The Gift of Madness (The Lost Prophecy Book 7)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Roelle used all the speed she could summon.

  She flashed forward, dropping into a catah that would allow her to catch the Deshmahne before he disappeared again. She caught him on the leg.

  He disappeared.

  She spun, but the other Deshmahne was also gone.

  As she stood there, she knew they would have to wait. If they tried moving down the hall again, they would run the risk of the Deshmahne appearing again, and if they did, they could catch them off guard. How many of the Magi would be lost? She couldn’t lose any more of her soldiers.

  “Roelle!”

  She spun and brought her sword up.

  Had she not, she would have lost her head.

  The other Deshmahne—the one not injured during her attack—had returned.

  He disappeared only to reappear behind her.

  If the Deshmahne could travel in the same way as Jakob, there wasn’t any amount of speed that would be enough to help her.

  Even as she turned, Roelle knew she wasn’t fast enough, regardless of her skill.

  When she faced him, she saw a sword protruding out of his belly. A look of shock suspended on his face.

  The High Desh held the other end of the sword. His mouth was pressed into an angry frown. With a grunt, he withdrew his sword, letting the Deshmahne fall to the ground. When he did, he withdrew a slender rod from his pocket—one very much like the one she’d found in the room that had held Scottan—and pressed it to the Deshmahne’s ankle.

  Roelle could see the manehlin withdrawing from the dying man as it went into the teralin pen, staying there.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. “I thought you didn’t take from others.”

  “We do not, Mage Roelle, but this one is dying and no longer has the need. Besides,” he said, looking up at her and holding her gaze, “he has violated the sanctity of the gift he was given. He no longer serves the gods. None of them do.”

  “None of who?”

  The High Desh stood, still holding the teralin pen. The power remained within it. “Why did you come back here?”

  “There was going to be an attack. When I realized that, I had to come here to see if I could stop it.”

  “You came to help?”

  Roelle nodded.

  The Deshmahne studied her. “I would not have expected that of you, not after what you have experienced.”

  She sighed. “I wouldn’t have expected it, either, but I have seen the way you work to help those in the city. You aren't what I expected, either.”

  The High Desh sighed. “I thought the Highest was the only one so inclined to violate tradition, but perhaps there are others still loyal to him.”

  “I will help. We all will.”

  “This is the responsibility of the Deshmahne, not of the Magi.”

  Roelle grunted. “What of a soldier?”

  “Is that what you are then?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what I am, but I no longer feel comfortable calling myself a Mage.”

  She could feel Selton’s gaze on her. What would he think of what she was saying? Would he understand? She thought he would—especially since he likely felt the same way.

  “I cannot accept your offer of help, not in this form.”

  “What form would you accept?”

  The High Desh studied her again, and then held out his hand, still holding the teralin pen. “You would need to be willing to be more than what you have been. You would need to be worthy in the eyes of the gods.”

  “I serve the gods,” she said. She had served Jakob, at least. That was serving the gods, if in a specific way.

  “This would require something different,” he said.

  He waited, the teralin pen pointed at her. She could see the power coming from the end, and thought she understood.

  Was that something she was willing to do? Could she refuse, especially as she might be forced to face other Deshmahne that had splintered off?

  The better question was could she serve the Deshmahne?

  She didn’t know.

  Would it matter if she didn’t have their faith?

  She didn’t serve the Urmahne anymore, either, which meant she needed to find another way for her to serve. Maybe this was it.

  Taking a deep breath, Roelle offered her arm. “I will serve the gods.”

  When the teralin touched her arm, she expected pain, or heat, or something, but there was nothing. Only a flash of cold—or heat, she wasn’t certain—and then she felt a strange sense of power flow into her.

  It overwhelmed her, and she fell to the stone floor of the temple and lost consciousness.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Roelle stared at her arm. She couldn’t get past the strangeness of the tattoo that now worked along her arm. There was a shimmering quality to it, and it seemed to move as she watched. A different form of power surged through her than what she had before. It was more than the manehlin, and she wasn’t sure what it would mean for her, only that she did not fear it as she thought she would.

  She looked up and saw the unspoken question—and fear—on Selton’s face. “What choice did I have?” she said.

  “You could have said no.”

  “I could have, but I’m not sure that was the right answer for me. With what we face, I think I will need to be stronger than I have been.”

  “Not this way, Roelle. This way is—”

  “This way is a way to understanding the Deshmahne. You’ve seen the High Desh. He doesn’t harm us, not as we thought he would. The Deshmahne of Paliis help the people here.”

  And if they helped, Roelle would somehow have to help them. She couldn’t stand back if there was something she could do. With the power those Deshmahne had demonstrated—and the way that they had managed to move that was so similar to Jakob—she thought she had to be involved.

  The people of this city—and of these lands—deserved to have someone stand up for them and prevent another like the High Priest from taking over. If she could resist those temptations—and she thought she could—she could be the person to help the people here.

  “What will Jakob say?” Selton asked.

  She’d thought of that. What would Jakob say? It was possible that he already knew. He claimed an ability to look forward, something that was much like the prophets, but also said that he didn’t look into the future, not wanting to influence what he needed to do. Roelle wasn’t sure that made sense, but then, she didn’t have that ability. She would trust that Jakob knew what he was doing and that she made the right choice.

  “I think Jakob will know that I made a choice. He has some experience in that.”

  “What of the Magi warriors?”

  “What of them?”

  “Can you still serve?”

  “Why would I not be able to serve? Besides, I don’t think that we’re Magi anymore, Selton. I don’t know what we are, but it’s something more. It’s time we understand that.”

  Selton sighed. “Where will you have us go?”

  She didn’t know. “We need to remove the rest of these Deshmahne who pose a threat.”

  “Would you have the rest of us convert?”

  “That’s not my choice.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  She frowned at her friend. “I didn’t convert. I made a choice. It's the same that all of us will need to do, especially as we try to understand how we can stop the High Priest and those who still serve him.”

  “Is that what you would have us do?”

  “That’s what we have to do. Others have a different task, but this… this I think must fall to us.”

  Would they be strong enough? If more of the Deshmahne had the ability to disappear the same as Jakob, they might not be. They would have to train, and they would have to get stronger. If they could—and if more of the warriors chose to accept the power of the Deshmahne—maybe they would have enough strength to stop them.

  A dark haze surrounded her, and she tried not to look at it too
long, or to think of what it meant for her. She would have to be strong—they all would—to survive the days ahead. She hoped she had time and the strength needed.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The inside of the library looked just as he remembered. There were rows of shelves, all stuffed with books that would make every library in every city jealous. Many were historian journals and not copies, but the original texts, annotated. Some were well over a thousand years old, their pages waxed for protection, the lettering faded, and often the only one in existence.

  Salindra remained close to him, not saying much as they sat within the library at one of the massive tables set around it. There were other places within the library, chairs that they could sit in, but even as tired as they were, neither he nor Salindra chose to sit.

  “What’s going to happen now?” she whispered.

  “Now we wait for the rest of the Conclave to appear.”

  “I thought they would have been here by now.”

  “The signal allowed us entry. The rest will come.”

  “Who do you expect to be here?”

  “Typically, Dendril is here, but—”

  “Dendril? I thought he died years ago.”

  “Endric replaced him as leader of the Denraen, but Dendril continues to serve the Conclave. He has remained a faithful servant, though perhaps less aggressively than what would have been beneficial. Had he remained more involved, I doubt the Deshmahne would have taken power as much as they have.”

  “Dendril’s lack of action made little difference with the Deshmahne,” a deep voice said.

  Brohmin stood and looked to see Loewen standing near the back wall of the library. He was a tall man and had thick, bushy eyebrows. His gray hair was shaggy and unkempt, making him appear to have a wildness about him. Like all of those who remained on Salvat, serving the Conclave, Loewen had lived a long time and had chosen to remain here to protect the secrets of the Conclave.

  “Where is he?” Brohmin asked.

  “That’s how you would lead? I thought that with everything you’ve experienced, you would come to report, but that’s not why you’re here at all, is it?”

  “There’s nothing for me to report, Loewen.”

  The old man arched a brow. When he did, the hairs of his eyebrows practically touched the hair on top of his head. “No? You’re the Hunter, aren’t you? You are tasked with restoring order to the Conclave.”

  “I’m tasked with finding Raime.”

  “That isn’t the entirety of the task. You know that you were also tasked with restoring the Conclave, and resolving its disruption.”

  “The Conclave has been disrupted for the last thousand years, Loewen. There is little I can do that will resolve any fracture that might exist after stopping Raime.”

  “And even in that you aren’t serving that task completely,” Loewen said.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. Loewen had served on the Conclave for nearly a hundred years. He had been gifted with abilities by a fallen Mage, transferring the ahmaean to him in a way similar to how the damahne had passed power on to Brohmin.

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means that another has assumed your task.”

  Brohmin frowned. “You know about Jakob.”

  Loewen sniffed. “Know about him. Yes. We know about him. Novan brought him here, and they took Dendril with them.”

  Brohmin smiled to himself. That meant Novan was working with Jakob more than Brohmin had realized. It would be helpful, especially because Jakob needed the guidance of the Conclave.

  “I think you phrased that incorrectly.” Loewen arched a brow again. Brohmin resisted the urge to chuckle at the man’s surprise. “Jakob would have been the one bringing Novan here, not the reverse, especially as he’s damahne.”

  “Indeed. It is interesting that Alyta was not aware of that.”

  “It’s possible that she was, but she didn’t share that with us.”

  “You believe that Alyta would conceal information necessary for the Conclave from us?”

  “Considering what I’ve experienced, I wonder if that is typical for the damahne. It’s possible that many of the damahne have concealed information from the Conclave.”

  Loewen glanced from Brohmin to Salindra. “I find it interesting that both the historian and the Hunter brought unsanctioned visitors into the Conclave.”

  “You have remained hidden within the walls of the Conclave, Loewen. If you hadn’t chosen to do so, you would understand that both Jakob and Salindra have served the Conclave in ways that those who remain here do not.”

  “It has been many years since a Mage has sat upon the Conclave.”

  “It has.”

  “And you present her for a seat?”

  “Perhaps in time,” Brohmin said. “For now, she came with me out of necessity.”

  Loewen nodded. “I had wondered. The signal did not seem like one of the Conclave, though it was correct.”

  “I had Salindra assist me with creating the signal.”

  “That was her?”

  “What did you think?

  “There was a note of daneamiin in it.”

  Brohmin glanced over to Salindra, smiling at her. “See? What did I tell you?”

  Loewen frowned. “What is this? She is not daneamiin, but you suggest she has daneamiin traits?”

  “I don’t suggest she has those traits, I suggest that she was branded by the Deshmahne, and healed by the Cala maah.”

  Loewen twisted one of his brows between his fingers. “Interesting. The Cala maah do not heal many people.”

  “And yet they healed her.”

  “Perhaps you are right, Hunter, perhaps we have remained hidden behind these walls and do not have the same opportunity to observe as we should have.”

  Brohmin chuckled. “Is that what you told Novan?”

  “Novan has his own way of thinking about things. Regardless of what we think, and what we would request, the historian is… stubborn.”

  “Much like his father,” Brohmin said.

  “Much like him.” Loewen watched Brohmin a moment. “Why have you come here, Hunter?”

  “Because I needed to come. Because of what I discovered, something the Conclave must understand.”

  “And that is?”

  “The damahne were divided. And I think they are responsible for all that’s happened here.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Jakob sat in front of his brother, wishing he had any other way that he could get through to him. Why did it have to be this way? It should have been easier. His brother wasn’t supposed to have gone toward the Deshmahne—and not only the Deshmahne but to those who served Raime.

  “Is it your intent to keep me trapped here?” Scottan asked.

  Jakob breathed out a sigh. What was his intent? He had spent so much of himself trying to help his brother, and it turned out his brother didn’t want his help. It turned out his brother didn’t want any help.

  “If I have to,” Jakob said.

  Scottan snorted. “I don’t think you have it in you to confine me indefinitely, Jakob. As I said earlier, you have too much of Father in you.”

  “And that’s something I should be ashamed of? Father served the gods.”

  “And where did that get him?”

  Jakob leaned in toward his brother, trying to suppress the anger that surged through him with the comment that Scottan had made. “He died helping others. He died because he cared.”

  Scottan shook his head. “He died because he was a fool.”

  Jakob couldn’t stand to hear his brother making these comments, but he knew what he was trying to do. He was baiting him, trying to draw him in, but why? What would Scottan think to accomplish by baiting Jakob? It wasn’t that he could escape. The Tower as much as anything confined Scottan here. Then what was it?

  The bands of teralin that encircled his wrists and ankles kept him confined. Jakob was not surprised to have found the teralin chains w
ithin the Tower and wondered if they had been used for something similar in the past. He grabbed his brother’s sleeve and pulled it up, looking for evidence of the Deshmahne mark. It was there, a trail of dark ink that ran from his wrist up to his shoulder.

  “Who did you steal power from?”

  Scottan glared at him. “Steal? It was given to me willingly.”

  Jakob shook his head. “Power given that way will cause the person to suffer. Who did you steal from?”

  Scottan jerked on his teralin chains and tried to pull free, but Jakob shook his head.

  “These are neutral teralin. You can’t get past them.”

  “The time will come when I confine you in the same way. What will you do when I snap these chains around your wrists?”

  Jakob took a deep breath, trying to control the anger that bubbled through him. How could his brother be like this? How could he have such anger within him? This was more than just the brandings. Had he never met the High Desh, he might have believed that all Deshmahne were like this, but what made them different? He didn’t think it was because of the tattoos, or even because they took power, because the High Desh and the Deshmahne of the temple had tattoos and openly acknowledged the need for power, though the High Desh said they never stole it. Was it something about the person the power was given to?

  Could Scottan really be like this?

  He hated to think of his brother in such a way, but what other answer was there? His brother had been reserved in the days since he had saved him, and—if Jakob were honest with himself—he’d seen darkness within Scottan. It had hovered around his eyes, a haunted expression that stayed with him despite all of the healing he’d been given.

  “Who did you steal from?” Jakob asked again.

  “You think to restore them? I know that some believe these markings can be reversed, but there is nothing that can be done once power has been transferred.”

  Jakob sighed. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve seen others with similar markings, and I’ve seen how they were restored.”

  Scottan glared at him.

  “How long have you served the High Priest?”