Page 23 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

For all she said about the King’s death meaning they would all die, he didn’t think that was the whole of it.

The Cerl King clearly meant something to her, something more than the other half of an arranged marriage.

He recognized her panic; he’d felt it the day Jack died, when Hallie had nearly been crushed in the collapse.

He would never forget the adrenaline thrumming through his veins at breakneck speed.

The rough threads of her jacket clutched in his fingers as he pulled her out of the falling beam’s path.

Her warmth tucked against his chest as the stone and dirt rained down around them.

The relief that it was Jack beneath the rubble and not her.

The horror and guilt that he’d been relieved his best friend was dead.

His head spiked with pain.

He reached into his pocket once more, but this time he took out the ring. He slipped it onto his pinky. It wasn’t much comfort, but it was something. He rubbed his temples with one hand.

Hallie crouched beside Fely, placing a hand on the King’s shoulder. She murmured words under her breath, too quiet for Niels to hear. Kase’s goggles and Fely’s locket dangled from her other hand.

The ring’s sapphire dug into his palm as he tightened his grip, nearly breaking the skin.

He didn’t know what to expect. He’d seen the blackout in the caverns, and he’d watched her unravel a man before his eyes, but the shock of white-gold light trickling from her fingers now wasn’t as potent as it had been then.

He wished he could do something, anything to help. But with his limbs riddled with injuries and no power thrumming through his veins, he couldn’t do anything but sit there and keep his headache from worsening.

He did make an effort to keep an eye on their surroundings.

Without any knowledge of the area, he wasn’t sure what might be lurking past his field of vision.

He wished he had his pistol, but he wasn’t sure where that had gone, and he didn’t see the Cerl weapon on Fely, either.

Maybe she’d dropped it during her strange episode in the tunnel corridor.

The ruined building’s ceiling was missing in places, and the crumbling brown columns held up fragments of carved reliefs. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine what it might have looked like in its prime.

Two moss-covered statues stood tall on the far side of the giant room. He couldn’t tell much about them with the overgrowth, only that both held swords. Most of the ground was jagged with upended cobblestones. Dirt, dead grass, and remnants of the past filled in the cracks and crevices.

It was like something out of the storybooks Hallie used to let him borrow before they were together. He’d enjoyed them well enough, but honestly, he’d only read them so he’d have something to talk to Hallie about. Even though she was his best friend’s sister, he’d wanted her to notice him.

He still wanted her to notice him—to notice how he ached to brush the stray hair from her face as she bent over the King’s prone form. To notice that he’d somehow fallen more in love with her in her absence. To notice he was here, and Kase wasn’t, and for it to matter.

But he shouldn’t want any of that.

It should have bothered him to watch her hands glow with otherworldly power; it should have separated her fully from the Hallie he’d known. But it felt right, somehow. Like she’d finally gotten to live out the stories she loved so much.

The light enveloping her hand pulsed. He swallowed around the fear lodging itself in his throat, trying not to think about a soldier coming apart before his eyes when that light touched him.

He watched her closely as she worked. Her hands were the same, though power flickered around them.

Kase would’ve figured out a way to help her. Niels had only known him a short amount of time, but he’d seen enough to know the man was quite resourceful and brilliant. Blast him.

It really was a shame he liked Kase Shackley. The man had offered himself up on a gilded plate to the Cerl general and emerged victorious—all for Hallie.

Niels would’ve done the same if it would’ve made a difference. However, unlike Kase, he wasn’t the son of one of the most powerful men on Yalvara. He was the son of a dead man.

Hallie swayed a little, her hand falling from the King’s shoulder. Niels caught her. “Hallie!”

She shook her head, pushing off of him and pushing her palm against the King. “Almost had it.”

Niels chewed on the inside of his cheek and tried to focus on anything else but Hallie losing herself to whatever power hid beneath her skin. The only sounds were Hallie’s quiet murmuring, Fely’s muffled breathing, and the morning birds calling to one another.

Hallie’s breathing hitched, and Niels crouched beside her. “Hal?”

Her eyes were closed, the power flowing out through her fingers. “Don’t.”

He stood again. He hated that she wouldn’t let him help. Stowe had trusted him to take care of her. He could do that. He could prove to her he was still the same Niels she’d been in love with before Jack died.

But she wasn’t the same Hallie. He would never understand just what she’d gone through at Achilles, nor would he comprehend what she could do. He didn’t know what it would take to get her to see him again.

Convincing her would take time. But it was time worth spending, if it helped her find her way back to herself. He would be the foundation she needed to find her way home.

He just had three years of separation to erase between them. Easy.

She collapsed.

Blast his leg, he fell to his knees and pulled her face to him. “Hallie!”

Her face had drained of color, scrunched against unseen pain. Her freckles stood out like stars in the night sky. She blinked, slivers of gold peeking out beneath her eyelids. “Did it work?”

Fely didn’t remove the hand still pressing golden light into the King’s skin. “I’m not sure, but he doesn’t feel as…absent.”

Hallie sat up, swayed a little, but caught herself before Niels could. He sat back, embarrassment licking his cheeks. Why wouldn’t she let him help her?

Niels swallowed his conflicting emotions and crawled forward best he could, feeling for the King’s pulse instead. The thump-thump definitely felt stronger than before. “If we can free him, I think he’ll be all right.”

Easier said than done. The beam looked ancient and immovable. It was a miracle the King had survived at all.

“If we had a saw…” he began, then stopped, because there was no point sharing ideas they couldn’t use. “We gotta be careful not to move him too much until we know if Hallie did him any good.”

The offended glance she shot him pierced like another bullet. He coughed. “It’s just that you’re still weak, and you don’t know how to use your power yet.” Another glare. He had to get his foot out of his mouth. “What I’m trying to say is—”

“You’re saying we have to get this beam off and hope for the best.” Hallie’s voice was calm, but colder than the mountain snows.

Her breathing was still a little labored.

“But I think I’m getting the hang of this now.

I might be able to do something if…” She inspected the locket.

It wasn’t glowing any longer. “Is there a way you can add more…?”

Fely held out her hand impatiently. “Give it here.”

Niels rubbed the back of his neck as Fely poured more golden light into the locket. It wasn’t nearly as bright as Hallie’s; it wasn’t even as bright as when Fely had used it earlier. Pouring it into the locket seemed to deplete her own strength somehow.

After a minute, Fely handed the locket back to Hallie. Hallie clutched it in her fist. “Be ready to move him. He should be stable enough, though I’m not sure if he’ll be able to walk any time soon.”

Fely positioned her arms underneath the King’s arms, ready to pull when told.

Hallie turned to Niels. Her eyes betrayed no emotion, only command.

“I’m going to attempt to…” she paused, as if trying to find the right word, “…do something to the beam, but I don’t think I can do it for long. Will you help pull the King out?”

He nodded and joined Fely, sliding his hand under the King’s right shoulder and wrapping his good arm around the man’s chest.

This felt like a horrible idea.

“Maybe we should try to leverage the beam first,” he ventured. There was plenty of rubble around. Surely there would be something they could use.

“None of us have the strength for that,” Hallie said matter-of-factly. She climbed over a pile of rubble and placed one hand on the beam, the other still clutching the locket.

“But you might not have the strength to—Hallie!”

If Niels hadn’t seen it himself, he wouldn’t have believed what happened. It took several seconds, but as the glow over her hands intensified in a blinding flash, the beam lifted off the King. Only by an inch or two, but it was enough.

It didn’t move like something was lifting it. It moved like time itself was flowing backwards; the entire thing sparkled as if sprinkled with a thousand tiny stars, lifting back toward the spot where it used to stand.

Niels set the King down as soon as he was clear of the rubble. The beam crashed back down with a clatter, but it didn’t shake the ground like he expected it to. That must not have been the quake they’d felt earlier, then.

Hallie crashed, too, collapsing facefirst into the rubble. But by the time he crawled to her, calling her name, she was moving once more on her own.

Niels’ heart pounded in his chest. “Are you all right?”

She rubbed her hand across her lip; her fingers came away bloody. It wasn’t bleeding terribly—probably just scraped by the rubble, or maybe she’d bitten it. She pushed herself up on her elbows, the locket still clenched in her hand. She looked down at it, a curious expression on her face.

“Oh, thank the stars and fate,” Fely gasped from behind him. Niels looked over his shoulder to see the King grimacing as Fely adjusted him into a more comfortable position.