Their Spirit Unbroken (Relentless Book 3) Read online

  Their Spirit Unbroken

  Ryan Kirk

  Copyright © 2019 by Ryan Kirk

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For Randy

  You’ve taught me more than you know

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Epilogue

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  Also by Ryan Kirk

  About the Author

  Prologue

  A cool breeze blew from the north, causing the torches to flicker in the fading sunlight of early evening. The breeze, a welcome companion through the summer months, now carried a hint of a bite, causing Bo to shiver. He wished the torches provided him as much heat as they did light.

  Da, standing guard next to him, noticed him shiver. His friend, much larger than him, laughed. Bo welcomed the sound. Da’s laughter was deep and honest and reminded Bo that the world contained great joys. Little bothered Da, including the cold.

  “Already cold?” Da chided. “Autumn hasn’t even started yet. You’re in for a long winter, friend.”

  Bo grumbled good-naturedly. “You might never feel cold, but the rest of us do.” Back in the barracks, Da’s indifference to cold bordered on legendary. Once, during training, another guard had dumped a bucket of snow on Da while he slept. He didn’t even wake up.

  The two guards stepped back from the edge of the wall and continued their patrol of the palace grounds.

  The only sound Bo heard was their heavy boots against the well-worn stone of the palace walls. Off in the distance, Jihan was quiet, preparing for the Harvest Festival. Bo and Da maintained the silence of two men who were used to spending long hours together at a time. Conversation occurred in fits and starts, neither of them compelled to fill the silences with empty words.

  Da spoke when they reached a corner. “I’m eager for the festival this year.”

  Bo broke his gaze from the lawn below the palace walls to glance at his partner. “More than usual?”

  Da nodded, a gesture that revealed his true meaning.

  Bo smiled, returning his attention to the quiet grounds below. “You found someone.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Grateful. Perhaps now you’ll stop eyeing my sister every time she visits.”

  Da laughed again. “You shouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  Bo joined in his friend’s laughter, his own quieter and more restrained. He’d never been as free with his emotions as his companion.

  They approached the main gates, twin pillars towering over the rest of the wall.

  “I’m glad,” Bo admitted. “Who is it?”

  “No one you know. The daughter of a silk merchant. She’s kind.”

  Bo grinned as he heard the feeling in his friend’s voice. A good match, though he would have expected no less from Da. Despite being one of the youngest in their guard unit, Da possessed a wisdom far greater than his years. Other guards often came to him for advice. More than once, Bo had marveled at Da’s choice to become a guard. His heart seemed too soft. His competence, likability, and judgment guaranteed him a quick rise through the ranks, though. His friend would order him around soon enough, Bo suspected.

  He almost asked Da about his plans for the festival, but an unusual sight drew his attention to the road below.

  Their patrol had taken them to the top of the main gate, and the two of them looked down the road leading from the palace to the city of Jihan. The road was made of stone, wide enough for six carts, and lined with two rows of trees that ended five hundred paces from the gates.

  The gates were closed, as they usually were these days. Traffic still passed through small doors, heavily guarded by other men in Bo and Da’s unit. He hated that duty, much preferring to walk the walls. This late at night, few visitors walked the road that led to the palace.

  Bo fixed his gaze on a man wearing the white robes of a monk, walking with a steady pace up the road. He shook his head and fought the urge to spit.

  Da, alert as always, shook his head. “Your hatred is unbecoming, friend.”

  “They make my skin crawl. Do you know why he is here?”

  “An audience with the princess.” Da always paid more attention to the events happening inside the palace.

  Bo almost did spit then. “Why?”

  Da shrugged. It wasn’t their place to know.

  As the monk approached the gate, he looked up and saw Bo and Da staring. Bo swore he saw anger in the monk’s eyes, but he was sure Da would suggest he only saw a reflection of his own emotions.

  Da was too understanding, by far.

  The monks carried too much guilt, were responsible for too much suffering. Jihan itself had been the victim of a battle between monks thirty years ago. Ten years ago, a monastery far to the west had tried to wrest control of the land from the local lord, a rebellion that had decimated the lord’s army.

  Bo hated their mysterious powers, hated the way too many monks lorded that power over others.

  He was far from alone.

  But he also knew he would find no support from Da. His friend remained hopelessly optimistic, even as the empire spiraled into chaos. Bo believed that war was coming. Da called him a pessimistic fool.

  The monk passed below them without incident. Bo and Da continued their rounds. Three circuits of the wall would complete their duty for the night.

  Da told Bo of his plans for the Harvest Festival, laying out in exquisite detail how he planned to win the merchant’s daughter’s heart. Bo laughed in disbelief. “You’ll be broke,” he observed.

  Here, the wall they walked came close to the walls of the palace itself. Their unit wasn’t elite enough to have duty inside the palace, but Bo knew they were close to areas reserved for the use of the princess. He idly wondered how her audience with the monk was going. He wondered how close she was at that very moment.

  He was still wondering when the walls of the palace exploded outward.

  Bo had no warning. One moment, he was walking the defensive walls of the palace with a man he had known for years.

  The next was filled with stone, blood, and chaos.

  Rock and wood rained around him, and a
wave of pressure picked Bo bodily up and slammed him against a merlon.

  For a moment, his world went dark.

  When he came to, dust settled around him.

  He noticed the silence first. For a long moment, the world seemed frozen, the illusion only shattered by soft sounds of his own leather armor complaining as he brought himself to sitting.

  The eerie quiet lasted only a moment. Then he heard shouts off in the distance, the whole palace coming to life in response to the disaster.

  Bo looked down at his hands, saw them grimy and gray. They shook as he looked at them, as though they possessed a life of their own.

  He moved his legs.

  Somehow, he had survived. He felt something wet trickle around his eye. One shaking hand reached up, then came away smeared with blood.

  Da.

  Bo shot to his feet and studied the surrounding area for the first time. Twenty paces beyond the wall he stood on, the palace was no longer whole. A jagged circle of open air ruined the elegant lines of the building. Bo realized he was looking into the princess’s rooms.

  Da.

  Bo blinked dust out of his eyes. He stumbled forward, searching.

  Da had been walking a pace ahead of him, but Bo saw no clue to his friend’s current whereabouts.

  Bo’s stomach churned and his breathing became fast and shallow.

  Where was Da?

  He had been right here.

  Bo spun around, looking behind him, wondering if he’d gotten turned around. Still no sign of Da.

  Bo continued, stepping gingerly, avoiding the broken rubble that littered the walkway.

  How much time had passed?

  Sounds were coming closer. Voices, concerned and loud. He couldn’t make out specific words, but he understood their tone.

  Friends.

  His mouth was dry, his pace increasing as he walked back and forth, searching for Da. His eyes roved everywhere, saw movement inside the palace, but he ignored it.

  Then, sudden movement. Bo tore his attention away from the wall to the palace. The princess stood there, her dress in tatters, but her head held high and defiant. Bo had never stood this close to her.

  He didn’t care. Da was missing.

  His gaze returned to the walls, saw a patch of red fabric among the gray dust.

  Bo dashed forward. He scrambled toward the pile of stone, grasping and pulling at the rock. Quickly, he uncovered a corpse in the shape of his friend.

  “No!” he shouted, his voice hoarse, his throat coated with the same dust that covered the body.

  He grasped more stones, threw them away, uncovered the man’s face.

  Da.

  He was barely recognizable. A stone had caved in part of his forehead. Da’s eyes were wide, frozen in surprise for forever.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” Bo moaned.

  The guilty stone hadn’t escaped far. Covered in blood, it rested next to the fatal wound it had caused.

  They’d been one pace apart, at most.

  On his knees, Bo curled over, resting his head against his friend’s chest, hoping to hear that strong heart he had so often relied on.

  But the heart had gone silent.

  Da was gone.

  1

  Bai walked the evening streets of Windown, basking in the busyness of the night market. The Harvest Festival was still days away, but merchants and customers alike prepared for the holiday. The spirit was in the air. Smiles came easily to vendors as wares flew off their tables, and laughter split the air as men drank too much together.

  Having grown up in a small town, Bai adored the energy of larger cities. Windown was far from the largest city in the empire, but it was at least four times the size of Galan, the town she grew up in. In Galan the streets would be quiet by this time of night, even as the holiday approached.

  She also enjoyed the larger cities for a more selfish reason. They fed into her own power. The energy of so many people flowed around her, creating a life-giving river that she drank deeply from. She opened herself to those currents of energy, reveling in the tingle of power running through her limbs, right down to her fingers and toes.

  Hien, walking beside Bai, didn’t seem nearly as pleased. The woman had a solid ten years on Bai, the first hints of gray darkening her otherwise night-black hair. Those stray hairs were the only reliable sign of the woman’s age. Hien could outrun most men with half her years. She moved with a grace that came from decades of martial experience.

  Hien’s eyes roamed back and forth across the street, searching for danger.

  Bai grinned at the other woman. She believed they were in no real danger here.

  Hien had gotten word a few weeks ago, through means Bai still didn’t completely understand. A woman had attracted violent attention in a brothel in Windown. She would risk her life to escape. Hien asked Bai to accompany her, and Bai agreed, having nothing more pressing.

  They had arrived in Windown this morning. Tonight they planned to scout the area and tomorrow they would help the woman escape. They’d done this more times than Bai could count, the years piling on opportunities.

  Hien treated every street corner as a potential ambush, every passerby a possible enemy.

  Sometimes, the situation warranted such caution. They’d made enough enemies in their lives that some paranoia was reasonable. But they had just arrived in town and possessed no known enemies here. Windown hosted a small monastery, but Bai was reasonably certain she’d never crossed paths with any monks from here.

  Reminding Hien would do no good. The woman woke up in a state of heightened awareness and didn’t relax even in her dreams.

  Bai would be tempted to poke fun at her, but Hien’s abilities had saved her life more than once.

  Bai stopped at a small food stall, drawn in by the scent of fresh noodles. She turned to Hien. “Want a bowl?”

  Hien gave a quick nod as she scanned the market.

  Bai ordered two bowls of noodles and stared with delight as the chef prepared them. The smells made her mouth water with anticipation. They’d only eaten dried meat and some rice for the past few days.

  They sat down at an outdoor table. Hien ate at her noodles slowly while Bai attacked hers like a foe that needed vanquishing.

  Bai finished well before Hien and took in the sights. From their table she saw the corner of the brothel, tucked into a quiet corner of the market. It was a two-story building, surrounded by a few others.

  The market was riddled with ways in and out, so they didn’t need to worry about getting trapped immediately after their rescue. The most likely areas of concern were the roads out of town. The two primary roads would be closely guarded if an alarm was raised. Fortunately, no walls protected Windown, so it would be easy enough to escape if events went poorly.

  She hoped that wouldn’t be the case. Easy would be ideal.

  When Hien finished her noodles the two women turned their attention to the task at hand. Tomorrow morning Hien would meet with the woman and finalize their plan, but tonight they needed to scout their options. If Hien had taught Bai one lesson well over the past decade, it was that preparation often meant the difference between success and failure. When Bai had first discovered her abilities, she enjoyed running head first into problems. Hien demonstrated a better way.

  They made a large circle around the brothel. They worked in silence. Later, they would compare their observations. Bai noticed places where a person could hide, where an ambush might conceivably be set. She looked for alleys and paths that ended in a wall or other obstruction.

  After they completed their rounds they found a dark corner. Hien stood guard while Bai opened herself up to more energy, filling her legs with borrowed strength. At a nod from Hien, Bai leaped to the rooftop two stories above.

  She landed as lightly as a feather, then tested the footing to make sure the roof was stable. Back in Kulat, she’d been running along the rooftops and fallen straight into a family’s dining room. She hadn’t been hurt, but her s
hame still lingered when she thought on that moment.

  Convinced that the roof would easily support the two of them, she waved at Hien. The woman pulled out a rope from her pack and uncoiled it. She took a weighted end and tossed it into the air with practiced ease. Bai caught it and anchored herself as Hien pulled herself smoothly up the rope and onto the rooftop.

  Despite Hien’s fitness, she was breathing hard when she stood next to Bai. Bai gave the other woman a chance to catch her breath, then they walked together to the other side of the roof where they could look down on the brothel.

  Bai paid attention to the windows. Several were open, letting in the cool night air. That boded well for a discreet entrance. If the women inside could open their windows freely, it gave her and Hien a way of getting in and out without being noticed.

  She filled her legs with power and jumped across the gap between the buildings. Looking back, she saw Hien glaring at her. Jumping across had been a bit of a risk, but it allowed Bai to scout the rooftop here, too. Sometimes there were access points to the building on the roof. A quick study of the surroundings told her that wasn’t the case here. Bai was about to leap back across when she felt a gathering of power nearby.

  She frowned and focused her attention. She’d been so interested in the brothel and its surroundings she hadn’t paid enough attention to the streets. A small group of monks approached the market.