Novan smacked the creature with his staff, knocking it down, and Jakob stabbed it in the chest, finally ending it.
He took a shaky breath and turned toward Jostephon. The dark ahmaean continued to swirl around him, but the pressure on his barrier had changed. There was a faint seeping through the barrier, and he glanced over to see Dendril trying to throw the groeliin body off of him.
“I will go to him,” Novan said.
Jakob nodded and took a step toward Jostephon.
The former Eldest of the Magi glared at him. Jakob continued to augment his strength with the teralin. He no longer had to worry about groeliin near him. Though he felt the pressure from others on the opposite side of the barrier, he saw no sign of them and knew he could deal with them later.
“You have much to answer for,” Jakob said.
Jostephon sneered at him. “I have much to answer for? You have captured the wrong man.”
“Have I?” Jakob looked at the fallen groeliin. Novan had rolled the one large creature off of Dendril. The old soldier groaned but managed to get free from the fallen groeliin. He nodded to Jakob. Both he and Novan were injured, and Jakob would have to help them with those injuries, but that would happen later. He could feel the way they both attempted to hold on to their connections to the teralin barrier, but they also used their connection to their ahmaean to give them strength. Eventually, that would fail.
“I don’t know how to find the Highest.”
“Perhaps you don’t. But you do know about the groeliin. Those are the answers I need first.”
The Eldest glanced at the groeliin that had fallen. “These creatures? They are but a beginning.”
“Maybe,” Jakob said. “But they will find it harder to breed with the teralin polarity changed.”
Jostephon laughed. “These mountains are full of teralin. And the mountains to the south are full of teralin. You can change the polarity of some, but not all, and you can’t maintain it, not against one who can simply reverse it once more.” Jostephon’s sneer deepened. “And if you think you can hold me, I have escaped twice before. The Magi weren’t able to hold me, and neither were the Antrilii.”
“Neither of them was me.”
Jostephon laughed, a dark sound that carried out across the mountains, echoing off the rock. “And who are you but some boy who was gifted by the damahne?”
“Perhaps no one.”
“Then how do you think you can hold me?”
“I don’t intend to hold you.”
Jakob walked over to Dendril and leaned close to the old general. “Can I borrow your sword?”
Dendril frowned but handed him the blade.
Jakob turned back to Jostephon and pushed against him, forcing his ahmaean to compress. It was effective, but not completely so.
There was something else that he had done when he had faced Raime, another type of attack that he thought he could use against Jostephon.
Diverting a small amount of his ahmaean, Jakob honed it to a sharp edge, and sliced through the ahmaean swirling around Jostephon, severing it.
The Mage’s eyes widened before returning to their deep glare. “You’re a fool.”
“And you will soon lose the connection you have stolen,” Jakob said. He took the positively charged teralin sword and placed it against Jostephon’s neck. Trapped as he was, with the barrier that Jakob along with Novan and Dendril pressed against him, he could not move, even if he were to want to. Jakob pressed through the teralin and burned a brand atop the Deshmahne marks.
Jostephon screamed.
Jakob ignored the screams as he moved the sword around, undoing the brandings that Jostephon had placed upon himself. Each one had been a theft from either a Mage, or possibly Antrilii, or even daneamiin—though he thought that less likely. He felt no remorse at the piercing screams that Jostephon cried out. With each reversal of the branding, the dark ahmaean swirling around Jostephon faded, until there was very little remaining.
That would have to be enough.
He handed the sword back to Dendril, who took it with a satisfied look on his face.
“Come. You both need healing. Where would you like to go?”
Dendril glanced at Jostephon, before looking over to Jakob. “Farsea,” he said.
“Are you ready?”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Old Forest spread around him, the trees dark and shadowed, and a sense of foreboding filled him as he approached, dragging Jostephon with him. The air in the Old Forest smelled nothing like it did near the daneamiin lands. There was an edge to it, a sense of bitterness, and a hint of something that Jakob would almost call rot, but overtop it was a burning odor. It was a strange combination that mixed with the earthiness of the forest itself.
“What is this place?” Jostephon demanded.
Jakob glanced over at him. Since his capture, and the reversing of the markings that he had across his body, Jostephon had been compliant. He had made one attempt to use his Magi abilities on Jakob, but Jakob was able to easily counter it.
“This is where you will stay.”
“You think the forest will hold me?”
“This one will.”
He dragged Jostephon with him, ignoring the Eldest’s objections. There was nothing the man would be able to say to Jakob that would convince him to do anything else.
“I will escape. I will find you. And I will destroy you. I will add your strength—”
Jakob turned to him, shooting him a dark glare. “You will add no more from any others again. The ahmaean you stole from others may not be able to be returned”—Jakob wasn’t certain about that yet, but he intended to determine whether reversing the brandings on the Deshmahne who had stolen from the Magi would allow those Magi to regain their strength—“but you will not steal from anyone else ever again.”
Movement caused Jakob to turn, and he saw Anda standing at the edge of the forest.
“Jakob Nialsen?”
“I’m sorry to ask this of the daneamiin, but I need to ask whether your people can hold this Mage here.”
Jostephon started laughing. “You would have them hold me? Do you think that these creatures can contain me?”
Jakob shrugged. “Perhaps not before you had your brandings removed, but now? I think the daneamiin can hold you.”
Anda stepped forward in the flickering movement of the daneamiin. When she reached him, she took his hand, and a wave of warmth settled through him, a soothing sense that Jakob appreciated every time he felt it from her. “You have not returned.”
“There was much that I needed to do.”
“I know that there was.”
“And much still must be done. Now that I’ve captured Jostephon, he will help us find Raime.”
“I’ve told you that I won’t share anything about the Highest,” Jostephon said.
“If you won’t, then the fibers will,” Jakob said.
“The fibers? You think that the Highest doesn’t have a way of manipulating what you can see along the fibers?”
“If he had a way of manipulating it, how is it that I was able to capture you?”
Jostephon frowned but said nothing more.
“He can remain here if the forest allows it,” Anda said.
“I imagine the forest would have refused our entry if it was not in agreement.”
Anda smiled. “In that, you are right, Jakob Nialsen.”
“Have you settled in here?” Jakob asked.
“It is not our home, but the trees are welcoming, and we are finding a way to be at peace here.”
“Hopefully, this will not have to be permanent,” Jakob said.
Anda glanced over to the trees, her brow darkening. “My people have feared this place for many years. Perhaps it’s good that we learn there is nothing here to fear.”
Jakob thought about the last time he’d been here, and how the nemerahl had been the one to go with him when he left. Would the nemerahl have gone had he known that he wouldn’t
survive?
Jakob suspected that he would have. Considering how connected the nemerahl was to the fibers, it was likely that he knew what was going to happen to him.
Jakob followed Anda, pulling the Eldest along with him. When they reached the edge of the line of trees that marked the border to the Old Forest, a sense of tingling washed over his skin. He glanced over at Jostephon and noted the way he cringed as they passed through.
“Do you still think you can escape from the forest?” Jakob asked.
He eased back on his connection to the Eldest, no longer using his ahmaean to contain him. He needed to know if Jostephon would be able to escape when he was gone. Jakob couldn’t remain here indefinitely—not with what he knew he needed to do.
He felt a hint of pressure from Jostephon and could sense how he attempted to use his ahmaean, but he failed to shift away. Considering the way Jakob had reversed the brandings, the markings that had given him the Deshmahne abilities, he wasn’t certain Jostephon would be able to shift anyway, but it was a relief to feel the trees themselves practically push against Jostephon, refusing to allow him to escape.
“What did you do to me?” Jostephon asked.
Jakob shook his head. “I did nothing. This is all the Old Forest. This is a place even Raime is unwilling to come.”
He released Jostephon and allowed him to walk on his own. Daneamiin appeared, and Jakob caught sight of Aruhn, who he nodded to. There were others of the daneamiin that he recognized, and each watched him for a moment before moving on.
There was less of a sense of excitement here than there had been in the daneamiin forest. There was the ahmaean that flowed around the trees, hovering like a fog, but it was ahmaean that belong to the Old Forest, not the daneamiin. They no longer had their ahmaean, and no longer had their forest. Jakob could only imagine how difficult that was for them.
At least they were safe. That was the reason he had brought them here, convincing them to come here rather than to remain in their lands.
Aruhn approached and nodded to Jakob. “Your welcome warms me, Jakob Nialsen.”
“The trees welcome my return,” Jakob said. It was not the expected response, but it felt right. There was something about the trees here, and the way that they allowed him to be here, that felt as if they welcomed him. “I’m sorry to ask this of the daneamiin, but this man knows the groeliin. There is much we can learn from him.”
“What do you seek to learn of the groeliin?” Aruhn asked, a strange edge to his voice.
“There is a powerful kind of groeliin,” Jakob said, looking over to Jostephon. The Eldest watched him, hatred burning in his eyes, but he remained a distance from Aruhn and Anda, and a distance from most of the daneamiin. His ahmaean swirled around him, but every time he tried to use it, there was pressure that pushed back on him. The forest itself opposed Jostephon attempting to do anything that might harm the daneamiin.
“I need to find a way to defeat them. I suspect Jostephon will have those answers, but I’m not sure how we will get it from him.”
Aruhn studied Jostephon, watching him for a long moment. “We will allow him to remain here. If there is anything that he knows about these powerful creatures, then we will see that he provides us answers. If he does not, then perhaps he will answer to the trees.”
Jakob frowned, thinking that he might expand on that, but he did not.
Aruhn left him and made his way over to Jostephon. When Jostephon attempted to use ahmaean to attack, Aruhn deflected it, smoothing out his use of ahmaean, corralling it with more subtlety than anything Jakob had ever attempted.
“He will be safe here,” Anda said.
“It’s not his safety that I worry about,” Jakob said.
Anda smiled at him. “Do not worry about us, Jakob Nialsen. The trees do offer their protection. They are not our trees, but this is a place of safety, at least for now. What of you? What will you do now that you have captured this man?”
He sighed. “I would like to remain here, and question him, but…”
“There is something else that you must do,” Anda said.
He considered her for a moment. He needed to return to Farsea to speak with the Antrilii as well as those of the Magi Council still there. He also needed to go to Salvat and approach the rest of the Conclave. He needed to go to his brother to ensure that he continued to progress. If he lost that connection after all of this, what would he have? But before he could attend to any of those things, there was something else he needed to do.
Anda could help, if she were willing.
She smiled at him and blinked, her strangely exotic eyes closing. A hint of the glamour flickered into place, and she reached out her hand, waiting for him. “I will go with you.”
“You don’t know what I’m going to ask yet.”
She took his hand and squeezed it, her gift of relaxation washing over him. “I can see in the way that you look at me the question you want to ask.”
“I don’t want to use you in this way.”
“There is no using. There is only asking. If I were unwilling, I would not agree.”
Jakob breathed out and looked over at Jostephon. The Mage continued to attempt to attack Aruhn, using his ahmaean to try and batter the daneamiin leader, but Aruhn simply deflected each attack. He did nothing else, and the times that Aruhn did not manage to stop the attack, the trees did, keeping Jostephon from harming the daneamiin.
He hoped it was enough. He hoped this would contain him, and that holding him here would allow them to obtain answers that they needed. Jostephon had escaped two other times. This time had to be different, and this time, Jakob had to ensure that there was nothing Jostephon could do to break himself free. If he managed to do so, the daneamiin could be harmed.
Yet as he watched, he saw that there seemed to be no way for Jostephon to harm the others. He was limited in his attack, and there was even a limitation to the way he could use his ahmaean. This would work.
Jakob turned away, squeezed Anda’s hand, and shifted.
He brought them to the center of Chrysia.
He looked around at the activity here, at the various priests that made their way along the lawn, and took a deep breath, welcoming the scents of the city once more. There had been a time when he wanted nothing more than to escape Chrysia. Now each time he returned, he wondered if he would ever have a sense of home. Could he call any of the damahne places home? The Tower didn’t feel quite right. It was too empty, and there were memories from the other damahne that weren’t his. The Great Forest was a place of study and scholarship, but it was not home to him.
Maybe he would need to make his own home and would need to find a place where he could settle and relax. Perhaps Scottan would join him, and as he held Anda’s hand, he wondered if perhaps there was a future where she could be with him, as well.
She watched him, almost reading his thoughts.
Jakob ignored the flush that rose in his cheeks, just as she ignored the fact that he could look forward along the fibers and see what possible future he might have. What would that do other than influence how he had to function? He needed to act without worrying about how it might impact his future and his connection to the fibers, and instead do what was necessary.
He debated whether he should simply shift into the temple and appear before the High Priest of the Urmahne, but decided against it. He would approach more cautiously, especially since he wanted to observe, to see if the others healed in the santrium had been brought here as he’d asked.
All he saw were priests, no sign of those who had been healed of their madness.
They made their way into the yard, and Jakob kept his distance from the priests. Being here reminded him of his youth, and of his father, and for the first time in as long as he remembered, he didn’t feel anger at losing his father. His father had done what he thought was necessary, and had served the gods in the way that he had believed he should. Wasn’t that much like what Jakob did now? He might not have the faith
or the same depth of belief that his father had, but it wasn’t as if Jakob had no belief, or that he was faithless.
As they made their way toward the temple, Jakob had a sense of ahmaean being used.
He frowned, hesitating for a moment.
Anda squeezed his hand, encouraging him forward.
“You feel it,” he said.
“I feel it, but I recognize what it is.”
Jakob frowned. “What is it?”
“Something you must see for yourself. I cannot answer.”
They continued into the temple, and Jakob continued to feel a hint of ahmaean being used. It was not a strong sensation, but there was something familiar about it, but unlike what he felt when the Magi used their connection to the ahmaean, and unlike the daneamiin connection to their ahmaean.
They weren’t stopped as they reached the inside of the temple. Jakob had not expected them to be, and he glanced around him, taking in the decoration and the priests here. His gaze was drawn toward the far wall, where lanterns hung and incense burned, marking an offering to the gods.
That was where he detected ahmaean.
Jakob was drawn there, and as he was, he realized why the sense of ahmaean felt so familiar. It was the same way that he used his ahmaean.
Was there another damahne? Had he not been the last?
His heart began to skip. If there was a damahne in this time that he could ask questions of, he thought that the chances of them succeeding, and finally defeating Raime were increased.
But as he reached the other side of the room, he saw no one that appeared to be damahne. There were two people that he had seen within the santrium, one was the woman he’d spoken to, the one who had spoken in the ancient language.
Faint, milky ahmaean swirled around her.
He’d seen ahmaean around her before, but nothing like this.
He glanced over to Anda, but as he did, his eyes were drawn to another on the other side of the room. Scottan stood there, wearing the robes of a priest, and carrying a book in his hands. Neither of those visuals drew his eyes quite like the ahmaean that swirled around him.
The Last Conclave (The Lost Prophecy Book 6) Page 31