Something changed during their conversation about Lara's past. She is sometimes there for breakfast and comes back a tad bit earlier on some evenings. Maybe she is running out of places to provide her answers and expects him to reciprocate by opening his own heart. Or maybe they are forming a budding trust.
He continues with the same mindset: trying not to pressure and by giving her legroom. It may not be wise and five days later during supper, Lara is once again seeking for answers.
"What happened to him?"
Jacob doesn't pause his eating but looks at Lara for her to continue.
"The Prophet."
"Why are you asking?"
Lara leans back on the stool, seemingly a little apprehensive on how to bring up a subject that must mean a lot to them, "The tomb in Syria was empty. I haven't found a tomb in here either. The tomb could be in Kitezh, but the tales say that he survived the battle. So, it's possible, but unlikely."
Jacob watches silently as Lara ponders more to herself than to him, her eyes distant, trying to see.
"I just. He isn't going to come after me about the Source, right?" she asks before chuckling, "Or probably you wouldn't tell me."
"Coming after you?"
Lara stretches her neck from side to side before answering thoughtfully, "My previous experiences with immortal beings aren't that good like I said."
Jacob can't help but chuckle incredulously at her words. "You've come across immortal beings before?"
"The island, Yamatai. There was this tradition of a Sun Queen who had ruled the island, but actually, the different Queens had been one and the same person, Himiko, who transferred her soul to her priestesses' bodies for generations. She was at least hundreds of years old," Lara recites with her gaze on her soup and her fingers playing with her spoon, "Became quite angry when the last priestess killed herself to prevent Himiko from overtaking her body. So, trapped in a decaying body, Himiko pretty much killed everyone who got close to or tried to leave the island, hundreds and hundreds of people. She could control the weather. You know, the stuff that should be impossible: a clear sky and she could call a storm or lightning out of thin air," Lara tells her gaze turning more intense. "– But I think she had been quite a bitch from the start to prolong her life at the expense of others."
What he has been expecting wasn't this. He has learned long ago that there is much more to the world than what can be seen, and he has lived the time when the fantasy tales were brought to him by the new followers who had sought Kitezh. Still, the notion that there have been – probably are – others like him is an unaccustomed thought.
"So, maybe the Prophet lingers as a spirit – or a nomad – around here and tries to bury me under an avalanche if I try to leave the area."
Lara manages to make her voice sound nonchalant, but he can see the genuine preparation for the possibility in her eyes.
"What I've heard the Prophet was quite known for displaying mercy towards those who came to look for the Divine Source."
Lara makes an indistinct hum and eyes him for a second to see if she should voice her doubt, "Becoming the Sun Queen's priestess was regarded as the highest of honors at Yamatai only because no-one knew that their daughter's soul would be replaced by a madwoman," Lara remarks and softens her words not to discredit the Prophet in front of him, "I'm just saying that sometimes things are lost with time and that we don't fully know about the past. Nor always about the present for that matter."
"What makes you doubt?" Jacob asks despite himself. He is interested to hear her take on this, even if his instincts tell him that they are moving in dangerous territory. He keeps his tone light and inquiring though, because he can feel that Lara is holding herself back. No matter the progress he has managed to achieve, there is so much that Lara is keeping to herself about her thoughts.
"For starters, you can't really turn your head around here without coming face to face with a statue or an image about him. I know it was the habit at the time to picture religious clergy, but I'd be quite uncomfortable having people worship after my image. Plus, the cult members at Yamatai used to worship the Sun Queen, too. That resulted in me waking up kidnapped and hanging from the roof as a religious offering for her. I'd like not to set myself fire again to escape, just in case the Prophet prefers young women parceled on his doorstep."
Jacob nearly chokes on his soup.
What is it with this woman?
"Not that I'm aware of," he finally manages to utter, desperate for the water to soothe his throat. Lara looks at him with something akin to sympathy but under the deceptive casualness, he can see that she is gauging him, defiant but worried over being too frank – and yet, shy. At first, he wishes that she is joking or exaggerating the story because of her lightness. But almost immediately he realizes that she was, indeed, joking; it's just the trauma of her experiences that has found an outlet from her sense of humor. He can guess that part of the reason why she stays so guarded with her thoughts is that they haven't been well received in the past; not many people can relate to her experiences. "You've actually gone through that?" he asks more as a conversation piece to offer support while pushing unfazed understanding to seep into his voice.
She hums and shrugs her shoulders, "I didn't believe that stuff like that existed either other than in crimes series and horror movies but… well… – And when it comes to the Prophet: the mines..." she says more quietly to get back to the topic and prevent him from lingering on her experiences, "–forcing people to pray. In my perspective, it's quite iniquitous."
"What would you have done?" he asks forcing himself to keep up with the change of topic and the regret out of his voice. He can agree with all she says, but he still doesn't know what he could have done differently. "If people are unwilling to stay and show willingness to betray others for their own gain, how would you have protected our forefathers?"
"I'm not saying that it has been an easy decision," Lara mediates, "But I doubt that it solved anything. Religiousness can rarely be forced on people."
"True," he relents and observes Lara. It's been time since he has been having a conversation like this: not many question his actions out loud to him, not when their grandparents have given him the utmost loyalty. "You don't seem too worried – about the Prophet," he comments with a smile pulling his lips.
Lara shrugs again, "No one had been able to leave Yamatai for centuries either."
Jacob contemplates her words for a second, "You killed the Sun Queen."
Lara smiles at his words and he can see the proudness in her expression, "I pierced her heart with a sword when she was transferring her soul to my best friend's body. And, I took out some of her undying army, the Storm Guards," she recites, "It's not so much about immortality than it is about finding the right way to kill. Immortality in itself is, I think, more of a myth."
He huffs air through his nose at her self-assurance. He has met those who have killed kings and queens, slain dragons but not every century he meets a person who has claimed to have killed an immortal being like himself. "Would you do that: kill the Prophet to attain the Source and complete your mission?"
Lara looks at him at his question before shaking her head, "I protect myself, but I'm not a thief."
He hums, "But if that would be your only way to get him to relent the Source to you?"
Lara raises her hands pointlessly, "Then we'd have to find a resolution otherwise. – I can be quite persistent," she states and walks to sit on the sofa bed.
"Oh, I have no doubt about that," he smiles letting his amusement show in full colors. However, after a moment of silence, he turns serious wanting her to understand, "You can't fill the emptiness inside you with the Source, Lara. – I know loss. I've lost two great loves of my life. Not to mention what our people have lost over the centuries. It's in our blood, in our ancestors' blood that's spilled over these mountains. I know you are suffering, but the answer cannot be found from here, it has to come from inside of you."
Lara sympathizes with him, but her resolution doesn't waver, "With the Source I could be part of something bigger, do something good for the world. That is worth fighting for. Maybe it won't help me, but it would help countless people. Help us understand the human soul."
He smiles sadly, more aware than her on how it wouldn't solve her problems, "But it wouldn't guarantee anything. Life would still be unpredictable. And you could still lose people close to you."
Lara tries to shake his claims away vigorously. "But a lot of people would be better off."
"Maybe," he offers her downcast.
They sit it in the impasse for a good few minutes and he moves to collect the dishes until Lara interrupts him, "I'm sorry, for your losses."
Her words are heartfeltly sincere like they can only be from a person who is trying to heal their own wounds.
He second-guesses his decision for four days before finally being sure enough to go down with it if that is to happen.
"Come with me tomorrow," he simply says to her in the evening when he passes her almost asleep form while returning from a talk with the night guards. He glances at her briefly to check that she heard him despite being jerked awake by his arrival, and smiles a fraction of an inch at how the understanding comes slower than normal onto Lara's face. She doesn't reply, though, and lets her eyes close back again.
He hopes that the line of trust will hold tomorrow.
Despite her lethargy last night, Lara had heard him loud and clear, and in the morning before dawn, she has made them both breakfast and has her gear lined up, ready to go.
She doesn't ask him questions, no doubt hesitant that it might make him change his mind about this. He won't though, because he knows that there is no other solution to this impasse, at least not one that he could live with. He has always tried to save everyone he could; moreover, he wants to help both, the Remnants and her.
Sofia stops by during breakfast to bring him more arrows and a sword. She looks at him like he is still her dear father but a lost cause with this, and gives Lara only a cold glance to evaluate her character. He will make out of this alive, that's not a worry, but she might hinder him enough to get a chance to escape with the Divine Source. The Deathless are a formidable enemy but the Remnants have never taken anything by chance after the Mongols – the price is too high otherwise. So, Jacob trusts Sofia and a few villagers to build an ambush near the observatory if Lara tries to escape that way. He just hopes that it will turn out to be unnecessary; he has become unintentionally invested in the dark-haired woman.
Maybe he is making a mistake at offering this so soon, but he knows that Lara is running out of places to explore which will only push her closer to Kitezh. And despite having learned to go with things in life, he, too, savors the chance to have more control when possible.
"Good luck," Sofia says curtly when she leaves.
Lara is unfaced because she rarely is, instead, she is interested in his new weapons and her face lights up at the sign that they are going to go somewhere relevant today.
They travel in silence to the hills; the few villagers they pass give them a longer look but simply settle for greeting him.
Lara has been mostly focused on the scenery down to the valley and the lake. It takes a few minutes for her to note that his stop means that the Observatory is their target address and not simply a place for him to catch his breath. She looks at him with a question but doesn't move to inspect the place which tells him loud and clear that she has already searched the place throughout. Whether to be exasperated or astonished, he doesn't know for sure.
He is not an eloquent speaker, sometimes yes, but this is personal and a reason for a lot of the weight in his heart. He looks at the glimmering lake before taking the step that he knows he cannot get back. Her sole focus is on him and her posture is open even if tense. In her cargo pants, combat boots, and expedition jacket she looks far too modern to belong into the Valley.
"The Divine Source… it heals," he starts and walks closer to her, "but it creates monsters. Warriors who do not die and who turned against our people, killed thousands." He isn't sure how much she knows already from her wanderings around the Valley but determines that seeing this from his point of view is crucial.
"The Remnants' forefathers had to leave Constantinople and later Syria because of the Source. The only place they could escape that persecution to was here, far away from the world, and yet… the conquerors have assaulted the Valley, killed and oppressed," his voice is raspy, old, but he needs her to understand or they'll have no other choice but to fight her eventually. The worst thing is that he understands her fully, sees the ideals that he carried in his youth in her, the good he wanted to wield. "People haven't changed Lara, it may have been a long time ago, but Trinity is still there, people are flawed, hungry for power. In the wrong hands, the Divine Source has the power to destroy the world. Your aspiration is honorable, and I don't doubt that you mean well, but we have over a millennium worth of experience on how that is not enough. I have begun to get to know you, and Lara, you don't deserve the deaths or the destruction the public knowledge would cause."
He stands close to her now and looks straight into her eyes. The grief and the guilt in his eyes must be evident and for the first time in a long while, he lets them be seen in their depth.
But Lara doesn't meet his gaze and looks away from him.
Had he been a youngling still, he would have wanted to scream at the heavens at how stubborn she could be but he is long past those trivial feelings. So, he takes out his last straw and moves to reveal the tunnel that leads to the Orrery.
There is the briefest moment of hesitation in her stance before a new resolution is found and she practically jumps to look at the tunnel. "Where does it lead?"
"To Kitezh."
"In here, in the Valley."
"Yes. But Lara, you can't have the Divine Source, that is impossible."
"But?" She asks turning more fully towards him with her posture straightened, ready to battle.
"I can show you the darkness it brings." He doesn't say that he will stop her if needed, he will, but the evenings with her have fortified his faith that she could relate to their oath.
Jacob leads Lara through the sealed path to the Orrery. He maneuvers his way through the small slits between the boulders and beckons Lara to follow.
"What is in here?"
"The Orrery. And after that, Kitezh. My people haven't been here for centuries since the forefathers sealed this off for our safety." It's not entirely truthful, because he has visited Kitezh from time to time to extract pieces from the Divine Source to ground them for the healing powder.
Lara gasps at the sight of the Orrery, "How old is it?" she turns to ask him.
He tries to keep the sadness out of his smile, "It's from before the fall of Kitezh, maybe from the turn of the last millennium."
"Wow. …For the Prophet that he could look at the stars," she recites from somewhere.
"Yes," he agrees forlornly and thinks back to all the cloudy winter nights and the summer days of the unsetting sun that he spent here, just watching and pondering his place in the world. "We need to unlock the mechanism. There are latches on either side," he points.
"It moves?"
"It's a solar system."
Lara hums at his words but the goal is too near for her patience to last long, "May I?"
"Either way. We both need to get to the top and it will get harder once the other side is unlocked."
Lara watches him questioningly for a second as if to check whether he is certain that he can climb so high up on the precarious structure. He nods at her to go first and settles to watch as Lara jumps and climbs towards the first latch. She has great balance, he has to admit, but the sword on his belt weighs him on what's to come.
He gives Lara the permission to lock the other side too, before checking that she makes it to the upmost ledge before tackling the structure himself. He is heavier than Lara on the narrow beams, but his experience and height make it up. He senses Lara's gaze on him, observing how well he moves.
The slight raise of eyebrows when he reaches the top tells him that he has impressed her.
He leads them onwards while trying not to appear too certain of the route and by letting Lara take the lead on appropriate sections.
When they finally arrive at the outskirts of Kitezh, Lara's breath hitches when she gets the first glimpse of the lost city.
"It's… beautiful," is her compliment to the forefathers' work and Jacob has a fleeting wish that she could have seen the city in its full glory. Despite the fact that Lara tries to take in every detail and stop at every mural they pass, this isn't a day trip, and he has to keep her moving not to be spotted by the Deathless.
They don't travel far, just enough in the outskirts of the passage where he knows the patrols don't stop as often. Lara has already found a few notes from a Mongolian warrior and surveys her surroundings with the appropriate apprehension.
"There," he whispers with a nod towards a Deathless patrolling one of the side-streets. He almost grabs her back down when Lara cranes her neck to see better from where they are crouched.
"The Deathless…"
"They were humans once, but the Divine Source shaped them, made them weapons."
"Can they be killed?"
Her question is so utilitarian that he almost expected it. "Momentarily, but they are reborn on the next day, smarter, more honed. They were… supposed to be our protectors but it was a miscalculation. They only protect the Source and go to any lengths to guard it. They collapsed the glacier on top of Kitezh, killing almost every one of us. You saw the Bathhouse," he says, and when Lara looks at him in surprise and almost to object, "I know, Lara."
"But…" she starts and follows the Deathless' march.
"This is why Trinity is after the Divine Source. They want to create their own mindless army and use that to their advantage," and when she looks ready to object again even if with more hesitancy this time around, "Even without Trinity, can't you think of people in the world who would want to this, who would spend all the money in the world to have this, use every bit of their power. That's why the Divine Source must be kept as a secret. – I don't doubt your intentions, Lara, or your skills. But you are just one person and you would have the whole world come after the Source if you'd take it to them. Even in the best-case scenario, you would get people on your side to defend it but that would only lead to an endless war. Lara…"
He is too anxious to feel the hope when Lara leans away from the view in front of them, unsure.
"Your father's intentions may have been just as pure, but he didn't know the whole truth."
"But what about the healing?" she grills.
He glances around her to see that they haven't already been spotted, "We believed the Divine Source to be God's grace on Earth. But it... Only the Prophet could use its powers to heal."
"Why?"
He shares her question, "Your guess is as good as any."
They are running out of time but Lara battles to understand the situation, her mouth opens multiple times for a question or a comment that becomes immediately outdated and followed by another one in her mind. "I don't… But where is he now?" she asks and turns to look at him, "I mean… I read that he disappeared after Kitezh for ten years but that was in the 13th century. And Syria was in the 10th century. He must have been… two-three hundred years old by then," Lara clarifies and turns to look at Kitezh again if it could provide her an answer, "If the Deathless are still here, then the Divine Source is still operational as well. – What happened to the Prophet?"
He can hear the unvoiced, "Why are you the one showing me this and not him?"
He doesn't know what to answer to her. He presumes that she hasn't yet connected the dots because she is expecting someone more abnormal, unhuman. Part of him wants her to reach the conclusion herself because it's been a long time since he has revealed himself to anyone. Fortunately, Lara is not the type of a person to wait for an answer and is already pushing forward despite his uneasy silence.
"The villagers are his people. He wouldn't just abandon you. I mean, he was your leader, always providing mercy for everyone, even the wrongdoers, and–"
He can pinpoint the moment the answer crosses her head the first time. Similarly, he can see the moment she dismisses it with a small shake of the head, and how it doesn't leave her alone and returns to the forefront of her mind with vengeance. If he wasn't feeling as anxious as he is, it would be almost comical how Lara's head turns towards him and the question stays on her open mouth, "No, I…"
He simply gives her a sad smile and the fact that he doesn't refute her claim is enough of a confirmation for her.
"But you are so… human," she finally utters.
He tries not to take it to himself how Lara leans away from him; and her words are, in a way, probably, a compliment in the light of her experiences.
"Apart from the human ending," he replies quietly and watches Lara sit on her heels with the shock.
Ignoring how they should already be leaving before the next patrol shift, he watches Lara stare at Kitezh with new eyes. "This is all my doing, Lara. Every regret. Every mistake. The Source is safest in here, and it's the safest option for the world as well."
Lara shakes her head as if she could refute the truth by sheer willpower alone but she finally turns to look at him and doesn't voice another argument.
Maybe relief shouldn't be a feeling to him after so many centuries but it still makes his shoulders sag. Yet, something else also slowly emerges into her eyes which makes him pray that they haven't taken too many steps backward with the secrecy he had chosen to display towards her.
He gives her an extra second to sort her thoughts before ushering them to move and nearly pulling her to stand up and hurry amidst the pathways and the ledges.
They make it halfway through before they are spotted. At that point, they only run and climb faster with multiple near falls. "Go!" he orders her when two Deathless close in on them and he draws his sword.
But Lara doesn't listen to him and scrambles twenty feet away to ready her bow. He can hear her swear when the first arrow straight to the Deathless' neck doesn't do anything at all. He evades the Deathless' attacks with centuries of experience and trusts Lara to warn him if her arrows fly his way.
They manage to kill the two guards but the noise from the battle has drawn attention. He is relieved that Lara's instincts work and she bolts into a run with him as they haste for the way back towards the Valley.
The Deathless' arrows follow them before they manage to escape to the tunnels and lock the Orrery's mechanics behind them. Fortunately, the Deathless' deteriorated minds are absorbed to guarding their immortality and have very little interest in the surroundings of Kitezh.
He looks at Lara to see if she now understands. He feels that something changed in their trip as he watches Lara lean onto her knees for a moment to catch her breath before arduously pushing herself back at full height, more silent and somber than when they had gone in.
