Unfinished, page 13
She wasn’t sure that she could.
“Ready,” Imogen said.
“I know you are,” Sochal said, and he flashed a smile, tilting his head and looking at the ground. “Is there anything that we can do to assist you?”
“You have done all that you can.”
Imogen had made clear to them the reason for what she did, and the intention behind it. Most had questioned, though they had never said anything aloud, as if they feared challenging Imogen and angering her. She wasn’t going to be angry. She was content with others challenging her, especially if there was a benefit to them. How could a person learn if they didn’t challenge?
At least, that was how she had viewed learning when she had been younger and still working within the homeland. It had only been when she had reached the sacred temple that she had begun to question whether she had been mistaken in that style of learning and what she had always believed she would need to do to progress.
She sheathed her blade, and then she slipped out of the small room and out into the training hall. From there, Imogen was greeted by nearly a dozen swordsmen. All of them were her best trained.
“Are you sure about this?” Ruhid asked, sliding up behind her and whispering in her ear.
She looked over at him. He had real concern in his eyes. In the two years that she’d been here, Imogen had trained everyone who now carried a sword, and they all viewed her as the First. To them, she was the First. It was a title more than anything else. She had come to feel she was worthy of that title as they had continued to progress. She had been hunting the sorcerers, looking for the key to the kind of power that she had found on the streets of the city what seemed like ages ago, and had scarcely uncovered anything.
Until recently.
Now she knew what the key was, and she had a better sense of what needed to be done with it, even if she wasn’t convinced that she was ready.
“I have told you what needs to be done,” she said, looking over at Ruhid. They had grown close, closer than Imogen would have expected to be with anyone, and when he had asked her for her hand in marriage, she had not thought anything of it. At least, she had not thought anything of it at first. But he had been persistent, and she had found herself here longer than she had anticipated, and so she had agreed.
They had become partners. Not equals, as Imogen was far too great a swordsman compared to others here to have an equal, but still partners.
“Let us help you,” he said.
His voice was soft and soothing, and though they had had this conversation before, and though she had shared with him the reason that she could not ask for their help—or receive it—she also didn’t know how to explain it clearly.
She looked up at him. He was several inches taller and more solid than her. It made him slow with the blade. He was still faster than almost any other here, but that was an equal comparison.
“You know that this is my bond quest. You know that I must do this myself.”
“I know what you’ve told us that you must do, but I still don’t think that you need to risk yourself. We’ve seen what that dark power can do. Think about what would happen if it were to reach you. Would you be able to withstand it?”
Imogen smiled tightly. They both knew the answer to that, which was also the reason that she had to be the one to do this. That dark power was what the sorcerers referred to as the hyadan. It was some dark and dangerous magic that they controlled, and they used it to help command the city. She had been sent to cleanse the city of that influence. And so she would. It was her bond quest.
The more that she had seen of the hyadan, the more Imogen had started to question exactly what Master Liu anticipated her learning from it. She didn’t know what he thought it would teach her, only that there had to be something in the search and trapping of the hyadan that would help her find her place among her people.
And if she failed…
There had been a time when Imogen would have felt that she would not fail. There had been a time in Imogen’s life when she hadn’t even been able to fathom the idea of failure, when she had succeeded in everything that she had put her mind to. Until she had gone to the sacred temple. At that point, she had started to question herself. Not at first, but gradually, and with every lesson that Master Liu had wanted her to learn but she had failed, she had found herself struggling more and more, to the point that she had no longer known if she was the swordsman that she had long believed herself to be.
It had taken coming to Loruv for her to start to believe it once more. It had taken facing sorcerers and training others to fight them for her to feel as if she had purpose.
Imogen wondered whether that had been Master Liu’s intention in sending her away and assigning her this bond quest, or whether he had simply wanted to get rid of her. She wouldn’t be surprised if it were the latter. Given her failings, she couldn’t help but feel that he wanted to be free of her.
Imogen stepped forward. She unsheathed her blade in a quick flick. She pointed it down to the ground and then swept it in a circle around her. Each of them was watching, and each of them was waiting. “You are all as trained as I can make you. In time, each of you will continue to progress, but tonight I must do this. I ask for your support, and your blades, and if you were to choose otherwise, there would be no shame. You should not fear that I will be angry, as I will not be. I have prepared you, but there are certain things that you cannot be prepared for until you have trained for longer.”
She knew how they would respond. These were the core of those that she had worked with, each of them trained to reach a certain level of proficiency, and each of them skilled beyond others who had wanted to learn the blade. There were those like Vortel, who had continued to improve, but there was a plateau to their ability. All these dozen swordsmen had surpassed such a plateau. They would continue to improve.
Had they been born in the Leier homeland…
Imogen pushed the thought out of her mind, as there was no point in thinking like that. If they had been born in the Leier homeland, then there might have been, but they had not been. And they never could be.
She smiled tightly. “What I ask of you will be dangerous. If the hyadan power gets past me, I will need you to engage. I know that there is danger in this, and I know that each of you is worthy to help contain that danger, but I also want you to know that I understand. I’m asking you to look fear in the eye and not blink.”
She fell silent.
It was Matrin who stepped forward first.
She wasn’t surprised. Other than Ruhid, Matrin had proven to be one of the most capable swordsmen. She found him watching her often, and always pushing to spar with her, even when doing so would not help him any further. Then again, she saw a little bit of herself in that. Imogen had done something similar when she had been younger, pushing to spar when she probably should have been resting.
She tipped her head to him.
“You have my blade,” he said.
“And mine.”
“And mine.”
One by one, each of the others stepped forward, and one by one they lowered their blades to the ground.
Finally, Ruhid joined Imogen in the middle of the circle. He swung his gaze around before turning to Imogen and smiling tightly. “Get through this safely.”
“They will be stopped.”
Imogen led them through the hall to the stairs leading up, and then from there, out into the street. She issued a few commands, but even that had proven unnecessary. Imogen didn’t need to tell these others what to do. For that, she had Ruhid, and he directed the others quickly. He had a unique style of leadership. Perhaps a bit more brash than she would have preferred, but she wasn’t going to object to it.
Once out on the street, Ruhid turned to her. “What is your plan?”
“I’m going to track down the sorcerers responsible for this, and then I’m going to target them. After that…” She shrugged. “It will be done.”
“That’s not the question,” he said.
“I don’t know,” Imogen said.
“You don’t know if you’re going to stay?”
“I don’t know if I can,” she admitted. “I may want to, but I’m not sure that I will be able to.”
“Your people are here, Imogen.”
“My people are in my homeland. This was my bond quest. It is my bond quest. If I succeed…”
If she succeeded, what would she do?
Return?
When she had left the Leier homeland, the only thing that she’d had on her mind was succeeding and completing the bond quest so that she could immediately return, go to the sacred tiger temple, and tell Master Liu that she had completed his assignment. Now she had reason to question whether that was what she would do. Now Imogen no longer knew if she would.
But she also didn’t know if she could stay. There were reasons for her to be here, but there were also reasons for her to go.
“We would like you to stay,” he said.
“I know,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“I would like you to stay.”
She took his hands then, and she looked up. “You could come with me.”
“But these are my people. You have helped turn us into a people. Why would you turn away from that? You are the First, after all.”
And that was the question that she could not answer, not easily and not for somebody who was not of the Leier. How could he understand what it was like to be out of place, and how could he understand what it was like for her to know that this was not where she belonged, that this was simply where she needed to be to understand the sacred patterns somehow? She didn’t know if her time here would help her understand them in any way, but she felt there had to be something that might provide that insight.
“You knew this was about the hyadan.”
“It was to start with, but it’s become more. If we defeat the hyadan, then we have the Society. Because of you, we might be able to unshackle Loruv from the rule of the Society. You could be the reason that happens.”
He was compelling. Ruhid had always been compelling. It was a gift he had. And as she listened to him, she was tempted. It was easy for her to think about what it might be like if she were to accept that offer, and easy for her to think about what life might be like if she were to remain here.
“Let’s get through this night first. Then we can talk.”
She smiled at him, but he looked back at her, and he saw the truth and the lie. Imogen knew that he did. She knew him too well. The time they had spent training together, working together, and living a life together had helped show her who he was.
But who was she?
That was the question that Imogen did not have an answer to. It was the question that she thought that she needed to have answered, though. That was the purpose of a bond quest, after all. She was to find out who she was and not only uncover that truth but use that truth to help her people.
She turned away from Ruhid, and she headed into the city.
She didn’t have to go far. She knew how to find the sorcerer and had come to detect the use of that kind of magic all too well. So when she found Ed, she darted forward, unmindful of the danger. Imogen had faced this danger enough times now that she didn’t fear it as she had at first. Perhaps that was a mistake. She had to find the keystone, the source of the hyadan, and the way to overpower them. Imogen thought that she knew how to do that now, but doing so would take a different approach, and a different skill, from what she had used before.
She found the sorcerer in a small plaza in the heart of the city.
She approached, blade outstretched.
He watched her approach.
“Imogen Inaratha,” he said. “We’ve heard about you.”
“We?”
He smiled. “Did you think it would be only me?”
And with that, he snapped his fingers. There was a hint of shadows that shifted, and then four others appeared. They surrounded her.
But she didn’t need to look at the others to know that the one she needed was directly in front of her. He was the one who held the keystone.
“All I want is the keystone. Then you can live.”
He started to smile. “I’m sorry, but do you not see that we have you surrounded?”
“I’m afraid that you have it wrong,” Imogen said. She whistled. And then quickly, one by one, other whistles began to echo around her. Her blades. She looked up at the sorcerer while the others turned, looking out at the street. “I am Imogen Inaratha, First of the Blade. And you have neglected to consider the others.”
With that, she lunged forward.
The others were there, coming to her aid quickly.
And Imogen carved swiftly, driving her blade toward the sorcerer, slashing through every different attempt at magic that he tried to use upon her, until she carved through it completely.
And then she passed through his last spell and brought her blade up. It was caught in midair, as if by his magic, but Imogen shoved forward. She felt a trembling, and there was something that seemed to resist her, but then her blade went into his throat, and he crumpled.
She hurriedly found the keystone, the source of the hyadan. She felt the abrasive dark energy that radiated from it, as if she had been meant to find it.
As she held it up, a wave of strange relief and uncertainty washed over her.
Her bond quest was over.
Chapter Fifteen
The wind gusted around Imogen. She remained seated atop the renral, feeling the connection that she shared with him, recognizing some energy within him. She tried to concentrate on what she felt but found it more difficult than she had anticipated. The renral did not follow any particular pattern as he flew through the cloudless sky, but she still focused on the pattern he had shown her.
She leaned toward the renral, patting him on the back. “Which way do we need to go?” she whispered to him.
Each time Imogen spoke to the renral, she felt there was some reverberation of energy that called to her as if in response. This time, the renral gave her an actual response.
He shrieked.
The sound echoed off the rock of the valley and carried away. There was no echoing in reply. They were far enough away from the other renral that Imogen didn’t expect them to follow, but she did feel the wind whipping around her. She listened to it.
Imogen found herself closing her eyes and imagining Benji’s comments on that. He had told her to listen to the wind, to let it give her answers, and now that she was seated atop the renral and could feel that wind swirling around her, she felt she was closer to the wind than she had ever been before.
His voice didn’t return.
The renral shrieked again, his voice carrying out into the darkness.
Imogen was going to have to rely upon the renral to guide her toward the rest of the Leier—and beyond. It seemed they were heading beyond the Leier lands, though not toward the Koral.
While they flew, she kept looking upward, focusing on thoughts of Benji, and trying to reach him, but there was no answer. She didn’t know if he could answer her as she sat atop a renral. Perhaps the renral mitigated his ability to communicate. Benji might be magic, but the renral had a natural resistance to magic.
When she felt a surge of power bloom against her, she sat upright.
She’d been drifting as she had been trying to focus on Benji, and perhaps even sleeping. The steady movements of the creature were soothing in a strange way. She looked down, trying to get a sense of what power had bloomed toward her, but she saw nothing.
After a while, she started drifting again. When she had faded a bit, there came another burst. This time, some part of Imogen had been ready, and she sat up suddenly, looking over the side of the renral. She couldn’t tell where it had come from, only that she had felt something bursting toward her.
She leaned toward the renral. “Do you know what that is?”
The renral didn’t shriek, didn’t make any sound, and simply continued flying.
“There’s some sort of magic below. I’m afraid that if we leave it alone, we won’t be able to understand what it is. I’m not sure what it is.”
Imogen held on tightly to the renral, keeping her arms wrapped around the creature, focusing on what she could detect, but there was nothing. Tree Stands in the Forest wasn’t going to be of much use to her, but what if she tried one of the other sacred patterns?
In this case, with the renral, she wasn’t even sure if a sacred pattern that she had learned from Master Liu would be effective. Maybe it needed to be one of Benji’s sacred patterns.
And maybe it was looking for possibilities. Perhaps that was what she had to be doing now. Imogen focused, and she closed her eyes, letting awareness start to seep through her. That seemed to be the key with this pattern, and this power, but even as she focused, she could not see anything and could not feel anything other than what was already there. Energy, but not much more.
She wasn’t able to find whatever had caused that energy from atop the renral, and she knew the answer wouldn’t be found in the sky. Another burst of that same power came, and she knew they couldn’t wait any longer.
She leaned forward, tapping on the renral. “We need to get to the ground.”
The renral began to descend, dropping faster and faster.
As he did, Imogen began to feel a presence and pressure pushing upon them.
Not upon them. Upon the renral. Magic. But the renral resisted it.
The renral circled before settling on the ground. Imogen had no idea where she was, but as she jumped off the renral’s back, she noticed a soft burbling nearby. A stream or river. The air smelled fresh and sweet, a floral fragrance filling it. The ground was lush, grasses that reminded her of when she had been traveling with the Koral and the Leier on their way to the sacred temples. The wind brushed her hair, tugged at her cloak, but she ignored it. There were no whispers on it.
