"Are you my new guide?" I wasn't sure I'd miss Saren.
She smiled again. It was a tender look. "No, but I will help you along the way. Saren is your guide for a reason. She will fight when you are unable to. No one will harm you and many will try. She is here to help you embrace your powers because you are very powerful, but you need to become your powers."
"Who is Jacith? How is my old sponsor involved?"
"You are ready for some answers. We can tell that you know more than you think." She gestured to the side where a chair carved in rock appeared. Another was beside it and we both sat in them. Sireenia folded her hands in her lap. All her movements were graceful. "Your empathic sponsor was assigned to you for a reason. She came from a long line of witches that worshiped their original sorcerer Jacith. Her attributes matched yours. You needed someone who was motherly, but aloof. She was that, but she also had a sense of purpose that you respected. She had humor that met yours. She was picked for you and her assignment was to bring you to Jacith when the thread went into you."
My eyes were wide and my soul felt like it had a hole in it. It was gaping open. Everything she said was true.
Sireenia had been watching me and then took my hand. I felt her calm enter me and the peace soothed over everything, all my agitation, panic, and even seemed to lick other wounds inside of me.
"You're very beautiful." She held my eyes. "They've told me of your will, your spirit, but they haven't shared your looks. Do you know how beautiful you are?"
I looked away. Then she squeezed my hand and I looked back.
"You're not normally bashful. Why are you now? You know you're attractive."
I had no idea. "You're so direct. No one's told me like that." I knew I wasn't ugly, but I never thought about my looks. I wasn't known for them. I was the carefree, funny one.
"Oh. Maybe they should've." Then she winked and sat back. "But you're right. We'r
e not here about your looks. I'm here because you wanted to learn about Jacith and Saren didn't want to be the one to tell you. She wanted me to explain it to you so here we go."
My fingers dug into the armrests of my chair and I braced for what I was about to hear.
Sireenia looked at me warmly. "Jacith used to be Jacob Withering. It's an old name with old roots and he wanted a new one. He didn't want ties to where he came from so he changed it to Jacith when he became a vampire. He lived and ruled under the normal hierarchy that each vampire does, with their Family that might be allied with other Families and so forth. This was all fine until Jacith met a witch one day. He fed from her and she turned him human. Jacith was fascinated by this. He loved the power it gave him and he had her turn himself back into a vampire.
This began his long fall into sorcery and dark magic, but he kept his darkness from his vampire Family. They thought he used his magic for good, but he didn't. Even then his Family strove to protect the humans; they felt it would restore their own humanity so they wouldn't forget their true beginnings. They knew if they did forget it would only be a matter of time before all was lost. Madness and chaos would ensue. The slayers were created for this reason and then the decree occurred and hunters now hunt their own. Jacith wanted to win favor with the ruling Queen. He wanted to use her power for himself. He could use it for more magic so he created the Immortal prophecy.
He had hoped the legend of the Immortal, which would balance all powers in the universe, would make her happy. It did. She fell in love with him and he's slowly been draining her of all her power. He only created the thread of the Immortal, which vampires could get power from. He thought this was the Immortal."
There was so much I didn't understand, but I asked the one question that burned in my mind. "Is he still alive?"
She smiled, saddened. "He is and he is protected still by the Romah Family, the most powerful of all vampire Families. The Roane family is second to them, but they protect the Romah Family. They are their guardians. It's an alliance that has never been broken. Your vampire is hoping to destroy that alliance, but it'll create a divide instead. The Romah and Roane Family will bind together against him and they'll never see reason. They believe to this day that Jacith is a good sorcerer. That he created the Immortal for balance and equality."
"Why does the thread only go from human to human?"
"The Romah Family felt humans were sacred so Jacith made the thread to remain solely in humans. If a vampire did take on the thread inside of them, it would jump to the first human they encountered. He didn't inform the Queen that once the vampire fed from an Immortal, that vampire would have enormous power. They found this out after the first human and then protected the Immortal from that day forward. Of course, Jacith said that he hadn't known it would do that. After a hundred thousand years, they entrusted the Immortal to be defended by the Roane Family, which is why Lucas, their best hunter, became Talia's protector."
But I was the Immortal. I didn't have the thread. Jacith didn't intend for a true Immortal to ever come. The first guide had told me that.
She held my hand and squeezed it. "Jacith thought that a human with the mere thread of the Immortal would be the Immortal. He never realized the thread would take a life of its own and become an actual entity. That is what you are. You have been infused with the essence of life; this is why you make the undead alive. You take away their death."
I shook my head. There was so much information. I couldn't understand all of it. Then Sireenia whispered, "You will in time. You will know all. You will understand all."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
Her hand cupped my cheek. "You are so beautiful. You need to know this because Jacith is going to be your enemy. He is going to try and take the Immortal out of you. He will try to destroy it all."
"Why?" I felt gutted.
"Because you are not what he created. He cannot control you. He cannot control us. And he will fear you once the Romah and Roane Elders realize what you really are. "
"What do I do then?"
"You will fight him. You were created to destroy him. We were created to help you. He is too powerful for the world to have. He is the unbalance, not you."
When she put it like that, I wanted to crap my pants. "I'm not ready for that! I'm not ready for him! What if he comes tomorrow? What if he already knows? What am I going to do?"