Unbonded (First of the Blade Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  He crouched down and touched the ground, and it trembled faintly, though not nearly as powerfully as it had before. She waited, feeling the tension along her skin, the significant tightness that worked over her signifying how much power Benji attempted to draw on. But there was nothing else. Whatever he was doing had faded.

  “Someone here is far more powerful than I expected,” he said.

  “We are in the Shadows of the Dead, a place where a Sul’toral is active. What did you expect to find?”

  He stared into the distance, his brow furrowed, and the ground trembled where he touched—not only at his hands but near his feet as well. He pushed, and Imogen could practically feel something radiating up from where he pressed.

  “Not this,” he finally replied.

  “If this is all about serving Sarenoth…”

  “I’m not exactly sure anymore. I can’t see it.”

  She glanced over to Benji, waiting for him to explain more, but he didn’t. He simply stared, and she had a feeling that he was more concerned than he let on.

  They had to work quickly—more quickly than he anticipated, Imogen guessed.

  “What pattern should I use?” she asked.

  It felt strange to ask Benji that, but she had seen him using similar patterns, and she suspected that he understood the patterns far more than he had revealed. And if he did, he might know which one would be most effective.

  “I can’t guide you through your understanding of your people’s power,” he said. “You must find that understanding within yourself.”

  “I don’t know what will work,” she admitted.

  Her mind raced through all the sacred patterns Master Liu had demonstrated. He had shown her all thirteen of them, though she had never had mastery of any. And there was the one technique that was the simplest and most difficult.

  What would work now?

  Benji pressed his hands to the ground, as if he had some way of suppressing the power here, and then he brought his hands up.

  What was he was doing?

  He swung his hands back down, slamming them into the earth. As he did, the ground rumbled, then exploded. All of the quaking in front of them began to ease, and it finally stopped altogether.

  “Go,” Benji said.

  Imogen glided forward. She had to get inside the tower. As she moved, shadowy forms appeared out of the fog. She could scarcely see them, though she was aware of the strange tension along her skin. She didn’t know what the figures were, but she could feel them and the magic within them.

  Were they adlet or manalak or more Toral? Or something even worse…

  It didn’t matter. She stayed within the traditional patterns, unsure she could trust the sacred ones. She wanted to, especially knowing the key to them now and having used them to keep herself safe, but she also worried that if she relied on the sacred patterns and did not have the necessary skill with them, she would succumb to the upcoming attack.

  The shadowy forms were upon her. An adlet appeared, and she darted at it, carving into its flesh. The creature shrieked a horrible sound, and Imogen brought her blade around, stabbing it again. The adlet shrieked a second time, but at least it backed away.

  Another took its place. She couldn’t be afraid of these creatures. She had to get through them in order to find her brother.

  Imogen danced to the side, focusing on a pair of patterns that she merged in her mind, and then she swiped. She cut the adlet’s legs, then swung up toward its belly before stabbing it in the chest. The adlet backed away from her like the first one did.

  One of the manalak loomed in front of her. The creature was horrifying, and she raised her blade, steadying herself. She raced toward it and soon lost herself in the patterns. It was the only way she could keep going.

  The creatures pushed back, the ground trembled, the fog swirled. The fight was brutal, nearly impossible, but she could not abandon it. She had to continue, to push herself forward.

  And then she was done.

  The fog persisted, but she felt nothing within it. Imogen circled around and realized she had reached the tower. She looked but didn’t see any opening to the structure. Benji continued to suppress the ground, keeping it from trembling. She waited for him to uncover anything else, but there was nothing other than the fog.

  She circled the tower, but Benji hadn’t followed her. Instead, he went a different way, leaving her.

  Imogen reached a massive, arched door made out of a dull-gray metal. Symbols were carved into its surface—spells, she suspected. Shadows seemed to cling to the door in a way that felt unnatural. The entire structure left her whole being on edge. She sensed power, but it was a dangerous sort that made her shiver.

  She swept forward, bringing her blade around, carving as if to cut through some of the patterns. Even though she saw nothing, she knew there was sorcery here, but it was sorcery that came from every place around her. For all she knew, it came from the fog itself. More likely, though, it emanated from the tower. She realized that those strange runes were not just on the door, but were worked into the stone.

  Benji should be here. She waited, looking around for the Porapeth, but there was no sign of him.

  She knew what he would want for her.

  Get inside.

  Find her brother.

  Stop Dheleus.

  She approached the door and tested the lock, but it remained closed. There was a presence along the surface of the door, power that sizzled within it.

  What pattern would work here?

  A voice drifted through her mind, like someone was giving her the answer. It might have been her own thoughts, or perhaps memories of Master Liu, or even Benji somehow communicating with her.

  Lightning Strikes in a Storm.

  She focused, then she flowed forward. Her blade struck the metal, and an explosion of purple energy swirled around her. When it cleared, the door swung open.

  A cold feeling from inside the tower washed over her. The walls were all the same pale gray as the door, but they seemed to be made of stone rather than metal. Symbols etched into the stone looked like the work of sorcery, though she didn’t know their purpose. All she felt was a desire to stab each of those spells with her sword and destroy them.

  Benji needed to be here. He had suppressed whatever power was around the tower to give her the opportunity to reach it.

  Now she had to go after Timo. He had to be somewhere.

  She stepped forward through the doorway and into the tower. The moment she did, shadows separated from the walls. They coalesced, and it took only a moment for her to realize what they were.

  Adlet.

  They howled softly, one after another. The sound was a mournful cry, painful, and it lingered in her ears.

  Three of the adlet surrounded her, and she darted toward the nearest one. She dropped the tip of her blade down. Unlike when she had faced them before, when she had focused on the precision of the traditional patterns, she chose the flow of the sacred patterns this time. Imogen instinctively used Petals on the Wind, a pattern she would not have expected to be powerful. But as she glided forward, she swept her blade toward one of the adlet—and then through the creature. A spray of hot warmth splashed her as the adlet howled.

  She turned, staying in Petals on the Wind. The air crackled, and her skin was tight. For the first time, she questioned whether that tension was because of her or because of the creatures around her.

  She didn’t have an opportunity to consider it more as another adlet lunged toward her. She ducked and shifted to Lightning Strikes in a Storm, using a fluid movement to drive her blade forward into the creature. She withdrew the sword, spinning and switching to Stream through the Trees.

  It felt… right.

  The sacred patterns had always been straightforward, especially compared to some of the traditional patterns she had learned to use. But it wasn’t the complexity that gave them power, she now understood. It was the fluidity. It was how she harnessed the power that t
he pattern could generate.

  Something crackled, and she spun to find the third adlet coming toward her. The creatures were not powerful, but they had access to some sort of magic. She brought her blade around and carved. Resistance met her blade, but as she continued to sweep her sword forward, there was a strange, soft explosion as the spell shattered. Then her blade penetrated the creature, and it fell to the ground.

  Suddenly, the darkness faded, and pale light glowed around her.

  That had not been there before, had it?

  She brought her sword around again, and it shattered a spell trying to surround her. Imogen danced back, flowing through Petals on the Wind once more. She moved from that technique to Stream through the Trees and then to Gliding on the Ice. Each time she spun, she could feel energy pushing against her, a hint of resistance. The strange glow remained around her as well.

  More creatures made their way toward her, each made of stone or wood or earth.

  Enchantments.

  They filled the long entryway around her. She didn’t have time to see much else besides the power near her. She had to be getting close, but she couldn’t even see where they had come from. They had seemed to separate from the shadows to come at her.

  Energy pushed on Imogen as one of the creatures lumbered toward her, its form almost humanoid, though nearly twice her size. Two others looked like animals, though twisted forms of them. The other two were like nothing she had ever seen before, horrible creatures made out of dirt and rock and grass.

  Something whispered in the back of her mind. “Push them back.”

  She brought the blade up, then swept it down in a sharp strike, connecting with the stone creature. Energy exploded within her, and then it surged around her. A wave rippled out from her body, as if the pattern had pushed away the stone itself.

  The fallen creatures formed a circle around her. They had all shattered into piles of stone debris, lying motionless. As she flowed through the patterns, she reminded herself that she knew what she needed to do. The knowledge was within her.

  The sacred patterns.

  And what was sacred but ancient magic?

  She moved forward, feeling free in a way she had not before. She recognized the power that was around her and felt drawn forward in what she needed to do. There was the sense of magic around her, and once again she questioned whether it was from her or from the enchanted creatures. Maybe it was both.

  And perhaps there was a Toral here as well.

  None of that worried her. She was moving in the flow. Like she did with her meditation, she found herself gliding in a way that felt right.

  When five more stone figures separated from the wall, all of them looking like statues before they had moved, Imogen swept through them and cut them down. She did not think they were creatures and suspected that they were some sort of strange enchantment, but the control within them suggested an incredible amount of power.

  Sul’toral power.

  “Keep moving forward,” a voice murmured. Was it the same one that had told her to strike before? This was a soft, almost caressing whisper in the back of her mind.

  She followed it and continued on through the tower. Part of her worried that it was the Sul’toral speaking to her, trying to draw her into a trap, but even if it was, she would go, if only so she could reach him—and destroy him. She would find her brother. She would free him.

  Every so often, a voice whispered again. Up. Turn. Take the stairs. Follow this hallway.

  The tower itself was made of a simple stone, all of gray, with the symbols of sorcery etched in the walls. Perhaps enchantments even. Corridors stretched off in different directions, but she avoided them and focused on the stairs that led ever higher, toward the sense of power she felt. In some halls, she noted fallen and damaged sculptures. In others, she noticed flickering lights or had the sense that enchantments lingered just out of her reach.

  She didn’t slow. She couldn’t.

  The voice continued to whisper in her mind, guiding her. After a while, Imogen began to realize that it had to be Benji. Who else could speak to her like that? Who else would know? He must be speaking to the stone, to the wind, to the inside of this tower, for him to know where she needed to go.

  But where was he?

  “Not much farther,” the voice came again. This time, it was in the back of her mind, and it was a command.

  “What must I do?” she asked.

  “Be ready.”

  Imogen moved forward as she had before, taking step after step, feeling the strange pressure all around her. It continued to squeeze, as if it wanted to tamp down on her, but she glided through it and used a combination of traditional and sacred patterns so that she could break through any resistance that attempted to push into her. She knew what she needed to do. She could feel it.

  With each step, the voice persisted. It was almost as though it lingered in the back of her mind, a cautious guidance that left her knowing what she needed to do and how she was to do it.

  As she started up the next few stairs, there was a barrier, and she knew what she had to do. It was similar to the strange, dark barrier she had encountered at the edge of the Shadows of the Dead.

  She pushed. Then even more.

  And with a surge of understanding, she forced her strike forward.

  The pattern shattered.

  And before her appeared a sorcerer.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Imogen stood across from the sorcerer, sword held before her. Her gaze drifted immediately to his hand, and there was no sign of the Toral ring she had seen on the other sorcerers. Still, there was a dark energy radiating from him that she could practically feel, and one that left her trembling.

  He was black-haired and tall, with eyes that seemed to be ageless, giving him the aura of somebody who had seen the world. Imogen had never felt anything like that from a sorcerer before. The only time she had felt that way had been when she’d faced the El’aras, beings who lived an impossibly long time. That and Benji, but as a Porapeth, of course he would be ageless.

  The sorcerer grinned as he approached, and not only was there a dark energy within him, but there was a darkness to the way he looked at her. The glitter in his eyes suggested malice.

  “You came,” he said.

  She frowned, sweeping her gaze around, but there was nothing other than that same strange, dark cloud of energy that she had seen everywhere. “What do you mean?”

  He smiled slightly, intensifying the darkness in his eyes. “I was not sure you would arrive, but I was assured you would.”

  Why had Benji brought her here? Her mind raced through the possibilities. It had felt like he had tried to guide her to this place so that she could find her brother, but what if this had been a trap?

  She pushed away the thought. There would be no reason for him to do that. The Porapeth were magic, but they did not side with the Sul’toral. They did not side with Sarenoth.

  Unless something had changed.

  She knew nothing about it. How could she? Everything she knew was but a story. It seemed impossible, but here she was, feeling this doubt.

  “You will be useful for what happens next,” he said.

  Imogen took a step back, but she had a distinct feeling of something moving behind her. There was a trembling sensation, as if the ground itself were rumbling. When she glanced back, she noticed that the stone behind her had been sealed off, walling her inside.

  That had to be Benji. The Porapeth was responsible for all of this.

  Maybe he had decided she had wronged him in some way. Given everything that Imogen had done over the years, it was possible that she had, however unintentionally.

  She was going to have to fight her way through here.

  “Useful, how?” she asked.

  She had to buy time. Long enough to figure out who else might be here. This one didn’t seem to be a Toral. Whoever he was serving would still be inside the room.

  “I didn’t know wheth
er you could be of use before, but the way you proceeded through the defenses suggests you can learn.” He spread his hands to the side, and a band of pale-white power streaked out from them, looping in a spiral.

  Imogen shifted to the side, sweeping her blade toward the ground and following Waterfall Down the Stream, which carved through the spell pattern he used on her.

  He smiled, darkness flashing again in his eyes. “There it is.” He glanced behind him. “You were right.”

  Imogen tensed. That meant Benji was already here.

  “I told you she could do it.” That wasn’t his voice, but it was familiar for a different reason.

  She had to shatter the barrier pattern her opponent used to keep her from being able to get too close. Imogen focused on the sorcerer.

  Not a Toral. A Sul’toral.

  She thought of everything Master Liu had taught her. It was a matter of meditating. She had used that technique for a long time, but it was only during the last few years—and especially over the last several months—that she had truly begun to understand what was involved. There were answers within the meditation.

  Memories were there. She knew what she needed to do. The knowledge was within her—it had always been.

  Had she not made the journey to the tower and felt the thunderclouds rumble in the sky and the storm rage around her, Imogen wasn’t sure she would’ve known what she needed here.

  She exploded forward with Lightning Strikes in a Storm. Though the pattern was simple, it was complex at the same time, and she burst not toward the Sul’toral but toward the power around him. There was some dark cloud of energy that obscured whoever was there with him. If she could bring that power down, she would not have to fear what he was going to do to her, and she wouldn’t have to worry about someone else sneaking up on her.

  The Sul’toral tried to strike. Imogen could feel what he did, even though she couldn’t see it.

  His hands moved quickly—almost too quickly. He made a rapid spiraling pattern, and a bolt of power glanced away from him, but she was the lightning in the storm. She lunged forward, and she struck her blade into the shield around him.