stretched hundreds of feet above the ground, massive trefoil leaves curled in, streaks of brown working through them as autumn began to take effect. The air hung with the hint of the change of seasons, that of the depths of the earth and the hint of decay, soil dampened by the steady rains that came through the forest. All of that had a natural sense, something that felt right, wholesome, and gave the forest an air of comfort, something that was easy to return to, that practically welcomed a person back home.
None of that was why Jakob Nialsen felt comforted by returning to the Forest.
His return was something different. The trees carried a shimmery energy around them, that which he now knew as the ahmaean, a power that surrounded all things that contained life. It was a power he’d not known he possessed until recently, that somehow he was able to manipulate, that he was able to use and draw more power from.
Jakob still found it strange to believe that he had the power of the gods, the power of people known as the damahne, people who possessed amazing abilities.
As he stood in the heart of the Great Forest, that power swirled around him.
He felt it as it raged through him, something real, almost tangible, and he welcomed that sensation. While standing here, he could draw upon it, he could pull upon the ahmaean, the power of the ancients, and he could manipulate it, making himself stronger. Jakob only wished he knew what that meant, and wished someone could teach him how to use it. The only person who did had died.
He turned, looking at Anda, her hairless head and exotic eyes most noticeable here in the heart of the Forest. The glamour she had worn, a veil she had created around herself, had failed once they returned. Jakob wondered if he would see through it even if it had not. Now that he understood what he was meant to be, and now that he had been given the blessing of power from Alyta, would he easily see through her glamour, much as she had often seemed to see through him?
“Now that we’re here, what do you think she expected us to find?” Jakob asked, breaking the silence between them.
Anda looked around. The last time they were here, the Deshmahne had nearly killed her. Only through Jakob's unintentional use of his abilities, when he had realized a newfound skill with the sword, had he been able to protect her. It shouldn't have come to that. He should have been able to keep her safe even before then, but when the Deshmahne came, they had chased her into the trees.
“There is power here.” She stared up at the treetops, likely seeing the ahmaean the same as he, her kind gifted with much the same ability as he possessed.
“Alyta claimed there is something here that I should see,” Jakob said. “There was some truth here she intended for me to find.”
“She was very wise,” Anda said.
“I wish I would've had more time with her. She gave me this gift,” he said, holding his hands out in front of him. Ahmaean swirled around them, a translucent haze that had almost a milky-white texture to it. It disappeared when he let his focus drift, but reappeared when he focused again. He could use that power,
but how? He was no god, though he may have the power of a god.
“You will find answers,” Anda said. “You already found that you can walk along the fibers. You can use them, and you can reach into the past; you can borrow from the memories of your ancestors.”
“I've had visions, but none of them have been intentional. All have come when I rested in places of power.”
Anda tilted her head, studying him. “All of them?”
Jakob sighed. “Not all.”
Some—those that might have been the most meaningful—had come when he was awake. His vision in the Cala maah had come while he was awake among the daneamiin. Then there were those visions that had come to him when he had not even been in the heart of the Forest, or when he hadn't been with the Cala maah. What was he to make of those?
The better question for him was how could he force himself to have another?
That was the reason he was here. Jakob needed to understand his past. He needed to understand the secrets of the damahne, if only because he now shared something with them.
“I've never done it intentionally.”
“Not intentionally, yet. In time, you will gain that ability. That is part of your destiny.”
“Is that you having a prophecy?” Jakob asked.
He held Anda's gaze, his eyes taking in hers, feeling a weight, unsure if it came from a connection shared between them, or from power she possessed.
Though her kind possessed power very much like what he now possessed, what she possessed was different. The daneamiin had abilities unlike the damahne and unlike the Magi. They were unique.
Anda was unique.
“Not a prophecy, at least, not one that I have seen. I have a limited ability with walking along the fibers. Nothing like what my people possess when we join with the Cala maah. I understand what Alyta said and what that means for you. You do have a destiny, Jakob Nialsen, even if you don't yet know it.”
“I feel… powerless… in some way. It's strange. For all the power I now recognize.”
He turned his attention back to the trees, the branches, where ahmaean swirled.
It was not nearly as powerful as what he had seen in the Unknown Lands, but the power here was significant. It swirled around the animals along the branches, evidence that even the smallest squirrel possessed ahmaean. Birds perched along the branches possessed it. The grass growing thick and luxurious in the clearing at the heart of the Forest possessed ahmaean as well.
All of it felt like a reflection of the power found on the other side of the Great Valley. That power was purer, and somehow more concentrated within the trees. Jakob wondered if the daneamiin cultivated it, much as he suspected they cultivated a relationship with the trees.
“I can't guide you on your journey, Jakob Nialsen. What you learn and what you discover about yourself must come from within. I can help you reach your power, much like I helped you reach the Great Forest, but that is all.”
Jakob took her hand, squeezing her long fingers in his. He felt a wave of relaxation, the same sort of comfort he’d felt from her many times before. She used her ability on him, letting it course through him, providing him with a comforting sense that helped him feel empowered, leaving him to believe that he could achieve more than he thought himself capable of.
It was because of her that he had believed he could conquer Raime. It was because of her that he had felt the necessary rage to even attempt it. And now, Raime was gone, defeated. Perhaps not dead, in spite of what Jakob would have preferred, but no longer a threat. The ahmaean the High Priest had stolen was gone, dragged away as Jakob had come into his power.
Jakob looked around the clearing, his gaze drifting over the rocks. They were massive boulders, the stones gray with streaks of black running through them, now scattered. He remembered a time when there had been a pattern, when the boulders had been set into a circle. Did it matter that the circle had been disrupted?
“The stones are different now.” Jakob rested his hand on one of the nearest rocks, noting that it was warm.
“I can't look back along the fibers and see them as you did, Jakob Nialsen,” Anda said. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and the gray dress she wore—one that he knew had been torn in places, ripped from the fighting and the journey toward the Tower—had somehow been repaired. “Some of my people can catch glimpses along the fibers, but my gift is not looking back.”
“She wanted me to come here. There was something here she wanted me to learn.” And he had to learn, if he was to stop Raime for good. He felt that with a deep conviction. The man would return, and would likely be more powerful than before.
What would he do next?
Jakob had already decided Raime would seek power, but from where?
To understand, he had to know what power he possessed.
“This is a place with power,” Anda said. “I can feel it as well. It may not be what it once was, but there remains a residual sense, one of ancient strength. I can believe the damahne once called this place home.”
Jakob frowned, his gaze going from the rocks to the trees, before drifting back to Anda. “How? These trees… They can’t compare to the trees from the Unknown Lands. The trees of your home possess much greater power than these. The ahmaean found there is much more impressive than what is found here.”
“The daneamiin have only inhabited their lands for a few hundred years. These lands—and this Forest—have been here for over a thousand years. Perhaps thousands of years. It is old—not the oldest—but I think that tells us everything we need to know about the power of the Great Forest.”
“But the ahmaean—”
Anda cut him off, laying her hand across his chest. “Feel what you can detect of the ahmaean within you, Jakob Nialsen. You are young, and yet now you possess great ahmaean. Before, it was not this case. Before, you possessed the power you were born to, but not what had been gifted to you.”
Jakob looked from the trees and back to Anda. “Are you saying the trees of your land were gifted the power of ahmaean?”
Anda walked toward the nearest rock, her gait somehow floating, her weight barely dimpling the grass beneath her feet. There was something about the way the daneamiin moved, something that felt natural. There was something about the people themselves that felt natural. “My people believe the world was created with a certain power. That power does not change, and is not destroyed. It is only shifted from place to place.”
She glanced over to Jakob, meeting his gaze. “Much like what Alyta did when she shifted power to you. Before you came, others like her had shifted their power, had gifted their abilities to others.”
It was how he now understood Brohmin to have acquired his ability. Somehow, he had escaped the attack, surviving when he should have died.
“And what of Raime? What of the Deshmahne? They took power, shifting it, but is that what the creator wanted?”
It felt odd speaking of a creator in this way. For so long, Jakob had believed in the power of the gods, had been taught to worship and celebrate them, and now he was told those gods were not gods at all.
“Who is to say what the creator wants for any of us?” Anda asked. “You might be the best equipped of any who still live to be able to look along the fibers and get a sense of what is asked of you. It was that power that was gifted to the damahne when they were first created, power that was gifted to them for a reason.”
“What reason? Is there something the daneamiin know that you're not sharing? If there is, help me understand the purpose that Alyta alluded to. I’m meant to do something—to be something—but I'm not entirely certain what.”
“There isn't anything that we know, and nothing that we can share that might bring you the answers you seek. The damahne have shared how they served a purpose on behalf of the maker. That purpose called for peace. The reason is not clear to me, though perhaps my father knows.”
Jakob looked around the clearing, studying the boulders that seemed to have been thrown arou
nd. He had visions in this clearing, where he had seen these stones set into a pattern. If he returned them to their original order, would it restore something of the past? Would it help them reach some of the history he was meant to understand? Would it even matter? Had losing Alyta taken away from him the chance he had to understand his ancestors?
Jakob rested his hands on the nearest rock. As he did, he became aware of a sense that he hadn't noticed when he’d been standing in the middle of the clearing. Not only was the rock warm and giving him a sense of the history of this place, but with his hands resting on it, he had a strange sense of thrumming through him, a vibration of power that pulsed against his.
Jakob had sensed this type of pulsing before.
He ran his hands along the stone, feeling the smooth surface. There was something familiar about it.
Did that come from his vision? Or did it come from something else, something simpler. Could it be simply the fact that he'd been here before, when he had camped with Brohmin and Salindra?
Jakob pulled upon his ahmaean and pushed against what he could detect from within the stone. There was a release of power, that of stored ahmaean, and the stone itself flashed with a surge of bright white light that reminded him of his sword when he was fighting.
Could they be related? Was it possible the power he now called upon had somehow connected him to the rock in a way that was similar to what he had when he used his sword?
Jakob pushed on the rock, this time not with the ahmaean within him, but a physical push.
He didn't expect anything, but surprisingly, the rock slid, gliding across the grassy clearing. He continued to push, feeling the steady pulsing within him, that which he remembered from when he first had begun holding his sword, the same pulsing that he’d felt as his earliest visions had come to him.
When the pulsing stopped, Jakob stopped pushing.
Twist of the Fibers (The Lost Prophecy Book 4) Page 2