Page 41 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

Kase didn’t hesitate. He swung his own pistol at the Cerl soldier and fired.

Not even a Cerl was fast enough to dodge this close.

But outside of a hover, Kase didn’t have the most consistent aim—the fiery blue bullet hit the man’s shoulder instead of his chest. He collapsed against the heavy desk sitting in the middle of the room, his pistol skittering across the floor and hitting the opposite wall.

Blood-sprayed papers and maps and loose fountain pens skidded across the surface.

The only item to avoid the destruction was the gas lantern closer to where Eravin Gray stood, blinking at Kase like he was bored.

Kase was milliseconds away from shooting that smug look off Eravin’s face when the man took his own pistol, put the barrel to the Cerl’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.

Kase flinched from the sound, shutting his eyes tight. Nausea flooded his system; he had to grit his teeth on a gag. Not in front of Eravin.

“You’re late,” Eravin said calmly, as if he hadn’t just executed a man at point-blank range.

Kase held up his pistol with a shaking hand, the adrenaline of pure survival instinct draining away, shock replacing it with a shiver. He didn’t look at the dead Cerl. The body slid off the desk and thumped onto the floor.

Stowe started forward, but Kase caught him with his free hand, holding him back; he didn’t take his eyes or weapon off Eravin.

His jaw hurt from clenching it so hard. All he heard in his head was the scream of the Cerl as Kase had shot him.

All he could feel was the rage and triumph and guilt of his own actions, and then the horror of Eravin’s.

I cannot lose myself here.

He shoved his conscious mind through, pressing his feet against the floor to ground himself, but that floor was marred by a pool of blood seeping closer to Kase’s dusty boots. He breathed as deeply as he could through his nose, but his lungs weren’t working properly. They ached. He smelled iron.

Eravin tilted his head. “I was trying to pry him for information, but it seems you still can’t keep your temper.”

Stowe spoke up. “He’s still breathing. I might could…”

Eravin brought up his pistol and pointed it at Stowe. Kase jumped in front of him, arms spread as he blurted, “I thought One World was working with the Cerls.”

Not letting the pistol drop, Eravin said, “Usually.” When Kase didn’t back down, he sighed and lowered the weapon. “If you have information I can sell, I’ll let you live. Even if that might not be for very long.”

The pistol cooled in Kase’s hand. He could shoot him. He could take care of any future issues right then. This man had gone off the deep end and blackmailed him. He was dangerous.

Except, once upon a time, he’d been one of Kase’s closest friends.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek. Could he use Eravin?

If the man had any connection to the Cerls at all, Kase could leverage what he learned to buy his own freedom if need be.

However, was it moral to use someone for the present, only to betray them later…

even in the name of the greater good? Would that make him just as bad as Eravin?

Maybe Eravin had been forced to make the same choice. Maybe he was only a product of his circumstances, not of his own choices.

Kase’s anxiety knocked at the door, and he gripped his pistol harder, resisting the urge to run a hand through his hair. If it would save Hallie in the long run, he would do it. He didn’t have a choice. Kase could be condemned for all eternity—he didn’t care, not if it spared her.

Kase spoke as confidently as he could, though he felt anything but. “I have information about General Marcus Correa for my brother’s ears only, but I’ll put in a good word for you if you help us.”

Eravin laughed and holstered his pistol. “What makes you think your word is worth anything now? All Kyvena wants you dead. Well, anyone that’s left.”

Kase didn’t put his pistol away. Stowe cleared his throat. “If I may…”

Eravin scoffed. “ You may put the man out of his misery, if you like, though he doesn’t deserve it.”

Kase glanced back to Stowe with a question in his gaze.

Stowe nodded toward the Cerl, whose rattling breaths were barely audible.

Kase clenched his jaw. His heart thumped too loudly as Stowe stepped around him and a leather chair to reach the soldier.

Eravin leaned his hip against the desk, inspecting his fingernails.

Kase shook his head. “No one deserves to be executed that way.”

“Actually,” Eravin raised an eyebrow, “considering he was half the reason Kyvena went up in flames for a second time, I’d say he did.”

Kase’s jaw ached with tension. “What?”

Eravin went back to his blood-crusted nails.

Kase didn’t want to know who that blood belonged to.

Eravin shrugged. “That man was the one who brought One World in to aid in the city takeover. Went ahead and cut me at the knees. I had my own plans, but alas, he riled up the people even more than they were after you rejected our invitation. So he deserved my bullet—even more poetic that it was a weapon from his own kingdom. It’s not my usual bloody smile on the neck, but it’s quite effective. ”

Kase’s stomach twinged, but he kept his eyes trained on the man in front of him.

I cannot lose myself here.

Stowe finished mixing a few liquids together and tipped the liquid into what was left of the man’s mouth. The death rattles ceased.

Kase didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. He still couldn’t look at the man’s face. Instead, he turned back to Eravin. “We need to find my brother.”

Eravin pulled a messenger cap out of his back pocket, depositing it onto his head.

Kase could barely see his eyes between the dim lighting and the shadow cast by the cap’s brim, but they still seemed to glow as he smiled.

“It’s a good thing I know the way into the tunnels and the Cerl doesn’t, then, isn’t it? ”

“Tunnels?”

Eravin raised a brow. “You don’t know? Ah, well, if you had joined our little group earlier, you would’ve learned that once the Great War ended, the High Council signed an initiative to construct underground tunnels for the populace to hide in if there was ever an attack on the capital.

Ingenious, really, except the populace didn’t know a thing about it.

” He paused and shrugged one shoulder, a slim grin still painted across his face.

“You people think One World is the bad guy. That’s yet another reason I’d disagree. ”

Kase didn’t really know how to respond. On one hand, it made sense the leaders of Jayde would prepare for an eventual war with Cerulene.

The Great War had been a rather convoluted mess, and though he didn’t quite remember the specifics about how it started or anything other than how his own family was intimately involved, he could see why the tunnels were constructed—that was, if Eravin was telling the truth.

But it was the last part of Eravin’s explanation that gave him pause.

Why hadn’t the people been made aware? If the tunnels were built for their potential protection, wouldn’t it be vital for people to know they existed?

When Kase failed to respond, Eravin knocked a pattern on the side of the desk he leaned upon. After a moment, a crack echoed through the room, and the paneling of the desk popped open like a door.

Eravin squatted down and pulled it open, revealing flickering torchlight and a gaping hole down into the earth below. “After you.”

THE SCENT OF DAMP EARTH was thick in Kase’s nose as he dropped from the ladder into the tunnels.

The air pressed in on him as he straightened and tucked his pistol in the back of his trousers.

Good thing his jacket was still ripped in case he needed to reach for his weapon, though he hoped he wouldn’t have to do so among his own people.

Unless, of course, they decided to get retribution for what Kase had done to their neighbors, their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters…if Eravin had indeed spread the information that Kase had gotten off for the fires without being punished by Jaydian law.

He kept his hand close to his pistol.

None of those people realized that the consequences he’d faced had been just as bad, if not worse.

He couldn’t go one day without seeing his sister in the shadows, only to turn on the light and find them empty.

They didn’t know the cruelty and disappointment of his father. They didn’t know Kase’s shame.

But he also couldn’t blame them. They deserved to be angry. He’d been careless, and that had cost lives.

Kase took a deep breath and put a hand to the tunnel wall.

The brick was structural, keeping the tunnels from collapse with the weight of the city above, but Kase didn’t know if they’d had the funds to finish out the project with the Rubikan refugees flooding into the city over the last few years.

Would these tunnels be simply that—unfinished tunnels that were no good to anyone?

Or would there be more developed caverns where people could safely hide?

He suspected the former. But he wouldn’t mind, just this once, if Eravin ended up being right. Not if his family had made it here, too.

Hushed murmurs and flickering gas lanterns wait along the tunnel they’d entered.

Ahead, he could just make out the chaotic tapestry of slipshod shelters, crafted from whatever building materials those fleeing the capital’s destruction had been able to find—blankets, discarded crates, coats.

Some even leaned against each other for warmth.

But plenty of people huddled against the walls alone, without anything to their name other than the clothes on their back.

Kase tapped his fingers along the strap of his pack. Nothing inside it could really do any good for these people. And even if he gave them everything he had, it would never be enough.