Twist of the Fibers (The Lost Prophecy Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “They have creatures with power.”

  Isandra blinked. “You know this?”

  “The Yahinv do not keep the secrets they believe they do. They think they have managed to protect us from the truth, but the warriors have long known the key to stopping the groeliin would mean sacrifice—and it might mean a significant number of us do not return. We are ready for this.”

  Watching his face, and the earnest expression on it, she knew he was serious.

  “Even if it means all of the Antrilii will be lost?”

  “Not all will be lost,” Jassan said. “We do not send the women or children. They remain and will be able to help rebuild the Antrilii.”

  Isandra watched him. What must it be like to have such devotion to a cause that you would be willing to die for it—and to know that your death had meaning? The Magi had never made any real sacrifice, and though they might serve the gods in holding out for peace, there was none of the same meaning.

  It was… noble.

  “I want to help,” she said.

  “If you help, you will be in danger.”

  “I understand, but I think I need to do something to help,” she said. “I think that’s why the gods sent me here to your lands. I had begun to lose my faith after my attack in Rondalin, but now that I’m here, and now that I see all that you do, I think I understand what I’m meant to do.”

  “The Antrilii know more about the groeliin than the Magi. There isn’t anything you can do to help stop the breeding.”

  “Probably not, but I might be able to offer you a different perspective. Sometimes, a change of view is all that is needed to be able to understand things in a different way. Maybe there’s something I can see that will help you stop the groeliin, that will end their breeding.”

  “Going along means you will face the groeliin. You will need to be trained so that you are not a hindrance.”

  “I understand.”

  “That means learning the sword.”

  Isandra took a deep breath. “I understand.”

  Jassan left her, and when he returned, he carried a wooden practice sword. She’d seen the Denraen working with them before and recognized it.

  “Then we begin now.”

  Isandra took it hesitantly. A thrill worked through her, surprising her that she felt none of the reluctance she had expected. Instead, she was excited about what she would be doing, and excited to have purpose again.

  Now she would truly serve the gods.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  If Jakob had dreamed, he didn’t recall them. There were flashes, snippets of images, but nothing that was clear. For the most part, he slept soundly, the kind of sleep he had been missing for days. He awoke feeling refreshed, the effort and energy that he’d expended walking the fibers and doing whatever he could to help his brother now little more than a memory.

  How long had he slept? Time with the daneamiin tended to be difficult to predict. When he had been in the Cala maah before, he had remained for over a week. He didn’t think he was there quite as long this time, but maybe he’d slept for more than a day.

  Jakob made his way down the stairs, pausing to check in on Scottan. He still rested, though appeared more comfortable than last time Jakob had seen him. Was there more color in his cheeks? It seemed that someone had cleaned him, and his hair had more of a sheen to it than it had before. He was covered with a soft sheet, and Jakob allowed himself a moment to feel hope.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he stepped out from the tree and entered the clearing of the daneamiin city.

  There was activity here, more than he had ever seen. The daneamiin hurried from place to place, moving in the strange, flickering way that they had when they moved quickly.

  Something had happened.

  He saw a tall, cloaked figure near the Cala maah, and Jakob hurried over to Novan. “What happened?” Jakob asked.

  Novan shook his head. “I don’t know. I was speaking to Chollin, asking questions and filling my notebook, when he suddenly became anxious.” Novan looked around, motioning to the daneamiin who were rushing through the clearing.

  Jakob looked for Anda. If anyone could provide answers to him, it would be she.

  He didn’t see her.

  “Have you seen Aruhn?” Jakob asked.

  Novan shook his head. “No.”

  He scanned the clearing, looking for daneamiin who might be able to help, those who he might recognize. It took a moment, but he found Anda. She remained near the entrance to the house of the Cala maah, and Jakob approached, noting the worry on her face.

  “What happened?”

  “It’s my father.”

  “What happened to Aruhn?”

  “He was pondering what you described to him when he simply stopped responding.”

  “Where was he pondering?”

  “The same place he always does. He was in the chapel of the Cala maah.”

  “The chapel?”

  “It’s a place where he can look over these lands and reflect.”

  Jakob realized it must be where Aruhn had taken him that day, where he could look out on the rest of the daneamiin lands and see the ahmaean that surrounded everything. He needed to reach Aruhn, and considered walking through the Cala maah, but decided against it. He traveled, appearing on top of the building, and froze.

  Sitting there, immobile, was Aruhn.

  Using his ahmaean, Jakob layered it atop Aruhn.

  With the layering, there was a resulting pressure, one that came from Aruhn’s ahmaean. It was injured, though Jakob couldn’t completely tell why.

  He maintained the connection to the ahmaean. As he did, he recognized what had happened. Much like with Scottan, Aruhn had the strand of his life twisted out of place.

  How would that have been possible?

  Anda appeared on the top of the Cala maah, and she hurried to him, kneeling in front of her father. “Our healers don’t know what happened. We can’t detect the source of the injury.”

  “I can.”

  Anda looked up at him. “What is it?”

  “His strand has been twisted.”

  But why would that be? What would have done that?

  Unless… Raime knew that Jakob was somehow reaching the fibers, and that he was influencing them as well.

  Had Aruhn been targeted?

  Jakob remembered the disdain that Raime had shown toward Anda, calling her half-breed and other derogatory terms. He would have felt the same way toward Aruhn. What if Raime had discovered a new way to reach for power?

  “I have to save him,” Jakob said.

  Anda looked up at him. “You won’t be able to reach his strand,” she said.

  “I reached Scottan’s.”

  “And you shouldn’t have been able to. I wonder if it’s because he is your brother. But you don’t share the same connection to my father. You won’t be able to track the fibers to him.

  Jakob wondered if that were true. If he could discover where Aruhn’s strand began, couldn’t he trace it to him as well? Shouldn’t there be a way for him to reach Aruhn the same way that he had reached Scottan?

  Doing so might bring him a more intimate knowledge of the daneamiin than what Aruhn had wanted, but it might be the only way to save him.

  “Who is Aruhn descended from?”

  Anda shook her head. “Jakob Nialsen—”

  “I have to try this, Anda. I can reach him, but I need to know which strands to follow.”

  Jakob knew that he could trace back his own strand, he could reach the first daneamiin, and from there, he could work his way forward. It was a roundabout way, but possibly the only way to reach Aruhn, and save him.

  It might even turn out that Jakob was related to him.

  “You won’t be able to determine them,” Anda said.

  “Why? Because you think the daneamiin fibers are different from those of man?”

  “Not different, but you would need to know the story of his life, and that is not a story t
hat any but the daneamiin could tell you.”

  Jakob knew that she was right. As much as he might want to be able to help Aruhn, he needed to have more information and a greater connection to him than what he did.

  But might there be a way he could learn such a story?

  The daneamiin had a ceremony, one that Jakob had gone through, one that seemed suited for this purpose.

  He lifted Aruhn and took Anda’s hand, and shifted.

  They appeared in the Cala maah, the same place where he had gone with Scottan and the same place where he had come himself.

  Jakob set Aruhn down in the center of the room. “Get the others and the stones.”

  He didn’t know whether they would be necessary, but the stones that had been used to help him focus, to help with his choosing, might be part of the key to helping Aruhn as well. If they weren’t necessary, then it might not matter, but if he could push backward along Aruhn’s strand, he might be able to use that connection and trace him more easily.

  It was unlikely to work, but what choice did he have?

  “Jakob—”

  “Anda. If the rest of the daneamiin can assist Aruhn the way they did me, it’s possible that I can reach him. I don’t know if I’ll be able to fix whatever triggered this, but I have to try.”

  She watched him for a long moment before nodding. “I will get them.”

  She left him, and Jakob sighed, watching Aruhn. He breathed regularly, but almost too regularly. He made no other movements, and remained practically frozen in place, his eyes fixed straight ahead. What sort of injury would do this? Even with Scottan, and with the madness, they weren’t frozen in place. They would speak in tongues, but nothing more than that.

  What had happened to Aruhn came on suddenly, without warning.

  The other daneamiin gradually joined him, coming into the house of the Cala maah and taking their positions. There were many, and he stopped counting at twenty. Anda joined, carrying the trunk, and stopped next to her father. She pulled the three stones out of the trunk and placed them around him.

  “How does this work?”

  “Aruhn has been the one to lead it,” Anda said.

  “Others have to know how to do something similar,” Jakob said.

  “Others know something of how to do it. But Aruhn is the one who guides it. Without him, we will not be able to coordinate where we are heading.”

  “You can,” Jakob said. “You know him. You have been through this process before. And he is your father.”

  “Jakob Nialsen, if this goes wrong, we could injure him.”

  “He is already injured, Anda. We need to do something to help bring him back.”

  Anda looked at her father, and finally nodded. “I will do what I can.”

  The daneamiin took their positions, and Anda stood in the middle of them, ahmaean radiating from her, connecting to each of the other daneamiin. As she did, the power fluctuated, building slowly.

  When Jakob had been in the house of the Cala maah before, when that power had been directed at him, it had sent him backward along the fibers so that he had a connection to his past. This time, Jakob was quite aware of what was taking place around him. He felt the building ahmaean, and he felt the way it was meant to work. The way that it created a pattern, though he may not know entirely how to create it, he recognized the intent behind it.

  As it continued to build, as it worked toward Aruhn, Jakob took control.

  Anda glanced over at him, concern in her eyes.

  But he needed to maintain his focus. He held onto the ahmaean, using the connection that the daneamiin built, and with it, turned it inward, much as he had done when he was attempting to view the fibers and drift backward along them. With this, he opened a pathway, and saw clearly what he needed to do. It was as if the fibers were laid out before him, a vortex of time, and all Jakob had to do was spin backward along it.

  The ahmaean that the daneamiin used directed him.

  Jakob was pulled along the fibers. As he went, he saw images of past lives, the strands of individuals who created the fibers of time, and recognized that these were not his ancestors. He was pulled backward, drifting along Aruhn’s path. That was the path that the daneamiin had created.

  Jakob didn’t want the knowledge of Aruhn’s past. He needed only to see the injury to his strand.

  He was convinced that there would be such an injury, but where?

  Moving along Aruhn’s strand, he saw no sign of damage.

  Had something changed when he had unraveled his brother’s connection to the fibers? Or had something changed when the daneamiin had helped heal Scottan?

  Neither answer seemed likely. Whatever had happened was different.

  Jakob resisted the pull of the ahmaean, fighting against it as it attempted to drag him further into the past, and toward Aruhn’s origins.

  He didn’t need to go quite that far. What he needed was simpler. He needed simply to know which pathway to follow, and he had that here.

  The strand had been injured somewhere along the way. It had to have been… Unless something had changed.

  What could have changed other than what Jakob had done, and that wouldn’t have been enough. Not nearly enough to have changed the damage that Jakob had glimpsed along the fibers.

  There was another answer, but if it was right, it had more significant consequences. Maybe Jakob hadn’t gone back far enough.

  Jakob focused the ahmaean inward again, delving deeper along the pathway. As he went, he paid closer attention to what he observed, and watched the fibers as he went, knowing that the key was understanding if something had changed.

  It was there.

  Farther back than he had expected to see, there was something like a burn mark, a scorching of the fibers. Jakob had not seen this before and didn’t know if this represented new damage or if it was because he had never been able to see along Aruhn’s path before.

  Jakob paused at the section of the fibers to try to understand what had happened.

  This was more than a single strand that was injured.

  Many strands within the fibers were injured here.

  When Jakob had traveled back the last time, when he had looked at the fibers, he hadn’t seen anything quite like this. He was sure that he would have recognized it if he had.

  Could it actually be new?

  The thought gave him shivers.

  New damage meant that whatever had occurred had happened after he had rescued Scottan and after the daneamiin had attempted to restore him.

  It had to be Raime, didn’t it? He had to somehow have recognized what Jakob had done, and attempted to counter him in the only way he knew how—more destruction.

  Was there anything he could do to repair it?

  Jakob had a sense that this damage—this scorching of the multiple strands—was the reason that Aruhn remained in the state that he did. If he did nothing, Aruhn would succumb to the same fate as Scottan. Not only Aruhn, but others might as well.

  Anda would.

  If Aruhn’s strand was removed, how would that affect Anda?

  He focused on the damaged area, and shifted the ahmaean, turning it so that it was pressed out and along the fibers. For a moment, Jakob thought that he would be able to undo what had been done here, but he realized quickly that the ahmaean he poured into the fibers was not enough.

  He pulled more, consciously focusing on the ahmaean that would be drawn from each of the daneamiin. He pushed more and more of this into the damage, where it was absorbed. Nothing changed.

  That troubled Jakob. With Scottan, at least there had been some change to the strand when he had pushed his ahmaean into it.

  Why would this be different?

  Why would the ahmaean be absorbed?

  More than that, why did it now seem as if the ahmaean was being drawn from him?

  Jakob tried to halt that, but the effect was powerful.

  It came from within the damaged area. Somehow, he knew the key to stopping
it was within the burned fibers.

  Diving into that would be dangerous for him, but if he didn’t, he wondered if the draw on his ahmaean would persist, and if he would lose the connection he had, regardless.

  Jakob wished there were a way to connect to Anda, to tell her what he intended to do, but if he could, he risked not having the strength needed to return here, and risked not being able to help Aruhn in any way.

  Focusing his ahmaean deep within him, Jakob plunged into the damaged fibers.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Jakob opened his eyes to a gray sky. Mountains rose nearby, though there was nothing familiar about them. The air had a strange energy to it, one that felt like a mixture of lightning and a coming storm, a dangerous sort of energy.

  Why would he appear here?

  He was certain this was where he needed to be, certain that this was the effect of the damaged fibers, but less certain about what he was meant to learn here.

  All around, everything felt… wrong. There was no other way to put it, no other way to describe what he felt other than a sense of wrongness. Did that all stem from the injury to the fibers?

  This far back, it had to be Raime responsible for it, didn’t it?

  If it was Raime, Jakob needed to find where he had gone, and he needed to do it quickly, especially as he was here in another’s form. There was danger in remaining in the past for too long.

  Did Raime know that? Did he care?

  How would he find what Raime had done?

  Ahmaean had to be the key, didn’t it?

  He tried reaching through his ahmaean, trying to track the connection, but it was gone. The sense of the drawing on his ahmaean that he’d had while within the fibers disappeared now that he had appeared in this form.

  Jakob didn’t know whose form he had taken, but perhaps that didn’t matter.

  He looked at his hand, noting the elongated fingers, and suspected he was daneamiin, which meant that he had certain abilities as daneamiin, but did that matter when it was Jakob who had appeared within him? Did the form or the person who controlled it make the difference?

  They were questions for later. They were questions he could try to find answers to using his own ancestors, rather than risking Aruhn and those he was descended from.