“They weren’t your memories.”
“I know they weren’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t have fond thoughts of them. Some were painful, but some of my own memories were painful. What I’ve experienced has helped me see that there was something else, especially now that I know I wasn’t crazy.”
Jakob chuckled. “That’s a feeling I can understand. When I first started manifesting my own abilities, I thought I was falling to the madness. And perhaps, in a way, I did. It wasn’t quite the same as you—or perhaps, I managed to have my ability awoken before it took hold.” He hadn’t thought about that enough to know which it was. There had been the twisting of the fibers, and whatever Raime had done had changed things, but the same hadn’t happened to Jakob, at least not that he could tell. His own strand had not been twisted, not like so many others’ had been.
“And yet you managed to remain whole.”
“I don’t understand it, either. Which is why I’m determined to prevent anyone who suffered from the madness from continuing to suffer. If it requires me sacrificing part of my connection to the ahmaean, I will do it.”
“Why? Why would you do this for people you don’t even know?”
Jakob looked at her, holding her gaze. “I may not know you, but we are connected in ways that we may not fully understand. You are damahne. I am damahne. I don’t yet fully grasp what that means, but in time, I think I will. In time, I think all of us will.” He glanced over to Anda, and she smiled at him. Jakob sighed and turned his attention back to Bethanne. “I thought I was the last of the damahne. When Alyta passed on her power to me, I believed I was the only one remaining. There is loneliness in that, and it is especially hard when you don’t know your purpose.”
“You said you still don’t know your purpose.”
“If I’m not the last, we can find our purpose at the same time. And perhaps my purpose was to help you and the others regain your connection. If that alone is my purpose, I think it meaningful.”
Bethanne watched him, saying nothing for a long moment. “What now?” she asked him.
“Now, you need to work with your ability and see if you can use your connection to the ahmaean. When you can, then you will begin having a greater connection to something more. And then, you’ll be able to help if it comes to it.”
“What of you?”
“I’m going to see how many others I can awaken.”
Jakob sat inside the main hall of the Tower of the Gods. A stack of books sat at one end of the table, a remnant from when Novan had been there. There were no others in the room with him other than Anda, and he leaned forward, resting his head on his hands.
He was tired.
All he wanted to do was sleep. Using his ahmaean as much as he had, and attempting to sacrifice as much as he had, had weakened him.
Surprisingly, it had not weakened him nearly as much as what he had expected, but that might have been because he had failed with most. Bethanne had awoken quickly, but she was the only one.
He thought of those outside of Chrysia, in other cities, that he knew had suffered from the madness. Was it possible that they would need to awaken first before he could help the remaining damahne in the Tower?
“You didn’t gift ahmaean to everyone,” Anda said.
Jakob shook his head. “I tried, but I couldn’t. It was as if the ahmaean didn’t want to respond.”
“How were you able to tell?”
His shoulders slumped. “When I held their wrists. With Bethanne, there was a reverberation. There was a sense that she was connected to her ahmaean and a sense that all I had to do to awaken it was send her more. I didn’t have that same feeling with the others.”
He worried that they might be disappointed, but maybe it wasn’t so much that he wasn’t the one to awaken their ahmaean but that they weren’t ready.
“What now?”
He had done part of what he knew was necessary, but the next step involved him confronting the groeliin, and stopping those powerful groeliin—if he could.
Jakob wasn’t quite ready for that.
There was another reason for his hesitation. He needed to reach his brother, if only to determine if he could awaken Scottan’s connection. Didn’t Scottan deserve the same chance that the others did?
But Jakob couldn’t shake the memory of how Scottan had been when he’d seen him last. He had willingly gone to meet with Roelle, but he had been withdrawn, and though the brother he knew was still within him, Jakob no longer knew how to draw him out.
“I need to go to Scottan.”
“When I first met you, Jakob Nialsen, you wanted nothing more than to have your brother back. Why is it now that you are so hesitant?”
“I don’t know how to help Scottan. Even if I can awaken his connection to ahmaean, I don’t know that he will want me to. I don’t know what will make him happy. I wish that I did, but…”
“You help him by everything that you are, and everything that you have done for him. He may not recognize it, not yet, but in time, he will see that you have done everything for him, and that you awakening him allowed a greater potential for him than he ever had before.”
“I hope so. Scottan is”—he didn’t know how to explain what Scottan was. His brother was different, changed, and it didn’t entirely have to do with what he had experienced—“not fully recovered. I hoped that Roelle would be able to change that for him, but…”
“You don’t know if she can?”
“I don’t know if anyone can.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The southern air carried with it a fragrance of both the mountains and the plains. Jakob breathed them in, welcoming those fragrances to him as he stood with Anda by his side wearing a glamour once again, making her appear as if she had long flowing blonde hair and human features. Though she looked lovely with her glamour, her exotic eyes were obscured, and he couldn’t help but think she should not be altered in such a way. She should be open about what she was, but would others fear her as they had her people long ago?
“What do you hope to find here, Jakob Nielsen?”
He sighed. What was it that he hoped to find? Maybe there would be nothing for him here, but he had to hope that Roelle would have somehow helped his brother. If she had managed that, then would there be anything he could do with Scottan? He needed his brother, but he thought that he needed the other damahne more.
“Hope.”
She looked over at him, a frown on her face.
“That’s what I’d like to find here. Hope.”
Anda watched him for a moment, saying nothing. Her ahmaean washed over him as it often did, lending him a sense of relaxation. These days, he felt as if he needed every bit of relaxation she could offer, at least as he tried to understand what he needed to do, and who would be needed to help.
“You don’t need to come here to find hope,” she finally said.
“Don’t I?”
“You can look forward along the fibers.”
He could, but doing so made him nervous for reasons he didn’t want to admit. He should attempt to peer along the fibers, but he hesitated. There might be answers, especially if he was strong enough to find them, but the problem was that they might not be the answers he wanted to find. What would happen if he saw the same darkness Raime predicted would come from him? Jakob had never pushed far enough forward along the fibers to know whether there he carried that darkness, but he suspected it was there. Why else would Raime have commented on it?
For now, he would need to find a different way to stop Raime. That involved his brother—as well as the Magi, though he wasn’t certain how much he would be able to work with them to stop the groeliin.
“When I look forward along the fibers, I risk what I learn influencing what I must do.”
“You don’t think that will help you make a more informed decision?”
“It might,” he agreed, “but I know what I see are only possibilities. I fear whether I will do what I need if I thi
nk I know what transpires. Does that makes sense to you?”
Anda smiled, and a wave of warmth from her ahmaean washed over him. “What makes sense is that you would like to choose your own path.”
“Wouldn’t everyone want the same thing?”
She nodded. “All people deserve the chance to choose their own pathways. You are no different in that.”
Jakob took her hand and then shifted them toward the city.
The movement was effortless, and in little more than a heartbeat, it took them a distance that would have taken days of walking. It was easy to lose sight of the fact that his ability gave him a greater freedom than he would otherwise have. He could travel just as easily to Paliis as he could to Thealon or to the Unknown Lands. More than anything else, that made him feel a greater sense of godliness.
“You will need to maintain your glamour,” Jakob said.
“I know this, Jakob Nialsen.”
“I wish it wasn’t necessary.”
“For it to not be necessary, all would have to come to terms with my people’s existence. Not all are ready for that, Jakob Nialsen.”
He remembered a vision that he’d once seen where men had streamed into the Unknown Lands. They hadn’t known anything about the daneamiin, but they had been willing to attack and destroy a people that had never shown any violence. So many had been lost because of how Raime had prayed upon fear. How many more would be lost if the daneamiin revealed themselves to the world now? Especially after what had happened with the groeliin. Would people not view them as yet another threat? He wasn’t willing to risk it. The focus now was the groeliin. They needed to stop them, and that didn’t require that the daneamiin reveal themselves. At least, not yet.
Would there come a time when that would change? Considering what he now knew about the groeliin and the shared connection to the daneamiin, was there any choice but for it to change?
Maybe that would be a reason for him to look forward along the fibers. He would want to know what might happen with the daneamiin. He would want to know what happened to Anda.
She watched him, as if knowing what he was thinking. Jakob met her gaze, not willing to look away. She should know what she meant to him, and should know that he feared something happening to her.
“I understand, Jakob Nialsen.”
“I don't know that you do. Not really.”
She took his hand and pulled him close so that she could kiss him on the cheek. “I understand, Jakob Nialsen.”
Jakob sighed. With everything that he had to understand, his feelings for Anda seemed the easiest—and the most complicated. She was so different from him and came from a people that had hidden from the world.
Was he that different? The damahne had hidden from the world, especially lately, and for much the same reason. They had feared risking themselves to a world where they were misunderstood, and where they felt they had to serve a greater purpose.
They shifted again and appeared inside a home on the edge of Paliis.
He had never visited this place before, but there was a sense from it that guided him here. He was meant to find this place and was meant to travel so that he could reach those who were inside.
When he appeared, he wrapped ahmaean around them both to conceal them for a moment while he took that time to understand what he might need to do.
There was no movement at first.
Then he noted the connection to ahmaean.
It was a familiar sense, and he tried to understand why that would be before realizing that the ahmaean he detected was his brother’s. It had changed since he had seen Scottan the last time. There was strength to it.
Had working with Roelle helped that much?
“I thought you might come here,” Scottan said, separating from the darkness.
Jakob released his connection to the ahmaean, revealing himself and Anda. He watched his brother, feeling a hint of concern as he stared at him. “Scottan. Why are you here?”
“Am I not supposed to be here?”
Jakob studied his brother and noted that he had a sword strapped to his waist, wearing it with the same comfort that he once had. That wasn’t what caught Jakob’s eye. It was the fact that the sword he carried was made of negatively charged teralin.
“Did you know that I would come here?” Jakob asked. Could Scottan have reached a connection to the fibers that would allow him to know when—and where—Jakob might appear? That would be surprising, but it might also mean he now had another damahne with potential to help. Wasn’t that why he’d come here?
“I… felt it was a possibility.”
“A feeling?”
Scottan looked past Jakob, noting Anda. He bowed his head to her slightly. “That’s all I had. A feeling. My control over the fibers is not what yours is,” he said.
Was it anger in his tone, or was it something else? Jakob could work with anger, but he didn’t think he could work with a brother who had some other motivation.
“I took time to understand my connection to the fibers,” Jakob said.
“Did you, or did you have someone who walked you back and demonstrated what you needed to know? Did your gift of power make it so that you had an easier time than the rest of us?” He studied Jakob, his head cocked to the side in a strange way. “I see how much power you have around you. You call it something else, but it’s power.”
“It’s called ahmaean. I’m glad that you can see it. It tells me that you’re—”
“That I’m what? Turning into something I never wanted to be? This might be what you wanted, Jakob, but this power—this ahmaean—isn’t what I wanted for myself. I wanted to be a soldier. I wanted to fight.”
“You wanted to help people. That’s what you can still do, even if it’s in a way that’s different than you thought it might be. These abilities will allow you to fight for something good.”
Scottan’s face contorted in a way that Jakob had never seen from him. “Is that what you think? That I wanted to help people? I wanted to fight because I enjoyed it. I was good at it.” He spun toward Jakob, and there was a heat on his face. “Father knew this, which was why he pushed me to become a soldier. He thought it would help me find a way to control those urges.”
“Urges? You were always gifted with the sword, Scottan. That’s why Father had you go to serve the Ur.” And he hadn’t pushed Scottan. He hadn’t wanted to be a priest and had always said that he wanted to be something else. Joining the Ur had been Scottan’s choice, and given his strength, it had seemed a good choice. But there was darkness about the strength Jakob sensed in his brother now. What was this?
Scottan laughed, and it was a bitter sound that was nothing like what Jakob would have expected from his brother. “With your control of the fibers, you should take more time to go back and understand what Father did. You might see things in a different way.”
Jakob glanced at Anda. She stretched out with her ahmaean before withdrawing it.
Jakob knew what must have happened, but didn’t know why. Why did his brother carry a dark teralin sword? And why did it affect him in such a way? Since he’d become damahne, he had not been susceptible to destructive teralin in that way, so why should Scottan? And where was Roelle? Did she know what had happened? How could she have not stopped it, whatever this was?
Unless she couldn’t stop it. Had something happened that prevented Roelle from helping Scottan?
“Where’s Roelle?”
Scottan sniffed. “The Mage you thought to train me?”
“She was going to help you.”
“Is that what you think? Do you believe that your Magi warriors were going to help me?”
“They can help,” Jakob said. “They’ve seen things that you can’t even imagine.”
“Can’t I?” Scottan looked at him, and the hollows under his eyes were even deeper than what Jakob remembered from the last time he’d seen his brother. What was it that had changed for him?
“You haven’t seen the groeliin. You
can’t understand what they can do. How horrible they are.”
Scottan shook his head. “In that, you’re mistaken. It’s taken me a while to understand it, but those memories I have—”
“They’re not your memories.”
“They are! I lived them! Don’t deny my experiences just because you think you know better!”
Who was this? This wasn’t his brother, not the man that Jakob had known before the madness had claimed him. Even the teralin wouldn’t explain the darkness that Jakob detected from his brother. This was something else—and he didn’t care for it.
Had he made a mistake bringing Scottan here? His brother was to have gotten help from the Magi, but something darker had happened to him. Was there a chance that Jakob could still get through to him or was he lost?
“They aren’t your memories. They’re visions of someone else’s memories. They don’t belong to you.”
Scottan stepped closer to him, and Jakob could feel the warmth coming from the sword sheathed at Scottan’s side. It had a bitter odor to it that clogged his nostrils.
“They are mine. I had them, and you can’t take them from me.” He stared at Jakob, meeting his gaze for a long moment. “And in those memories, I’ve seen these creatures you fear. They aren’t what you think they are. They aren’t this darkness you claim.”
What was happening?
Scottan stepped to the side, and Jakob shifted, putting himself between his brother and Anda. He didn’t know what Scottan might be capable of doing now. He didn’t think his brother would harm her, but he hadn’t expected the darkness from him, either.
Scottan eyed Jakob with a sneer. “You think I might harm her?”
“They helped you, Scottan. I helped you. Let me help you again.”
He wasn’t sure if he would be able to help his brother, or if there was anything that could be done. This wasn’t the madness. Jakob wasn’t even certain this was the teralin. This might just be his brother—and that disturbed him most of all.
The Gift of Madness (The Lost Prophecy Book 7) Page 23