Unbonded (First of the Blade Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Benji smirked. “Perhaps it is.”

  “Then what did the people with you want?”

  “They captured me,” he said.

  “I don’t understand. You said you were leading them.”

  “Perhaps I was,” he said. “But where was I leading them?”

  It was such a strange question, and it caught Imogen off guard for a moment. Her mind hesitated to catch up. “You were leading them to their deaths?”

  “I was leading them to you.” He smirked again. “There are things I can see, and things I cannot. What I can see blazes in my mind, like a bright light that guides me, and the things I cannot see are darkened, making it difficult for me to know what is there and what I’m supposed to do. In this case, what I was able to see was emblazoned in my mind. It burned brightly, guiding me. As it did, I saw where I was supposed to go, what I was supposed to see, and what I needed to do.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Why, to find you, of course. You needed guidance.”

  The idea that he had seen something about her, that he would’ve known her before they met, was unsettling.

  “What about Timo?” she asked.

  His brow furrowed, and for a moment, there was a bit of darkness in his silver eyes. He turned and looked at the smoldering flames. “I did not see the Scourge.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “I do not know.”

  “If you’re able to see, you should’ve been able to see him, shouldn’t you?”

  Benji looked over to her and nodded slowly. “I should’ve been able to, but the fact that I could not suggests that there is something hiding him from me.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “Not often,” he said, shaking his head. He got to his feet and tilted his head to the side, as if listening to the way his feet scraped the dirt. Then he nodded to himself. “It is time. We must go, if you are to find this brother of yours before he does something foolish.”

  “Is that what you see?”

  He laughed. “I see what I must, and I don’t see what I don’t need to.”

  “What about your magic?”

  “What about it?”

  “How do you use it?”

  He frowned at her. “You keep making a mistake, First of the Blade.”

  “What mistake is that?”

  “Believing I have magic.”

  He started to walk away along the finger of land she could scarcely even see, let alone follow, but he moved in a pattern. She was able to track that pattern and know where he was placing his steps.

  “I’ve seen you use magic,” she said. “I’ve seen the way you talk to the stone and to the trees and to the grasses. Regardless of what you said about meditating, you are using some sort of magic. And if you see things in the future, that is a sort of magic.”

  “Of course it is,” he said.

  They headed down a rocky trail that veered off to the north. In the distance, the outline of trees appeared far to their north, though the trail headed slightly to the east, away from the forest itself. Benji followed the trail, as if he knew where they were going. Every so often, he would crouch down, tap the stone, and tilt his head to the side while listening. Imogen started to feel strange about the way he did that, and she tried to figure out what it was that he was understanding. But she came up with nothing.

  “You said you didn’t have magic,” she said.

  “I did say that.”

  “Well?”

  He crossed his arms as he turned his attention to her. “Well what?”

  “What is it, then? Do you have magic, or don’t you?”

  “I don’t have magic,” he said. He whispered something, and the wind gusted again, striking her cheeks with a chill that swirled around her.

  “But that is magic.”

  He nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  “But you don’t have magic?”

  Benji watched her. “You keep thinking there is a great distinction that must be made.”

  “There is some sort of distinction that must be made,” she said.

  “A distinction, yes, but perhaps one that’s unnecessary.”

  She frowned at him, trying to get a sense of where he was going with this and what he was getting at, but she could not understand.

  “You don’t have magic, but you do have magic,” she said. “That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “That is your problem. You keep looking for answers you don’t need.” He paused and grinned at her. “I don’t have magic. I am magic.”

  Benji continued onward, making his way along the path. When she did not move fast enough after him, he paused, motioning for her to follow.

  Imogen frowned, shaking her head as she hurried after him. “What do you mean that you are magic?”

  “What has your experience been with those who have it?”

  “Sorcerers?”

  He nodded. “Sorcerers. Others like that.”

  “The El’aras,” she said.

  “That would be another example.”

  “And the Toral.”

  “Indeed,” Benji said.

  “Some of them use dark magic. Some of them don’t.”

  He paused, and he tilted his head to the side again, frowning. “That is where you are wrong again.”

  “How is that wrong? I have seen dark magic used.”

  “You have seen dark magic users, not dark magic. Magic itself is not dark. It is the user who is the key. Those who want to use it to control, to abuse, to harm are the dark ones. The magic itself is not what makes something dark.”

  He started off again and hurried along the road, leaving her watching him as she tried to come up with an answer. She had seen dark magic and dark magic users, and she was convinced that they were one and the same.

  “What about darklings and other creatures?” she asked. Darklings were terrible creatures that attacked from the sky, controlled by the Sul’toral similar to how the adlet were. She couldn’t imagine fighting them on her own, though. “We’ve also faced the adlet, and I trained against the hyadan.”

  “All dark creatures,” he said.

  “So that’s not dark magic?”

  “It is different. As different as it is to have magic and to be magic.”

  “But they are magic, then?”

  “They are, but a different kind,” he said.

  “I still don’t understand.”

  He paused and tapped his foot on a firm section of ground, which rumbled when he did. “They were created by one of the ancient powers, used for the purpose of controlling them, the same way your dark magic users these days use them.”

  “Was it Sarenoth?”

  His brow furrowed, and he shook his head. “Not Sarenoth. Older.”

  He turned and headed away from her, and each time she tried to ask him another question, he ignored her. They walked for much of the day through the swamp. The fog lingered, though it didn’t grow any thicker. She expected Benji to say something about her brother, but when she asked, he only said he knew where he was going.

  Otherwise, neither of them spoke much. Imogen tried to get him to engage in more conversation, but despite all her attempts to get him to speak, to share something and open up to her, he did not.

  She felt as if she was right on the cusp of something, something that would help her understand, and an answer that would give her a clue as to what more she might need to do and be able to uncover.

  Late in the day, they finally reached a section of the marshland that was different than the others. It was almost like it ended, but it didn’t. It stretched in either direction, but ahead of them was a mounded section like many of the dry areas they had been taking. Something rose in the far distance.

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  “We are near the heart of the Shadows of the Dead,” Benji said in a hushed tone.

  “This is where we have to go?”

  “I’ve been following the whispe
rs around us. They spoke of your brother and his trail, and it leads here.” He looked over to her, holding her gaze. There was worry in his eyes. He knew more than he was telling her. “But there is something else here.”

  “What?”

  “I cannot even see it.”

  “I should be worried about that,” she said.

  “Not as worried as I should be.”

  Imogen turned, facing the growing darkness in the heart of the Shadows of the Dead.

  “We should rest and prepare,” he said. “And you must decide, First of the Blade. Will this be your path?”

  She looked over to Benji and found him crouched, tilting his head slightly forward as he sniffed. He tapped one foot on the dry ground and drummed in a pattern. The water seemed to vibrate nearby, stretching toward the next clearing.

  He wanted to rest here? Now?

  But he hadn’t led her astray so far. Not that she knew, at least.

  “If Timo went this way, I need to keep going,” she said.

  “Even if it means facing the Sul’toral?”

  “Regardless of what it means. I need to help Timo.”

  Benji nodded. “I only hope you can.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Interlude

  Imogen waited in the garden outside the main part of the temple. She had been summoned to meet with Master Liu, who stood in place, unmoving. Being relatively new to the sacred temple, she had yet to understand what he wanted from her. She was younger than most here, her hair barely down to her shoulders and bound with a length of black silk that matched her hair. The flowing silk robes she wore were a part of the temple attire, and she no longer held her sword—the one that signified her rank as First of the Blade—quite as proudly as she had when she had first come to the temple.

  “Master Liu?” she said again. She had approached him carefully, but he had not answered.

  Now, she waited.

  This had to be another test. Master Liu had done nothing but test her in the time he had been working with her. First, to demonstrate how ignorant she was compared with him, and then how slow she was.

  This was something new, though, so she waited. If it was a test, she would prove her patience.

  She took a seat in front of him and rested her blade across her lap. He remained motionless, standing before her, staff in hand.

  How long would he stay like this? It was Master Liu, though, so she wouldn’t put it past him to stand here as some sort of a test.

  A few students moved past, but Imogen didn’t dare look over. At one point, she thought she heard soft whispering behind her, but still didn’t turn.

  A cold breeze gusted, but she forced herself to ignore it, much like she forced herself to ignore the rumbling in her stomach and her dry mouth.

  Maybe that was the lesson.

  She lost track of time, but hours must have passed. The sun reached its peak, then started to descend, all while she sat there. Only as the stars started twinkling in the sky did he stir, finally looking over to her.

  “What did you learn today?” he asked.

  She did not let her surprise at the question show on her face as she broke herself from her reverie. She had been sitting, contemplating why she was studying in the sacred temple, beginning to feel as if she had made a mistake.

  “You wanted me to learn patience,” she answered.

  He tapped his staff on the ground. “Stand.”

  Imogen followed his command and stood, having no choice but to do so. She held her sword across from him, stiff from having sat as long as she had, though she suspected that was his intention.

  Another part of the test.

  And because of that, she remained focused. He was going to require speed.

  He tipped his head—all the message she needed.

  Imogen darted forward. She could reach him this time. He had been standing in place for so long that it seemed as if he refused to move. But when she sped toward him, he deflected her almost while standing still.

  She spun, slicing through a series of patterns, never able to get to him. He reacted so fast that she could scarcely see it.

  He rapped his staff on the ground again. “What did you do wrong?”

  “I’m not fast enough,” she said. It was always the same answer.

  How could she not be fast enough, though? He held her gaze. His eyes were impossibly old, even then. His brow wrinkled, starlight reflecting off his forehead.

  “Is it speed, or are you sloppy?” he asked.

  The comment was like a slap across the face. He never criticized her technique. He always demonstrated what she needed to do, showed her how she had to fight, but he never commented on her patterns. To hear them called sloppy was an insult.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I will do better.”

  She backed away, and he drummed the staff against the ground.

  As before, she slipped forward, using everything in her ability to try to get to him. And each time she did, she found her attacks deflected. Each time, she somehow could not see what he was doing.

  “Sloppy.” He tapped the staff again. “And rigid.”

  “I’m trying to be precise,” she muttered.

  The staff came down on the ground with a sharp crack.

  “You must flow through the patterns,” Master Liu said. “There must be fluidity. Otherwise, you will never be greater than what you are.”

  Imogen prepared to attack again, but his slight tip of his head warned her against doing so. He wasn’t done with his instruction.

  “This is called Tree Stands in the Forest.”

  Her heart hammered. He was teaching her one of the sacred patterns?

  In the time that she’d been here, she had been disabused of the notion that she was as skilled as she had long believed herself to be. All it had taken was a few sessions with Master Liu, and she had come to understand that she was nothing compared to what she believed herself to be.

  “What do I need to do?” Imogen asked.

  He tapped the staff again. “Once you learn Tree Stands in the Forest, we will move on to the others.”

  She waited for him to show her something. Anything.

  But he didn’t.

  Moments passed before she realized what he was doing. He had already shown her Tree Stands in the Forest. The sacred pattern was the one he had been standing in all day.

  “What does it do?” she asked.

  “Only when you master it will you understand. I must warn you, this is the most difficult of the sacred patterns to grasp fully. I show it to you first so that you have the most time to comprehend it.”

  She stood motionless, trying to model herself after him, thinking she had to find an answer—but she couldn’t figure anything out.

  “How will I know when I’ve mastered it?”

  “You will know.”

  She waited for him to explain more, but he didn’t. Then again, he never told her much. And now, he simply watched her, as if that was all the answer she needed.

  “When will I learn other sacred patterns?” Imogen asked.

  “Always so eager. Do you think you’re ready?”

  “I want to know them all.”

  “There is a difference between seeing and knowing,” Master Liu said.

  “I want to see them all, and learn them, and master them.”

  He watched her for a long moment. “Perhaps you will be the first.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Imogen thought about the sacred patterns more and more these days. She didn’t understand them any better, though as she looked back, the earliest lessons that Master Liu had taught her were still within her. She could see those lessons even as she closed her eyes.

  When she meditated, she understood the sacred patterns in a way she had not when she had first learned them, in a way she could not have before. Experience had taught her something she had questioned. Could she even know?

  And now she felt as if the answers were there, but sh
e had to find them.

  The first lesson had been Tree Stands in the Forest. She had been sloppy then, according to Master Liu. Even now, Imogen wondered what he had meant. Either he had moved so fast that she hadn’t seen it, or he hadn’t moved but had still deflected every attack somehow. If the sacred patterns were magic, then he had knowingly used magic.

  And she had not even understood that back then.

  She’d seen Tree Stands in the Forest so many times that she had recognized the pattern and demonstrated it for him, but she had never reached what he considered mastery. Then again, none of the students within the temple had mastered that technique.

  She had met other students with notches on their blades, demonstrating that they had mastery of one or more of the sacred patterns, but that one eluded even the most skilled. The simplest, yet the most difficult.

  Imogen had to find the fluidity. She had to understand. The patterns were within her—within her mind, within the lessons he had conveyed to her. All she had to do was focus, concentrate, and she could bring back those memories.

  Master Liu had taught her everything he could. He had made that point clear to her when he had sent her away from the temple before she’d mastered any of the sacred patterns. At the time, she knew she’d been a failure.

  Her bond quest had been her chance to change that.

  And she had, all while still trying to come back to her patterns so that she could understand them better. Now she felt the need to embrace those patterns—to find the knowledge in the energy within them, to see if she could uncover the reason Master Liu had wanted her to train with that power and those patterns, and to uncover their secret.

  The sacred patterns flowed within her mind, the ones that had come from Master Liu himself. Imogen had to find the key within them. She had to understand them, embrace them. Could she, though?

  She opened her eyes, and she stared at the darkness in front of her.

  “Come,” Benji said, his voice drifting to her from the other side of the solid mound of earth. “It is time to move. I feel something, and the wind tells me that we must go.”

  Imogen stood up as thunder rumbled, and then a burst of lightning split the sky. The air crackled with the energy she remembered from her time training with Master Liu.