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

The Cerls hadn’t hesitated before hurting Michael. The boy couldn’t hesitate either. Not when he was the only one left to save his brother.

The clop of horse hooves and the bray of nervous whinnies came closer. The boy sucked in a few more breaths. His finger hovered over the trigger.

If he distracted the left soldier with a bolt through the one on the right’s chest, he’d have time to load another and shoot the final soldier. He could do it. He would do it.

For Michael.

He counted down in his head. Three…

Indecipherable words exchanged between the soldiers.

Two…

They would die. The boy would kill them.

One…

The boy leapt out, swinging the crossbow out and aiming. The soldiers startled, the horses spooking at the boy’s sudden appearance.

The man on the right yelled something to the other. He wore a pristine blue coat, colorful badges decorating the right breast. The boy focused on one of those badges and let the crossbow bolt loose.

The recoil nearly made the boy lose his footing, but the bolt hit home, nailing the soldier in the chest. Blood spurted, staining those pretty badges; the soldier’s hand flew to the puncture as he gasped, falling forward onto his horse.

Someone shouted behind him, but the boy was too busy scrambling to load another bolt.

The other soldier was faster, taller, younger than the first—yet his presence was commanding.

His night-dark hair was only slightly disheveled, a glittering earring in one ear.

He grabbed his own crossbow and leveled it at the boy.

Without thinking, the boy leapt sideways, collapsing onto the dirt road, skidding shoulder-first through a puddle of drying blood from one of his schoolmates, only recognizable by the star-shaped birthmark on the back of his hand.

A shooting star, now that blood had smeared a trail behind it.

He didn’t feel any pain. But he heard the thunk of the bolt landing true.

“Brother?”

No.

The bolt had missed him by a hair’s breadth. But it hadn’t missed entirely.

The first wounded soldier slid off his mount and onto the body-littered street below. The boy scrambled for his loose crossbow, but he couldn’t reach it in time.

Instead, his eyes met Michael’s—then fell, finding where blood leaked from beneath the Cerl’s bolt, lodged deep in Michael’s chest.

“ No !” The boy forgot about the living soldier and stumbled to his feet, grasping and pulling himself over another dead body to make it to his brother’s side. “No, no, no !”

The Cerl didn’t fire on him. The shouts and another horn sounded closer, but the boy no longer cared what happened. He scooped his brother into his arms. He was so light, much lighter than he’d been in the mine. Was it only the boy’s imagination? Was he losing it already? The Fogs?

Michael stared ahead, gaze soft and hazy, more blood gushing out his lips with each bubbling, fluid-filled breath.

“Why, why didn’t you stay—” The boy had lost himself to his anguish and rage. “I was going to save you. I was going to—”

More hooves thundered, and the boy looked up to see the Jaydian banner flying high above the lead rider. The sacred tree inside the sun. Life and Light.

Yet everything in the boy’s life had gone dark.

They’d gotten here too late.

The boy held his brother close and just caught the words wheezing out with another bubble of blood. “I didn’t—I didn’t…want to be…alone…”

And then he was gone, his eyes fixed listlessly on the sky above. The sunset had begun, the red streaks bathing his brother’s too-pale face in its angry light.

The boy sobbed against his brother’s hair once more before closing his eyes with unsteady fingers. He laid him down in the muck. The Cerl soldiers were gone, chased off by the Jaydian troops. His brother was dead.

The boy took slow steps forward, standing over the soldier he’d killed. He stared into the Cerl’s lifeless face.

It wasn’t too different from Michael’s. Maybe in death, differences weren’t so apparent. Or maybe the boy was simply numb. The soldier’s eyes were lined with age and golden like the dying sun. He hated the color.

He unsheathed the soldier’s sword and inspected the hilt.

Some sort of writing decorated the blade itself; the metal was almost white, but it still shone with the tell-tale bronze glint of Zuprium.

The tip was jagged, broken—or maybe it had been made that way.

The pommel was unadorned except for a startlingly blue jewel that shone like a star.

“You’re safe, now,” a deep voice said from behind him.

The boy didn’t even flinch, only turned slightly to see a Jaydian soldier behind him.

The man was tall and broad-shouldered, his uniform coated in dust; they must’ve ridden hard to get here.

The boy guessed someone had finally alerted them.

Maybe one of the soldiers stationed in the village had gone. All he knew was they were too late.

The man walked closer, his hands out to show he meant no harm, but there wasn’t anything he could do to make the boy feel any better or worse.

“What happened, son?” the man asked.

A few other soldiers inspected the bodies; a few others ran through the town looking for survivors. The boy’s voice was as lifeless as the bodies around him. “They’re all dead.”

“Your parents?”

The boy was silent. But silence was enough to answer.

What did this man want? Why badger him? Why act like he’d been saved?

Maybe if he attacked the man with the strange sword, he could go out with the rest of his home, his family. That would surely end with a flashpistol to the head, and the boy would welcome it happily.

His hand clenched harder around the sword grip. He could do it. He’d just killed one man. What was one more? The Jaydian deserved it. He hadn’t arrived in time to save Michael. Not even the Yalven woman in Stoneset could do anything now.

The Jaydian man barked out a few orders to his men. Some sort of officer or commander, then. Definitely a flashpistol to the head if the boy killed him.

The boy finally looked up into his eyes and loosened his grip on the sword.

His eyes were soft green, not that devilish golden-brown.

The man removed his cap and held it to his chest, bowing slightly.

“I’m Colonel Carleton Shackley. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of, son.

” He gestured with his hat toward the boy.

“You’ve been through a lot today, I imagine. What’s your name?”

The boy clenched his teeth together so hard it hurt. Who was he now without a mother, a father, and a brother? Who was he without the village he’d lived in for the entirety of his twelve years on this planet? He wasn’t sure he still had a soul.

He shut his eyes only to find the dead soldier’s and his dead brother’s staring back at him.

Who was he now?

“Son?”

The boy swallowed his hatred best he could and opened his eyes. “Harlan…Harlan Hale.”