Page 121 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)
I LOVE…
Kase
WITHOUT ANY HESITATION, KASE HURRIED behind Saldr and the Stradat Lord Kapitan out of Skibs’ cell. Fely and Skibs followed, and not even his father tried to stop the man who had been under arrest not even five minutes ago.
Because they all knew the awful truth: they didn’t have time. If they didn’t stop whatever was causing the screaming, everyone would die.
Kase didn’t have a weapon. He’d lost the King Arthur knife, and he hadn’t had any time to figure out where his Cerl pistol went.
Jove ushered both their mother and Clara to the back of the ward. “Get out. Go into the city and hide. Now.”
Clara grabbed his brother by the shirt and pulled him to her. “You come back to me, you hear? I won’t lose you a second time.”
He kissed her. “Keep Samuel safe. I love you.”
“Jove!”
But he didn’t turn around, only ran after the rest of them. Kase thought he heard his mother call his name, but he didn’t stop to find out. His side throbbed with agony as they sped through the little corridor with its hanging linen cells and gas lanterns dotted along the way.
People ran in all directions—medics, nurses, and patients alike all toward whatever exit they could find. Harlan unsheathed his sword. Its pale, almost-white Zuprium blade shone like a light in the darkness. The runes etched along it seemed to glow.
His father had a legendary sword. For some reason. It still hadn’t sunk in.
They turned the corner.
General Marcos Correa’s eyes weren’t nearly as black as Eravin’s, but black veins snaked down his temples and into his neck. He looked even worse than he had in the hangar.
He smiled, freezing in his tracks, and looked past Kase. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Neither his father nor Saldr seemed to care that the man before them resembled some monster. They held their weapons out.
“Stop, Uncle.” Skibs pushed past Kase, holding out his hands. “We must work together to save Yalvara. Jayde is not our enemy. Jagamot is.”
Every breath was a knife to Kase’s side and the brittle silence before them. The shadows on Correa’s face were deeper, deadlier.
Correa spat onto the ground. “You would say that, wouldn’t you?”
Ragged and worn, Zuprium streaks on her hands, Fely stepped up beside him, though Saldr reached out to hold her back. She sidestepped his hand. “Filip is dead. If we’re to stop Jagamot, we need to work together.”
Both Skibs and Correa froze. Skibs spoke first. “Dead? He’s dead? How?”
Correa recovered quickly before his face contorted in one of rage. “Did you kill him?”
Fely shook her head. “No. Abram Loffler did, with Kainadr’s sword. All isn’t lost yet. We can still save Yalvara if you tell us where Hallie Walker is.”
“Except your sole purpose was to make sure that he made it to Kyvena, you—” Correa took a threatening step toward Fely, and Saldr sidestepped in front of her.
Saldr lashed out with his ink dark blade, and Correa barely avoided it. The cold glare he fixed on Correa was almost more frightening than the soul-sundering blade in his hand.
“ Uncle !” Skibs shouted, pushing past the Stradat Lord Kapitan and forming a fist with his hand. It started glowing. “Stop trying to—”
But Correa wouldn’t be stopped. “I refuse to listen to the spawn of Jaydian filth! My sister was deceived, and look where it has led!”
Kase wasn’t sure what the man was speaking about. He tensed, ready to move if Correa tried to use his Essence power on anyone, though he was nearly useless without a weapon. Besides, the man was tainted and working with Eravin. Maybe the General had gone mad.
“Kase.” He recognized his mother’s voice just before fingers closed around the back of his shirt, pulling him back. “Let them handle this. You are in no state.”
He came by his own stubbornness quite honestly.
Kase half turned. “Go back to Clara. This isn’t—”
“You’ve lost it, Uncle! I have no Jaydian blood—and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. If my brother is truly dead, as Lady Fely states, I am your king. You granted me legitimacy yourself.”
Whether it was the power corrupting him or the black veins deteriorating his mind, Correa laughed and laughed like some kind of madman. It echoed in the near-empty tunnel. “You’re wrong.”
“My father was the stable master,” Skibs spat. “You told me that yourself. Had him executed for it.”
“Your father was Ezekiel Fairchild, the man who betrayed his own country and got your mother killed.”
The words sucked up all the air in the room. His mother gasped. His father looked back, his grip on the sword wavering only a little. Kase could only stare forward. Saldr still stood in front of Lady Fely. The ward had emptied out, thankfully.
Skibs shook his head. “You’re lying.”
It was the Stradat Lord Kapitan’s voice that spoke up next, a little hoarse. “He’s not.”
Everyone swung toward him. Kase’s mother brought a hand to her mouth and shook her head. Harlan continued, “I knew Ezekiel had fathered a child with Queen Astraea, but I was told the child died in infancy.”
“That doesn’t make sense. My mother wouldn’t have lied about that,” Skibs said, looking lost. His fist had unclenched, and the golden light had vanished.
It was Kase’s mother who stepped forward next. Harlan tried to grab her hand, but she yanked it out of his grip and pressed forward. She walked up to Skibs. He looked down at her, and she nodded. “I’d know those eyes anywhere. What the Stradat Lord Kapitan says is true.”
Correa took the moment to attack and grabbed Les’ arm. She screamed as the lightning pain shot through her.
Kase barreled forward with a shout—but his father was quicker. In a flash of snow-white steel, he cut in with the efficiency of a trained soldier and sheared Correa’s arm off near the elbow. Correa’s scream rocked the entire ward.
“You killed my brother. You tortured my son. You will not touch my wife!” Harlan yelled as he swung the sword around again and—before anyone, much less Correa, could react—stabbed the man through the heart.
Correa folded down over the blade, gasping, gurgling through blood; Harlan stepped closer, driving the sword through to the hilt.
He leaned in face to face with the general, lips peeled back over gritted teeth, gaze bathed in hatred as he growled, “I’ve been waiting for this day a very long time.
You have been a dead man walking since the day you spilled my brother’s blood. ”
He wrenched the sword from the man’s chest. Correa tipped sideways, eyes sightless, collapsing into a growing pool of his own blood. Kase couldn’t tell if the blood looked black because of the lack of light, or…something more frightening.
The same clot-dark blood splattered on Harlan’s military uniform. Breathing unevenly, the Stradat Lord Kapitan wiped the sword on his own trousers. The weapon glowed subtly in the darkness.
No one else moved. Kase and Skibs met each other’s eyes. In the cast of silvery light, everything wavered around him like a moonlit dream; he could barely process it as reality.
Stowe moved first; Kase hadn’t realized he was still there. He knelt beside Les, who had fallen beside Skibs, and dug around in his pack for one of his vials. Correa’s hand still wrapped around his mother’s arm. Harlan bent down and wrenched it off, flinging it down the corridor.
Black, tar-like blood grew in a puddle beneath the body. His eyes were no longer the color of midnight, but a soft, loamy brown.
“I…I—” Ben started, but the words wouldn’t work.
Kase shook his head. His body fluctuated between hot and cold. His mouth was too dry. “I don’t believe…I don’t think…does that mean…”
Stowe helped his mother from the ground. Zelda sprinted over and held her other arm.
Harlan had a hand over his eyes.
Sheathing his sword, Saldr took Fely’s hand. “Besides Master Kase’s account, that man confirmed Jagamot is indeed here. We must find the second Gate and Miss Walker, though I fear it may already be too late.”
The Stradat Lord Kapitan nodded, sheathing his own blade and strode past his wife, pausing only briefly to brush his fingers against her own before moving down the corridor.
Everyone else made to follow, but his mother, though white and shaking, stopped Skibs.
She clasped his arm and pulled him into a hug.
“Despite what his legacy became, my brother was the bravest man I’ve ever known. It takes courage to admit when you’ve done wrong and accept your consequences.” Then she let go and followed her husband down the corridor.
Jove joined Kase and held out his hand to Skibs. “Cousins.”
Skibs took it, but he still seemed out of sorts. His eyes were unfocused. Was he losing control? Was the Essence power taking over? Jove let his hand go and joined the others, who had also begun to follow.
Kase and Skibs were the only two left. It was Kase who finally said, “Does this mean that…I lose you again after this?”
Skibs rubbed a shaking hand down his face. He glanced toward his uncle’s corpse and shook his head. “Honestly? I’m just ready for this all to end.”
CORREA BEING DEAD WAS SOMETHING Kase’s brain couldn’t quite accept.
After what the man had done to Hallie, really, his end was poetic justice.
Kase didn’t grieve it, but he didn’t understand why his father had executed judgment in a way that felt too personal.
Kase had been the one tortured by him. But Harlan had mentioned something about a brother.
To Kase’s knowledge, the only uncle he had was Ezekiel. Maybe that was what Harlan meant? Maybe Correa had something to do with Ezekiel’s betrayal. That made sense with his uncle being involved with the Queen…and being Skibs’ father.
Shocks.
To be honest, Kase didn’t know if he’d ever be able to keep all these revelations straight. Not only was Skibs healed, but he was now the King of Cerulene. Furthermore, he was Kase’s cousin.
And he couldn’t reckon with even one of those new realities until he found Hallie.
Hopefully Fely was right and she’d found the Gate. Then Skibs could use his power to find her, right?