Their Spirit Unbroken (Relentless Book 3)

by Ryan Kirk

  His next question almost caused her to fall out of her seat. It would have been funny had the news not been so serious. “Have you heard that the princess was kidnapped?”

  She had not heard, and Lei had to spend the next several minutes telling her about his summons and what he’d discovered. Lei decided he felt sorry for whoever took the princess. Bai finished her meal and appeared outwardly calm, but Lei could see she had found a new purpose. The wraiths who took the princess would end up regretting their decision, he figured.

  As Bai finished her meal, the two of them traded information. They each knew parts of a larger story, but neither of them had any idea where any of it led.

  “If the wraiths were responsible for the princess’s disappearance and last night’s attacks,” she mused, “it stands to reason that this is all part of a larger plan.”

  “I agree. I wish I knew what that plan was, though, and how the princess ties into it all.”

  Bai nodded. “I can see why they attacked the Order. That’s no stretch, and if so many were gathered last night, it stands to reason they were about to make a move themselves. But why kidnap the princess? Most of them wouldn’t even recognize her as gifted, and if they did, wouldn’t they want her on the throne?”

  These were the same questions running through Lei’s mind.

  Just then, they were joined by Daiyu. She preferred to sleep in late these days, and from her disheveled look, she had just woken up. She also collapsed into her seat. Lei sighed. The table had only been set for one. He passed his teacup over to her and she took a grateful sip. He no longer had any part of his breakfast.

  Bai asked Daiyu a few polite questions, but then turned back to Lei. “How are we going to find her?

  Lei shrugged. “I had hoped that perhaps Shu’s gift would work for you. She sensed me as I entered Kulat. Given a little bit of time, she could probably find the princess.”

  Bai shook her head. “I have reservations about Shu. She froze during the ambush, which is one thing. Worse, though, is that she didn’t sense the ambush coming any earlier than I did. I’m not sure that I would trust her gift to something so vital.”

  Lei stared off into the distance. “I’m not sure what else to do. With so many people in this city, anyone else would practically have to be on top of her before they sensed her.”

  “There has to be another way,” Bai said. “With only the handful of us, it would take us forever to comb the streets of Jihan. We don’t have time for that, and it leaves the possibility of the wraiths moving her while we search. We’d have to rely on luck.”

  The silence stretched between them. Lei agreed with Bai’s assessment, but he had no other ideas.

  Daiyu spoke up. “There is another possibility neither of you are considering.” They both looked at her. Lei’s wife held the teacup tightly in her hands, warming herself around the liquid. She returned their gaze as though they were fools.

  “You say that the princess is gifted, so anyone else who is gifted should be able to help you. It seems to me that there is one considerable group of men that you are ignoring.”

  Lei figured it out first. “The monastery.”

  Bai backed away from the table. “No, no, no.”

  Lei laughed at Bai’s discomfort. He was no fan of most monasteries, either, but Bai’s reaction amused him. After all this time, she still felt so strongly about the monks.

  Bai almost stood up, but appeared to restrain herself through a tremendous force of will. “You want me to work with the monks to find the princess? As soon as they see me, half of them will want my head.”

  Daiyu answered Bai’s objections. “I don’t think so. The wraiths may want your head, but don’t make the mistake of considering all monks to be wraiths. The monastery may be more moderate than you think.” She turned to Lei. “Didn’t we hear a rumor that the monks in the monastery hadn’t really left since the attack?”

  Lei nodded.

  Daiyu glanced back to Bai. “It could be that the wraiths aren’t even in the monastery. If that’s the case, your odds seem much better.”

  Bai still didn’t seem convinced.

  Lei gave her a nudge. “After all, if there’s anyone in the world who doesn’t have much to fear from monks, it’s you.”

  Bai’s face fell. “I think that’s less true than I once thought it was.” She looked the two of them. “Do you think they’ll say yes?”

  Daiyu gave Bai one of her encouraging smiles. “The only way to know is to ask.”

  28

  Bai ran through her thoughts, placing them in some order she could recall later. In the other room, Rong had gathered Yang’s students. They waited for her now, and she wasn’t sure what to say to them. A higher ideal drove Yang’s students, a certainty they could create a better world. Bai found such certainty hard to accept. She didn’t want to make the world better, she just wanted to punish those who thought their crimes would never see justice.

  Through the strange knotting of fate and coincidence, they gathered to listen to her. Yes, she had saved them from an ambush, and Yang had been telling them stories of her for years, but they barely knew her.

  She’d considered Daiyu’s suggestion long after their meal ended. She wanted to find fault with the idea, but could not. If the princess was gifted and in the city, other gifted could find her. Walls might block sight, but not one’s power. The more people who sought the princess, the likelier they found her before harm came to her.

  She didn’t want this task, but no one else stepped forward. Bai preferred following the guidance of another. Lei should have been the obvious choice, but his refusal was immovable.

  She had once been a seamstress, the only daughter of a widowed mother. Her mother had done what she could, but they had grown up powerless. Bai had learned how to hide, how to be unobtrusive even in the middle of a crowd. When she had discovered her power, she learned to stand up for herself. But she still shunned the light, preferring shadows and darkness.

  Who was she to ask Yang’s students to take this risk with her?

  Bai clenched her fists. Any alternative was worse. She’d spent much of the early afternoon trying to find one.

  She stepped into the room before she could think more about her lack of qualifications. A sudden silence greeted her. Every eye turned on her, expectant. They already believed her and she had yet to say a thing.

  Bai had practiced a speech, but it fled her memory as she looked at those faces. Her voice came out quieter than she had practiced, but everyone in the tiny room heard her.

  She could feel them, her sensitive gift picking up different patterns within each of them. These were all people passed over by most monks, their gifts unique and strange to the established order.

  She wasn’t alone.

  That mattered.

  She took a deep breath, then began. She spoke of the kidnapping of the princess. Being Yang’s students, they all knew how important the princess was, not just for the continuation of the empire’s rule, but for their own futures. Then Bai spoke of her plan to find her.

  At the mention of the monks in Jihan, they all leaned back, as though her idea was a plague they didn’t want to catch.

  Shu answered quickly, almost before Bai finished. “None of us dare set foot in that monastery. They will hunt us.”

  And that was the crux of the problem. Bai believed the same. But the chance of them helping seemed greater than the chance of the five of them finding the princess in a place as large as Jihan.

  They needed the monks, even if that help risked everything.

  “Maybe. But we have the backing of an abbot. It’s also why we must go as a group. One of us they might ignore. But all of us prove that the world is changing. The gift is changing.”

  “Never,” Shu replied.

  Bai clenched her fist, angry at the woman’s flat-out refusals. “Do you have a better idea?”

  Shu nodded. “I will find the princess. My gift will be sufficient.”

 
; Bai grimaced. She hadn’t wanted the argument to come to this. This might be enough for her to lose the group. She didn’t dare voice her concerns about Shu’s gift, not in front of the students she was supposed to lead. “Even if you can find her, we still need the monks. What if she’s being guarded by a lot of wraiths?”

  The group seemed to hesitate, torn between Shu’s easier path and Bai’s riskier one.

  “Look,” Bai said. “At some point, all of you are going to have to come to the monks. You’re not living the way I have lived since I discovered my powers. You’re growing in strength and numbers, and you’re recruiting. They will know about you sooner or later. Why not make it now, when your revelations could get us the help we need?”

  Bai gauged the reactions of the small group. She saw some almost imperceptible nods. They wanted to believe, but a lifetime of hard-earned experience argued against her words. All she could offer was her promise.

  “I will lead the way. The monastery in Jihan has been weakened by betrayals within their ranks. I believe they will not resort to violence, but if they do, I will protect you all with my life.”

  The promise felt like a noose around her neck. But they needed the princess, and this was how it was done.

  Bai let the room remain silent. She had promised, and anything more felt like empty words, noise that meant nothing.

  When Rong stepped forward and bowed to her, leading the others, she knew there was no turning back.

  They wore no robes, carried no weapons, and rode no warhorses. Still, as they walked through Jihan, people moved aside for them. They walked down the middle of the street, their feet aimed for the monastery.

  Bai walked in the front, Rong taking the rear. Bai sensed no trouble, but she still felt as though she was walking through a battlefield. Few people were outside today. Colder weather and news of last night’s chaos kept most home. This wasn’t the Jihan she had visited regularly over the past ten years.

  Bai didn’t sense another gifted until they reached the monastery. Even there, she was surprised by how few she felt. No more than two dozen monks remained in the empire’s largest monastery. Why were there so few?

  Either way, fewer monks meant less danger. That was something, at least.

  Bai considered ignoring the gate and making for the hole in the wall created by the explosion several weeks ago. It felt like the wrong message, though. They wouldn’t make their entrance through the holes in the monastery created by violence. The would enter through the front gates, like any other monk.

  As they approached, Bai studied the monastery’s wall. If her history was correct, this was the second time in two generations the monastery’s walls had fallen. Like the monastic system itself, the monastery in Jihan came under regular assault. The scars in the wall testified to that.

  She calmed her heart as she stepped up to the gate. The monks standing guard looked confused, glancing uncertainly to one another.

  “We are here to see the abbot,” Bai announced.

  One of the monks replied, but with a question of his own. “You’re gifted?”

  Bai bit her tongue. Anyone in the vicinity could tell as much. “Yes.”

  The other monk scurried into the monastery. He looked dazed, frightened even. Bai worried they wouldn’t even be allowed in the gates.

  He returned a few tense minutes later. “The abbot will see you.”

  Bai turned around and gave what she hoped was a reassuring nod. The group walked through the gates into the monastery.

  The gate opened up into a large courtyard. Evidence of decades of hard training were everywhere, and Bai felt the history in this place. Despite the fact she had never been here, it still felt like a home.

  She noticed the monks lined up on the walls surrounding the courtyard. None of them had signed anything yet, but they were clearly prepared for a disaster. The man who she assumed was the abbot stood in front of them. He was at least a decade older than her, but her first impression was of a deep-rooted tree. This was a man she could trust.

  She hoped her impression was correct.

  Bai gave the man a short bow. The movement pained her, but she swallowed her pride for the sake of something larger. The bow was still more shallow than the abbot would have expected from a young monk.

  For a long moment no one spoke. When the abbot stepped forward, Bai saw that his steps were strong and graceful. He approached until he stood only a few paces away. He looked them all over like a shepherd examining a lost flock. “You’re all gifted.”

  She heard the wonder in his voice, the final stripping away of disbelief. The abbot continued, “Yang told us that the gift was changing. That he had found many with different skills. I didn’t believe.” His eyes met Bai’s. “Is this everyone?”

  Bai didn’t know, but Rong answered. “No. Many more are in Kulat.”

  The abbot nodded. “For decades now, there has been a sense among the abbots that we don’t understand this gift of ours nearly as well as we think. It has been hard, letting go of what we believed to be true.”

  He turned around and returned to his original position, a section of the courtyard slightly raised above the others. “I assume you come with purpose.”

  Bai stepped forward, feeling the hopeful eyes of the gifted behind her and the questioning eyes of the abbot in front. “We’ve come to ask your aid. We believe the wraiths have taken the princess. We plan to search for her, but your help would be invaluable.”

  She spoke for the next few minutes, telling the abbot what she knew and what she planned. Then she took a slight step back to await the answer with the others. Already the meeting had gone far better than she expected.

  The abbot stood in silent contemplation, and Bai finally broke, her curiosity getting the better of her. “Where is everyone? We expected far more of you.”

  The abbot’s eyes traveled to his feet. “Those who have aligned with the wraiths have finally broken from the rest of the monasteries. The man who leads them, Chao, was a monk here. He had a greater influence than I ever believed. Those you see are all that remain. Almost half left when Chao called for the wraiths to gather.”

  Bai didn’t believe. “How can he have such authority?”

  The abbot let out a long sigh. “I do not know. I believe he has connections to the emperor, but he has built his following one monk at a time for years. His vision has attracted far more monks than any of us realized.”

  Bai supposed the sword cut both ways. On one hand, it was terrifying to realize so many followed Chao. But it meant the monks most predisposed to violence weren’t here. No wonder their audience had gone so smoothly. The monastery had already been rocked. It searched for any anchor it could.

  Eventually he looked up, his eyes meeting Bai’s once again. “And what is it you desire? When we became monks, we swore to protect the empire. If your story is true, our duty is clear. But you have taken no such oaths.”

  “But we live within the same lands, shoulder to shoulder with you and everyone else. Right now, there is little safety for us. Most of this group has been in hiding since coming within sight of Jihan. Abbot Yang began a new path. The rule of the princess gives us a way to continue it.”

  The abbot nodded, his decision made. “We will help you in this. Our interests align.”

  The abbot gestured, and the monks along the walls visibly relaxed. They came down from their perches. For the first time outside of Kulat, monks and other gifted began to freely mingle. Bai stood apart from it, watching as greetings were exchanged and some of her group began demonstrating their unique abilities. She wished Yang was here to see his vision beginning to take root in new ground.

  The abbot came up beside her. “You are Bai, are you not?”

  She nodded.

  “Some abbots would have killed you on sight. Yet you led this group here, risking them all.”

  There was a question there, but Bai wasn’t quite sure what it was.

  “Are you bold, or just a fool?”
<
br />   She smiled a little at that. “Probably a bit of both.”

  His eyes were fixed on her, studying her reactions. “You believed you could beat the remaining monks, didn’t you?”

  The question wasn’t threatening, but curious. She could tell this abbot was uniquely suited for his position. In her experience, as people aged they closed themselves off to new opinions and experiences. They preferred the comfort of the familiar. But in front of her stood a man still driven by curiosity. He was exactly the type of leader the monks needed.

  “I hoped so. But I also hoped it wouldn’t come to that.” She looked at the group of gifted that had followed her here, trusted her with their lives. She realized she thought of them as hers now.

  “You are not what I expected,” the abbot confessed.

  “People rarely are,” Bai replied. “Let’s hope that our alliance is just as surprising to the monks who have the princess.”

  29

  Delun’s doubts faded. They didn’t disappear, but he could safely ignore them. It was difficult to maintain doubt when surrounded by so much certainty. By the time he woke from a nap on the afternoon after the attack, his attitude had shifted. His heart felt lighter as he looked upon his celebrating companions.

  Delun grabbed some breakfast. After the long night and the celebrations that followed, most wraiths didn’t awaken until the afternoon. Breakfast had been prepared to welcome the wraiths back to the waking world. Delun ate slowly while stretching sore limbs.

  Delun wandered among the monks. Last night meant more than he had guessed. Not only had the Order been destroyed, but the fellowship of wraiths had vanquished an enemy together. Delun felt the heady mix of pride, freedom, and community. He didn’t feel like an outsider any longer. Everywhere he turned, men invited him into their circles and shared their food and drink with him. They all knew he had been the one to kill the captain.

  He told the story time and time again, never forgetting to highlight Ping’s honor.

  A warm glow surrounded him. This warehouse reminded him of the monastery above Two Bridges many years ago. Here he was welcomed and made whole.