Unbroken, page 23
Drawing upon the Heart, she realized.
Master Liu sent his sword blazing, but it seemed at times as if he carried multiple blades, as if each of the fragments represented in the blend surged outward at different times, anticipating where Aneadaz would move and what he would do.
Then the combined fragment exploded forward, catching Aneadaz.
Imogen couldn’t help but stare.
The fragment pulsed with power and then did something that Imogen had not expected. The fragment, that which was Master Liu, Benji, and Abigail, swelled to double its size, and then Aneadaz shattered.
A shimmering of light exploded. Fragments of energy shot out, as if thousands of stars streaked away. Those fragments became smaller and smaller, not even drops, just mist.
Wind whipped around, and Imogen suspected that was Benji’s influence.
Then the fragments scattered. Aneadaz had been shredded so much that his fragment could not re-form.
And he was drawn toward the Heart.
Into the Heart.
Imogen could scarcely move. She could scarcely breathe. Could it be over?
No. It wasn’t over. Her brother was still here. Chauvan was still here. And she had to deal with them.
Imogen shifted her Tree Stands in the Forest, and she focused on Timo. She darted toward him, and he surprised her by doing something that she had never seen before. He began to ripple, twisting, contorting, and then he was no more. It was as if he had folded out of existence.
She looked over to where Lilah was battling with Chauvan, who did the same sort of thing. He folded out of existence much like Timo had.
They were gone.
But Aneadaz was defeated.
Lilah wiped a bead of sweat off her brow, and she turned in place as she breathed out heavily. “What next?”
Imogen looked up at the plateau. “I don’t know.” She turned to Master Liu, or what she thought was Master Liu. She wasn’t even sure if that was what he was anymore. At this point, the fragment might be more Benji and Abigail than Master Liu.
But as she watched, a finger of silver split away, then another, and they drifted away from the fragment of Master Liu and floated back toward Imogen before blending into her. She felt a surge, and then she was aware of the connection that she shared with Benji—and Abigail.
“Why?”
“Because your path has not ended,” Benji said.
“You could reunite your fragments.”
“I don’t need to be reunited. I am reunited.”
She turned to Master Liu, who stood before her, his sword still glowing, but then even that began to retreat, fading back into nothingness, and he looked at her. He had the same face that she remembered from when she had first arrived at the sacred temple, the same hard yet somehow kind eyes that looked at her with an expression of interest. Appraisal.
He bowed his head. “Master Inaratha,” he said. “I should thank you.”
“No. I should thank you. You saved us.”
“I was only the tool. You were the one who guided me. Had you not tried to save me, and the fragments that were me, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”
Imogen tried not to think about what that meant. If she had not found his fragments, what would have happened to her, and her people, and Aneadaz?
Maybe she wouldn’t have had enough strength to withstand the attack and would not have been able to fight him off, but even with everything that she had done and poured out of herself, she had still barely had enough.
“Are you complete?” Imogen asked.
Master Liu seemed to hesitate, and there was a shimmering of silver flowing through him. “As complete as I think I can be any longer. Perhaps there are small splinters that remain elsewhere, but I am whole enough for what I would like to do.”
“And what is that?”
Imogen had no idea what a fragment would even want to do, though Master Liu had certainly helped them, and without his help, she doubted that she would have been able to do much.
“What all Leier want,” he said, and he turned his attention to the sky.
Imogen smiled. “Go. Sit with the ancients. Watch down upon us. Guide us.”
“I think that perhaps you will be the one guiding us, but I will be watching, Master Inaratha.”
The silver began to dissipate, but not completely. It streamed upward, forming a band that slithered, racing up toward the sky as if it were a shooting star going in the wrong direction, before it streaked back toward the Heart.
He would be with their people.
She breathed out. “That was something.”
“What do we do?”
Imogen looked up at the Heart towering overhead, feeling the strange energy that pressed upon her. It was the place of her people. Back when they were a unified people. But that had changed.
“The Sul’toral are gone. At least in their original incarnation. Unfortunately, other Sul’toral remain. Timo. This Chauvan. And perhaps even others who want to learn what they have. So we need to be prepared.”
Lilah looked up. “You would bring us all together here?”
“There was a time when I thought that was going to be necessary,” Imogen said. “A time when I thought that this was going to be the safe haven for our people. It was once, and I had started to believe that it could be again.” As Imogen looked up at the distant Heart, she wondered if such a thing was even possible. “We’ve been isolated for so long, and I now believe it has been too long. Our people are connected again, but now we need to be more than just connected. We need to reunite with the rest of the world.”
She looked over at Lilah and waited for her to join her. Once she did, Imogen wrapped her arm around her waist, and using Lightning Strikes in the Storm, she shot upward, through the ring of renral that had prevented Aneadaz, Timo, and Chauvan from using their power more widely, and up toward the Heart.
When Imogen landed on the plateau edge, Jorend was there, along with other Leier, all prepared for a battle. Jorend tipped his head at Imogen, and then he frowned as he turned his attention to Lilah. There was a look in his eyes that Imogen found herself smiling at.
Was that interest?
Good.
A powerful Koral shaman and a powerful Leier sword master.
“We have defended the Heart, First.”
“You’ve done well.”
He looked down. “The renral acted… strange. We thought they were going to attack the creatures, but they didn’t. They simply circled.”
“It’s because of the renral that you didn’t face anything worse.” She told him about Aneadaz, Timo, Chauvan, and what had happened to Abigail.
Eleanor dropped down from Zealar and strode toward Jorend, looking at Lilah, and then she nodded to the other Koral that had gathered along the plateau edge, all preparing for the possibility of battle, though now there would be none.
“What would you have us do?”
“We can no longer stay here,” she said, her voice raised. Not in a place like this. She understood why her people had left. The fragmented power was powerful—and perhaps more than they could withstand in life. “We are a unified people. We can call ourselves whatever we want. Leier or Koral, or something new. We will find our place. But our place is no longer in these lands. We must move. We must join the world and join the fight.”
Jorend looked over. “Where would you have us go?”
“There’s a place far from here where we can find others who will help us in our fight. Friends.”
Imogen knew where she would go. It was where she had first found herself, and where she would find her friends again as she chased Timo and Chauvan and whatever new Sul’toral there might be.
It was time to return to Yoran.
Imogen’s story doesn’t end here! You can read more of her point of view in the next book in The Chain Breaker series: Faith of the Fallen.
If you haven’t started The Chain Breaker, grab The Risen Shard where Imogen first appears!
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading Unbroken. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would be so kind as to take a moment to leave a review on Amazon or elsewhere, I would be very grateful.
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D.K. Holmberg
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Series by D.K. Holmberg
The Chain Breaker Series
The Chain Breaker
The Dark Sorcerer
First of the Blade
The Dragon Rogues
The Executioner’s Song Series
The Executioner’s Song
The Dragonwalkers Series
The Dragonwalker
The Dragon Misfits
Elemental Warrior Series:
Elemental Academy
The Elemental Warrior
The Cloud Warrior Saga
The Endless War
The Dark Ability Series
The Shadow Accords
The Collector Chronicles
The Dark Ability
The Sighted Assassin
The Elder Stones Saga
The Lost Prophecy Series
The Teralin Sword
The Lost Prophecy
The Volatar Saga Series
The Volatar Saga
The Book of Maladies Series
The Book of Maladies
The Lost Garden Series
The Lost Garden
D.K. Holmberg, Unbroken
