Unfinished by D.K. Holmberg

Author:D.K. Holmberg [Holmberg, D.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Imogen didn’t expect Abigail to come to attack. She wasn’t even sure if she could. She tried thinking through possibilities, focusing on what she might be able to see, but saw nothing clear. The wind whistled in the back of her mind, the same steady sound she’d felt for quite some time, as if it attempted to give her a warning and speak to her. She listened the way that Benji had instructed she try, but she learned nothing from it.

She looked over at Lilah, who remained standing at the edge of the pond. “Did you know that I found her recently?” Imogen held on to Tree Stands in the Forest, keeping Lilah away.

“She spoke to me. She said that you were chasing a real danger.”

“My brother. He has become Sul’toral. And he intends to harm my people. Much like you once attempted to harm my people. I intend to protect them.”

“All you’ve done is weaken them. Abigail intended to strengthen your people as well as mine.” She turned away and looked toward the pond again.

“We wanted to help you,” Imogen said.

She shifted, moving from Tree Stands in the Forest to Petals on the Wind, gliding forward, ready for any possible attack, but there was nothing. When Imogen stopped at the edge of the pond, Lilah hadn’t moved. Imogen once again took on Tree Stands in the Forest, anchoring herself and preparing for another magical onslaught, but it never came. She was distantly aware of the renral behind her, still waiting, but she also had a sense of something else from him.

“You can’t help me, not with what I know,” Lilah said.

“Because you’ve been working with Abigail?”

When Lilah said nothing, Imogen softened her connection to Tree Stands in the Forest, no longer pushing outward with quite as much force, not needing quite that much. “Do you think your time with someone like her has given you so much insight? I’m sure all she’s given is exactly what she wants you to know, exactly what she thinks that you need to know so that you can follow whatever plan she has in mind for you.”

“And he was so different?”

Imogen could hear Benji then. That was imagined, and not real—at least, she didn’t think it was real—but she could practically hear him laughing in the back of her mind.

“He wasn’t so different,” Imogen agreed. “He made it clear that he wanted to use me, to coerce me into helping, and that he wanted to convince others to follow him.” Even that wasn’t completely true. Benji wanted to guide her, and in doing so, he wanted to help her find her own truth. “Do you even know that there is a magical army approaching my homeland? And yours?”

Lilah slowly turned to her. “What sort of magical army?”

“Enchantments, strange creatures, swarming toward the Koral lands. And the Leier.”

Lilah looked out at the water, her gaze distant, the same as Imogen’s when she was looking at the various possibilities. Imogen focused and tried to uncover her own answers but saw nothing but emptiness.

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