Page 129 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

“I can do this, Gran,” the boy interrupted, suddenly serious. “I promise.”

Stowe didn’t take his hand off Jack’s shoulder, but he looked over. “Gran?”

The woman smiled. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

” She gave him a hug, even if he was still a little slack-jawed.

Turning to Zelda, she held out her hand.

“I’m Navara Walker. You must be Zelda. Jack has told me so much about you.

” She tipped her head in greeting. “You and Stowe have raised quite the young man, and he does you both proud here in Valora, though it grieves me you had to lose him so early.”

Stowe put an arm around Zelda and pulled her close as the tears spilled forth once again.

It was Jack who broke the tension. “Well, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me, Gran. I’m touched.”

Navara laughed, as did the others. Hallie returned to Kase and wrapped an arm around his.

Skibs stepped forward and handed Kase his father’s sword.

It felt heavier than it had earlier. Hallie held out her hand.

He gave it to her, and she read the inscription on the blade.

The early afternoon sun glinting off the metal nearly blinded him.

“Their specific runes mean time, healing, soul , and love .” She twisted it to and fro, studying it with curiosity sparkling in her eyes. “Where did you find Xera’s sword?”

“It’s quite a long story,” Kase said, taking it back and holding it loosely at his side. “but in short, my father had it.”

Hallie looked at him questioningly.

“The important part is, I have it now, and Skibs helped us get here with it.”

Hallie eyed him, and he knew she wanted to press him, but she only squeezed his arm softly before addressing Skibs. “I assume that this time, you aren’t trying to kill us? Or should I take Kainadr’s sword from you?”

Skibs rubbed the back of his neck. “Whatever you did when I was falling, it healed me. I thank you for that.”

A soft rumbling began in the distance, slowly making its way toward the village square.

Each successive quake swelled and surged until the ground itself shook in fury.

Kase held onto Hallie and the sword until he couldn’t hold both.

He wrapped both arms around her, shielding and cushioning her as they collapsed. The sword slipped from his hand.

Then the quaking stopped just as quickly as it had begun.

“Are you okay?” Kase asked, untangling himself and assessing Hallie for any injuries. He ignored the twinge in his side. It wasn’t nearly as horrible as it had been before—a testament to Saldr’s healing.

Hallie’s freckles stood out on her bloodless face, but she nodded. “You?”

“Yeah.” As okay as he could be.

Navara helped them up. “We need to get to the mountain. Now. I daresay we have very little time left, if any.”

“Mountain?” Kase asked, looking toward the peaks in the distance. A swollen black cloud hovered near one of them; it gave him the same feeling as seeing a hover with a smoking engine. Something was very, very wrong. “What is that?”

Hallie worried her lip with her teeth. “Loffler, we think. He’s trying to kill the soul shard of Toro that resides within the ruined third Gate there. If he’s successful, then it doesn’t matter what we do—we can’t stop Jagamot.”

“Loffler? I thought you said he fell through the Gate in Myrrai!”

Hallie nodded. “He did—and he fell through it into here. If you have the swords, we just need his Essence power as well as Ben’s and my own…wait, no, that’s not right. Correa. Oh stars, it’s not going to work after all!”

Kase and Skibs exchanged looks before Kase said, “His Essence power is in this sword. My father finished him off.” He retrieved his father’s sword from where he’d dropped it during the quake. “But I still think there’s another way.”

Hallie opened her mouth, and he readied himself for a different kind of battle—but instead, she just nodded. “Let’s go.”

Kase didn’t like it. He knew her well enough to know that a non-answer didn’t mean he’d won; it meant she was going to go through with her plan, but she didn’t want to argue about it.

Fine. They wouldn’t argue about it. Kase would just have to come up with his own plan to make sure hers didn’t happen.

Navara turned to Jack and the rest of the Walkers. “Stay here and keep the peace. I have a feeling many people will need your aid soon.”

“But Gran—” the boy started, but he was interrupted by the shake of the older woman’s head.

“You are right—you can do this. And I trust you to do it well. You have learned much, and once I return, we can speak about rearranging your responsibilities.” She turned to Stowe and Zelda. “Stay with your boy. I’m sure you have many stories to tell each other.

Zelda made a noise to argue, but Stowe held her back. “Our Lark can handle herself just fine. You seen what she can do—let her do it.”

Jack himself accepted Navara’s directive with a nod, but by the way his mouth quirked—much like his mother’s had, exactly like Hallie’s had—he wanted to.

Hallie hugged her family one more time. Zelda held her tightly and said something to her. Hallie said, “We’ll fix this and then take the swords to the Gates. This is the last part, then we can go home.”

She choked on the last part. Like the lie tasted foul, and she had to force it onto her tongue anyway.

Zelda kissed her daughter’s cheek. “When we get back, it’s…it’s all right if you want to stay. Just promise you’ll visit, will you?”

“Thank you, Mama.” Hallie’s chin wobbled. “I’ll be back.”

Kase wouldn’t give away her lie. It was her choice to keep it from them, but if he’d had a say, he would have suggested she tell them the truth. Of course, if she did, they’d never let her leave; but wouldn’t it be worse not to know, only to find out later that this goodbye was their last?

A wound sprouting crooked black veins. His father’s rapid, shallow breaths. “I…I love…”

Kase shook the memory away, then shook Stowe’s hand. “I won’t leave her side.”

The man surprised him by tugging him close and clapping his back much like he had Jack’s.

Why did that make Kase’s eyes prickle?

“You all right, son?” Stowe whispered in his ear.

“I will be.” Of course he’d ask that—of course he could tell. He was a good father and an even better person. He could see the pain that only Kase could feel, the kind he had to keep buried until it was all done.

Why had Harlan saved Kase? Kase had tiptoed through his own home, desperately avoiding the cracks in his father’s temper, living in fear of accidentally falling through one and sending everything crumbling down.

Until he’d started jumping on the cracks instead, defiant and reckless. Not falling, but leaping.

The fear never saved him from falling. At least that way, the plunge was his choice.

Harlan had tormented Kase; Kase had infuriated Harlan. But in the end, his father had given everything for him—and Kase hadn’t said a word as he died.

“Take care of her,” Stowe said, releasing Kase’s hand and stepping back to give his daughter a hug. “And yourself, you hear?”

“Yes, sir.” The words didn’t even begin to do his feelings in that regard justice.

He’d die for her, gladly—the why was no mystery. He just needed her to live. If his life was the price, he’d pay it a hundred times, a thousand times, however many times it took until she was safe. If he had to sacrifice himself in every timeline, he’d do it.

That was love, wasn’t it? To want the best for someone even if you couldn’t be a part of it?

Before he knew it, they were headed up the mountain toward the black smoke that hung like an ominous specter on the wind. Kase barely noticed the picturesque scenery around them. He could only focus on what wafted above.

They hiked mostly in silence, broken only by labored breathing or murmured directions.

The climes they scaled melted away in the fear and anticipation of what waited for them.

Hallie thought it was Loffler, and while that might be the case, Kase knew Eravin was there.

He had to be. Thinking about him only brought back the events of the Catacomb tunnel, the black pulsing wound on his father’s chest, his mother’s tears, his father’s last rattling breath.

I love…

The smoke cloud billowed outward the closer they climbed, looming over their heads, and now they could smell it—yalvar fuel, hot, piercing, and potent.

Kase vaguely remembered Eravin’s words in the hangar, that everyone could succumb to Jagamot’s power, that the Yalvar fuel was the key.

When they finally gave in to the brokenness inside them, Jagamot would manifest within them.

Eravin seemed to be the worst offender. Had this been his plan since the beginning? Had it been One World’s?

Navara murmured something as they passed a large Zuprium crystal poking out of a crevice in the mountain side as they passed.

Smoke leaked from it, its deadly shard-like spikes dark and empty.

They kept hiking, faster than before. More sweat slid down Kase’s neck and into the collar of his shirt.

He should’ve left his jacket with the Walkers, but he was nothing without it.

Kase had hoped Eravin was softening, turning back to the boy he’d once known before everything fell apart. He’d helped Kase after the card game. When had he chosen to turn down the path of darkness? Or had he always been that way, and Kase just saw what he wanted to see?

Had his turn been Kase’s fault, somehow?

His wrist burned against the weight of the sword. He shifted his grip.

A smudge of gray dust streaked across his wrist caught his eye. Absently, he rubbed it—

But it didn’t budge.

Every muscle in his body turned to ice.

Not a smudge. Those were his veins doused in gray, like Hallie had sketched over them with her best charcoal.

They weren’t black, but they weren’t normal.

He shifted his sleeve to cover it. Panicking would not help.

He was tired and emotionally exhausted. It might very well be his imagination, his memory of his father’s death playing tricks on his eyes.

They weren’t black like Eravin’s or the other Jaydians in the ward. He wasn’t soulless like Correa.

Shocks. The ward.

What would happen to all those people? Without Eravin in the city, would they go back to normal? Or would one of them seek to replace him?

He’d left Jove and his mother there. They’d just lost Harlan, and now they possibly had to defend themselves against an entity no one in the modern day could comprehend. The thoughts only added another layer of heavy guilt and grief to the wall he’d been building for years.

It seemed there was no limit.

His breathing thinned, his focus narrowed to a single point. He could do nothing about it now. He could only hope his brother could weather the storm at home. He had no choice but to keep his feet moving up the mountain.

Stray rocks skittered behind them, echoing in the unnatural stillness as the sun fell toward the horizon.

No one spoke—all too lost in their own thoughts. He found Hallie’s hand again though his was slick with sweat, but he’d never held on tighter. She squeezed back, never loosening it, as if she’d drown without him to pull her to the surface.

His heart beat too fast, the exertion akin to barrel rolls in Merlin. They weren’t going fast enough or slow enough. Everyone he knew would be dead as if they never existed soon. What chance did they have against a god?

Whether they’d been hiking minutes or hours, Kase didn’t know, but despite the chill permeating the air, sweat never stopped rolling down his cheeks from his hairline.

“There,” Navara said, her breaths heavy. She pointed to where the smoke rolled slowly out of a crevice in the side of the mountain as if it had all the time in the world. Mocking them.

With each step up the mountain, the sword had grown heavier as did the future ahead of him. But no matter how much or how little he prepared for what was to come, it was time.