Page 122 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

His fingers twitched as if he could reach out and grab her hand, but she wasn’t there.

Of course, the only time he’d seen Skibs’ power in use was in Myrrai, and he had created a sword out of the Yalv, Rodr.

He hoped that Hallie didn’t have to be a sword for her to be free from the Gate.

His heart couldn’t take it.

Eravin’s absence made him uneasy. His side still ached, but his body seemed to be ignoring the worst pain thanks to the adrenaline still coursing through him…

or maybe the Vasa was working well. He didn’t care why it was—only that he was no longer favoring that side.

He’d need to be at his best if and when he found Eravin.

As he followed the others through the corridors to the tunnel where Hallie and Fely had discovered the Gate, where Kase and Hallie had argued over what she was going to do, he kept his head on a swivel.

There were very few people left in the tunnels now.

Most had gone above ground, and the ward had cleared out with the arrival of Correa.

Hopefully Clara made it to safety. He dearly hoped she’d not been caught up in any of it.

Samuel had been with Lady Davey, well away from the chaos—that was a relief.

The group made it to the dark tunnel without much fanfare, but that quiet lack of confrontation was almost more jarring. He kept expecting enemies to jump out of every shadow.

Fely led Skibs over to a section of the tunnel as Saldr used his power to spark one of those little fireballs above his head.

He joined Fely. “If the Nether Gate was here, I would have felt it, I’m certain.

I can only detect the trace of Miss Walker’s power like petrichor after a heavy mountain rain. It was much the same yesterday.”

Fely gestured to the space just to the left of the wall.

“All I know is that the book she had was what opened it. It looked different than the one in Myrrai. This one was all rope-like, and it only held one timeline. It resembled a Passage—a strong one. But if it was a Passage, there would be a brick.”

Skibs bent down and rubbed his fingers over the stone floor.

“It’s definitely faint, but I sense something.

The Aurora Gate in Myrrai was basically screaming at me by the time I got to the city.

This one is more like a whisper, but it’s there.

Or…it was. Miss Walker entering it might’ve caused it to collapse, which would also account for no one else being able to sense it now. ”

Kase squatted next to him. “But you can open it?”

He needed it to open. He needed to find Hallie. If everything devolved into chaos, he needed to at least say goodbye. Surely, the universe wouldn’t deny him that.

Skibs held out his hand. Slowly, a golden glow pulsed into existence around it, almost like he wore a translucent glove. He tapped it on the floor and muttered a few words Kase didn’t recognize.

The glow disappeared, and Skibs let out a soft curse. “It might take a bit. I need to find the right words of power.”

He tugged a delicate chain out of his collar. A familiar Zuprium pendant dangled on the end—a phoenix. Skibs had worn it since Kase had met him.

Les gasped and stumbled forward. “Is that…”

Skibs paused and looked up. Les knelt next to them both and held out a hand. “Do you mind? Just a moment?”

Shrugging it off over his head, he handed it over to her. “Mother gave it to me before she died. I was only seven.”

Seven? Holy shocks.

Kase’s father leaned over as well. His mother inspected the pendant with shaking fingers before she pulled her locket out and held it out to the light Saldr provided. Hers was engraved with a woodland scene; trees framed the center of the oblong pendant, but between them was…

A phoenix. The same phoenix.

“Isn’t that…” the Stradat Lord Kapitan started, but he trailed off as if embarrassed he’d spoken.

Kase glanced up at him and caught the pain etched on his features a second before he schooled his face back into his typical mask.

His mother rubbed a thumb over the front of her locket before handing it back to Skibs. “That belonged to Ezekiel. He had the pair made the year he left for service. I didn’t know what happened to it over the years…it saved…” she swallowed thickly. She couldn’t continue.

Skibs replaced the pendant and squeezed it. “Thank you.”

Kase looked back at Jove, but his brother only looked at his boots. What did his mother mean? Saved what? What was she talking about?

Jove didn’t answer. No one explained.

After a few seconds, Jove cleared his throat. “Let’s focus on finding Miss Walker, for the moment. I have this feeling that this isn’t the end of…everything.”

Jove was right. Hallie needed him.

Skibs nodded and closed his eyes, his hand starting to glow once more. He spoke a few different words.

Everyone waited with bated breath.

A soft golden mist floated like smoke from the floor and filled the tunnel. Saldr gasped, and Fely nodded. Skibs said a few other words, his hand glowing brighter, but the mist didn’t change, only undulated in an invisible wind.

Kase ached to reach out and tear through it.

When nothing else happened, Skibs’ hand went dark once more. “Still not right.”

No one else spoke, only watched. But in the quiet, Kase found it impossible to quiet his curiosity any longer.

“Father,” Kase said, standing and turning toward the Stradat Lord Kapitan, “what did you mean when you said Correa killed your brother? Did you mean Ezekiel?”

Jove’s head shot up at that. Harlan merely looked at his wife, who joined Jove at the side of the tunnel. Les didn’t look at him.

“And while we’re at it,” Kase ventured further. Pushing his father was more reckless than any hover stunt he’d ever pulled, but it was something he was quite good at. “I still don’t understand why you have a Yalven sword, or why it’s part of the Shackley crest.”

Harlan fiddled with the sleeves of his military jacket, speckled with drying blood. Correa’s blood. He was stalling.

It reminded Kase of when they were down in these tunnels yesterday. He hadn’t wanted to reveal the truth about Ezekiel. This was the same. There was a secret here that wanted to stay buried.

Kase’s mother spoke up without looking at her husband. Staring directly at Kase, she clutched her locket in her hand. “There’s no use hiding it from him. Not now.”

A muscle in Harlan’s jaw twitched. It was still several seconds before he spoke toward the ground. “Roughly fifty years ago, I took the sword from the Cerl commander in Ravenhelm when it was destroyed. Correa was his second-in-command.”

What? Ravenhelm? Wasn’t that the pile of ruins Hallie had explored so she could find the Passage to Myrrai?

Harlan would’ve been a child or even an early teen when the village was destroyed. It didn’t make sense.

“Did Granddad and Nonna have a country estate there?” he asked.

They’d passed several years ago, and Kase only had vague memories of them, but he did remember Nonna always smelled of rose perfume. She also gave the best hugs.

Harlan heaved a heavy sigh. He pulled out his sword and inspected it as if waiting for it to tell its story. “No.”

Kase glanced at Jove. His face was impassive and empty. He looked back at his father. “Then what in the stars are you talking about?”

It was Stowe that spoke up then, his voice quiet. Kase had forgotten he and Zelda were there. “You were the boy. The only one who survived.”

The statement was met with silence before finally, Harlan said, “Yes.”

Skibs continued to try and open the Gate, but each attempt failed. Every time the light sputtered, Kase’s brain sputtered with it, struggling to put the pieces together. “I don’t understand.”

Any heat in the tunnel air bled away the longer they stood there.

Finally, Harlan sheathed the sword once more.

“Carleton Shackley, the Colonel of Achilles at the time, was the first on the scene of the Ravenhelm massacre. And as my entire family had been murdered—including my younger brother Michael, whom Marcos Correa personally killed—Carleton and Aurelia adopted me.”

At this point, Kase didn’t think he could take any more twists or turns. Over the last few hours, Hallie had gone missing, Skibs had been revealed as the next Cerl King and his cousin, and now this? There must be some mistake. It was too much. His father had to be lying.

He opened his mouth to tell him so, knowing it would lead to yet another argument. But the look in his mother’s eyes had him swallowing his words because a ring of truth sounded in that name,

Michael.

Kase’s middle name was Michael. He looked back up at his father; Harlan’s eyes were dry, but for the first time in his life, Kase saw something else besides ice…

there was rage, unadulterated fury, unlike anything he’d seen even when Kase was at his worst. It was a fire that’d been building for roughly half a century.

“I would do anything to keep the Cerls from winning. They’ve taken too much from me. My family. My friend. My very humanity, even,” Harlan said, his voice still unnervingly calm. “They will not win .”

Kase couldn’t feel his fingers, his toes, or anything. He was entirely numb. But for some reason, one of the only things running through his mind was that if Harlan had come from the same mountains as Hallie, she and Kase were even more alike than they’d thought. She and Harlan were more alike.

He needed her. She would help make sense of the mess.

“Stradat Lord Kapitan, would you allow me to borrow Xera’s sword? I think it might—” Skibs started to say.

“How kind of you all to gather in one place,” a low voice interrupted from down the corridor, back the way they’d come.

Kase’s heart flew into his throat, his hand going for a phantom weapon.