Unbroken, page 3
Imogen walked along the water’s edge. This place was similar to where Abigail had once spent time, and near enough that Imogen wondered if it was intentional. Maybe this was another place like Abigail’s valley, and the small pool she’d occupied, but Imogen didn’t detect any Porapeth power, though she wondered if she even would.
She closed her eyes for a moment and focused on the various possibilities, and she found them cloudy and confused.
That wasn’t entirely surprising. There were often times when Imogen found the possibilities confounding, making it difficult for her to know what she could do, but it was rarely as cloudy as this, especially when there was nothing taking place around her.
That was odd—odd enough that Imogen suspected that the reason for it was tied to what she had done with Master Liu. Had helping him, and trapping his fragment, somehow changed her ability to latch on to the possibilities that the Porapeth power presented?
If so, would it be a danger for her to hold on to it?
Imogen wasn’t sure that she could linger here, nor was she sure that she needed to linger here. She focused on Lightning Strikes in the Storm, the sacred pattern that permitted her the ability to shoot up into the air. As she did, she began to notice something else.
The sacred pattern was more difficult than she had anticipated.
Not impossible, just complicated. Her connection to the power holding Master Liu corrupted things somewhat, at least enough that she struggled to hold on to that power.
It would require her to find a way to split her focus, something that Imogen had not done that often, and she did not know if she could hold the same strength that she would need in order to use Lightning Strikes in the Storm to return home. Perhaps she should have asked Zealar to remain with her, but he was little more than a black speck in the sky now.
She focused. This wasn’t beyond her. She could hold on to Tree Stands in the Forest the way she was now, holding that power inwardly so that she could trap the fragment of Master Liu inside herself, and she could also hold on to Lightning Strikes in the Storm. They were similar patterns, both sacred patterns.
She let some of her control over Tree Stands in the Forest slip just the barest amount, only enough that it permitted her to summon Lightning Strikes in the Storm, and she streaked upward. Imogen held on to that power, and it shot her high into the sky. She found herself needing to adjust as she traveled, focusing periodically on Lightning Strikes in the Storm before shifting immediately back to Trees Stands in the Forest. Back and forth she went, alternating her focus and her attention, until she managed to blend them.
This is new.
She’d managed to attack in the past by combining different sacred patterns, but this was something beyond just attacking. This was a matter of holding the sacred patterns at the same time and doing so with consistent control. It was challenging, but she did not think that it was beyond her ability.
She then shifted.
Petals on the Wind.
It required a mixture of three of the sacred patterns, and not just drawing upon them at the same time but compelling those sacred patterns to hold together and grant her the strength that she needed in order to maintain the power consistently.
For a moment, she fluttered, faltering. This was not all that dissimilar to sorcerers creating different spells. Imogen had once believed that her power was not the same, but time had proven her wrong.
She drifted, shifting, and managed to stabilize herself.
By the time she reached the Heart, she was tired in a way that she had not been while working with the sacred patterns in quite some time. But, and perhaps more importantly, it did open up possibilities that Imogen had not considered before. She could practice and hold on to multiple sacred patterns to exert multiple effects. It was something more to meditate on.
As she came to land atop the mountain of the Heart, she did so near the edge and paused for a moment to look out, feeling a strangeness all around her. Some of that strangeness came from the fact that she was holding on to the different sacred patterns, and it forced her to release her connection and control so that she would no longer struggle.
The Heart of the Leier was a strange plateau in the middle of the Leier homeland, surrounded by mountains, where five peaks had once held the sacred temples. Hidden for generations, it had once been a place of her people long ago but had been abandoned. Now she had brought the Leier back. It was safe here, at least for now. Imogen didn’t know how long it would remain that way.
During the time since they’d returned, her people had set to work restoring and repairing some of the ancient structures that they’d found here, and constructing new buildings to house the ever-growing population of refugees that came to the Heart. Much had changed, giving it a bustling, city-like feel, something the Leier had never known. Her people had always lived in villages scattered around the mountains.
“You’ve been gone for a while,” a voice said from behind her.
Imogen paused, holding on to the connection that she felt, and then turned to see Jorend. She was not surprised that it was him. “I was following power,” Imogen said. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to find, but…” She looked around before she turned to him. He needed to know. “I found something unsettling. It was far from here, and I took Zealar to help me follow it.”
“Timo?”
Of all the people within the Leier camp, Jorend understood her desire to find her brother the most. And he never questioned the lengths that Imogen was willing to go to in order to find him. She had not tracked Timo at all and had not been able to find any evidence of him, though she knew that there had to be something out there to help her find where her brother had gone. Timo had never managed to mask his passing all that well, though he’d continued to move, while searching for different power to steal more energy.
“Not Timo. This was Master Liu.”
“He’s… alive?”
The hope in his voice left Imogen saddened, mostly because she knew there was nothing that she could do to help, and also because she had felt something similar about what she had come to feel for Master Liu when she had come across him, and his fragments.
“Not exactly. I found dark magic that had been corrupted by him.” She explained what had happened, and what she had felt, and the way that the creatures—and Imogen had come to believe that they were actually creatures and not simply enchantments—had been turned by some dark power, which left her thinking that Aneadaz, or somebody who was working with him, had used the remnant power of Master Liu in order to turn the creatures dark. “I’ve held on to his fragment. I’m hopeful that with enough time, we can help him.”
“You would restore him? What will that do?”
Imogen looked up at the sky. “It’s not surprising somebody like Master Liu would leave power like this in the world. It’s not that different from what Benji did.”
“But Benji was Porapeth,” he said.
“He was Porapeth, but Master Liu was part Porapeth.” Imogen figured that mattered. There was a part of the Porapeth energy that Master Liu possessed, and it was that part that he had left behind. Maybe finding other fragments would make a difference, especially as Master Liu was not the same type of Porapeth as Benji. “I hadn’t even considered it before, but there are other powers like that,” she said, looking over at Jorend. “Others that have left that reflected magic.”
“The Sul’toral,” he said.
“Well, the Sul’toral are part of it,” Imogen agreed, “and when we were dealing with Aneadaz, we learned that the Sul’toral grew stronger as each one was defeated, making them an ever more powerful opponent.” It was part of the reason that her defeating Aneadaz had only slowed the danger and had not removed it altogether. She had removed the other Sul’toral, but there were still some that remained. “I hadn’t considered the possibility of them leaving some fragment of power out in the world in the same way Benji did. I should have. It was a lack of thought on my part.”
Jorend regarded her for a moment. “I’m sure your Porapeth friend would have something to say about that.”
“Oh, I’m almost certain that Benji would have something to say about it. He’d probably tell me that I was foolish, ridiculous, and he might even swear at me a bit,” Imogen said, smiling to herself. “And he was there with me when we found Master Liu’s fragment. He doesn’t know whether we can help him. He doesn’t know if there is a way to help Master Liu join the other ancients.”
Jorend turned and looked up, staring at the sky, and he started to frown. “Will that be what it’s like for all of us?” he asked, his voice soft.
“Will what be?” Imogen asked.
“The fragment. Being used. Is that what we are going to become?” He didn’t look at her. “When I was younger, I used to think that if I fought bravely enough, and fought on behalf of my people, eventually I would join with my ancestors in the afterlife.” He continued to look up at the sky, staring off into the distance. “But if you’re saying that those with power are different—”
“We are different,” Imogen said.
“Then what happens to us?”
“I don’t know,” Imogen said.
“What if we’re forced to haunt those we’ve left behind?”
“I suppose if you leave a fragment behind, it’s possible you will haunt others,” Imogen said, feeling ridiculous about having this conversation. But should she? Jorend was asking a valid question. With as much power as Imogen had begun to draw upon, it wasn’t much of a stretch to think that if she were to perish in a battle, she might leave some part of herself behind, power much like Benji had gifted to her, which could then be used against her people.
“I’d like to see if the shamans have a way of holding on to his power,” Imogen said.
“Why?”
“Holding on to Master Liu requires me to trap some aspect of him inside of myself, and it requires constant focus.”
“Well, you are Imogen Inaratha, First of the Leier,” he said, smiling at her.
“It drains me,” she admitted.
“Then perhaps you should find out. What happens if it doesn’t work, though? Would we lose Master Liu?”
“I think what would happen would be that some part of him would drift, and I could hold him again and might be forced to keep him inside.”
“And let’s say you trap him in some sort of an enchantment,” he said. “What would happen if you can’t break that enchantment?”
“That’s not going to happen,” Imogen said.
Jorend looked as if he wanted to argue with her, but he didn’t say anything.
Off in the distance, a soft shriek echoed, bouncing off the rock of the mountains, and slowly drifted its way toward them.
Jorend cupped a hand over his brow as he stared off into the distance. “The renral are angry,” he said. “I wonder what they’ve been hunting.”
“Something has them upset,” Imogen said, frowning. “When I was out searching, Zealar seemed off as well.”
“That one often seems… off, I suppose I would say,” Jorend said. He looked over at her, offering a hint of a smile. “He’s too powerful.”
“Like I’m too powerful?”
“Of course not, but you are the First,” he said.
“Maybe he is the First of his kind.”
Jorend laughed, and he turned to look up. “Perhaps he is.” He breathed out, and he turned toward her. “I wanted to talk to you about some of the preparations that we’ve been making. Our people have been gathering, and the shamans have been making their enchantments, using as many as they can to scout the surrounding mountainsides.”
Between the enchantments and the renral, they had other ways of searching than going by ground, and it was that which had provided them with the ability to find as many of the Leier as they could, in order to save as many as they could.
“We’ve come across several other villages, but they’re far from here,” he said. “Getting to them has been difficult. Not because of any danger,” he added quickly, to reassure Imogen, “but distance. Climate. Returning them has proven a challenge.”
“We will bring our people together,” she said.
“We have been,” Jorend said. “But at some point, I wonder what will happen if we can no longer find any more of our people.”
They both turned and looked toward the city atop the Heart. It had changed in the time that they had been here. Before, it had been crumbling remains, little more than a memory of what the Leier had once occupied, though it had truly been more than just the Leier. It had been a place of both their peoples. Koral and Leier. Bringing them both back here had bridged the gap between the two peoples in a way that Imogen had been trying to ever since she had begun journeying with them. And doing so gave her a chance to unite them and show them a common heritage.
“At some point, we are going to have to decide where else we will go,” Jorend said.
“You don’t think that we should stay?” she asked, though Imogen knew the answer to that. She had felt the answer herself, which was part of the reason that she had been traveling with the renral as often as she had, looking for anything to help her understand if there was more for them to do. They needed to find safety.
Not only that, but they needed to find a way to thrive.
As difficult as it was for many of their people to acknowledge, they had not thrived where they had been before. They had survived. Everyone had come to know the cold and the snow and the winds and the harshness of the mountains, but that wasn’t how life had to be, and that was what Imogen felt increasingly certain she needed to reveal.
“I feel like we should stay for a while,” Jorend replied, “at least until we gather more of our people together. Eventually, we will need to decide if this can be the home of our people again.”
Imogen understood. The Heart may once have been the home of their people, but that had been so long ago that none remembered it. Master Liu might, and perhaps even Benji knew something, if she had an opportunity to speak to him about it. But no one living remembered what it was like to be a part of the Heart.
“The renral are not getting any closer,” Jorend said.
“No,” she said.
“I was just concerned,” he said. “Perhaps unnecessarily.”
She looked over. “We have stopped the Sul’toral.”
“We have,” Jorend agreed, “but we haven’t stopped your brother, and we don’t know what he might attempt.”
“Then we remain vigilant,” she said. “Eventually, we will deal with Timo. Well, I will deal with Timo.”
For a moment, Imogen thought that Jorend might argue, but he did not. Instead, he nodded and turned his attention to the sky, to where the renral were circling as they continued their hunt for more of her people. When they discovered bands of Leier—or Koral, though they were rarer—they alerted Imogen and the others, who went and brought them to the Heart.
Lately, there had been only a few. Small groups, some only one or two people at a time, making their way toward rumored safety. And Imogen provided it.
But there were so few.
Her people had nearly been destroyed, much like the Koral had nearly been destroyed. And Imogen hoped to provide safety, but she didn’t know if there was any to be had long term, even in the Heart.
If not here, then where?
Chapter Four
The renral shriek caught Imogen’s attention. It was dark, late enough that hearing that cry brought back painful memories to her of the time when she had needed to protect her people from the renral. When she heard it now, she suddenly sat upright in her small home and looked out of the window. Wind gusted in, carrying with it some of the cool of the night, along with the smell of smoke from the many cookfires scattered throughout the Heart, but not much more than that. Still, there was something on the air that had changed, and Imogen tried to make sense of it, to understand just what she felt, but could not come up with anything.
When the renral shrieked again, Imogen headed out of her home. It was a small building that she’d claimed in the center of the city, one built entirely from stone that others had cleaned out for her, removing debris and providing a place for the First. She had not objected. Most of the homes were small, and with the size of the Heart, almost all could have a home to themselves.
Imogen looked up at the sky. There was something out there. Something that disrupted the renral. They seemed bothered in a way that left Imogen thinking that they had found something.
She had tried to rest. She’d been tired, as she had told Jorend, and yet rest had been difficult for her. Imogen had been having fitful dreams that she knew were not entirely her own. That wasn’t uncommon for her. Ever since Benji had given her his gift, and she had gained some connection to the Porapeth, Imogen had found that she often recalled memories that were not her own. Snippets of power came to her, and they carried with them aspects of the Porapeth’s knowledge and memories and experience. She had tried to make sense of the images but had never managed to do so as effectively as she wished. There was an aspect of control that Imogen still did not have when it came to those memories.
And now what she felt was a strangeness that she suspected came not only from the Porapeth memories but from Master Liu trying to settle in and provide her with some additional input.
“Listen, First,” Benji said, “I think you need to be—”
“I don’t need your advice,” Imogen interrupted. “Only your silence.”
“I am sorry, Imogen,” Master Liu said, his voice thin and thready. “I am… aware.”
“I know you are,” she said, realizing some of the issue between Benji and Master Liu stemmed from what she’d asked Benji to do—and his inability to know if he could. “Let me rest for a while.”
She laid quietly as the two of them discussed the situation, though it was little more than a faint murmuring in her mind that Imogen struggled to find a way to sleep through. She had not managed to do so.
