The Gift of Madness (The Lost Prophecy Book 7) Read online

  “The rest of us suffered.” Scottan turned back to him. “You don’t know what it was like. You think you do, and you speak of your own visions, but you don’t, Jakob.”

  Jakob knew the effect Raime had on the fibers and could imagine how that would have impacted Scottan. How would he have felt were he trapped within them? How would he have felt had he not known what life he was supposed to lead? Even with the restoration of the fibers, it might not mean that his brother—or the others Jakob had healed—had been fully restored. How much time would it take for them to be fully functional again? Would they ever reach that point? Would they forever be trapped in their minds?

  “I wish I could undo what happened to you,” he said.

  Scottan looked at him, hope glimmering in his eyes for the first time. “Why can’t you?”

  Jakob frowned. “Why can’t I?”

  Scottan nodded. Wind whipped around them, sending his cloak flapping. Scottan did nothing to restrain it and let the wind pull at him, making it appear like wings sprouting from his back. “You’ve said you have control over these visions. Why can’t you go back and change them?”

  “Scottan—”

  “Or don’t you want to? Is it because you like how this all turned out for you? You don’t want me to be able to go back to the person that I was?”

  “That’s not it at all.”

  “Then what? Why won’t you do this for me? If I’m as important to you as you say, change what happened.”

  Jakob had struggled with the same desire, so he understood where his brother came from by asking this. If he could go back and walk along the fibers as well as he could, why could he not change what had happened? Couldn’t he save his brother from suffering from the madness? Couldn’t he save his father—and their mother?

  But even if he could, what other changes would he make? What other consequences would there be? Jakob was no longer certain that the fibers could be changed, but even if they could, wasn’t the value in looking back and understanding rather than trying to make things right?

  “You are important,” he said. “I don’t have the power you think I do.”

  “If I develop the same ability, that’s what I plan to do.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  Scottan shook his head. “You can’t tell me that. I lived it. I know what is there. My visions were very clear. If those things actually happened, I can influence them.”

  “Even if you recognize them as visions,” Jakob said, “you might not be able to do anything. The hardest part is not getting lost within them. That’s what happened to you with the madness. I will do what I can to help, but you have to be willing to let me help and not try to force your way into something you should not.”

  Scottan looked at him, holding his gaze, and shook his head before turning away.

  His brother said nothing, staring down at Vasha, letting the cold mountain wind swirl around him. Jakob allowed him the silence he needed. What was there for him to say?

  He had intended to come here to help his brother see what he could have been—and might still be able to be. Instead, he had found that his brother was focused on his loss and the changes he suffered, rather than seeing any hope in the future. Maybe Jakob would have done the same.

  “I can take you back,” he said.

  Scottan said nothing.

  “I only wanted to show you the city. I thought…”

  Did it matter if he told his brother that he thought to help him find the soldier that he had once been? That if he could help him find that person that Jakob might need him? Or that all he wanted was his brother to not look at him with such darkness in his eyes, darkness that was made all the worse by the hollows that remained there?

  When his brother said nothing, Jakob moved in front of him. “I can take you back,” he repeated.

  “What else did you want to show me?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You said you wanted to show me some of what you experienced while I was sick. So show me.”

  Jakob shook his head. “If I did, I’m not sure how you would react.”

  His brother offered a hint of a dark smile. “You’ve taken me to the Unknown Lands and introduced me to beings that shouldn’t exist. I think I can handle whatever else you want me to see.”

  He considered it a moment. He had wanted to show his brother the Antrilii and perhaps even understand the groeliin, so that he better understood what they were to face, but maybe that wasn’t safe for him to do, or for him to ask. If he did, how would Scottan react? What would he say if he saw one of the groeliin?

  But, unlike the others now safely back at the Tower, Scottan had missed the attack in Chrysia. He needed to know what they faced so he could know what it was that Jakob thought to protect.

  He took his brother’s arm and shifted again.

  This time, he took them far to the north, toward mountains where he’d once traveled with Brohmin. They appeared near a stack of fallen ruins, a place that Jakob had known as Avaneam—a place that would allow others to reach the Unknown Lands without needing to shift.

  “What is this place?”

  “What do you feel?” Jakob asked.

  “It’s not what I feel. It’s… it’s like I’ve been here before.”

  “In one of your memories?” They were memories for Scottan, not visions like they had been for Jakob. For Scottan and the others, they had lived those memories, which made them more real for them than Jakob’s experience had been.

  “I think so. This is different.”

  “There was a city here once.”

  “I think I remember it,” Scottan said.

  “I’ve seen it before,” Jakob said, thinking back to his vision of this place when it had been a city. “The city that was here was different from many of that time.”

  “I remember flashes, but not much else.”

  He walked around the rocks, and Jakob followed. What was there that Scottan might remember? What had he seen when he’d been here that might help them? Was it anything that might make a difference for them?

  “There was a small cluster of homes here,” Scottan said, pointing toward a pile of ruins.

  Had Jakob not seen the city in his visions, he would have thought the ruins nothing more than fallen rock from an avalanche. Instead, he remembered the ruins as they had existed before, the structures they had formed. Much like Scottan, Jakob could see what had been here. When he closed his eyes, he could practically follow the buildings that had once stood, walking among them. There was the sound of his footsteps along the stones, and the smells of the village, so different from the scent of rock mixed with the pine trees growing around him now.

  “There was another building there,” Scottan went on, pointing toward a particularly tall pile of rock. “It was a place where we all congregated.” His face twisted into a frown. “How is it that I remember these things?”

  “You were pulled back along the fibers of time. What you see is the connection to the fibers, and perhaps something more.”

  “This is something real?”

  Jakob nodded. “The fibers are real. Each person lives a strand of his own life, and those strands are woven together, creating the fibers of time.”

  “And I can walk back as you describe?”

  “There are two ways of experiencing the fibers. One is a glimpse of the fibers, when you are able to see what others see, and one is where you can take over, what I call walking back along the fibers. Walking back requires control. I don’t know if you were pulled back the way I am when I walk the fibers, or whether you only glimpsed the fibers.” With the way the memories had felt real, Jakob wondered if maybe Scottan and the others had walked back. “From what I can tell, my ability to walk back along the fibers is different from many of the other damahne. Most of the damahne can glimpse, which means looking back, but not actually traveling back. It is definitely a less dangerous way of learning about the past.”

  “But
I’ve already seen much of what you call the fibers. I walked back when I experienced my visions.”

  “You would have. You were pulled back in time by something that was done to the fibers, and then you were trapped there. That’s the reason you and the others were tormented the way that you were.”

  Scottan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. What did he see when he closed his eyes? Did he see the emptiness of the rock around him or did he see the past, looking back to the fibers and what had been there?

  “I don’t know which memories are mine and which are not.” He opened his eyes, and Jakob was taken aback by the haunted expression in them. “Do the others have the same difficulty? Do they remember who they were as well as what happened during their visions while we were suffering?”

  “They probably do. I don’t know any way to fix it, or if there even is a way to fix it. If I could take it away from you…”

  Scottan shook his head. “No. I don’t want it taken away from me.” He closed his eyes again and took another deep breath. “When I think about it, I can tell which are mine and which are not, but if I don’t… then they’re all mine. It’s as if I’ve lived multiple lives, but don’t have control over any of them.”

  “It’s easy to get lost when walking back along the fibers. There’s temptation to remain there, but it’s dangerous, not only for you but for your host.”

  “Host. Such a strange description.”

  “Why?”

  Scottan’s eyes opened. “Because I’ve lived it. Those are my memories!”

  Jakob took a step toward his brother. “No. They’re not yours. None of them are your memories. You are seeing the past through the eyes of another, but nothing more than that. Your memories are from someone else’s life.”

  It was so easy to get lost in those visions. Jakob remembered many where he’d nearly lost himself. Thankfully, he’d managed to pull himself back out each time, but there were temptations to remain there, and that had continued even as he began to understand what they were and what the visions meant.

  Jakob knew what Scottan was experiencing. He’d gone through it. When he’d begun having visions, he remembered how vivid they were, particularly when he’d dreamed at the heart of the Great Forest, thinking himself Shoren. He’d lost himself in Shoren, and it would have been easy to remain, to let himself continue living his life while in the past and walking along Shoren’s pathway.

  His brother sighed. “I know you’re right. You have to be. It’s just… hard.”

  “Let me help you through it,” Jakob asked. Could he finally be getting through to his brother? It was what he needed—and what he thought his brother needed. When Jakob had managed to heal Scottan, he hadn’t thought it would be so difficult to restore the connection between them.

  He had expected the connection they had shared while growing up to simply return… But why should it? Jakob wasn’t the same person he had been. While Scottan had been sick, Jakob had become a better swordsman than Scottan had ever been and had developed magical abilities that exceeded even what the Magi possessed.

  “I don’t know if there’s anything you can do,” Scottan said.

  “What would help?”

  Scottan closed his eyes. “I don’t know. Normalcy, but I think that’s beyond me now.”

  Jakob stopped next to his brother and stared at the rock with him. Did Scottan share the same memories Jakob had of what had existed here before or were his memories different?

  “What would be normal for you?”

  “What would be normal for me isn’t possible anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  Scottan waved a hand at himself. “Because of what’s happened to me. My body doesn’t do what it should.”

  “You would be a soldier again?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? That’s all I ever knew.”

  With Scottan’s damahne abilities, he couldn’t be one of the Ur again, even if his skills were to return. The Denraen was a possibility, but that would be difficult for him now.

  There was another possibility, but Jakob would need to determine whether it would work.

  “What if I can help with that?” Jakob asked.

  “Jakob—”

  “There would be something I would need to do first, but let me try.” If it worked, then Scottan might be the help Jakob needed. If Scottan could regain his ability with the sword, and if he could connect with his ahmaean, he would be an asset. He might provide Jakob a way to stop the powerful groeliin, and through them, Raime.

  Chapter Nine

  “Why have you brought me here?”

  A grassy plain stretched around Jakob, and in the distance, a city rose up at the base of a mountain. Novan gazed across the plains toward the Antrilii city, and Jakob wondered what memories Farsea might stir in his mind. From everything Jakob had ever learned, these lands should not be here. Nothing should be north of the mountains. They were said to be ice and snow, but the lands beyond the mountain range were pleasant and surprisingly warm.

  Antrilii lands.

  He intended to keep himself from the Antrilii, at least for now. Roelle had shared the level of devotion the Antrilii had to the damahne, a service to the gods that was beyond what even the Magi could claim. He didn’t want to challenge the Antrilii beliefs. He would need them, especially in the days ahead as they might need to confront the groeliin.

  Jakob turned toward Novan and breathed out in frustration. He didn’t want to be here, either, but he needed to know what the groeliin had done with the injured. Where had they taken them? Now that he thought he had a way to help his brother—in a way that would also help him in his fight against Raime and the groeliin—he needed to rescue the others. He couldn’t leave them to the groeliin, not with what he knew they would do to them.

  Was it already too late?

  Possibly. He wasn’t even sure he could find them, much less rescue them. The groeliin might have already turned them into Mindless Men, or they might have delivered them to Raime so that he could steal their abilities.

  “A search.”

  “Do you think you need me? I think you might be better equipped to handle any search.”

  “I need what you know.”

  Novan frowned at him. He had aged considerably in the last year, his hair now a sharp silver. The brightness in his eyes remained, and he hoped the intelligence Novan was known for remained. He needed the historian—the scholar. Novan remembered everything that he’d ever read, which was what would help.

  “With the groeliin, I think you’ve already discovered everything I know.”

  “There has to be some way of slowing these creatures. The large ones are more powerful than any I’ve ever encountered, and it can’t be that there’s no way to stop them. They can fight with the sword and seem to anticipate the catahs. They can manipulate their ahmaean. They can shift. How do we defeat them?”

  “Teralin, Jakob. That’s the only thing I can come up with.”

  Jakob frowned at him. Teralin couldn’t be the answer to everything.

  “You used the polarity on Jostephon. Without changing it from negative to positive, you wouldn’t have managed to stop him. The same may have to be done with the groeliin.”

  Jakob shook his head. Teralin might hold Jostephon, but the Eldest did not have the same power he’d witnessed from the groeliin. He had never seen anything with such brutal strength. Had he not had the nemerahl’s help, he would have been trapped, likely killed by the powerful creatures. The nemerahl’s sacrifice had freed him, but it was a significant price to pay.

  Could the nemerahl be the key?

  But there were no more nemerahl. The last had been Alyta’s bonded, and might have accompanied Jakob, but had not shared more about himself than that.

  Had he needed to?

  Jakob learned the nemerahl were pulled from the fibers, as if a manifestation of the fibers of time. Was there any way for him to reach into the fibers to see if he could find another nemerahl, or fin
d some way to put out a call for help?

  It might come to that, but it seemed to be a distant hope. He wasn’t sure he had a strong enough connection to the fibers to even be able to reach a nemerahl.

  No. He needed to find another way.

  Which meant understanding the groeliin.

  The Antrilii knew the groeliin, but they knew them as dangerous and twisted creatures, creatures born of a dark power, meant to be hunted because they were a danger to the Maker. But hadn’t Anda told him that all creatures of ability had a connection to the damahne? If that was true, it meant that even the groeliin had a connection to the damahne.

  “What have you learned of the first groeliin?” he asked Novan.

  Novan frowned. “That’s what this is about?”

  “We are in the Antrilii lands. This is the place where the groeliin first appeared. There has to be something that will help us understand them.”

  “You would seek understanding, and not simply destroy them?”

  “How long have the Antrilii served as hunters?” He used Shoren’s term for them, and it was one that was surprisingly fitting. They were hunters, but that didn’t mean that was all they would be, nor all that they could be.

  Novan didn’t miss the turn of phrase, and he smiled slightly. “How long? Centuries, Jakob. This is nothing that you haven’t already discovered.”

  “Centuries. And in that time, they should have learned much about the groeliin. They should know about their movement, and about how they travel, and whether they speak to one another, or countless other things. From what I hear, that is not the case.”

  Novan’s face clouded slightly. “The groeliin have proved challenging for the Antrilii to fully understand. They are so destructive that they do not allow for significant study.”

  “Even after a thousand years?”

  Novan shook his head. “A thousand years of violence. The Antrilii have mastered the art of hunting them, and you’ve seen how deadly effective the merahl can be in their pursuit of them, but even after all this time, it wasn’t until recently that Endric discovered a connection to their breeding ground—what they call the Chisln—and teralin. The groeliin feed on the negatively charged teralin.”