Page 130 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

ANYTHING AT ALL

Hallie

AFTER THE MOST GRUELING HIKE she’d ever done in her life, the smell of Yalvar fuel turned Hallie’s stomach as they stepped inside the cave. The chasm in the tunnels where the Stradat Lord Kapitan’s tent had been had boasted a good bit of it, and the smell hadn’t been this strong.

This stench made her gag, forcing her to pull her jacket collar up over her nose as if that would help. She had to try something.

She wasn’t sure what she was going to find inside. By the stench, she was expecting some sort of pool boiling with the stuff. It was odd to find the Yalvar fuel this high up in the mountains. You usually had to dig deep to find it.

The cave was pitch black, the only illumination coming from the late afternoon light streaming from behind them.

They didn’t have a lantern or torch, and she was uncertain if she wanted to continue to feel her way when the Yalvar fuel could’ve been anywhere.

Dying from chemical burns would be a rather anticlimactic way to go while trying to save the world.

Actual fire might not be the best idea with all these fumes…but maybe she could do something better.

Ben had said she’d healed him with her power.

She’d suffered the consequence of losing control, of course, but she’d done it.

Here in Valora, her power didn’t feel so foreign and hostile.

It felt like something that had always been a part of her, just waiting for her to realize it was there.

She couldn’t explain why she felt that way.

It might very well have something to do with her brother.

Just being with him, talking with him, teasing him—it healed her soul in ways she hadn’t known were still missing.

Her power bobbed in her chest, a nudge of sorts. It wanted to be used.

If she tried what Saldr had taught her, could she summon that ball of Yalven fire? There were no trees to destroy in this cave. Just a gaseous entity that might explode.

But something in her knew she could do it right. And so she did.

“Yrea.” She snapped her fingers softly.

A weak tongue of fire sparked to life above her fingers. It didn’t go out. It didn’t explode. Her hand didn’t tingle.

She gasped.

It wasn’t nearly as bright as anything the other Yalvs had made, nor did it mold itself into a ball, but it floated there above her fingers, shimmering with faint light.

“I knew you could do it,” Kase said, putting a hand on the small of her back.

She smiled up at him, the light just brushing the edges of his features.

They made his eyes brighter and the shadows less severe.

Something had happened after she’d been thrust into this strange reality.

Something that would explain the sword clasped in his hand.

“Yrea.” Skibs’ flame was a little bigger and a little brighter.

Navara took the lead with her own. “Doing that without Zuprium is how I know all of you have passed into this realm the way I did, rather than through death.”

“How do you stand it?” Skibs asked as he directed his to follow them down the tunnel. “Living in a place made for the dead?”

It took her a few moments to respond, the only sound being their footsteps on the stone beneath their feet. At last she sighed. “Truthfully, it hasn’t been a terrible place to be…though I do miss the taste of real food.”

Hallie let out a soft gasp. “So it tastes like ash because…it is the soul of food in the living realm?”

“The Soul it contains is enough to sustain a living person here, but that is its only good quality.”

Hallie thought back to the journals. How far Navara had come—how far both of them had come. In the Stoneset cavern, she’d just figured out how to work the last journal, the one with the memories infused inside the ink. They were the last attempt of a woman who desperately wanted to save her son.

And it had led her here, to this place of souls.

“Why did you stay?” Hallie asked. “Why did you not use the Aurora Gate to go back to your people? Or back to Stoneset?”

Navara slowed, her skirts swishing against the silent stone.

She looked at Hallie with those ageless eyes, the ones that Hallie had found in the Lord Elder.

The only reason he’d given over his power to Hallie was because she’d told him about Navara.

It was a destiny of a power that might very well doom them all.

Had he known? About Navara being here? Or that Hallie would one day join her in Valora?

He’d been the Essence of Time, the most powerful of all the Essences. Hallie had proven she could speed up time, and Saldr had told her the Lord Elder had thrown himself backward. What if he’d seen the future in those moments right before he’d given Hallie his power?

Had he always known it would end this way? Had he willingly given up his own life just so she could save the world? And in doing so, find the daughter he’d lost nearly a century ago?

She swallowed hard at the lump in her throat.

Her great grandmother smiled and rubbed a hand across Hallie’s cheek. “Jack was right—you are full of questions.”

Hallie blushed, grateful for the distraction. “It’s just, in your journals, you were trying to find a way to cure the Fogs, and you thought the Lord Elder might have the answer. But…you’re here, and you left the clues for me to find this place.”

Navara took a deep breath. “To leave Valora, you must have the key. While the Aurora has dozens because of all the timelines it connects, the only way to leave Valora through the Nether Gate is for you to have the guardian. I was only given the words of power to enter by the man who was the Essence of Keys before your friend. I also did not have a key for the Aurora.”

“That must have been difficult. You finally found the Gate only to realize you’d never leave, and…” Hallie left the other part unspoken: that her son had died, no matter how hard and far she’d searched for a way to cure him.

“It was, but I found a purpose here. And while I regret not spending the last days with my son, my journal served a purpose of its own. It eventually led you here, my dear. I trust in Toro’s providence.”

Ben spoke up, his voice echoing off the walls. “Would you return now that we have the guardian?”

“No,” Navara said quietly. “Not now. There is nothing for me there.”

Hallie squeezed Kase’s hand.

She wasn’t sure if she would have reacted so gracefully to what more or less amounted to imprisonment in Valora. She ached to return to the land of the living, though she also knew that would mean leaving her brother behind.

To have him back, only for him to be ripped away again? Unbearable.

Would it be so bad to stay here, as Navara had done? Kase could stay with her, and they could live out the rest of their lives here in the shadows of beautiful mountains and raise chickens and enjoy the peace Valora would bring once they figured out how to stop Loffler and Jagamot.

It was nice to think about. It distracted her from whatever might lay ahead.

The cave tunnel was oddly shaped; clearly manmade.

It reminded Hallie a little of a mine, but instead of wood, the columns and beams were constructed of Zuprium.

However, Hallie had never seen the metal in such disrepair.

Whether it was blackened with time or maybe even the Yalvar fuel floating above their heads, she didn’t know, but it added a heaviness, as if the cave itself held its breath. It was…inauspicious. Disquieting.

The further they hiked, the thicker the scent became. At times, it burned her throat like fire. Hallie had to stop and cough multiple times. Her head swam as she was forced to take shallower and shallower breaths. Kase never left her side.

Navara turned and murmured something underneath her breath.

In a moment, the air cleared; Hallie could breathe again, though her throat was still raw.

“That spell works best with Vasa, but I’m trying to save what little I have.

Do your best to breathe normally. Too quickly or deeply will make the spell dissipate faster. The ashamox is too strong.”

“Ashamox?” Hallie asked.

Navara pointed at the smoke. “We must hurry.”

Hallie could only nod, her throat still too sore to speak. Hopefully that would abate with the cleaner air.

Kase rubbed the back of her neck. “You going to be all right?”

She chewed on her lip, but nodded.

A few turns later, the tunnel opened into the largest cavern Hallie had ever seen. She couldn’t see the top, but it was filled with the ashamox. She hadn’t realized the tunnel they’d been walking through had been so tall. The smoke and darkness had masked the height.

The cavern wasn’t really a cavern, though.

It was the inside of some sort of structure, like a cathedral from First Earth.

Crumbling archways soared into the smoke.

Great windows stretched up and joined at a point, standing like ghosts in the walls, the swirled traceries empty of glass.

Firelight flickered around the corner. The floor was covered in broken tile that had once been some sort of mosaic, so scattered and worn she could only wonder at what it might have once depicted.

If she’d had her satchel, she would’ve stopped and taken notes or sketched a bit of its otherworldly beauty. What had happened here in a place where souls rested before moving to whatever came next? What had wrought this destruction?

Something tickled the back of her mind. This place. It was familiar. She couldn’t put a finger on it, though.

Partially collapsed beams blocked the view of the fire’s origins. A statue missing its face stood to Hallie’s right. It reminded her too much of the stone guardians from the forest on Tasava that had attacked the crew once she and Ben had done something in the temple to trigger them.

Maybe that was it—maybe it reminded her of the forest temple. This one was free of swords.

She steered clear of the statue, but another without arms and a head replaced it a few feet away.