The Rising (The Rising #4) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,52
took them nowhere, he suspected she was making them lost.
For, as the days passed, even though it was clear Daemon was seeking something, and it was clear she still had his ear and he listened to her, she did not make that first effort to discover what he wished to find or where he wished to go which meant she did not put herself in a place where she would need to assist him in getting there.
At least not that Jellan had heard.
Then again, they excluded him much of the time and he could not hear most of their whispers.
What concerned Jellan most of all, however, was this “work” Marian referred to.
What work?
In the legend of the Beast, he had ravaged the continent haphazardly. He killed. He raped. He pillaged. He destroyed. He tortured.
There was no rhyme or reason to it. This being one of the varied reasons he was terrifying.
Evil with a purpose was ugly. But understanding that purpose, tempering it, eradicating it, gave hope.
Evil run amuck with no purpose was chilling.
Of course, that was many years ago and there was no true and accurate accounting of it, and although there were numerous mentions of him, this deficit of knowledge included what was recorded in the tomes of the Go’Doan.
So perhaps there had been some purpose to it.
Some purpose that, when the Beast was imprisoned under the earth and his reign of terror halted, did not come to fruition.
Jellan wished to know.
Jellan needed to know.
But to attempt to find out, he’d have to separate those two and it did not seem he’d be able to.
On this thought, Jellan felt it and his head automatically tipped to the side when he did.
And as he was thinking on Daemon and Marian, and thus riding behind them and partly to their sides, he had their eyes on them.
As such, he saw Daemon’s head give a slight twitch.
By the true gods.
He felt it.
He felt it too!
Did he feel all the others that had happened recently?
Jellan could not see much of Marian, but what he could see, it did not appear as if she had.
“It’s the veil,” he called, blurting it right out.
Both Daemon and Marian turned to him.
Bloody hell.
“I wish you would make him speak only when spoken to,” Marian complained.
He barely spoke at all.
The bitch.
For once, Daemon ignored her.
And in so doing, Jellan took heart.
“What is the veil?” he asked.
“What you felt. It is the veil. The magical veil. It shrouds all of Triton. Even the seas and Mar-el. And it is disturbed, continues to be so and has for some time.”
Not disturbed, as such.
Growing.
Amassing power.
Daemon stared at him.
Marian glared at him.
Jellan put his heels to his mount and cantered closer to them.
“We should find news of what is happening on Triton,” he advised when he was riding at their side.
“Why would we need that?” Marian asked snidely.
“Because,” Jellan said to her calmly, “there have been a number of impacts on the veil these past days. Witches are ascending.”
She continued to glare at him, but Daemon asked, “Witches are ascending?”
“Dying,” he told him. “Powerful ones. And in their deaths, they ascend and the magic they wield on earth joins the veil.”
Daemon appeared very interested in this.
But Jellan did not have the opportunity to press it, for Marian demanded, “Why are they dying?”
“I do not know,” he answered. “This is why we must seek news about what is happening in the realms.”
He turned his gaze to Daemon to see the creature appeared contemplative.
“You feel it, yes?” he pushed. “When there is a tremor in the veil.”
“I did not know what it was,” he muttered.
“I feel it too,” Marian said swiftly.
“But you cannot read it,” Jellan returned, just as swiftly.
“It is not important to us, witches dying,” she retorted.
“It is important to us why the veil shifted just now,” he declared.
“Another witch dying? That must happen all the time, and I know it does for I felt this veil shift as you say, repeatedly.”
“It is not only when witches die that it trembles, Marian,” he shared haughtily.
“And why else does it tremble?” Daemon cut in.
Should he tell him of the prophecy?
Jellan did not know, and in truth, had reflected on this question much these past days.
He did not have control over the Beast. He was not even certain Marian did.
He was struggling with the answer to that question and was seeing now, he should not have alerted them to the messages of the veil before he’d made a decision.