“How is this going to help us learn what we need to about the Sul’toral?” he asked.
She regarded him. He was bothered by all of this, she understood, but he was the one who had made the commitment to go after the Sul’toral. She had offered him her assistance.
“If it helps us find the answers,” she whispered.
“What answers do you think you’re going to find? What do you really think is going to be here?”
Imogen shook her head. She no longer knew. It was one thing, bringing down the adlet. That creature was terrifying and horrific, and she felt as if she had needed to remove it as a threat. But this…
The air crackled with energy, enough that she wondered if it was something Benji was doing or if it was residual energy from the sorcery that had been placed around the tunnel.
As Benji tapped his hand around the mouth of the cave, the ground started to tremble a little more. Finally, it eased.
“Did you shake it free?” Timo asked.
Benji frowned, tipping his head to the side and staring at the entrance. “It seems as if there is nothing to free. I find that most surprising, especially given what I was able to detect. Perhaps I miscalculated.”
“Or perhaps you’re making up your abilities,” Timo said.
“Like you’re making up yours?”
Imogen rested her hand on her brother’s arm, wanting to keep him from getting into an argument with Benji. It was not bound to end well. She didn’t fully understand the magic the Porapeth possessed, but even so, she knew she was not going to be able to challenge a Porapeth’s magic. More than anything else, that much was clear to her.
Timo shook her hand off of him. “Are you siding with him again?”
“What is wrong with you?” she whispered.
“Nothing.”
She couldn’t help but feel as if there was something going on with Timo, though she didn’t know what it was. At times it seemed as if he was just angry, and she had felt that from him ever since he had come to find her in Yoran. Maybe the injury had only exacerbated the darkness she’d felt in him since they’d reunited.
She stayed close to him.
“It seems like you’re chasing shadows,” she said.
What she really wanted to say was that he was chasing the shadow of L’aran, but she worried about how he’d react.
“I’m not,” Timo said. “Stop trying to tell me how to do something that I have been pursuing for the better part of several years. All while you have been tucked into the safety of your city. I have been searching for these sorcerers—the same sorcerers you should want to bring down—while you have enjoyed the comforts of Yoran. If that’s so important to you, then go back there.”
Benji huffed. “Are the two of you about done? I swear, I’ve not seen two siblings bickering at each other like that for many years.”
“I suspect something is working through him,” she said. She glanced back at Timo, who remained several paces down the slope, looking up at her. “And I have been trying to offer him whatever help I can, but unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much I can do for him.”
“There won’t be,” Benji said, shaking his head. “Other than finding the one who controlled the damn adlet. Perhaps we should be on with it.”
Imogen nodded toward the cave. “Now that the barrier is gone, can we find what you need to be able to track down the one controlling it?”
Benji looked as if he wanted to say something, but he regarded her face for a long moment and then bit back whatever it was. “I suppose that would be just as well. If you want, you may go ahead of me.”
Imogen frowned at him. “Why would I want that?”
“You’re the First of the Blade, are you not? I thought perhaps you would want to go ahead of me so that you can see what is there.”
“I think I know what’s there,” she said.
He chuckled. “Perhaps you do. Perhaps you do.”
He started forward, and he trailed his fingers along the side of the cave as he went in, running them along the surface of the stone as if feeling something only he was aware of. There was no further trembling to the ground, though she could still feel some energy, almost as though it emanated from deep within the cave.
“You’re connected to magic, are you not?” she asked.
Benji glanced over to her. “Are you looking for the secrets of the Porapeth?”
“I just want to know if you’re connected to magic.”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
Imogen breathed out slowly but did not respond.
“What are you looking for, First?”
“Imogen,” she corrected.
He turned, releasing his hold on the wall of the cavern, and he frowned at her for a moment before chuckling. “You don’t like your title?”
“I don’t claim the title any longer,” she said.
“And why is that? Because you are unbonded?”
“Yes.”
“Being unbonded does not mean you cannot take a bond or that you cannot find your own purpose again. All it means is that you have completed one task, and now it is time for you to build upon it. Are you afraid of going beyond the task you have completed?”
“I am not,” she said.
“Then what is it that you fear, First?”
Imogen held his gaze, noting a flicker in his silver eyes that seemed to practically glow, as if the Porapeth power tried to see deep inside of her.
“I don’t know what I fear,” she admitted.
He let out a laugh. “An honest answer. Do you know how few people are willing to acknowledge fear?”
“In my experience, plenty of people are willing to acknowledge it.”
“Only because what they fear is you.” He laughed again, and he started forward. “But I am magic, as that was the source of your question before. And if you are wondering if I might be able to use that magic on you, well…”
Imogen shook her head. She doubted the patterns would work against the Porapeth. It was part of the reason the Leier were taught to avoid these magical creatures.
But it was something more than that.
“I can see a question in your eyes,” Benji said.
“You can see nothing,” Imogen replied.
“Do you fear me?”
“No.”
He glanced past her, back to Timo. “Your brother does.”
“My brother fears things that have magic.”
“And you do not.”
It was a statement, not a question, yet Imogen answered anyway. “I’ve learned there are other things to fear in the world besides magic.”
She regarded Benji for a moment. Would he say anything in response, or would he let it drop? He struck her as difficult to understand. Not only that, but there was a strangeness to him, and she wondered if she could understand him. She had to be careful, though, especially when referring to the Leier view on magic, so that she wouldn’t offend him.
“Insightful,” he said. “So exciting. I can’t believe I have an opportunity to have a conversation like this with an educated Leier.”
She shook her head, feeling increasingly frustrated. “The reason behind my questioning is because I want to know whether you feel any influence on your magic.”
“I see.” He watched Timo, who had reached the entrance to the cave, but had gone no further. “Is that what you fear happened to him?”
“I’m not exactly sure what happened to him,” Imogen said. “And I don’t know if it’s the attack or not. He’s not the person I remember.”
“Why is that?”
“He feels off,” she whispered, though she didn’t know if that made any sense.
“And what about me?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know if you were off.”
“I always am,” Benji said with a smirk.
Imogen suspected that was true, and she resisted the urge to tell him that. Instead, she watched him, waiting, but he said nothing m
ore. “Do you?” she asked.
“Do I feel anything off?”
She nodded. “Is there anything? Or does your own magic protect you?”
He frowned at her, and once again, there was a flicker in his silver eyes that made it seem almost as if he could see something else other than her. What must the Porapeth be able to see? What must he be able to hear? That was the key to his magic that she didn’t fully understand, though perhaps it didn’t matter.
“It is not my magic that protects me, but that of the world and everything within it.”
“So you don’t feel anything?”
“Oh, I feel something. My arm hasn’t worked since the attack. I keep thinking it will heal, as I do heal fairly quickly, but in this case, it doesn’t seem like it wants to recover the way it should.” He looked down at his arm, and he wiggled his fingers. “I can get my hand to work. And my wrist, thank the heavens, but the rest of it? It’s a good thing I never would’ve been any use in a sword fight anyway, or I would be even less helpful now.”
Imogen took a deep breath and glanced back at Timo. “It might just be who he is now, but I fear there’s something else that happened to him.”
“Then perhaps you should try to remove the touch of the magic,” Benji said.
“That’s not possible.”
He clucked. “Perhaps not. But… I have faith. As must you, I believe.”
“Not a matter of faith,” she said.
“Not with an attitude like that, it’s not.”
He started forward, humming softly to himself, and he headed deeper into the cavern. The darkness within the cave made it difficult for Imogen to see much of anything, though she felt the energy around her.
She waited for Timo, and when he caught up to her, he said nothing.
“The two of you have gotten quite friendly,” he stated.
“Does it make sense to disrespect a Porapeth?”
Timo frowned. “I don’t like any of this.”
“Because of what he is?”
He looked over to her and opened his mouth as if to say something, but he clamped it shut. He took a deep breath. “I’m starting to wonder if you should’ve stayed behind in Yoran. You were happier there. And this…” He glanced over to Benji. “This is my bond quest.”
Imogen refused to be baited. “I need to keep moving. If this is a place of sorcery, then we need to—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish.
A deep rumbling sound came from someplace farther along the cave.
Then a flash of silver exploded, almost blinding.
When it cleared, the entire place started to tremble.
Chapter Twelve
There was something in the cave. Imogen wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but she kept moving carefully.
A soft howl sounded in the distance. She glanced over to Benji, but he didn’t offer any sort of reaction. It was almost as if he didn’t fear what they were dealing with. Perhaps he did not.
Another howl came—not the shrieking they’d heard from the adlet in the forest, but something different. And closer.
“There it is,” Benji said. “That little bastard is right in front of us.”
“Do you think someone is here controlling it?” Timo sounded almost eager, and Imogen worried about how he might react in that eagerness.
“Can’t really say. There might be a sorcerer here. We had better be ready for it.”
“I don’t detect any sorcery,” Imogen said.
Timo looked in her direction. “What do you mean?”
“I have spent enough time around sorcerers these days to know what their magic feels like, and I don’t feel anything.” It manifested as tension in her skin, as though it were too hot and constricting, and it left everything unsettled. There was no sense of that now.
Imogen stayed locked into a form. If she could stay tied to the pattern, then she could use that when the adlet darted forward. But she had to be careful. The more she flowed through the movements, the more she was aware of that energy around her. It crackled in here, and it was different than what she had detected when she’d faced the adlet before.
She looked over to Benji, who continue to trail his hand along the wall.
There was a steady groan. Then the adlet lunged.
This one was smaller than the last, though still ferocious. It moved with almost impossible quickness, snarling as it darted toward Benji rather than Imogen. The Porapeth was the real threat, at least according to the adlet.
As the creature lunged toward Benji, it thrashed and raked its claws at him. Imogen ducked down, slipping through several of her patterns, mingling forms three, eighteen, and thirty-one. It was a series of movements that helped her defend herself. She brought her blade around before she finally stepped forward in Lightning Strikes in a Storm, a pattern that had worked against the other adlet before.
The creature cried out, though she didn’t think she’d pierced its hide. Her sword bounced off and careened into one of the stone walls, which reverberated not only through her arms but through the tunnel. It was almost as if the cavern were angry with her for having struck it.
She didn’t have any time to look over to Benji to see his reaction, and she could only focus on the power within her, the energy within the blade. As she spun, bringing the sword up, she tried to twist and arc around. When she did, she could feel something within her.
It was power, but it was something more than just that. Something pushed against her, and she was alarmed by that pressure. It was more than what she had dealt with before—this was unique, powerful, and not just the adlet.
“Find the protections that connect it to the sorcerer,” she said to Benji as she dropped to her knees and slid forward.
She glided along the stone in the cave, bringing her blade up and around, but the adlet raked its talons at her. She ignored it as she twisted, and she crashed into the wall nearby. It was almost enough for her to stop her pattern, but she kept moving, staying within the flow, knowing she was going to need the full power of the pattern. The only problem was that she had limited space and had to find a way to use the technique without slipping out of her pattern.
“I don’t see them,” Benji snapped.
They had to be here somewhere. There was power around them.
Imogen shifted her pattern. She could disrupt any sorcery with traditional patterns, and that was the reason her people were trained with such precision. She had learned how to use them as well as any of the Leier had.
It was difficult to find the space she needed inside the confines of the cave. She felt as if she was going to crash into her brother or Benji, or perhaps even the creature. And she had to use her patterns without somehow getting caught by the adlet.
There was a faint glow around them, only enough for her to make out some of the contours of the cave around her. She brought her blade around again, jerking it up toward the creature’s arms. This time, her sword sliced into it.
She continued moving, flowing forward in the series of patterns that would disrupt any potential magic that might be here. Perhaps there was a sorcerer holding some spell. She wanted to be ready for it if that was the case, though she didn’t feel the strange tightness along her skin that would suggest that some sorcerer was here waiting. Still, she did feel the hairs on her arm standing on end, as well as a prickle along her scalp that left her thinking there was some energy around her.
Imogen swung the sword, and there came another loud shriek.
Benji needed to get the enchantments so they could stop the adlet. The challenge was finding them.
The ground started to rumble again. This time it was louder than it had been before, and Imogen hesitated. Was there a sorcerer instigating all of this?
“You won’t have much time!” Benji shouted. “Find the enchantments. Go, First.”
She hurried forward, feeling the ground shake and the steady tremble all around her. It had to be coming from Benji, but what was he doing?
There was not time for her to think about that. Instead, she darted ahead, bringing the blade up and swinging it into the creature. The adlet howled again.
“I can’t find them,” Imogen said.
Timo stood right behind her, too close for comfort. It seemed as if he was trying to help, though his sword remained sheathed.
Benji grunted and muttered a swear before he slapped his hand on the stone. He whispered in a language Imogen couldn’t understand, and then the ground started to shake with even more intensity.
The adlet cried out.
“That will hold you, you bastard,” Benji said.
The creature couldn’t move. Its legs had sunk into the stone, as though the ground itself had swallowed the adlet.
“Now we need to find those damn enchantments,” Benji spat.
Imogen eyed the adlet. The smaller size almost made it look youthful, and it had long, shaggy brown hair and a scruff of beard on its face. More like a juvenile than an adolescent.
“I’m going to put it out of its misery,” Imogen said.
Timo had moved off to the side, and he looked to be muttering something to himself.
Was he irritated? He seemed to be concentrating, though on what?
“There will be time for that, but we have to remove the damn enchantments,” Benji said. “Otherwise, I think the First here will crack her blade. I imagine she would be most displeased if that were to happen.”
Imogen glanced down at her sword, which had been forged by one of the most skilled Leier bladesmiths. She had a hard time thinking it would shatter against any sort of enchantments, especially given everything she had been through over the years, though it was possible.
Timo made his way toward the adlet.
She grabbed his wrist. “You don’t have to get close to it.”
“I’m not afraid of it.”
“It’s not a matter of fear.”
She needed to keep him away from wanting to slaughter everything magical. With his anger and his overwhelming desire to destroy all things with power, she wanted to ensure that he stayed clear of it.
Imogen turned to Benji, who was touching the ground, tracing his hands along the stone.
Unbonded (First of the Blade Book 1) Page 12
