With what she’d seen from the Koral, even those who were incompletely trained, she would’ve expected some magical protections around these buildings. Instead, there was nothing. Even if they only had defenses around the buildings, it would be better than the emptiness she detected.
She started forward, moving carefully. By the time she reached the village, she had her sword unsheathed and was shifting between Petals on the Wind and Stream through the Trees.
“Do you always move like that?” Jorend asked.
“I do when I need to protect myself.”
“Why use the sacred patterns?”
“Because there’s a flow to them.”
He shrugged. “That’s what Master Liu said, but I was never able to capture the flow, according to what he told me.”
“I had to meditate on it.”
“Meditate?”
She looked over. “Don’t you meditate?”
“I focus on what I must do and try to understand what’s necessary for me, but I—”
She shook her head. Perhaps meditation was something she had taken upon herself, but it wasn’t typical for her people. She knew that her habits were unusual, but even before she had trained with Master Liu in the sacred temple, she had used meditation to help focus her mind. It felt as if it were an essential and critical part of what she did.
“I have discovered that when I concentrate on the patterns, repeating them in my mind and practicing them, I can understand them better. Especially the sacred ones.” Imogen chose her words deliberately, trying to make sure he understood that she wasn’t doing anything dangerous, as she didn’t need him accusing her of using magic.
Imogen moved forward slowly and carefully. When she reached the first building, she hesitated. It was made completely of stone and looked as if it had been quarried out of the mountain around them, stacked, and cemented together, with only the door and windows made of wood. Long timber with interwoven branches created the roof.
Testing the door, she found it unlocked, then pushed it open. As she stepped inside, a faint trace of moonlight illuminated the inside of the home. A fire pit stood in the center, and a table, chairs, and a bed had been shoved to the side. Otherwise, the place was empty.
She ducked back out and entered the next home, which was much the same. A snow-white fur coat hung behind the door, and Imogen slipped it on. Jorend frowned at her, but she ignored him. She wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity for warmth, especially since it didn’t seem as if whoever had lived in these houses was here anymore.
“Do you think they just abandoned it?” he asked.
She frowned, shaking her head. “I don’t know.”
This place reminded her too much of the villages on the outskirts of the Leier lands. She checked from building to building, and each one was the same, empty without a sign of anyone. By the time they reached the far side of the settlement, she felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold air.
Imogen immediately tensed, feeling an unease beginning to work through her. “We need to be ready. I think there are branox nearby.”
He frowned at her. “Why would they come here? The village is empty. There’s nothing for them.”
She didn’t have an answer to that. Why would they come? They fed on magic, and neither she nor Jorend had magic.
A shiver ran through her body, and Imogen moved through the village while maintaining her connection to the sacred patterns. She flowed in Petals on the Wind and shifted to Stream through the Trees, before pausing and looking around.
Jorend watched her as she moved.
“I’m staying ready,” she said.
“You move like Master Liu.” It was a compliment greater than she suspected he intended.
“We have to be careful.”
As they reached the edge of the village, she still hadn’t seen anything or heard the crackling of the branox. She had only felt the unease that indicated their presence.
They moved on, walking for the better part of an hour, neither of them speaking other than to quietly mention the cold. Jorend also asked her about one of the sacred patterns she flowed through.
Eventually, a gentle valley spread out before them, and within it lay another city. The massive settlement housed large stone buildings, with what appeared to be either a temple or a celebration hall at the center of it. Houses on the outskirts of the city were empty, devoid of any sign of life.
It was just like the last place.
Imogen crouched down on the ridgeline, staring for a long moment.
“Why would they have abandoned a city this size? This is a position of strength,” Jorend said. He frowned, and there was an expression in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Worry.
“Because of what I’ve been saying,” Imogen said. “They left because of these creatures.”
But why? That was what Imogen didn’t understand. She needed those answers.
She snuck forward but started to feel something creeping along her skin—a tingling sensation.
She raised her hand, and he looked over to her.
“What is it?” His voice was a soft whisper.
“Sorcery.”
“I feel nothing.”
“It’s subtle,” she said.
He frowned again, yet he didn’t push forward. Instead, he closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side, almost as if he were able to detect it in some other way. Maybe he could.
“There’s a faint current,” he said.
“Good.”
Jorend looked over to her. “How were you able to detect it so well?”
“I have some experience detecting sorcery,” she said. “When you train with those who can use it, you begin to recognize the different aspects of magic. You can start to feel it.”
She kept her voice quiet and controlled, not wanting it to carry too far from her. She didn’t think there were still branox here, though she didn’t know with any certainty.
“Did you chase sorcery?” he asked.
“No. I had a different bond quest.”
He nodded.
“Members of the Sorcerers’ Society are much more common elsewhere,” she continued. “They aren’t what we believed, though they are all powerful.”
Imogen moved forward, and when she did, she realized something: Petals on the Wind, a sacred pattern she had found useful in the forest and the mountains, had another advantage. It allowed her to detect magic used around her, but she didn’t sense anything now.
She paused, standing motionless in Tree Stands in the Forest. She used the power of the sacred pattern to push herself down and outward, straining beyond herself, and she could feel the roots stretching, giving her the opportunity to detect something else in front of her. She knew there had to be something more.
But she felt nothing.
“They didn’t activate any protections,” she said, mostly to herself. “Why not?”
“Maybe they didn’t know?” Jorend asked. He stood next to her, mimicking the sacred pattern she used.
She wasn’t sure if the branox had already come through or not. Either way, they couldn’t stay out here much longer. It was getting later, and the cold wind was biting, even with the fur coat. How far would she have to go to find evidence of the branox, though? Perhaps Benji should have come with her.
She turned and looked over to Jorend. “It’s time for us to—”
Imogen noticed blurring movement behind them.
It had to be the branox.
She darted forward in Petals on the Wind and quickly shifted into Stream through the Trees. As she did, she could feel that there was more than one branox.
Her blade caught the nearest creature, and it let out the high, awful shriek she had come to know—and hate. And then it was down. Imogen continued to stay vigilant, knowing she had to be prepared for more. But Jorend wouldn’t be ready for them.
She spun, moving quickly with her blade, feeling the speed with which she needed to move. Using the
sacred patterns, she carved down one branox, then another.
They fell before her, and Imogen was thankful the numbers didn’t overwhelm her the way they nearly had in the forest. When she was finally done and there were no further creatures attacking, she paused.
She hadn’t reached the unity, though she had started to feel it. If she could find that place again, she wouldn’t have to fear the branox at all. They wouldn’t be a threat to her— not when she reached that clarity of mind.
Jorend looked at the ground. “I didn’t even see this. I felt… well, something, but I don’t exactly know what it is.” He moved toward the body of a branox and wrinkled his nose as he poked at it with his blade. “You said they would not attack us if we did not have magic.”
Imogen nodded carefully. “I didn’t think they would.”
The branox hadn’t targeted her on her own before, though as she had come to learn the truth about her sacred patterns, she had to wonder if the magic that came with using them was from her rather than the patterns themselves. She hadn’t allowed herself to go down that line of thinking too much, worried about where it would take her.
She pulled on the leg of one of the creatures. Its body was heavy, and its foul blood was smeared across the stone. The skin was thick and cool even this early in death, and it had a faint oily quality to it.
“What are you doing?” Jorend asked.
She paused, looking over to him. “We are taking this back to General Derashen. He needs to know what we face.” She wasn’t sure that would accomplish what she hoped, but the general did need to know the truth about these creatures, even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Imogen worried that Jorend would argue with her, but instead he grabbed the other leg and helped her pull.
Part of the return hike meant trekking up the mountainside, and dragging the creature at a steep angle was difficult. She didn’t like that they left a trail of its blood behind, but the alternative was to carry it, which she didn’t care for, either.
“Where did you first find these?” he asked as they walked.
“There is a forest to the west. We had heard rumors of danger within the trees, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it.”
“You and the man you traveled with?”
She almost told him that Benji was a Porapeth but decided against it. She didn’t know how Jorend would respond to such news, and she had seen how Benji reacted when she’d told Lilah what he was.
“We had been making our way east.”
“You intended to return even before finding these.”
“Eventually,” she admitted. “We ended up in the forest, and we found a nest.”
“How many?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know how many were there at the time, but they were already gone. They had fed and left.”
“What did they feed on?”
“Creatures I don’t even know.”
Benji had mentioned them, but the massive remains she’d found were unlike anything she had ever seen before.
“You came after these creatures, then,” Jorend said.
Imogen looked over to him, nodding.
“Even though you know they can’t harm you.”
“Not me, but they can harm others.”
The farther they walked, the stronger the stench became. By the time they reached the border between the lands, they had fallen silent, and she wanted nothing more than to get back. Jorend had a determined step to his gait that had not been there before. Imogen had to hope that this came from what he had seen, though she didn’t know.
They reached the camp and marched toward the fire, where they dropped the branox body in front of General Derashen.
Everyone fell silent.
She glanced over to Jorend, and a troubled look in his eyes was all he offered.
“This is the creature I told you about,” she announced. “There will be more. And apparently, you don’t need magic for them to hunt you. They came after Jorend and me.” She nodded to the carcass. “Now we must destroy the body, or else it will draw more to us.”
General Derashen sat silent for a long while. When he finally spoke, he looked at both of them. “You said they weren’t attracted to us before.”
“They weren’t,” she said.
“Do you know what changed?”
Imogen shook her head. “I don’t. We encountered only a few. Several Koral villages, as well as a city, were empty.” She still wondered if they had been slaughtered or if they had escaped. Perhaps some of the Koral with them could provide that answer.
“And you want us to go after them?”
“The alternative is leaving these creatures to roam freely.”
“Roam toward sorcery,” the general said.
“What happens when they are full?” She looked at the others around the fire. “What happens if they decide that magic isn’t all they want? Or if they reproduce rapidly enough and there are thousands of them? What happens when that horde sweeps through the mountains? To our villages. Our homes.” She peered at everyone circling the fire, forcing each person to meet her gaze. “What then?”
General Derashen stared at her. “What would you have us do?”
“Whatever it takes to destroy them,” she said.
She sank down, overwhelmed by fatigue. Benji stepped out of the shadows toward the branox. He tapped the stone, which caused the ground to tremble and swallow the fallen creature. Benji backed away into the darkness, and Imogen nodded to him. Everyone else around them appeared too startled to do or say anything. From the looks on their faces, they recognized something, even if they didn’t know he was Porapeth.
She didn’t know if destroying the branox was going to be enough.
She had to hunt them, and she had to hope that the Leier would hunt them with her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They had been climbing down the mountain for the better part of several days. They’d passed a few more villages, moving through places that were devoid of Koral, though the evidence remaining told Imogen that there had been a time when this place had been far more populated. Each village they encountered left her bothered, though no one else seemed to be troubled.
The army stood amid a series of empty buildings. Most of them were small stone constructions that looked as if they had existed for generations, long enough that they should not have been abandoned so easily, were it not for the branox. Only a few buildings were larger, but they had nothing more than wooden supports remaining. They had been burned, the charred timber standing like fingers toward the sky, a scar along the mountainside and the only memory of what had recently happened here.
Imogen found her way back to the Koral prisoners, to an older man who was with them. She didn’t know his name, though he seemed to be one of their leaders.
“How has Lilah been doing?” Imogen asked without greeting.
She felt guilty that Lilah had been placed with the Koral, though she doubted she should feel that way. The girl was one of them. The necklace she wore was the marker of the shamans, though perhaps she hadn’t known the truth when she had been sent away with the Society to grow in her connection to magic.
“She is well. As well as any of us can be,” he said, irritation evident in his face.
“I’m sorry. I am trying to help. What happened here? Did your people leave, or…?”
He held her gaze despite his clear exhaustion. The deep, dirty lines in the corners of his eyes crinkled as he watched her. “I don’t know what happened with the others, but it was dangerous for us to stay,” he finally said.
“How many places are like this?”
“There are not many villages so high in the mountains.”
She frowned. “How far could your people have gone?”
He shook his head. “Our lands are scattered. It would’ve been difficult for them to go anywhere safely.”
Safely. That was the key.
Which meant that something had happened.
/> If that were the case, then they might already be too late. She had no idea how long the branox would stay here, how long they would feed, or how long it would take until the queen had what she needed. All Imogen knew was that she was probably too late.
Benji appeared and stood with the rest of the Koral, and he seemed just as troubled as he had before. He rested his hands on the stone, then swept them along it as if trying to find answers, but she could tell from his face that there were no answers to be found.
Imogen continued looking around while Benji worked. They had seen so many villages and towns like this, places where the Koral had once lived and thrived that now were empty. How many lives had been disrupted? How many had been slaughtered? They hadn’t seen the remains of bodies, which had initially given her hope, but the longer they traveled and found places like this that had obviously been attacked, the more she began to question if there was a more sinister reason for the missing people.
Benji straightened and looked over to her. “It does not speak.”
She walked over to him. “I know.”
“I keep thinking I should be able to find something here.” His eyes darkened for a moment, and Imogen suspected he was trying to see something. “If the queen feeds and moves…”
“We could lose her. And maybe even lose Timo.”
That was a lesser concern, though she still believed that her brother had something to do with all of this. She wasn’t sure what, and wondered if she would ever know.
They continued their steady march, and in the evenings, several came to her to train. Imogen offered her skills to them willingly, working with anyone who wanted to spar. She didn’t expect any to challenge her, and none did. Still, Jorend had taken to working with her. He hadn’t demonstrated anything more than he had the first time, and she didn’t know if it bothered him that he couldn’t defeat her. If it did, he didn’t show any sign of it. A part of her was tempted to challenge General Derashen, though she worried that if she were to win, she would be obligated to something she was not prepared for.
Unseen (First of the Blade Book 2) Page 24
