“If somebody else tries to claim them…”
He frowned, and his nose wrinkled before he tilted his head into the sky, taking a deep breath. “Ah, fuck. Maybe you’re right and we can’t leave them here.”
“Can somebody just use that power?”
“Not without permission.”
“From the Sul’toral?”
Benji nodded. “The way I understand it, the Sul’toral has to grant their permission to access that power. If they don’t…” He shrugged. “Can’t say what happens. Maybe the bastards die.”
“So we could just toss them into the swamp. Unless somebody might find them.”
Benji smiled at her. “Take them. Keep them tucked away, carefully, and do not attempt to use them until you can be sure the power within them has been mitigated.”
Imogen grabbed the enchantments off the ground, feeling the cold energy within them. “You could carry them. You have your Porapeth power. That seems like it would be useful for something like this.”
“You’d think it would be, but it doesn’t do much for that sort of thing.”
She waited, hoping he might be able to offer some help, but Benji did not. She stuffed the enchantments into her pocket and looked around. Fog still hung over everything, though she suspected that Benji would continue to work at it as they trudged through the Shadows of the Dead. He tapped on one of the twisted trees, cocking his head to the side and listening.
“It shouldn’t be much farther,” he said.
“Did the grass or the tree or the wind tell you that?”
He looked up. “Yes,” he said without any hint of sarcasm.
If the natural elements were going to guide them, then she would follow.
They continued to take a twisting course through the swampy marshland. Benji managed to keep them as dry as possible, and Imogen found herself starting to relax. Just a little, though. The pain in her hip persisted, and while it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been after the initial injury, it was difficult to move steadily.
“How does it feel?” Benji asked.
“Painful,” she said. She locked eyes with him for a moment. “The patterns require precise movements.”
“Now you’re afraid you won’t have control over the sacred patterns.”
“If the sacred patterns are—” Imogen stopped herself, and then she shook her head and swallowed. She didn’t need to keep this from Benji. At this point, it seemed Benji already knew what the sacred patterns were and what they meant.
“You can say it,” he said.
“If the sacred patterns tap into something greater.”
Benji laughed. “It amazes me how many people fear what they do not understand.”
“I don’t fear it,” Imogen said.
“You haven’t fully accepted it either.”
They continued onward, and she limped behind him, trying to fight back the pain. She needed to find whether she could still flow through the patterns even with her injury. She attempted to use one of the easier patterns as she walked. Each time she turned, putting pressure on that injured leg, some part of her throbbed and made it difficult.
She wasn’t going to be of much use if they came across some magic like they had before. It had been a wonder that she’d managed to withstand a Toral, but if they fought another or came across other creatures of dangerous power, Imogen wasn’t going to be able to depend on her Leier patterns or the sacred patterns.
Something that Benji had said bothered her. She hadn’t given it enough thought, but perhaps she should have.
“You were telling me about my brother,” she said, trying to keep up with the Porapeth.
He looked over, and his silver eyes flashed, almost as if there was a pale light within them. Then it was gone. “That is not my story to tell.”
“Considering Timo isn’t here, I think it is. At least for now. It would give me a starting point to be able to talk with him.”
“A starting point?” He chuckled. “Do you really need something like that to have a conversation with your brother?”
“Timo and I have not been close for many years.”
“So you need something to bridge that connection? That’s a shitty concept for your kind.”
“It isn’t like that.”
“Do you think your brother would want to talk about his title?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“What about you? Do you want to talk about the First of the Blade?”
Imogen clamped her mouth shut, and she gritted her teeth. She followed Benji for a few more paces before shaking her head. “It seems to me that you know all about my people and our titles. Knowing that I reached the level of First of the Blade is but the beginning of my journey.”
“Was that the way you saw it?”
She frowned for a moment, then finally shook her head. “At the time, I would’ve said no. Now, when I think back, I see how I viewed things.”
Her invitation to the sacred temple had meant that she was truly capable. When she had gone, she had believed she would thrive and quickly master the sacred patterns, doing something only a few among the Leier managed to do: receive a notch on her blade, signifying true mastery.
But she had failed. That had been the hardest lesson for her.
She tucked those thoughts away. They did nothing but plague her, and she had moved past her failings through her time in Yoran.
“What about you?” she asked. “You don’t talk about yourself.”
“There isn’t much to say. I’m a Porapeth. You know what that means.”
She snorted. “I know you’re a Porapeth, but I don’t know anything about what that means. You have magic, and you can see the future.”
Imogen hesitated, hoping he might share something more with her. They continued their meandering course through the swamp, Benji leading like he knew the way.
“I can see possibilities,” he explained. “Not the future. Anyone who says otherwise does not know the truth. No Porapeth can see the future unless they are guiding the path.”
Benji watched her as she walked, and there was a strange look in his eyes, something that suggested that perhaps he knew what she was thinking.
She limped through the darkness, and the farther they went, the more her limp began to ease. Thankfully, she could feel the pain within her starting to subside.
“I see the way you’re looking at me,” she said.
He let out a small laugh. “Do you? That isn’t what you want to know, though.”
She frowned at him. “Isn’t it?”
“You have been looking for your brother, but I’m afraid the man you found is not him.”
She started to smile, but she realized he wasn’t joking. “Who is he, then?”
“You aren’t going to like the truth.”
“Do I need to know it?” Imogen asked softly.
“The Scourge built up a reputation recently,” Benji said, breaking the silence between them. “They targeted sorcerers. Dark magic.”
“That sounds like Timo.”
He nodded. “It isn’t altogether surprising. Given what we have encountered over the years, those who target dark sorcerers are fairly common. There are some who think they are the only ones who hunt for the darkness, and others who believe they are somehow justified in doing so.” He shook his head, and he stared off into the night. “But then something changed with the Scourge.”
Imogen took a deep breath. “He was searching for L’aran. It was his bond quest. He had been looking for a long time. Perhaps too long.” She understood what it was like to be away from their people for as long as she and Timo both had been. It would have changed things for him as much as it had changed things for her. “I can’t imagine what it was like for him to search for as long as he had been. I think he struggled after he lost those who had been journeying with him.”
Benji watched her. There was a flicker in his silver eyes, and then he shook his head. “How recent do you think this was?”
> Imogen shrugged. “It would have been within the last few months.”
He fell silent, and they continued making their way across the rolling landscape. Her fatigue was starting to fade. The farther they went and the farther they walked away from the fallen Toral, the more something was changing for her. She didn’t feel nearly as drained as she had before.
“The Scourge has not been active for the better part of the year,” Benji explained. “Maybe even longer than that.”
Imogen frowned, staring off into the distance. That timing wasn’t quite right. Timo had been chasing the sorcerers until recently, hadn’t he?
“You know something more,” she said.
He smiled tightly. “You won’t like it.”
“Which means I probably need to hear it.”
Benji snorted. “I find that most people prefer not to learn what they don’t want to know.”
“I’m not most people,” she said.
“Maybe not,” he said with a chuckle. “But still, you’re someone who’s tried to hide from yourself.”
They made their way through the swamp a little while longer. The fog had mostly faded, though she wasn’t convinced they were in the clear. Imogen had come to realize that the more she pushed Benji, the less likely he was to answer.
Finally, he swept his hands through the space in front of him, as if tracing a pattern on the wind itself. A faint breeze began to blow gently, carrying with it the smell of the grasses, nearby trees, and even a hint of a strange and almost pungent floral scent.
“So, what happened?” she asked.
“The wind carried a different story,” he said. “It was one of the Scourge taking on a new meaning.” Benji shook his head. “Something worse.”
Imogen wanted more answers as they continued walking, but she didn’t know if he was going to be able to provide them to her. She thought about what Timo had said—how he had known there was a side path he needed to take when he’d started hunting sorcerers other than L’aran, and how he had been the reason they had taken this journey.
She had gone with him willingly. She had felt that it was her time to finally leave Yoran and to understand what more she could do for her people. More than that, she had wanted to help her brother.
When they had reached the village of Helophen and encountered the rumors they had learned there, she had thought it nothing more than chance. The longer she walked, the more Imogen couldn’t help but question what Timo’s side path might have been.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They found a larger section of dry land with none of the strange trees. Imogen was thankful for that, especially given what Benji had said about how the trees themselves might stab down and try to feed on her. She couldn’t imagine something like that.
They rolled out their cloaks, and Imogen rested, though it was not restorative. Still, night passed, and she awoke feeling a bit better. She had thought she would close her eyes for only a few moments. She had slept hard, though, and morning came too quickly. Imogen felt tired when she got to her feet, and she looked up to the sky. Some of the fog remained, though she couldn’t tell if it was natural or not. It seemed to rise from the marshland and meet the sky, looking like clouds forming closer to ground.
She stretched, trying to work out the throbbing in her hip as she looked around the small clearing. Benji was not there.
Imogen crouched before the remains of the fire. As she had taken to doing most mornings, she concentrated on the patterns, letting her awareness of them come to her, working through each of the traditional ones before moving on to the sacred patterns. It was her meditation, something relaxing that helped her feel more like herself.
In her mind’s eye, she brought the sword around through the various patterns, and she wasn’t injured like she was now, able to move as quickly as she needed to. All of the patterns had their own sort of power. Some of them were quick, some were slow, and some were a mixture of movements, as though they needed to have that irregularity in order for them to gain the power they had. She completed her meditation.
When she finally opened her eyes, Benji was stooped next to the ground in front of her, tracing his hand in a strange, circular pattern above the damp earth. He looked up at her, saying nothing for a moment. Finally, he grinned at her broadly.
“Do you know that your mouth moves as you do that?” he asked.
“My mouth moves?”
“It’s slight, but I noticed how your lips were moving, as if you’re talking to yourself. Do you talk to yourself when you meditate?”
Her brow furrowed in thought. “I don’t think so.”
He laughed. “Then you do it without meaning to. I understand what happens, though. I find myself doing something similar.”
“You talk to yourself?”
“Only when I meditate.”
“I didn’t realize you did.”
“What do you think I’m doing when I’m crouching to the ground?” Benji asked.
“I thought you were talking to the grass. Or the trees. Or the wind.”
He leaned down, tracing his finger along the ground, his lips moving in a faint murmur. Again, there was a soft language Imogen couldn’t fully understand.
“Perhaps that’s all it is,” he said. “But then, you’d be missing out on something else.”
“What would I be missing out on?”
“Understanding, of course,” he said.
Imogen took a seat and began to chew slowly on some dried meat she pulled out of her pocket. She needed to have a full stomach before they started off for the day.
He watched her and chuckled, as if amused by her eating. “There are other things you could eat,” he said.
“Like you have?”
He smiled. “There are things found in the world around us. All you have to do is ask.” Benji held his hands out, revealing stacks of berries in his palms.
She frowned. “How did you do that?”
“How did I do what?”
“How did you keep them concealed?”
He chuckled again. “I didn’t keep them concealed. I just went looking.” Benji leaned back and plucked one berry, tossed it into his mouth, and chewed slowly. He grinned at her as he did. “You can have one, if you would like.”
She leaned forward, and she held her hand out to him. “Why do I get the sense that this is some sort of trick?”
“Because you want to see danger in everything,” he said.
She shook her head. “All I want is to eat, then find Timo before he tries to take on the Sul’toral by himself.”
Imogen took a berry from him and chewed on it, which was unlike anything she’d ever had before. The fruit burst in her mouth, a hint of sourness initially, and then it became sweet, almost impossibly so. She swallowed, and there was a cool sensation that worked down her throat into her belly, where it pooled. It was pleasing to her, and the sensation felt right.
Benji watched her, as though he was trying to decide what to say to her. “Why is it so important that you find your brother?”
“I lost him once,” she said. “When he left, he brought others with him who believed in his mission, the purpose he had, but it was because Timo had thought that he could take action for those who had been wronged.”
Benji smiled and nodded slowly. “You didn’t agree with him.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
He said nothing.
“Or do the Porapeth not have siblings?”
“We have what we have,” Benji said.
It was another nonanswer. Imogen just shook her head, though there was no way she was going to push him to say anything more. It didn’t really matter, anyway.
“I didn’t agree with what he was doing,” she continued, “and at the time, I chastised him for what he chose. I told him he was making a mistake, and that doing what he was doing would not bring honor to the family.”
“I see. Was honor so important to you?”
“I though
t so at the time,” she said.
Imogen looked across the remains of the fire, the hint of smoldering embers, and it was enough that she felt as if there was some power that lingered there, though she didn’t remember what Benji had done to start the fire. For that matter, she didn’t remember much after they had come to the campsite and she’d settled on the ground. Neither of them had stood guard, she was certain of that. She had allowed her fatigue to overwhelm her.
“What about now?” he asked.
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
“What did you see when you were away?”
“I taught the secrets of the Leier to those who suffered under the influence of the Sorcerers’ Society. I used the people to help me hunt down the hyadan keystone. I lost them, was betrayed by them, and returned to them.” She breathed out. “I made friends. Learned about sorcery. And said goodbye to those same friends.”
Her time in Yoran had changed so much for her.
“They had thought to use me,” Benji said quietly, ignoring her comment. “Some people think they can force a Porapeth to see things. They think it’s as simple as that. Not smart, is what I say. You can’t force magic. Even when you have it, you can’t force it.” He glanced over to Imogen, saying nothing for a long moment. “There are those who believe the Porapeth can share secrets. And in some ways, we can.”
“In some ways?”
“We are connected to the world.”
“You’ve said everything is connected.”
“And so it is,” he said. “But the Porapeth are connected in ways others are not. As you have probably seen.”
Imogen didn’t know what she’d seen, only that she had recognized there was something different with Porapeth—and with Benji—than what she had observed from others with magic. All she knew was that whatever power he possessed was beyond what she could fathom.
“You know things,” she said. “There are rumors like that.”
“Rumors have a way of being accurate.”
“So you do know things, then?”
“I know many things. If you live as long as I have, then you will have an opportunity to know things as well, First of the Blade.”
“This is different,” she said.
Unbonded (First of the Blade Book 1) Page 22
