Page 42 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

Eravin nodded to the guard a few feet away.

The woman looked as if she’d had an hour or two of sleep in the last week.

Her messy braid hid under the collar of her carelessly buttoned Jaydian uniform.

Rips and burns decorated much of the jacket in other places.

She looked up when Kase, Eravin, and Stowe climbed down, but she didn’t move from her position.

Kase wasn’t one to say anything, but if his father caught this guard shirking her duties, then it wouldn’t end well for her.

She nodded to them. “Don’t get handsy. Don’t look at anybody wrong.

” She pointed down the tunnel past the makeshift city.

“Hospital ward is that way if you need attention, but last I heard, the wait is a few hours at best.” She pointed in the other direction.

“If you don’t need a medic, consult with the team in the central cavern.

They’ll get you assigned to duty rotation. ”

Duty rotation. That was a good sign. Some kind of organization had been put into place, even if the state of the people around him made it seem otherwise.

Stowe knelt and rummaged through his pack, whipping out his special caffeine concoction. He handed it to the soldier. “You look dead on your feet.”

She took it and eyed the contents. Then she glanced back at Stowe. “Why do you care?”

Stowe shouldered his pack once more. “It’s the least I could do to thank you for your service, lass.”

She snorted, but she still uncorked the vial and knocked back the dark liquid. Shaking her head, she handed it back. “Thanks. Welcome to the Catacombs.”

With that, Kase gestured for Eravin to lead the way toward the central cavern. He’d rather follow than get a well-placed bullet in the back, tentative truce or none. Ironic how things changed over the years. Five years ago, Kase wouldn’t have anyone else watching his back.

The number of people lining the tunnels and alcoves was impressive. In the cramped space, it might be easy to mentally inflate the number of survivors, but they still gave Kase hope. If so many from the lower city were gathered here, surely his mother must have made it out.

That was what he kept telling himself, anyway.

He scanned the faces for her blue eyes and dark hair streaked with glittering gray. He didn’t linger too long, lest they look back at him and realize just who he was.

With any luck, they’d all mistake him for a greenie hover pilot on his way to report to his Lead, though his poor jacket had seen much better days.

His pack covered some of the biggest rips, at least. Maybe that was why the soldier on guard had let them pass without any trouble—they looked as roughed-up as any other refugee, and their weapons weren’t visible.

Or maybe she’d just been that grateful for Stowe’s caffeinated gift. Good thing Harlan wasn’t around to see it—he probably would have accused the guard of taking bribes.

Eravin wound his way through the labyrinth like he’d lived in it his whole life.

The guard hadn’t mentioned that there were so many tunnel branches weaving and winding like the veins of some reptilian creature from First Earth…

a snake . Or maybe something from Greek mythology, like the Hydra. Yes, that fit.

Hallie would’ve seen the similarity, too.

Of course, it could be in the same blueprint of the city above, but without landmarks like the public squares, it was hard to navigate.

Soon, raised voices echoed off the tunnel, replacing the pall of whimpers and murmurs. Kase resisted the urge to grab his pistol, but he pushed back his jacket to make it easier to reach just in case.

Many people clogged the next tunnel, all vying to see what lay ahead.

Eravin, who’d been quietly leading the party, elbowed his way through the crowd.

Kase let his jacket fall back into place and followed, murmuring apologies as he wove after Eravin.

With an inch or two of height on most of the people gathered, he could see some of what lay ahead, but not much.

All he could make out was a dark expanse and someone shouting at the void below.

They reached the edge of the crowd to find a part of the tunnel floor had collapsed. Kase turned to the person next to him, a man with soft brown eyes and brown skin leathered with age. “What happened?”

The man pointed. “Been cave-ins all over. People getting swallowed up left and right. Someone even said one of the Stradats’ sons fell into one a few days ago.”

All the air left Kase’s lungs. “Son…which one?”

The man wasn’t necessarily talking about Jove.

Kase thought he remembered Stradat Loffler or Sarson having a son, though he hadn’t bothered to learn about them or speak to them at any of the state functions he’d gone to as a child, or even as an adult.

Lavinia Richter had been the only child of a Stradat he’d cared to talk to.

“Harlan Shackley’s son. The only decent one left to him.

Pity he paid for the sins of the father, but…

” The man sneered, calling Harlan a rather foul name and spitting on the ground before adding, “Serves him right after what he done. Gives him a taste of what some of us went through in that fire three years ago. Shame he was the only Stradat to survive.”

Kase didn’t realize he’d moved until he stumbled into someone—Stowe.

“Let’s get a little air, son,” he said, his hand on Kase’s chest. It was hard to tell if Stowe was holding him back or keeping him upright. He wasn’t really sure which he required himself.

Eravin only watched with a detached interest before he peeked over the edge of the chasm again. Kase’s vision shrank to a pinpoint of light as Stowe dragged him backward. Only Stowe’s shoulder, propped against his, kept him upright as they pushed their way through the throng of people.

The only Stradat to survive.

Only decent one left…shame…

Before Kase knew it, they were in a nearly deserted corridor off the main branch. Stowe finally let go and propped him against a wall. He fetched his canteen and forced Kase to take a swig.

The water was lukewarm and had a slight humid taste to it, like it’d been sitting out in the sun just long enough to start evaporating. For a second, Kase wished he was back in the Narden Pass, surrounded by snow.

These people hated his father enough to wish his children dead. They claimed Jove was already gone. And Kase…

The man hadn’t recognized him. More than ever, he counted it as a blessing how heavily he favored his mother with her curls and blue eyes.

Jove was much the same. Zeke had taken after Harlan the most. Ana had been something else entirely, with her blonde hair and pale blue eyes.

Many a rumor had circulated about her parentage a few years before her death, but both Kase and Jove worked hard to quiet them. Only their methods had differed.

Kase’s method may or may not have involved busted knuckles and a few trips to the headmaster’s office. Justified, of course.

“Looks like we have a bit of a dilemma, haven’t we?” Eravin turned the corner and joined them in the corridor. “If you’re trying not to get recognized or have people connect you with Harlan, that little display of yours was about the worst way to go about it.”

He smirked, and Kase wanted nothing more than to smack it right off his face. However, the tunnel wall was currently all that was holding Kase up. Any sudden movements wouldn’t be wise. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

The words sounded weak even to Kase’s ears.

Stowe stepped up, putting a hand on Eravin’s shoulder.

The man flinched, but he recovered quickly, stepping back.

Stowe looked down the sparsely populated corridor, then—golden eyes as hard as stone—looked back at Eravin.

“I don’t care what all happened between the two of you, you need to quit sniping at each other and get to looking for someone who can make use of what we have.

Jayde is more important than whatever grudge you’re holding. ”

Whatever else you could say about Stowe, you couldn’t say he was a coward. The man had witnessed Eravin shoot someone point blank and still stepped up between him and Kase without flinching.

Eravin’s smirk didn’t leave his face. “Well, then, we’d best be on our way, don’t you think?”

Stowe watched him for another moment before helping Kase stand straight. “I’m sorry about your brother, son. But if he’s out of reach, we’ll have to find someone else.”

Kase ran his hand over his face, trying to breathe. Maybe the man had been mistaken. Maybe it’d been a different Stradat’s son, but somewhere along the chain, it’d gotten mixed up. Especially if these people were hoping for Harlan to experience a reckoning.

Jove could be fine. And even if he had fallen, it didn’t mean he was dead. Kase had just…overreacted.

He didn’t know if he could take another death.

Not for the first time—nor for the last—he desperately wished he had Hallie by his side. He hadn’t realized just how much he depended on her strength until he no longer had her to lean on.

He straightened up to his full height. “I’m good. Let’s go.”

Kase pulled his collar up to help obscure his face as he led the other two down the corridor.

Odds were they were all connected at several points.

It wouldn’t make sense for everything to branch out and go on for eternity.

They passed several hollowed-out rooms full of people.

These rooms looked a little more developed, and the people inside them—though their clothing was dirty and torn—looked familiar.

He couldn’t be certain, but it looked as if many of the upper-class survivors had taken these rooms. One had little alcoves with what looked like beds.

Must’ve been nice.

Did they feel any guilt for living in relative comfort when just fifteen feet down the way, someone lay on the bare ground, huddled beneath a threadbare cloak?

Kase clenched his teeth and kept walking. Part of him wondered when he started to care about things like that. He’d never really noticed the people on the side of the lower-city streets in the past—not out of malice or even superiority, just naivety. Now he couldn’t tear his attention away.

After several minutes of walking with only the odd gas lantern hanging from the wall to light their way, the corridor became more and more populated.

It was good to know they were probably heading in the right direction.

They passed a few more of those rooms, but besides cursory glances about for his mother, he didn’t dwell on them too long.

The people staying there were more likely to know his face.

The scene here was much the same as the spot where they’d first descended into this subterranean nightmare. The scrap houses made for a colorful palette that no one would deem art. Kase didn’t look too long in anyone’s face and tugged his collar higher.

“Hey!” A man jumped up from where he sat with at least three daggers in ornate leather sheaths strapped about his waist. Kase couldn’t place him, but he looked familiar. His pulse ticked faster.

When Kase turned his head aside and kept walking, the man grabbed his pack and yanked him back. Kase went for his pistol instinctively, his fingers finding the icy metal. The man let go of his pack and narrowed his eyes.

“It is you. Kase Shackley.”

Then he pulled back his arm and punched Kase in the stomach.

Sharp pain radiated out from the impact, and Kase gasped, hunching over against the pain, the pistol falling from his grasp.

Blasted shocks, that hurt. At least he didn’t go for the daggers.

He cradled his aching middle with one hand and held up the other to stop the next blow as the man pulled his fist back again.

Stowe yanked the man back before he could swing again, but it wasn’t enough to keep everyone else in the dingy corridor from hearing Kase’s name. Kase bent against the wall as the hushed murmurs rose to a cacophony of shouts.

Stowe tried to hold the crowd back, but with the limited space, Kase couldn’t defend himself properly.

Someone kicked the pistol against his foot.

Someone else grabbed hold of his jacket.

Kase wrenched out of their grip and squatted down, curling around himself.

Static rose in his ears, drowning out everything—even the ache in his stomach.

He cursed, but the words were lost in the tumultuous crowd.

His bruised abdomen screamed in protest as he desperately scrabbled for the Cerl pistol, his only thought to stop them from dragging him off and—

“ Silence !” someone shouted above the din.

Kase looked up. The crowd parted, and Kase’s blood ran cold.

Harlan Shackley, the Stradat Lord Kapitan himself—and his own father—strode toward him with an expression chiseled from stone.