The Great Betrayal (The Lost Prophecy Book 8) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Epilogue

  The Great Betrayal

  The Lost Prophesy

  D.K. Holmberg

  ASH Publishing

  Copyright © 2017 by D.K. Holmberg

  Cover art by Rebecca Frank

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  If you want to be notified when D.K. Holmberg’s next novel is released and get free stories and occasional other promotions, please sign up for his mailing list by going here. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  www.dkholmberg.com

  Contents

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Also by D.K. Holmberg

  Map

  Prologue

  Jostephon made his way to the edge of the forest. From here, he could feel the pressure from the barrier the trees created, an angry sort of sensation that pushed against him. If he could harness that power, he could only imagine what he would be capable of doing. He might finally be able to reclaim what he’d lost.

  He inhaled deeply, taking in the stench of the forest, that of rotting leaves and the wet earth. How could these half-breeds remain here? How could they have stayed within the forest for as long as they had? Jostephon had a hard time imagining such a life, but then again, he had a hard time understanding much about these creatures.

  “Do you intend to linger behind me like that?” He spun, turning to the old Mage who stood behind him leaning on a long staff that reminded him much of Novan’s.

  “I thought I would keep an eye on you,” Tresten said.

  Jostephon grunted. The Mage was supposed to be dead. He had died. Jostephon had celebrated Tresten’s death, if only because it meant that he would have an easier time solidifying control over the Council. Tresten had always had an unusual connection to the Magi—partially because of how powerful he was.

  “Keep an eye on me? You think to do so now?”

  Tresten shrugged, a movement that was the barest lift of his shoulders. “Perhaps I should have done so before, but I never expected you to do what you did.”

  Jostephon snorted. “Only because most are too weak to have tried.”

  Tresten stood next to him. Jostephon felt the urge to grab the old Mage, perhaps hold him down, and place a marking upon his flesh that would transfer power…

  He shook his head. Such thoughts were dangerous, especially in the forest. Already, the trees seem to have attempted to toss him to the ground, nearly leading to his demise. Were it not for the damned half-breeds, he would have died. He wasn’t thankful for them, but why had they saved him?

  “Where you see weakness, I see compassion,” Tresten said.

  “Compassion? Is that what you would call it? I think a better and more apt description would be foolishness. They have been naïve in what they have done. They have viewed the world in terms of gods, and have believed that they served them, despite no evidence of that.”

  “That’s what you feel the foolishness is tied to? You believe that the Magi adherence to the Urmahne makes them weaker? I think the Urmahne have fostered peace for many years—far longer than the Conclave ever predicted.”

  Jostephon frowned. “You know of the Conclave. That’s why you’re here.”

  Tresten smiled, and at that moment, something close to youthfulness played across his face. Jostephon had believed Tresten to be old—very old if rumors were believed—but for a moment, he thought that perhaps those beliefs were wrong.

  Could it be that Tresten was something other than a Mage?

  He frowned, considering the man for a moment. There was a sense of ahmaean around him—Jostephon hadn’t lost that connection when he had lost everything else, having it stolen from him by that boy—but was it the typical ahmaean of the Magi, or was this what he would have detected from the damahne?

  Jostephon had very little experience with the damahne—not like the Highest.

  “Are you even a Mage?” Jostephon asked.

  “So many questions from you, Jostephon.”

  Jostephon’s frown deepened. Tresten had always referred to him by name, and never by title. That had bothered him before. It still did. But he didn’t have any right to being bothered by what Tresten called him, not anymore, not after what he had sacrificed for everything that he had intended.

  “Do you intend to deny it?” Jostephon asked.

  “I deny nothing, only that there are questions you may ask, and others that you do not get to ask, not with what you have done.”

  Jostephon turned to him, anger boiling within him. “What I have done is seek to understand the powers of the world. How is that any different from what you as one of the Conclave sought?”

  There was a buildup of energy, and Jostephon swung his head around in time to feel the barrier at the edge of the forest press up against him. It slammed into his back, throwing him forward, and tossing him to the ground so that his face plunged into the d
irt. He sat up, spitting.

  “I suppose that amuses you?” he asked Tresten. He imagined Tresten using his Mage ability on him, something he never would have attempted when they were in Vasha. Tresten had always feared him. “You waited until you had me in this place, with these creatures, to attack?”

  “I have done nothing. You’ve already seen that this forest is powerful. I have to do nothing in order to see you stopped.”

  Jostephon sat up, wiping the dirt off of his face. He sneered at Tresten. “Don’t deny that you’re using the power of the forest against me.”

  Tresten looked up to the trees before turning his attention back to Jostephon. “This is not the Great Forest. I have no power over this place.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means exactly what I said. I have no power over this forest, and neither do the Den’eamiin.”

  Jostephon stood, pushing back the frustration that he felt. He wiped the dirt off of himself again, angrily, before realizing that there was something about the word—and its use—that struck him as strange.

  It wasn’t so much that Tresten used the ancient language. There were a few Magi who were familiar with the ancient language, at least familiar enough to know how to speak it. It was more the way that he spoke it. It reminded him of the Highest.

  “You know him, don’t you?”

  Tresten considered him a moment. “I know the man you refer to as your High Priest, if that’s what you ask.”

  Jostephon chuckled. “Is that why you hide here? Do you fear him?”

  Tresten breathed in deeply, shaking his head. “Fear him? Perhaps you could say that I do fear him, but it is not in the way that you believe.”

  Jostephon laughed, and the sound seemed muted. He was struck by that as he often was, struck as he was by the fact that there were so few sounds within the forest. There were none of the expected sounds. No birds were chirping, no squirrels chittered along the branches. At night, he heard no owls hooting, and no wolves were howling at the moon, not as there were in other forests.

  This place made him uneasy, though he would not admit it to Tresten. He had a hard enough time admitting it to himself, not wanting to reveal that he did not care for this place.

  “He grows stronger. Can you feel that?” Jostephon asked.

  Tresten studied him. There was a weight to the way he’d studied him, and his eyes seemed all too knowing, much more so than they should be. What did Tresten know of him? What had the old Mage discovered?

  The title of the Eldest had been one of the most revered on the Council of Magi, but it didn’t have anything to do with the age of the Mage. It was more about his experience, a title of authority. Jostephon had held the title for many years, having accepted it willingly, knowing that position would grant him access to resources he would not otherwise have been able to reach. Despite that, there were many who had long felt Tresten was better suited for the title of Eldest. Had he wanted—when he served on the Council—Tresten would have been the Eldest.

  Jostephon had long considered himself the preeminent scholar among the Magi. He didn’t fear knowledge, not as so many of his people did. He was willing to recognize that there were things the Magi did not know, facts that could be only learned from the university or from the Historian Guild. Few recognized that fact.

  Tresten had.

  He was the kind of scholar that Jostephon revered, a bright mind, and one that held knowledge of everything that he had seen. It was much like the historian Novan, a man who had frustrated him for many years.

  So when Tresten looked at him, years of knowledge in his gaze, Jostephon recognized an uncertainty within him.

  “He had grown stronger,” Tresten said. “Something has changed. Can you feel that?”

  “I feel nothing, not in this place, not since that boy trapped me here.”

  Tresten smiled. “That boy. Yes. The mere fact that he exists is the reason that I was willing to show myself once more.”

  “Do you know what he is?”

  “He is something the world has not seen before,” Tresten said.

  Jostephon laughed bitterly. “The Highest believes he is a resurgence of the damahne.”

  “And what do you believe?” Tresten asked.

  Jostephon grunted. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. That boy managed to confine me and trapped me here. He knows the secret of shifting, something that only the damahne have mastered.”

  “Not only the damahne, I believe.”

  Jostephon snorted. “No. I suppose not. If he is something the world has not seen before, then he can’t be damahne.”

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t damahne.”

  “Then what is he?”

  “You’ve faced him. You’ve seen the way he wields his sword. Tell me that is what the damahne do.”

  Jostephon stared at him. “The damahne have always had the potential.”

  “It’s one thing to have the potential, but it’s quite another to use it. I would say there has never been a damahne who has demonstrated a willingness to use such violence.”

  Jostephon stared at the older Mage. “You sound almost as if you disagree with his methods,” he said. “Could it be that you would rather have let the damahne fall to nothingness?”

  “I would rather have the damahne serve the purpose they have always been meant to serve,” Tresten said.

  “You can’t believe they actually maintain something of a barrier between creation and destruction as the ancients once believed.”

  Tresten took a deep breath and looked up to the trees. “I believe there is a balance, and the damahne have long stood on the edge of that balance.”

  “And now that most of the damahne have disappeared. Who stands on that balance?”

  Tresten pulled his gaze away from the trees and turned it on Jostephon. “For a long time, I would have said the Magi, or the Den’eamiin. Now…”

  “Now what?”

  “Your High Priest has proven that there is something else that stands on that balance.”

  “Something else? There are no other damahne, none other than the young man who defeated me.”

  Tresten smiled. “I would have agreed with you.”

  “You would have?”

  Tresten looked up to the trees again. “This is an interesting place. For so long, even the damahne feared coming here. That is another thing that Jakob does differently.”

  Jostephon snorted. “Does differently? He came to a forest.”

  “He came to a forest that those who possess great power long feared. And for good reason. There is power here, but he has tapped into that power, something that even the ancient damahne were not able to do.”

  “I can’t decide whether you respect him or fear him.”

  “I can’t either,” Tresten said.

  “And yet your historian and your Hunter have worked with him.”

  “The Conclave has served him. That much is not in dispute.”

  “And they should not have?”

  “They have done what they have needed, and they have opposed destruction for countless years.”

  “Then why do you fear him if the Conclave would see him in power?”

  “Because I cannot see whether he opposes destruction, or whether he is responsible for it.”

  Jostephon watched Tresten, waiting for him to explain, but he didn’t.

  Instead, Tresten turned away from him, and with a drawing of power, he flickered away, disappearing and leaving Jostephon standing in the forest watching after him.

  Chapter One

  Jakob rested within the Tower, letting his sense of ahmaean swirl around him. In the Tower, there was much power—a great sense of ahmaean that filled him, coming from him, the warm teralin chair he sat on, and even the Tower itself, somehow placed there by damahne who had long ago preceded him. He pulled upon that power and turned it inward.

  He stepped outside the fibers of time. Each time, it was easier to accomplish. There was a brigh
tness to the fibers, and he trailed along them, searching for answers that would only come from finding the strand that he needed to find.

  He had to find his brother. He felt compelled but didn’t think that he would find anything more than what he’d already discovered, but when he did, he might begin to understand why his brother had acted the way that he had. Why had he betrayed Jakob?

  Jakob had been unsuccessful in his search for Scottan, though he’d only attempted to follow along his strand in the past, not connect to him in the present. He thought doing so was possible but also dangerous. When facing the groeliin during the rescue of the new damahne, Malaya had learned quite a bit about Jakob and had learned quite a bit about how to use her damahne gifts because of their connection. If he made the same connection with Scottan, he ran the risk of his brother becoming more powerful.

  Instead of his brother’s strand, he was drawn to another, a thicker strand that ran throughout most of the fibers Jakob could see. Even from outside the fibers, Jakob could tell there was something off about this particular strand, as if Raime’s life had tainted his influence upon the fibers.

  Jakob needed to follow Raime’s path and find the other person helping him the nemerahl mentioned, but Jakob hadn’t seen anything along the fibers. Somehow, whoever was working with Raime remained hidden from him.

  But how?

  That was what Jakob had to understand. If there was another helping Raime and somehow hiding from the connection to the fibers, the only possibility was that it would be a damahne. Why would one of the damahne have helped the High Priest? What reason would they have?