The Great Betrayal (The Lost Prophecy Book 8)

by D. K. Holmberg

  The manehlin surged over the groeliin, and the creature hissed again.

  “What are you doing to it?” she asked Novan. She didn’t want to interrupt the flow of whatever he was doing but thought it was important for her to at least understand what was happening.

  Was this something that she could attempt? Was it possible that anyone connected to their manehlin could use it to change the polarity of teralin? If that were the case, why wouldn’t all of the Antrilii have the ability to be crafters?

  Maybe they could, but maybe only those with no other communal tasks became crafters.

  “I am using the teralin to help me focus my effort,” Novan said. His voice was strained, and he spoke through a clenched jaw.

  “Does this require that you use your manehlin to focus it?”

  Novan glanced over at her and shook his head once. “It has something to do with it, but not everyone who has the ability to use manehlin can change the polarity of teralin. That’s the reason the Antrilii are selective about who creates their swords. It’s the same reason the mines within Vasha had once been restricted.”

  Isandra wondered if she would have the ability to change the polarity of teralin. It was something she’d never tried, and if it did involve manehlin, was it something that she could learn? Could Novan, or even one of the crafters teach her?

  She focused on what she could see of Novan and the way he used his manehlin. There was energy pouring into the swords, and it was that energy which caused them to vibrate. The Magi had long envisioned manehlin as small pieces of energy and believed this energy surrounded everything, but they also believed only the Magi could manipulate it. Those pieces of energy were what gave them their abilities. They were able to use that energy to heal—or destroy.

  She could see the way that Novan pressed out with his manehlin, and noted the way it left the swords vibrating, and the way the swords seemed to add to what Novan did, as if they somehow multiplied the energy that he was able to manipulate. He took this energy, and he pushed it on the groeliin. Regardless of what Novan claimed, there was pressure upon the groeliin, and he seemed to try to push through the groeliin.

  Could she help?

  Isandra drew upon her connection to her manehlin, and she sent it into the sword nearest her, much like Novan did. As she did, she felt a surge of power coming from the sword and recognized how it augmented her ability. From there, she reached toward the neighboring swords, splitting her connection to her manehlin. It was difficult—and she strained as she pushed her connection around the ring of swords.

  “Isandra?” Novan said.

  She continued to push and reached all the way around the series of swords ringing the groeliin. She held this connection, letting the energy fill her, afraid to do anything else.

  “Mage?”

  From here, she swung her attention toward the groeliin.

  She had been the one to heal the groeliin before. Why wouldn’t she be the one to help force out the negatively charged teralin and heal this creature, if such a thing were possible?

  She pressed her connection to manehlin toward the groeliin.

  There was resistance, much as if she were pushing against a wall.

  “Elder!” Novan snapped.

  She ignored him, drawing upon more manehlin, sending it through the swords, and then to the groeliin, as she pushed.

  Her head throbbed, a painful sensation starting between her eyes and spreading out, and she pushed this out toward the swords, as well, and this toward the groeliin.

  Pain split her skull.

  Still Isandra didn’t relent. She could feel the barrier—the boulder, as the Antrilii described it. All she needed to do was push a little harder, and she would be able to overcome it.

  A hand touched her.

  She glanced and saw it was Jassan. Concern filled his eyes.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I can feel the boulder.”

  He shook his head. “The historian says it cannot be done.”

  Isandra glanced over to Novan and saw him leaning on his staff.

  “I can feel the resistance. I think if I push a little harder—”

  Jassan shook his head again. “I don’t know that pushing any harder will get what you want. You run the risk of harming yourself.”

  She started to withdraw her manehlin, and as she did, she felt a wobble.

  There was no other way to describe what she detected, but she knew that it came from whatever barrier she detected within the groeliin. It was real. If she pushed a little harder, she might be able to push through the resistance coming from the groeliin, and she might be able to overwhelm that barrier, and ultimately be able to help the creature.

  She needed more strength.

  “Your staff,” she said to Novan.

  The historian looked up, and he shook his head. “It won’t work, Isandra. Even if it could, neither of us is strong enough. This will take one of the damahne.”

  She frowned. That must be the term for the gods.

  “Your staff. I’m close. I can feel it.”

  Novan watched her for a moment, considering, before slowly making his way toward her. When he handed her his staff, he was forced to lean on Jassan for support.

  How much had Novan’s attempt taken out of him?

  How much would it take out of her to try something similar?

  She touched the staff to the ground, much as she had seen Novan doing, and pushed through it, sending her manehlin first through it, then to the sword. It was as if the staff acted as a sort of focus, and it granted her an increased ability to spread her connection, and from this, she felt a surge of power flow into the swords, even more than she had managed before. As the power built, she turned it toward the center of the circle, and toward the groeliin.

  The creature hissed, a screeching sound that echoed off the rocks.

  The merahl howled.

  Isandra’s breath caught. She recognized the warning within the merahl’s call. It was a message of caution.

  Groeliin approached.

  She flicked her gaze over to Jassan, and he nodded and made a motion to the other Antrilii, who quickly readied themselves. They had no weapons, as all of their swords were used to surround the groeliin.

  If this failed, and the Antrilii were without their swords, they would be unable to defend themselves.

  Those with bows pulled them from their shoulders and readied arrows, but that wouldn’t be enough to stop the groeliin if it escaped from their attempt to heal it.

  Isandra couldn’t stop what she was doing. She felt she was close—close enough that if this were to work, she might be able to help the groeliin. If so, would she be able to help all the groeliin?

  She turned her attention back to the groeliin and shifted her manehlin toward the creature, pushing against the barrier she had detected. It began to tremble.

  It was little more than that, a trembling, and that was it.

  It was enough.

  Isandra pushed again, drawing from deep within her, sending it through the staff, and then through the swords. With each layer, the power began to build, the throbbing in her head—and between her eyes—growing more intense.

  She wouldn’t be able to hold on to this connection much longer.

  Power exploded from her.

  It poured through the groeliin. The trembling became a steady rumbling, and soon there was a sense of movement.

  She understood the shifting the Antrilii spoke of, the sense of a boulder rolling downhill. As she pushed, she felt she was pushing against a massive boulder—a mountain of boulders. It had taken all of her strength—and all of the manehlin she could summon—for her to succeed.

  The groeliin hissed, this time a painful and horrible sound, and it echoed across the rocks.

  Isandra shivered.

  “Is it done?” Novan asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what I was doing.”

  Novan chuckled weakly. “Regardless of wheth
er or not you knew what you were doing, you managed to push upon the groeliin as if you were changing the creature’s polarity. It is much the same as what is done when working with the metal.”

  “It felt like…” she shook her head, suddenly aware of great weakness. She couldn’t think clearly. “Like the Antrilii said. A boulder.”

  “It’s easier when you work with neutral teralin. This was beyond even my ability. I would have thought it beyond yours, as well, but…”

  “But what?”

  He looked up at her, meeting her gaze. “You use your connection differently than most Magi.”

  “Because I lost mine and had to reclaim it.”

  Novan nodded. “I would very much like to know how you managed to do that, but I suspect that answer will not be soon in coming.”

  “Only because I don’t know how to explain what happened.”

  Novan watched her for a moment more, before reaching out and waiting for her to hand him his staff once more. She passed it over to him, immediately wishing that she had held on to it for a moment more. She was weak and had appreciated the extra support it offered.

  Was that why Novan carried the staff?

  He stepped between a pair of the teralin swords and approached the groeliin. He tapped his staff on the ground, and a thin stream of manehlin poured from the end, washing over the groeliin. There was no hissing this time. Rather, there was a soft sort of mewling that came from the groeliin, as if it were injured.

  There was another change, one that Isandra had not expected. The groeliin always had a dark haze around them, what she had attributed to being their dark manehlin, and this had faded. Not even faded. There was none of the dark energy around the creature.

  “Can you see it?” she asked Novan.

  “The darkness to the ahmaean is gone.”

  “How? What does it mean?”

  “It means that you were successful in what you attempted.”

  Isandra took a few deep breaths and looked over to the larger groeliin. The creature watched her, it’s dark eyes intense and seeming to know what she had been doing. The groeliin did not fight, but stared at her.

  “I’m not strong enough to do the same with that one.”

  “You might be, but not here.”

  “Where then?”

  “You used the staff and then the swords to multiply your connection to your manehlin. There would need to be another layer to make this work.”

  “What do you suggest? Where will we get enough teralin to succeed?”

  Novan chuckled and turned toward her. “We are surrounded by it. We have nothing but teralin in these mountains.”

  With that, the larger groeliin hissed, as if understanding what Novan suggested.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The inside of the cave was dark, but with her Mageborn eyesight, Isandra was able to see through most of the darkness, making it little more than a gray sort of haze. The air had a heated scent to it, something that was almost like ash, but it carried with it an edge of bitterness.

  No one moved within the cave. Everyone stood, looking to her or to Novan, waiting.

  “Historian?” Isandra asked.

  Novan glanced at the massive groeliin lying in the middle of the cave. Without the strength of the Antrilii, they’d not have been able to transport it into the cave. A dozen swords surrounded the groeliin, each created with positively charged teralin, but the walls were neutral teralin, and hot with the energy from it.

  The Antrilii remained away from the central portion of the cave, all except for Jassan. He had been the one to lead them here, having known about a series of caves, each filled with neutral teralin.

  The smaller groeliin remained bound, but it’d made no effort to escape, and had made no other sound other than the soft mewling that they’d heard since she had pushed her manehlin through it, shifting it—whatever that had done.

  “I can change the polarity of the teralin in the walls to positive, but I’m afraid that will be all that I can do,” Novan said. He looked to her, holding her with an intense stare. “After that, it will be up to you, Mage.”

  Isandra took a deep breath, watching the massive groeliin. If what Novan suggested could work, if she was able to use the teralin in the walls of the cavern, as well as the teralin in the swords, would she be able to change this groeliin?

  It would take an incredible amount of effort. She had recovered—mostly—from her previous injuries, but still felt as if she needed more time to regain all of her strength. If she took that time, they would be forced to remain here, and none of them wanted to remain in the mountains, not with the sense of groeliin moving around them, enough that the merahl remained outside the cave, growling and waiting for the possibility of another attack.

  “I will do what I can,” she said.

  “If this fails…” Jassan said.

  Isandra looked over at her husband. She nodded. “If this fails, we can destroy this creature. I won’t risk the other Antrilii simply to learn whether this will work.”

  The answer satisfied him, and he motioned to the Antrilii to move away and give them space.

  Novan squeezed his staff, his knuckles turning white, and poured his manehlin into the staff, and from there, he sent it into the walls. His back was rigid, and sweat streamed from his brow, though Isandra didn’t know whether that was from the effort or the heat of the cavern.

  Something changed as he made his way around the cavern.

  She felt the shifting.

  The teralin that had been hot remained warm, but there was something about it that changed, a sense of pressure coming from the metal and pushing upon her. Novan worked quickly, much more quickly than he had when he was trying to do whatever it would take to change the polarity of the groeliin, and he finished by stopping and standing next to her, looking over at her.

  “It is done.”

  He handed her his staff, and she took it carefully. The length of staff was warm, almost hot.

  Isandra took a step forward and set the staff just outside the ring of swords. She tapped it on the stone, and the sound reverberated through the cave, a soft echoing.

  She pushed out with her manehlin.

  It reached the staff first, filling it, stretching along the length of the staff. From there, she pressed into the walls of the cavern, but they seemed to absorb everything that she did, making it so that she had nothing left.

  Isandra continued to push, trying to send more energy into the walls, going from her staff and out, into the walls.

  “Not like that,” Novan said.

  She glanced over to him, and he pointed toward the walls of the cavern.

  “Use the swords first. You must augment with each layer. That’s why the staff helped you the first time. Build from that connection, and then to the swords, and then to the walls. Each time, you are able to manipulate more ahmaean than you would be otherwise able to do.”

  Isandra nodded and started to push once more through the staff, this time building energy through the swords, using the teralin of the blades to augment her manehlin. With a dozen blades, it surged even more powerfully than it had before. It was an amazing amount of energy, and she didn’t have to push nearly as hard as she had the last time.

  She laughed and sent her connection to the manehlin into the walls of the cavern.

  Unlike the last time, the walls took on the power that she pressed, augmenting it, helping it build and build, a growing sense of power.

  The groeliin began to howl.

  It was an angry sound, and it echoed in the confines of the cave, piercing her ears.

  Someone screamed behind her, and she needed to act quickly, otherwise the Antrilii might be forced out of the cave simply because of the horror of the groeliin’s howls.

  Isandra pushed again, drawing upon her manehlin, sending more and more power through the staff, and then to the swords, and then finally, to the walls of the cave.

  Power exploded from her, as it had before, but
even more so.

  She felt incredibly powerful. It was as if she could manipulate the entirety of the cave, as if she could create, building whatever she wanted. Her entire being seemed filled with power.

  Was this how the gods created the Tower?

  Was this how the Magi had once created the palace?

  The art of that construction had long been lost, but could this be how they had managed? She could see how—especially as teralin filled the spaces beneath the city.

  “Use it on the groeliin,” the historian urged.

  She turned, taking notice of the Antrilii with their hands over their ears.

  Isandra heard nothing. Did the power of the manehlin flowing through her prevent her from the torment from the screaming of the groeliin?

  She glanced at the historian and saw him gritting his teeth, his hands at his sides, his fingers clenched into fists.

  “Use it,” he said.

  Isandra turned that power and poured it through the groeliin.

  Everything seemed to stop.

  There was resistance—incredible resistance—but she continued to push. She tried pulling upon more manehlin, but she didn’t have the connection to any more than what she already had drawn. If this failed, the attempt to shift the groeliin would fail.

  It needed to succeed.

  Isandra focused on the manehlin pouring from the walls of the cave, and again sent it through the groeliin.

  As before, the resistance trembled.

  With the trembling, she pushed again.

  She was close. She could feel that she was close.

  Isandra shoved, envisioning a massive boulder, as she had the first time. It was almost as if she were physically pushing it, needing to give it that one nudge that would send it careening down the mountainside. With this push, it trembled again, and she shoved again.

  Slowly, far more slowly than the last time, the resistance began to fade.

  Isandra continued to push, sending her strength through the staff, and through the swords, and the walls around her, and focused it on the groeliin.

  The groeliin thrashed.

  Ropes snapped.

  Isandra reached for her sword, and doing so allowed her to push even more manehlin, using the teralin of her own blade, and this was enough to force the polarity of the groeliin finally over the precipice where the creature no longer could resist.