“Even then.” He nodded to her and turned back to his people. “We will release the Koral back into their lands.”
“You will?”
“Did you think I would do otherwise?”
Imogen had no idea. General Derashen was not who she’d thought he was, which left her both impressed and disappointed. When she first started traveling with the army, she had begun to think that he would be less than she had once believed, and she was thankful that he was not. But her experience in the world had changed her perspective on many things, including those she should idolize.
Would she feel the same about Master Liu if she returned to his sacred temple? General Derashen wanted nothing more than to protect the homeland. He had no problem capturing the Koral, but he had no interest in understanding why they had suddenly moved. She didn’t think he was afraid, but she wasn’t sure what to call him.
“But these creatures—”
“I have only your word of these creatures. And if they attack people with magic, then our people are in no danger.”
She thought she understood why he would release the people back into the Koral lands—it was his way of trying to draw the branox away. Whether or not he believed in their existence or that they were any sort of threat didn’t matter at this point. All that mattered to him was that he was doing what he thought necessary to protect the Leier.
“Doing this doesn’t stop them,” Imogen said.
“My job isn’t to stop them.”
“What is it, then?”
He looked over to her and frowned. “My role, and my entire purpose, is to protect our people. I cannot do that if I am dead.” He inhaled deeply and stood as if trying to use Tree Stands in the Forest. “Now, once we release the Koral, we will retreat from the border and make our way back to the homeland. You are free to accompany us. As I’ve said, you would be welcomed. And now that you have your notches, you could test yourself again.”
She glanced over to him. She didn’t want to tell him that the notches on her sword didn’t matter anymore. At one point, they would’ve been all she cared about. Having them was a way of proving not only to herself but to others that she deserved the honor and respect of the Leier. But now she did not care. Notches did not make her a sword master. Notches didn’t demonstrate her skill.
Defeating the branox was all she cared about, and maybe that meant she didn’t belong with the Leier.
She wanted to find Benji, to ask if this was what he had seen. She didn’t look away from General Derashen, though, and she said nothing about her feelings toward him.
Imogen nodded in the darkness, and he left her alone. She remained motionless, and after a while, she realized that she had shifted into Tree Stands in the Forest without intending to. Her roots stretched out, and although they were imagined and not real, she felt them nonetheless. She was aware of the Leier, aware of the Koral, aware of the darkness. But she detected no sign of magic or the branox.
Benji joined her, which she was able to recognize because of Tree Stands in the Forest.
“He intends to let them go,” she said, not disrupting her pattern.
“That is what I’ve heard,” Benji replied.
“I don’t know if he believes me or not about the branox, but he fears that I might be telling the truth, so he intends to use the Koral as bait for the branox to chase.”
Benji frowned. “Dangerous for them.”
“Dangerous, and not what I would’ve expected from him.”
“You expected honor.”
“He is General Derashen,” she said.
“And that makes him honorable?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He knows the sacred patterns.”
“And does that make him honorable?”
“Again, I don’t know. That means he would be able to help us fight the branox.” She turned and found the Porapeth crouching down with his hands resting on the stone, looking out into the growing darkness. “We won’t be able to stop them on our own.”
“Perhaps not,” he said.
“Even if we go with the Koral when they’re released, I don’t know whether we’ll be able to stop the branox. I had hoped that the Leier would be able to help.”
“You have done well so far,” Benji said.
“So far, but once we reach the queen…”
She didn’t need Benji to tell her it was going to become even more difficult. Perhaps impossible. She would need to find the unity, the place where she truly became one with the patterns—something she had rarely done. Even if she could find it again, would that be enough?
“We have to defend the Koral,” she said softly.
“Is that your new quest?”
She glanced over to him. “Why do you keep trying to convince me to take a quest?”
“You feel the need to frame things in such a way. All of your kind do.”
“I’m trying to think of what needs to happen next, and I haven’t really planned much further than that.”
Benji chuckled. “And that’s another thing.”
“What would you have me do?”
“What you have so far.”
“Which is?”
“You need to know the truth about the danger in front of us,” he said. The jovial nature to his tone had faded, and he tapped his foot in a steady rhythm. “I cannot see, and the stone does not speak.”
She couldn’t tell which of those bothered him more.
“So you want me to go look,” Imogen said.
“We need to know. I could go with you, but I fear that I must stay here.” His eyes flared with bright silver.
“I could go and scout, and if I find anything, then…”
She trailed off, not sure what she would do. Attack the branox on her own?
Benji tapped on the stone again, and it trembled for a moment. “You should go. I haven’t seen anything for quite some time, and I don’t care for that.”
She stared into the distance, her mind racing. Perhaps it was time for her to get going.
Imogen looked over to tell him that, but Benji was already gone. She started to walk away, and she hadn’t gone far when she heard the sound of boots on the stone.
Imogen crept into the shadows, pushing her back along the rocky path, and waited until the footsteps neared. She stepped forward thinking it might be a scout and that she could use her newfound title to dismiss them.
She came face-to-face with the master swordsman.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked. She knew he was second-in-command to General Derashen and that he disliked her, but she still didn’t know his name.
Though perhaps he wasn’t second to the general now that Imogen had her notches.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said, flicking his gaze past her. A single boulder teetered on the mountainside, along the path that served as the barrier between the Leier lands and the Koral lands. “Are you sneaking across the border? Does General Derashen know?” It was difficult to see the expression on his face in the moonlight as he watched her, but she imagined a sneer.
She was tempted to apologize. She obviously had wronged him in the past, and she didn’t care for that, but she wasn’t sure that he would even accept an apology from her.
“Did you think to sneak away again?”
Imogen let out a sigh. “I’m not sneaking anywhere. If you are concerned, then you can follow me.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Follow you?”
Being near someone who cared little for her was potentially dangerous in such a dark setting, but it might be better for him to come with her rather than to stay behind with the Koral.
“Follow me,” she said. “I’m searching ahead for any signs of danger.”
“Of these creatures that you believe are around here.”
“The creatures are real.”
“So real that General Derashen does not fear them,” he said.
“He doesn’t because the creatures prey on those wi
th magic.”
He frowned. “They do?”
“Were you not listening when I described them?”
“I was not.”
His admission surprised her. He regarded her with a dark intensity, like a deep-seated resentment. If he was going to go with her, she couldn’t have him doing so feeling like this.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I did to wrong you, but I am sorry. I’m not the person I was when I was at the sacred temple. I was more focused on myself at that time.”
“At least you acknowledge it.”
“It is all I can do. I can’t change what I did, I can’t change who I was, but I have changed since then.” She watched him, the moonlight dancing in his eyes, but she couldn’t tell whether he was frowning or simply watching her. “And I didn’t come to challenge you or belittle you. I only came to do what I thought was right.”
“You’ve always done what you thought was needed, even when it was wrong. Even when it would hurt others, or when it would embarrass them.”
“I didn’t embarrass anyone in the sacred temple. Only myself.”
“There are many ways to embarrass someone, Disciple Imogen.”
As he said it, memories came back to her, mingling with those she’d been recalling lately—memories that she suspected Benji had some hand in instigating. As soon as he said her name, the inflection in it told her all she needed to know.
“You are Disciple Jorend.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Imogen crept forward, and Jorend trailed after her. He had not said anything to her once she recognized him, so she had decided to set off. She wasn’t going to linger. Not when it felt like she needed answers, and she wasn’t going to get them here. More than that, it was going to grow colder the later they went into the night. Without a fire for warmth, she didn’t want to stay out too long.
When he caught up to her, he reached for her arm, but she pulled away.
“You don’t want to say anything more than my name?” he said.
“I apologized. I’ve told you that I did not intend to wrong you. I don’t know what more I can do.” She watched him, wishing she understood why he was so angry with her, but she couldn’t tell a man not to feel embarrassed. If he felt that way, it was valid.
“I was at the sacred temple for longer than you. I had studied there for five years. Five years. The same amount of time as General Derashen studied.”
She shook her head. “Not in a single temple. He spent two years in the first two temples, and one year in the last.”
He frowned at her. “How do you know?”
“Because he told me.”
“He did?”
She nodded.
His expression turned troubled. “None of that matters,” he said, waving his hand. “What matters is that I spent five years at the temple, and you were sent away—honorably, I must add—after three.”
She stopped and turned to him, frowning. “That’s how I embarrassed you?”
“Should it not have?”
Imogen had apologized for something she had no control over, but more than that, she’d apologized for something he had misunderstood. Perhaps she owed him an explanation.
“When I went to the temple, I wanted nothing more than to serve the Leier,” she said. “I believed I was as skilled as anyone who had ever gone to the temple.”
“With the traditional patterns, you were,” he grumbled.
“I know. But it wasn’t the traditional patterns I needed to master to progress. It was the sacred patterns. Though I understood the forms, I had a hard time understanding the purpose behind them.”
“It takes time to understand. None can really understand until they see.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t even have that opportunity. Master Liu sent me away, and while you might feel he did so honorably”—that was the reason Jorend was upset with her?—“he still sent me away. I had not mastered anything more than I had prior to my arrival at the temple.”
He regarded her. “But I saw what you did.”
She sighed. “I did not master any of the sacred patterns in the temple.”
“So you were sent away honorably, despite failing?”
“I was shown each of the sacred patterns, all thirteen that Master Liu knew. I had seen them, recognized them, and memorized them. I should have been able to demonstrate each pattern to him. I had them in my mind, every single one. I could talk Master Liu through every step in each one. But still I was sloppy.”
The term elicited a smile from Jorend. She didn’t want him grinning at her failures, but there was no point in denying it. Imogen had failed, at least at the time. She might not have been able to master the sacred patterns then, but she had seen them.
“You were sloppy and he sent you away,” he said. “I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t for a long time. He gave me a bond quest and told me I needed to complete it before I could serve the people.”
“But you’re unbonded now.”
She nodded. “I am.”
“So you are ready to serve the people.”
“Not if it involves what General Derashen has been willing to do.”
Imogen looked past Jorend toward the Leier who were still camped in the distance. She could hear the fire crackling and the occasional voice that drifted to her ears.
“General Derashen serves the people,” Jorend said, his voice calm, though tension lingered in it.
“He intends to send the Koral back to their lands. He intends to use them against these creatures. I know you don’t believe me, but I can show you.”
“We’ve seen no sign of any creatures. The only thing we have seen is sorcery.”
She couldn’t tell him why they had seen sorcery, or why she suspected Timo’s involvement. She didn’t dare.
They reached the rock that served as the border between the Leier lands and the Koral lands.
“Come with me,” she said again, not sure he would do so. “I intend to go and check if these creatures are nearby. We haven’t seen any sign of them,” she said quickly, trying to head off his objection, “but I know they are still out there.”
She ducked underneath the rock and crossed over.
Jorend sucked in a sharp breath. “You should not have done that.” He didn’t budge and stayed on the Leier side.
“I’m going to prove to you, the general, and whoever needs to know that these creatures are real. If you want to know the truth, then you will come with me.”
“You only want me to dishonor myself.”
“You can tell General Derashen I forced you. That I commanded you.”
His gaze flicked to her blade sheathed at her waist, debate warring in his eyes, and Imogen knew she had him. Now that she outranked him, she could command him, though she had no intention of forcing him to come with her. It would only embarrass him again, and she didn’t need somebody of his rank feeling that way. She had enough issues as it was.
She waited for him.
He didn’t come.
Imogen squeezed her eyes shut. It didn’t matter that he didn’t follow her or that he didn’t believe her. All that mattered was what she knew. All that mattered was for her to find the branox.
She started forward, moving quickly along the upward path. The slope angled sharply enough that she had to climb. There’d been a time when she was more accustomed to the thin air, but she was still able to push through it.
She moved in the sacred patterns as she walked. Not only did they serve as a distraction, but they offered her an opportunity to stay focused and ready for any possible attack. If she were to hear any crackling in the air to suggest the presence of branox, she wanted to be prepared for it.
A scraping sound caught her attention, and she spun to see Jorend behind her.
“I am only doing this because you forced me,” he said.
She nodded. “Of course.”
They crept forward, following the path. Their breaths
were the only sounds around, though he managed to control the volume of his breathing far better than she could. His footsteps were louder than hers, though.
“I’ve never been in the Koral lands before,” he said. There was almost an eagerness in his voice.
“Did you want to?”
“I want to bring honor to our people.”
“Did you think coming here with your skill would bring honor?”
“I have trained to defend the Leier.”
She turned around and eyed him. “That’s not an answer.”
He said nothing more, and she was happy that he didn’t. She didn’t need for him to tell her why he was eager to enter the Koral lands.
They followed the path as it twisted, and after a while, the rocks flattened. In the faint moonlight, she noticed buildings jutting out of the ground. As they neared, she realized that this was a Koral settlement.
She held her hand up, hoping Jorend would follow her commands. She wasn’t part of the army, not formally, but she now had more notches than he did, so honor should keep him from overriding her.
General Derashen didn’t want to start a war, and neither did Imogen. The problem was that she didn’t have the same feeling from Jorend. He seemed too eager to fight.
What had the Koral done to him? Perhaps nothing. There were too many Leier who had a hunger for violence.
She looked over to him. “Maybe you should wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For me to go ahead.”
“You just want to have the honor of the attack yourself.”
Clouds shifted, and more moonlight drifted down, allowing her to make out the buildings. They were all darkened, which wasn’t unexpected given the late hour, but what surprised her was that she saw no signs of smoke, activity, or guards.
She looked over to Jorend. “Does something feel off here?”
“What feels off to you?” This time, at least his voice had softened a bit.
“Look at the buildings.”
He frowned as he studied the settlement. “It’s empty.”
It seemed to be more than just that it was empty, though Imogen had a hard time understanding whether it was something she saw or something she felt. They hadn’t encountered any further enchantments, nothing to suggest that there were Koral shamans here. That wasn’t to say that there wasn’t some sort of magic present, though.
Unseen (First of the Blade Book 2) Page 23