Normally, Imogen would appear threatening with her sword, but her cloak was dirty from the road and she was dressed in a simple jacket and pants—nothing that would draw attention to her as a dangerous fighter. Even her pouch of enchantments was tucked away.
A balding older man approached carrying trays of food. He wore a thick brown shirt and pants, with shoes that looked to be made of the same oronth leather that stretched on the wall. “I assumed you wanted to eat,” he said. “Given the time of day, that is. If you don’t, I’ll take it back, or I’m sure one of the tables would be more than happy to have a second serving.” He frowned. “Haven’t had too many people through here lately. Not with all the rumbling going around and the strangeness coming out of the forest.”
Imogen shared a look with Benji. Had people known about Timo passing through? Or had they encountered the golem?
“What’s coming out of the forest?” Benji asked casually, pulling the tray of food toward him. He rarely objected to eating, though Imogen wondered if he would eat the meat or if he would stick to the vegetables. Maybe his objection was to killing something.
“Not really sure,” the man said. “Folk like to tell stories, is all. They say there was some sort of monster in there. Heard howling. Can’t say I believe it, but you know how folk get. A rumor gets legs and it keeps running.” He set the other tray in front of Imogen.
“You don’t think there’s anything to it?” she asked.
He waved his hand. “Oh, there been rumors about the forest for quite some time. Giants and some such nonsense. I don’t get caught up in all that. No point in it, you know. Nothing to it, as a reasonable man would say.”
Benji’s silver eyes flared for a moment, and he tilted his head to the side. Imogen had started to think that his eyes did that when he was trying to see possible futures, but she couldn’t be certain. He never revealed what he did.
Benji shook his head. “We came through the forest and didn’t see anything.”
“Figured as much,” the proprietor said, wiping his hands on his apron. “I can get you ale or wine. Take your pick.”
“Wine?” Benji asked, scratching his chin. “I haven’t had wine in ages.”
“It’s decent quality. I wouldn’t lie to you and tell you it’s the best. I have a hard enough time getting casks shipped out here as it is, but it’s got a nice fruit to it and a nice taste, and I can’t say that anybody who’s had a glass of it has been disappointed. It’s a damn sight better than the ale I have. I’ve been trying to improve my recipe, but my son keeps breaking in—” He shook his head. “You don’t want to hear those details. Suffice it to say, the wine is the better choice.”
Benji nodded, and Imogen tapped on the table to indicate that she’d take a glass of wine.
The proprietor turned and left, and Imogen sat back, crossing her arms over her chest as she leveled her gaze on Benji. “You were telling me something outside the city,” she said.
He plucked at the chunk of meat on his plate, leaned forward, and sniffed. He grabbed the radishes and ate them quickly, along with the onions and carrots. “I was telling you nothing.”
“You were telling me about the trees.”
Benji looked up but stayed silent, watching her as he continued to pick at the meat. She wasn’t sure if he didn’t want to eat it or if he didn’t recognize where it came from. Given the oronth skin stretched across the wall and the boots the man was wearing, she wouldn’t be surprised if they ate the damn creatures.
They might have venomous teeth, but how would they taste? She grabbed the meat and took a bite. It was stringy, juicy, but not terrible. Some of the flavor came from the spice used on it, and the meat was well done and still tender enough.
“I was telling you about the trees, but I don’t know if you need to know all that,” he finally said.
“And why wouldn’t I need to know about that?”
“Because I don’t want to worry you.”
The proprietor came by and placed two glasses of wine on the table.
Benji leaned forward and chuckled. “Is this your typical business?”
“These days,” the man said. “We haven’t had too much in the way of travelers of late. The roads have been more dangerous than they used to be, so unfortunately, this has been typical.”
“Why have they been more dangerous?” Imogen asked.
“Why, because of the war.”
“What war?” She shot Benji a questioning look and turned her attention back to the man. “I haven’t heard anything about it.”
He smiled, but then it faded. “How? It’s all anyone has been willing to talk about. The Koral have begun moving, which has caused some of the neighboring villages to empty. People are scared. They don’t want to get caught up in a war.”
In all the years Imogen had lived in her homeland, the Koral had posed a constant threat, but not a real one. Their shamans had magic, but they weren’t trained like the Sorcerers’ Society.
The man shook his head. “We think we’re far enough to the west they shouldn’t bother us, but they’re moving east, and the farther they go, the more likely it is there will be an attack. We’ve been protected from attacks over the years, but that’s mostly because we’re so isolated here. If they decide they want our resources…”
She resisted the urge to ask just what resources they thought they had, and realized that they probably believed that the oronth were valuable enough that the Koral would come for them.
Imogen had other experience with the Koral, though. They had been a constant threat when she was younger, always attempting to press in on the Leier lands and threatening war. In the time she’d been away from her homeland, she hadn’t given much thought to the Koral.
“I’m sure you’re safe here,” Benji said. “And if not, there are ways of getting to safety.”
“We’ve already asked for that help,” the proprietor said. “We sent word to the Society.”
“The Society?” Imogen asked between bites. “Isn’t that going to open you up to—”
He stared at them with a hard look in his eyes. “Desperate times require desperate measures.” He spun and headed back to the kitchen.
Benji picked at the meat on his plate and finally turned to the wine. “Fucking Society,” he muttered.
“I didn’t realize you cared so little for the Sorcerers’ Society.”
“Nothing but trouble. Especially for my kind.”
Imogen smiled. “I doubt they know too much about your kind.”
“You’d be surprised. There are some who are smarter than they look. For the most part, they’re all clueless. Bastards, all of them… but there are a few who are not.”
Imogen chuckled. She had met several sorcerers who were actually helpful. “I’ve had a different experience,” she said, shaking her head as she finished the meat. She glanced at the vegetables, though she was less excited about them, and certainly less excited than Benji was about his.
“That’s because you haven’t lived long enough.” He looked up at her and shrugged. “Not to say that you’re young.”
Imogen arched a brow at him. “Now you’re commenting on my age?”
“Not to insult you, First of the—” He shook his head. “I’m just saying that the Society has been a pain in my ass.” He fell silent as he continued to pick at his food.
Imogen pushed her plate to the side and grabbed her glass of wine. “So now we have the Koral moving.”
“Sounds like we do.”
“And if they’re moving, it means that they’re heading into the Leier lands.”
“Probably.”
“That is my homeland,” she said.
“It fits with what I’ve been hearing. With the way the trees have been talking.”
She regarded Benji for a long moment. “Is it the trees, or have you seen something?”
“It can be difficult to know.” He shrugged. “Sometimes when the trees talk, it mixes with what I’ve seen. It is
something of a curse of the Porapeth, I’m afraid,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.
“And my brother?”
“I don’t know. You said he claimed he still wanted to serve your people.”
She frowned. It had been the one thing that made her think Timo could be redeemed. He believed he was doing something on behalf of their people.
And if that were the case, it meant that he was doing something to help them.
Could he go after the Koral?
Benji finished picking at his meat and pushed his tray away. He shook his head as he glanced over to the wall, as if annoyed with the whole prospect of where they were and what they were forced to eat. “I told you the trees have been talking.”
“You did,” she said. “But you haven’t mentioned anything else about what they have said and what they might have uncovered.”
“That’s because I don’t know exactly what they have found. I have been looking for information, and I’m trying to find anything, but…” He closed his eyes. “I think the Temple of the Holthan has been breached.”
She held her breath. “That’s where Master Liu is.”
He nodded. “Everything about those lands has gone silent. The only reason that would happen is if they have been breached.”
The temple had been a place of impossible power when she had been there. It was there that she had first realized her limitations with the blade, the first time in her life she’d felt like she wasn’t enough. And with Master Liu residing in the temple, she couldn’t imagine anyone or anything infiltrating it.
“What can we do?”
“We?” Benji shook his head and snorted. “We can’t do a damn thing. All we can do is try to stay out of it.”
“You would leave Master Liu?”
“That one doesn’t need our help. He barely needs any help.”
Master Liu had taught her what he knew, demonstrating the sacred patterns, but he had never given her the key to perfecting them. That had needed to come from herself, and from her understanding of them.
Why hadn’t he helped her more? Was it because he doubted that she had the potential, or was it because he believed that she did have real potential? These were more questions she wanted to ask him if she ever had the chance.
But she hadn’t thought she would have that opportunity anytime soon. She thought she would be chasing Timo to bring him back to the Leier, not bring him to one of the sacred temples—or to Master Liu.
“I can’t leave Master Liu to that,” she said.
“Leave him? You aren’t leaving him. He can manage on his own.”
“I can’t leave him.”
Benji scoffed. “That’s what you want to do?”
“I don’t know what I want to do, but I want to try to offer him whatever help I can.”
“Which means going there, you realize.”
“I realize,” she said.
“If you do that, then you’ll be leaving your brother behind. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. He has been a pain in the ass, and while he might be the Scourge, he has gone silent—and I can’t even say if we’ve been following him, to be completely honest.”
“We will find him.”
Benji shrugged. “Maybe we will, maybe we won’t.”
She leaned back, sipping her wine. It had been a long time since she’d been to the temple. Long enough she could not remember everything about it, or at least she thought she could not. Now that she had started to find her way again in being able to visualize the sacred patterns, Imogen had started to see and remember things she had not before. When she closed her eyes, she could practically smell the incense burning and the odor of age within the temple. She could picture the olian wood panels of the walls and the energy of everything inside.
“Will he welcome us?”
Benji smirked. “You mean will he welcome you?”
Imogen nodded. Since discovering the truth of the sacred patterns, she had questioned whether Master Liu would allow her back. He had sent her away all those years ago after she had disappointed him. She felt as if she understood things in a way she hadn’t back then, but would that even matter to him?
He was a sacred sword master, one who was unrivaled among her people. And he was a man she had long ago dismissed as having no ability to teach her.
She had left in disgrace.
Not that she could not learn from him. She certainly had begun to see things about the sacred patterns that she hadn’t before, that they had ways of connecting to each other. But it was something else altogether to train with a man so skilled and so committed to the patterns that he had sequestered himself in the temple to master them completely, to become one with the patterns themselves.
Five sacred temples existed throughout the Leier lands. Master Liu was the oldest master and, were others to be believed, the most skilled. Imogen certainly would believe it based on her time in the temple and the way he had easily disarmed her, but she also had never been to any of the other temples. To do so, one had to be invited.
She looked up at Benji, waiting for some sort of reaction, but he simply tipped his glass of wine to his lips and drank slowly and steadily until it was empty.
He set the goblet down. “You fear what you left behind,” he finally said.
“I fear that I made a mistake when I was younger.”
“Everyone makes mistakes when they’re younger. It is the curse of youth. Wisdom is not something the young possess, but unfortunately the old do not possess the vibrancy of youth. It is why they must work together.”
“He tried,” she said.
“I know.”
She looked across the table, watching him. “The trees told you that?”
“Something like that.”
Imogen searched for any sign of what Benji had learned about her, but he was too skilled to reveal what he knew. She shook her head slowly. “He told you about me. But did he tell you about how I disrespected him?”
“He warned me. But then, he also understood. You were young. He was old. He saw the challenges, and to be honest, you weren’t the first he had worked with—but you advanced further than he anticipated. I think that mattered to him. Impressed him. So yes, I think he would welcome you again, to get back to your original question.”
Imogen finished her wine. “Then we should go.”
“You understand what this means? In order to do this, to go after the Koral, we are leaving your brother behind.”
“I understand,” she said.
“I just want to make sure you do.”
Was that what she wanted? She had believed that she needed to chase Timo down, to the point where she had decided that would be her quest, at least until she saved him. The idea of Timo now serving as a Toral, roaming out in the world, and chasing power—along with dark magic—left her worried.
But the idea of her homeland destroyed…
It all came down to what she needed to do. Did she need to serve herself, or her people?
She had lost her brother once. She had brought him back, or thought she had. And now he was lost again. Helping Master Liu wouldn’t mean that she was giving up going after Timo. It just meant that she had something else that she needed to do.
For now.
She nodded to Benji. “Somehow, I don’t think we will be done with Timo.”
“No. Unfortunately, neither do I.”
Chapter Six
Dawn had barely broken by the time they set out. The cool, crisp air carried a faint breeze that drifted through the grasses, as Benji crouched down and whispered to them. He could communicate with them, though Imogen didn’t know what he was saying or whether there was anything within what he said to the grasses that he could convey fully to her.
He straightened, turned to her, and nodded. “We should have a clear passage today.”
“The grasses told you that?”
He smiled. “You question me on it every day.”
“I find it interestin
g.”
“Only because you have not chosen to understand.”
“You think I can understand Porapeth magic?”
“I think you could learn, but you have chosen not to.”
“You said it’s something intrinsic to you,” Imogen said. “Unless you want me to believe that I am magic the same way you are magic.”
“It’s a matter of viewpoint.”
Benji started off across the grass, not even trampling it as they walked. Imogen followed, staying within one of the sacred patterns, trying to flow as she moved. If she could drift through the pattern, she wouldn’t get tangled up the way she had before. Even as she maneuvered, she could feel the way the grass tried to pluck at her, snagging her and threatening to trip her up.
They had not gone far before Imogen felt a strange sensation within her. She had been flowing through the Petals on the Wind pattern, but she started to slow.
Benji looked over to her. “Keep moving.”
“I detect something behind us.”
“Keep moving,” he said, floating and barely disturbing the grasses as they passed.
“What is out here?” she demanded.
He looked over to her. “We must give them time.”
“Them?”
Benji held her gaze with his silver eyes for just a moment, and then he turned away, continuing forward.
Imogen looked back, but she didn’t see anything. The only thing she was aware of was this strange sensation within her. It was tied to the sacred pattern, she was certain. What if she shifted to a different one?
She’d been using Petals on the Wind for quite some time. It was the easiest way to flow in her movements, but maybe she could maneuver using Stream through the Trees. As she shifted, she added a hint of Petals on the Wind to it, mixing the two. She didn’t know whether doing so would make a difference or if they would augment each other, but she had a feeling that together they would do something more. She felt the energy start to press back on her. The more she detected, the more certain Imogen was of what she felt.
Unseen (First of the Blade Book 2) Page 5