Page 38 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

Kyvena’s main defense was their superior air force and electropistols.

That was half the reason why Ezekiel Fairchild’s betrayal had been so devastating.

On one hand, his uncle had given the Cerls a weapon; on the other, his mother still locked herself in her library every year on the anniversary of his death.

As the hero who led Jayde to victory in the war, Harlan had been the one to order the execution of his brother-in-law and Ezekiel’s two sons…barely men, but just as guilty, according to the death declarations. They’d been twenty-two at the time.

Kase’s fingers gripped the steering control harder, and the engine revved in response. If the Cerls had any advantage now, it was likely because of his uncle.

Was Ezekiel the reason the Cerl hover felt more like an extension of Kase than anything else? Was he the reason electricity in Kyvena and the surrounding villages had ceased to work?

A smudge appeared on the horizon, and Kase’s stomach dropped. The hover sped up. With each passing second, the once-glittering capital city nestled in the hills of Jayde grew larger.

The Jayde Center’s glass dome was gone. An air of ruin hung over the city like a specter. The once-majestic stone of the outer wall lay in heaps, and the great doors hung off their hinges. Kase pushed the hover harder, pulling up to clear the top of a severely damaged section of the wall.

He didn’t register most of the city’s destruction as he skimmed the rooftops of the lower city. He didn’t want to risk flying any higher for fear that the Cerls were waiting somewhere nearby. He needed to climb the hill to the upper city and find his mother.

Many city mansions showed some sort of damage, but as most of them were constructed of the finest stone, they stood mostly intact. Some were worse off than others. Several were missing parts or the entirety of their roofs.

Like the gate at the wall, the one at Shackley Manor hadn’t been a deterrent to anyone who wanted to enter the estate. One of the swirling iron-rod doors hung at a grotesque angle, the other flung to the side without a care.

What in the stars would’ve done something like that?

Heart pounding, Kase set the Cerl hover down in the front courtyard.

Most of the Manor’s upper floor was missing, as if something large had taken a bite out of it. The windows were broken, the stone blackened with soot. He knew the look of a building devoured by fire, but it hadn’t consumed the entire manor.

He popped the windshield up and scrambled out of the hover. He hit the ground hard, his knees nearly giving out. He sliced his hand on something.

“Son!”

Kase could barely hear Stowe’s voice, and he didn’t care. He needed to find his mother. The door hung wide open, the lock busted. He flew inside.

Someone had thrown paint across the family portrait dominating the entrance hall. A streak of red dripped down Harlan’s stone-like features. A jagged slash marred Kase’s own.

Lead filled his stomach. He’d always hated the portrait, hated it for what it represented, for the memories it evoked. It only served as a reminder of everything he’d lost.

But seeing it destroyed only drove the knife deeper—it made him want to give up completely.

He took several deep breaths, willing the tension in his jaw to ease.

“I cannot control others’ actions. I can only take responsibility for my own,” he whispered under his breath. He turned away and eyed the grand staircase.

The looters couldn’t do much to the stone stairs, but paint that looked too much like blood had dried in dark russet patches on a scattered few.

“Take these.” Stowe came up beside him and handed him the electropistol and Cerl weapon he’d left in the hover. Kase watched himself take the pistol, not entirely present in his own body. He cocked the weapon, but no sparks sputtered to life at the end.

The electricity. Gone.

Cornhead was right.

He handed it back to Stowe and hit the hammer on the Cerl pistol. Instead of sparks jumping from the end, a wave of cold swept over him like every time he started up the Cerl hover. The metal was the same blue hue.

For a split second, Kase wished he’d taken the time to rest instead of running in without thinking. He’d forgotten he’d cut his hand. Fresh blood smeared on the pistol’s textured grip.

But if his mother…if she was…

Kase couldn’t think past the terror. He couldn’t let himself think about the worst-case scenario; if he thought it, he feared it would become real.

So without thinking, he searched the first floor.

Stowe followed behind, his flashpistol ready to fire.

Most of it had been looted, burned, or defaced.

The family crest, complete with swords, was still intact in the dining room— ironic —even if it was now covered in the same brown stains as the stairs.

Seemed that whoever had broken in with the intent of stealing all the finer things—including the silver spoons kept in the sideboard at the end of the dining hall—hadn’t wanted or couldn’t pry the crest off the wall.

Kase thundered up to the second floor. “Mother!”

He hadn’t expected an answer, but he’d hoped for it. And when he didn’t find her in her library or her bedroom, both of which had been ransacked, it got much harder not to think about the worst.

“Mother!” he shouted again. Only his echo replied.

They wouldn’t have just killed her. She’d be a perfect prisoner, someone to hold for ransom. They’d have to be stars-idiots to kill her. She was important.

Kase didn’t know which was worse—death or capture. His stomach and chest coiled so tightly, he thought he might burst.

His parents’ bed chamber still had its high, arched ceilings with ornate trim and molding that matched the rest of the manor’s more elegant rooms. The towering four-poster bed’s curtains had been slashed. Red-soaked feathers littered the ground and the eviscerated covers and pillows.

Kase’s vision blurred. No . He couldn’t lose it now. He needed to find survivors. He needed to find his family.

If he had a family left to find.

A hand on his shoulder shook him out of his thousand-yard stare. “Son, we need to go.”

He clenched his still aching jaw. How long had it been since his run-in with Cornhead? An hour? Two? The pain cleared his head as nausea swirled in his stomach. Pain brought the task before him back into focus, even if he was unsure of exactly what that task was.

He just needed to do something. Anything.

As he skimmed the room one last time, a heap of brown fabric crumpled beside his mother’s wardrobe caught his eye.

The door had been ripped off and hacked to pieces.

Her various necklaces, which once hung on hooks inside the door, were nowhere to be found.

Mirror and glass shards mixed on the floor like a macabre mosaic, light painting each piece in fiery sunset hues.

Glass shards crunched beneath his boots as he stumbled over to the material, gathering it in his hands.

Shaking off glass shards, Kase held up his pilot’s jacket.

And he lost the very last shred of self-control he had left.

His mother must have gone into his room and taken this from his wardrobe. She’d kept it here, close to her. A slash ran through it from mid-chest to the hem.

His fingers dug into the leather as a tear escaped. His nostrils flared.

My only wish is for you to be happy, to be safe, to be loved, she’d written in her last letter, stowed in his pack. You’ll always have a home here with me.

He might never get to say sorry.

And out of all the regrets he had in his life, that one was probably one of the biggest.

His throat closed up, and his hands shook.

I cannot control others’ actions. I can only control my own.

Except this was his fault. This was all his fault.

Another tear escaped his collapsing hold, finding its way down his cheek, over his healing cut, and finally to his chin.

“I’m sorry,” Stowe whispered.

Kase wiped his eyes with his sleeve and sniffed loudly. “I don’t want…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t, because Stowe was only being kind, and he didn’t deserve Kase’s ire.

Stowe hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t hurt anyone. He hadn’t been the one to burn the manor or destroy his family’s possessions. He wasn’t the reason the city was empty, the only evidence people had once lived here was the bits of life they’d left behind.

Like shattered glass. Family portraits. A simple leather jacket.

Wiping his eyes once more and forcing false confidence into his voice, he said, “Let’s go.”

He balled up his jacket, tucked it underneath his arm, and pushed past Stowe out into the dark corridor.

He couldn’t keep the emotions from bubbling up and overflowing onto his cheeks. It was impossible. He had lived the worst years of his life stalking the halls of the ancient Shackley estate. He’d hated this home and everything it had stood for. It held only wretched memories, hadn’t it?

His throat bobbed as he came around the corner and found himself at the top of the grand staircase.

He and Ana used to stand at the top of the staircase when they were young and roll the cricket ball down to a waiting Jove and Zeke.

The cricket ball would wiggle and jaggedly make its way to the waiting team, making a game of catching it.

Ana, for all her seven years, had always been crafty. She always came up with new ways to make their older brothers work for the catch. Kase, on the other hand, usually just wanted to make Jove fall.

The game always inevitably ended in an argument or their mother giving them a lecture about the priceless antiques they’d destroyed. Even the most uneventful rounds always produced at least one shattered vase.

Kase started down the stairs. Nobody waited at the bottom to catch him.