Unbroken (First of the Blade Book 6) Read online

  It was at the core of these creatures.

  Worse, it was familiar.

  Dark creatures had to feed on something to become dark. They had to feed on pain and suffering in order to gain the strength they needed to turn dark. Many dark creatures were magically created, but not all. Some creatures were naturally occurring, and they simply became dark over time. It was why Imogen had believed that the renral were dark creatures, though time had taught her that was not the case at all.

  And now…

  She had no idea what these creatures were. Something that was comprised of earth, perhaps mixed with stone, but as she held on to Tree Stands in the Forest, she felt the influence around her, and she felt the way that these creatures were here, along with the energy that they possessed, even though she had never seen or experienced anything quite like it before. They were powerful.

  What was more, the darkness she felt at their core was the first person who had taught her about power.

  Master Liu.

  Chapter Two

  Imogen focused on Tree Stands in the Forest and could feel the energy in the ground, the part of the dark creatures that had formed around some aspect of Master Liu. She wove with the roots a pattern to confine that strange entity while contemplating what she needed to do. When she paused, faltering, an image flashed in her mind, and she knew that Benji was there, guiding her the way that Benji often did when she became confused.

  Most of the time, Imogen grew frustrated with Benji’s lack of willingness to provide any sort of answer, but in this case, not only did he seem to be providing something, but there also seemed an urgency to what he showed her. Then again, Benji had known Master Liu as well. Benji wanted her to use the roots and weave them in a layer that would mingle the fragments of Master Liu back together.

  Imogen focused. She let control slip away from her, and that control went over to Benji, she assumed, as the roots began to weave an ever more complicated pattern in such a way that Imogen could scarcely even follow what was happening. They began to pull into a tight ball, constricting the power and forcing it through the ground, unifying the fragments that were Master Liu.

  They fused.

  Overhead, there was a shriek of agony, something that came from the renral, and Imogen opened her eyes to look up, but it wasn’t agony. The renral were circling over her head, and the lightning coursed from one to the next. The energy bounced from creature to creature, slowly building to the point where she could feel it even without a connection to Zealar.

  As Imogen continued to compress the power inward, she felt something strange.

  She had known that Master Liu had a connection to the Porapeth ability. And what she felt here was similar to that, only something felt off. She wasn’t quite sure why, or what it was, only that what she detected here was considerable.

  The power surged through the ground, and then it seemed to hover.

  Imogen opened her eyes. A translucent, silvery figure stood across from her.

  “Master Liu,” Imogen said.

  He seemed less real than Benji ever had after he had died, turning into the magical portion of himself. Knowing what she did of Master Liu, and how he was connected to the Porapeth ability but not nearly as deeply as Benji or Abigail, Imogen wondered if perhaps he truly was less there.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Imogen?” His voice was wispy and seemed hollow, as if he was lost. “What happened?”

  “I’m afraid you died,” she said.

  “What?” The figure turned in place, and tendrils of the silver energy began to swirl across the ground.

  A part of Imogen realized what she needed to do. She used Tree Stands in the Forest, and she pulled tendrils back together, guiding them into the figure once again.

  “How did I die?”

  “A dangerous Sul’toral named Aneadaz. I think he wanted you, and the others, in order to gather the Porapeth aspect of you.”

  “Why am I here?” He turned again, and those tendrils started to drift out from him once more.

  Again Imogen had to gather the tendrils back together in a way that would keep him intact. She held him in place, constricting the tendrils together to keep him from floating off into nothingness. She didn’t think that he would, but she wanted to be sure that she didn’t lose him.

  “The only reason you’re here, as far as I can tell, is that some creatures were using your power. I don’t know what happened,” she said, though several different possibilities came to mind. That included how Aneadaz might have thought that he could abuse Master Liu’s power and force it to serve him in this way, along with the possibility that Master Liu had escaped, and this was the outcome. Regardless, Imogen felt there had to be something more she could do to help Master Liu now, only… she wasn’t sure what. “Benji taught me that beings of magic never die. The magic just changes. I think that’s what has happened with you.”

  “Is this all that I am? Is this what I will be?”

  Imogen realized that there was something wrong with him, though she wasn’t sure quite what it was. Perhaps it was how incomplete he was.

  “He’s a fragment,” Benji’s voice said inside Imogen’s mind. “Not all of him. That is why he doesn’t remember what happened.”

  “Can you help?” she asked Benji.

  “I don’t know,” Benji said. “I don’t have memories of such things.”

  “You have memories of certain things, and given that you gave me a fragment…” Imogen realized that must have been what Benji had done, as he had not given her all his power. If he had, Benji wouldn’t exist in the part of him that still existed. Then again, Imogen didn’t want anything more than a fragment. There were times when she didn’t even want that fragment. But having Benji in her ear—in her mind, even—was still a benefit, and far greater than what she had considered before. “There has to be some way you can help him.”

  For a moment, there was nothing. Master Liu continued to try to move away from her, and his energy started to disperse, aspects of him starting to float away, becoming little more than tendrils of power. It was nothing like what had happened with Benji.

  What she needed was to send him to the sky, to become one with the night, to watch over their people as they had once believed, and as Imogen had seen Benji doing. She didn’t know how she could help with that. The only thing she knew was that she could feel this power and energy, and she could feel something out there, and… there was something strange about it.

  “I cannot,” Benji said.

  “You have to be able to help him,” Imogen said.

  Master Liu continued to swirl, flowing away from her. Imogen tried to gather him back, and she realized that with Tree Stands in the Forest, she could hold him, but she worried about what would happen if she tried to hold him in place.

  Would some part of him change?

  “He’s a fragment,” Benji said again.

  And Imogen realized something. “You don’t know what that means, do you?”

  “I can feel it,” Benji said after a moment, as if trying to decide how much he truly understood of what was happening here.

  At this point, Imogen didn’t know whether he knew anything, or whether he was able to help with anything. She might need to be the one to save him, if there was some way for her to do so. Even as she focused on what was out there, she found herself questioning whether she could draw upon that.

  “But feeling it and using it are vastly different, as you likely know, First.”

  There was no mirth to the way that he said this, not as there often was when he taunted her with her title. In this case, it seemed there was more of a question, and confusion, than anything else.

  “We can’t leave him like this,” Imogen said.

  “You cannot,” Benji agreed.

  As he spoke, a flash of different possibilities came to Imogen. In far too many of them, she saw Master Liu, and this fragment, as an enemy. In far too many of them, his power dispersed back
out into the world, and it became corrupted, as it had here, infecting creatures that would turn dark because of its influence.

  What had Master Liu been through to have made dark creatures like that?

  It must have been painful. It must have been torture. That was the only thing Imogen could think of that would have corrupted him in such a way.

  She had to gather him back again, and use Tree Stands in the Forest to do so. It was a strange thing for her to gather him up, all while he seemed to be trying to drift away from her, scooting through the tall grass, wandering away from her as if he were some child that she needed to chase.

  “Can you guide him to the sky?” Imogen asked Benji.

  There was a moment of silence, and as she listened in that moment, she tried to make sense of what was there, and whether there was anything that Benji might be able to offer, but the silence persisted.

  She had to chase after Master Liu, and she reached a small rise that led down toward a silvery lake in the distance. At first Imogen thought that maybe he was heading in that direction, that maybe this would be some place of Abigail’s, but this wasn’t a place Abigail had spent any time in, so that wasn’t going to be the case. The lake was lovely, with flowers circling it, rocks leading down into the reflective pool that showed the steel-gray clouds. But then Master Liu stopped, as if he was no longer certain if this was where he wanted to go.

  Imogen caught up to him, gathered him back together, and used Tree Stands in the Forest in order to hold him in place so that he wouldn’t wander too far.

  “I cannot,” Benji finally said. “He is a fragment.”

  “So he needs to be complete?”

  “I can’t answer that,” he said.

  “Is there a way of holding him here? Maybe inside of something that will keep him safe?”

  Master Liu was her first instructor, and the person who had helped guide her along the path to becoming the sacred sword master that she was. If nothing else, Imogen wanted to provide him with whatever afterlife she could, to honor him the way that he deserved. He was power and magic, and she felt it deeply within her that he needed to be freed in this way, freed to be saved.

  “You have seen what would happen if he were held,” Benji said.

  “So there’s no way of saving him?”

  “Not like that,” he said.

  “What way is there?”

  “I do not know.”

  “You know something,” she said.

  “I feel as if I do, but those memories are faint and faded, and they drift away from me. As I ponder them, I’m left with more questions without answers, but I also feel as if all I need to do is dig in order to find them. Yet anytime I think of it, I cannot find what I know to be there.”

  “Because you’re a fragment as well, aren’t you?”

  “Not in the same way,” Benji said.

  He fell silent again, and she looked over at the figure of Master Liu. The one thing that Imogen believed was that he had to be contained. At least, his power had to be contained, in some way. She could feel his power, even if she wasn’t sure what it was, but she was sure that there was some aspect of Master Liu within this figure. It was much like there was some aspect of Benji in the magic that spoke to her.

  And as she looked at him, an idea came, but it was dangerous to her.

  “Can I hold on to him? Not indefinitely,” she said, trying to get her thoughts out before Benji grew angry at the idea that she would try to assume more power. She wasn’t trying to become a Sul’toral. Still, despite not trying to become one, she had gathered power to her in ways that the Sul’toral had. And as she looked over at Master Liu, a different concern came to her that she had not considered before, as she still didn’t know what happened to the power of the Sul’toral when they passed. “But could I hold on to him long enough to place him into something that can’t be altered?” she said. “Perhaps an enchantment made by one of the Koral shamans. Then I could find the other fragments, if there are other fragments of Master Liu, and unite him enough that we might be able to bring him together.”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” Benji said. “But you will need to exert a part of yourself in order to hold on to him.”

  “Tree Stands in the Forest could work,” she said.

  “It should,” Benji said.

  “And since there is a part of you in me,” she went on, glancing up at the sky, though there was no sign of Benji up there, as there often was, “I figure that you should be able to help hold on to him. Perhaps you can keep him busy while I come up with answers.”

  “You want me to be some sort of sitter for him?”

  “Consider it offering him guidance. No differently than how you offer me guidance. You can show him what it’s like to be in this state, and maybe even help him find meaning.”

  There was a moment when Imogen felt and heard laughter coming from Benji, as if he was all too amused by this concept.

  “I might not be available to help you as much,” Benji said.

  “Or maybe between the two of you, you might be able to help me more.”

  Benji seemed to approve, and Imogen turned to Master Liu. “I’m going to have to do something now,” she said, wondering if explaining it to him even mattered. He was confused—this fragment that was shifted and broken and in some way not Master Liu—but at the same time, she believed that it was still a part of him. “You will have to remain with me.”

  Master Liu turned to her. “With you?”

  “It won’t hurt,” she said.

  Imogen began to pull on power again, drawing on Tree Stands in the Forest, wrapping it around Master Liu. As she did, she balled him up inside and felt the fragment beginning to struggle, as if it was attempting to break free.

  Had this been all of Master Liu, it was possible that he might have been able to break free. Then again, maybe even then he wouldn’t have been able to. Imogen was stronger than him. She had proven that. But in this state, and as this fragment, he did not pose much of a danger to her, and she constricted him down, tightening her hold, but found she couldn’t hold him externally. Instead, she had to draw him into her. That felt strange, but stranger still was that once she had, there was a feeling of unease that came from the fragment, along with a sense of unease that came from her distant awareness of Benji.

  She could hold it now. She was some sort of container. And she sealed him into her.

  The fighting began to fade, enough that she no longer had to struggle quite as much to hold on to him. And then it settled completely. Master Liu relaxed, as did Benji, and finally there was nothing but a sense of peace inside her.

  Overhead, the renral shrieked, and the ground around her trembled, as if something dangerous had just occurred, and Imogen couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps it had. Despite everything that she had wanted to do with magic, she had found herself increasingly drawn into it, and now she was drawn into it in such a way that she felt as if she was walking down the path toward making herself a Sul’toral.

  But then, she had started down that path long before.

  Chapter Three

  Imogen took her time waiting to ensure that there was no further sense of Master Liu pushing against her, as she wasn’t entirely sure that he had fully recovered from what she had done. She did not know if he would remain trapped inside her Tree Stands in the Forest, especially as she did not have a full measure of control over this aspect of power, despite every attempt to hold on to it as strongly as she could. She felt there may be some other part to it that she needed to master but could not. At least, she could not easily.

  She anticipated that Benji would respond to her, and kept thinking that at some point he might share with her more information about what he thought she needed to do, but Benji had gone silent. Imogen started to wonder if Benji had gone silent because she had asked him to help her hold on to the power that was Master Liu, and he had been required to exert far more control in order to do that. His silence, however troubling
, was not uncommon, though. There were times when Benji would go quiet, and times when she wanted nothing more than to reach him, to have an opportunity to speak to him, but found nothing more than the ongoing quiet.

  She’d been gone for a while, and though she knew that it was time to return, Imogen wasn’t sure that she wanted to quite yet. Zealar continued to circle overhead, and every so often, she would hear him shriek, his powerful cry echoing out and around, swelling in such a way that she could do nothing but listen. Then it would fade again, disappearing.

  She made her way down to the water, and once at the edge, she took a moment, letting herself enjoy the serenity. There were not many times when she permitted herself such quiet and solitude, though perhaps now wasn’t the best time to do so. She had chased power, stripped darkness from creatures that should not have been corrupted, and now had a part of Master Liu trapped inside her.

  Strangely, she found it not all that difficult to hold on to what she detected of him. He was there, present in her mind, but not unpleasantly so, if such a thing could even be said. It was as if he had retreated, settled in, and perhaps he was even just observing. More than anything, Imogen suspected that Master Liu was trying to make sense of what had happened—though given what he had become, the fragments of power that he now was—it might not be possible for him to know anything more.

  When Zealar shrieked again, Imogen looked up at the sky. He was circling, and she noticed several of the other renral circling off in the distance. And they were agitated.

  Oftentimes the renral would circle before leaving to go off hunting, or whatever the massive birds did. Zealar rarely went off with the rest of the flock, though there were times when Imogen had a sense that he wanted to, such as now.

  She flicked her gaze up. “Go. Hunt. I can return with my own power.”

  Zealar let out another shriek, and his electrical power coursed down from him, hitting the ground not far from Imogen, as if he used that as an answer, which left Imogen laughing.