Page 43 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

THE HOLY METAL

Jove

“JOVE.”

His eyelids were entirely too heavy. Most everything ached. What little didn’t ache throbbed with a piercing pain instead, but his head was the worst, only rivaled by his shoulder. Weakness spread through his limbs, and his stomach roiled.

“Jove?”

With great effort, he moved his head to the side—and promptly vomited.

A ripping sound. The kiss of silk against his mouth was nearly as painful as the heaving had been.

Gentle fingers felt his forehead and smoothed his hair.

Clara?

He tried to open his eyes, but it hurt. He tried to say her name, but he couldn’t get his mouth to move.

“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay. I’m here.”

He blinked harder. It was nearly as dark as it was with his eyes closed, but a little light filtered down through something above. The shape was jagged and small and impossibly far. A star, maybe?

No…no, he was underground. The Catacombs. He, Harlan, and Saldr had made it to the safe houses underneath Kyvena. He’d been looking for Clara. He’d seen Clara—or so he’d thought. But then…

He scrunched his face against the pounding in his head. The sour tang of vomit was too close, too pungent. It nearly made him empty his stomach a second time.

He turned his head to the opposite side to get away from the smell, though he was certain there was some sick on his shirt.

A face loomed there in the near-darkness.

Besides the light coming from the star or hole above—Jove still hadn’t figured out which—another soft glow came from someplace nearer. Golden. Flickering.

His mother’s face came into focus, gold and red annealing into light and blood.

Blood. It carved paths down her face from a wound near her hairline. She sat at an odd angle, as if trying to keep weight off one of her ankles. Jove tried to sit up, to no avail. His body simply wouldn’t respond.

“Mother. What happened? Did we…how did…?”

He wasn’t sure how he’d survived such a long fall, if that indeed was a hole above. He could remember only bits and pieces of what had happened. One moment he’d been running toward his mother—the next, he’d been falling.

He looked up again at the speck of light. How far had they fallen?

His mother brought a shaky hand up and wiped her tears, but that only smeared blood across her cheek.

She sniffled a little. “Holes have been opening up all over these tunnels. I’m guessing one took us, but I didn’t see…

I just saw you running to me, and then we were falling.

We must’ve slid most of the way down, because…

well, I think we’re alive. This isn’t the sort of heaven I’d ever read about. Far from it, in fact.”

Jove wasn’t so sure. If he was dead, he wouldn’t expect to wake anywhere close to heaven. Clara was the one who believed in all that, and Jove would never reach the same saintly goodness as her. If anything, this hole seemed fitting.

But his mother wasn’t guilty of the same things he was. So…alive. Probably.

He groaned. “Can we climb out?”

His mother chewed on the inside of her cheek and fidgeted with the ring on her finger.

It was her engagement ring—a Zuprium band with a matching crystal.

He’d given Clara a similar one, but his mother’s crystal was much larger.

“I’m not sure we’re fit for climbing. My ankle is a bit swollen, but I believe it’s only a sprain.

I don’t know if we should move you. With all that blood—I thought—” Her words choked off in a small sob. “I’m so relieved you’re awake.”

Now that he’d been conscious for a few minutes, Jove was able to separate the different pains in his body.

Most of him was incredibly sore, which was to be expected if he’d truly tumbled down some hole and landed on solid rock.

His shoulder was probably done for unless he saw a medic sometime soon, or Saldr with his magic dust stuff.

His head ached the worst after that—with the vomiting, he probably had a concussion. Maybe.

Zeke had always been the one who could diagnose conditions like that; Jove had just made a good practice patient.

Still, he’d picked some things up through experience.

Pain lanced up his side with every breath—a bruised or cracked rib—and he was pretty sure he’d done something to a few of his fingers.

He didn’t have the courage to lift up his hand and inspect them.

He’d rather delay seeing them bent at gnarled, unnatural angles.

He was still alive. His mother wouldn’t lose another child, yet. That was what mattered for now.

At least, he hoped she hadn’t lost another child. But who in the stars could say where Kase was?

“Will you help me sit up?” Jove tried to shove himself up using his only working arm, but the strain of his muscles pulling at all his broken parts made his eyes tear up.

His mother cupped his face with one hand. “You need to stay still, baby. Moving might make things worse.”

Pre-fatherhood Jove would’ve balked at the endearment, but with Samuel still missing, he didn’t bother correcting her. He understood too well. If they all survived this, he’d never let Samuel leave the house until he was at least forty-five.

And if he was honest, even at Jove’s very mature age of nearly twenty-six…for a moment, it was nice to be taken care of by his mother.

“We have to find a way out of here,” he groaned. “Can’t do that lying down.”

She folded her hands in her lap. “I’m sure they’ll send someone to fetch us soon.

” She looked around the cavern. Jove couldn’t see where the other light was coming from.

It was odd. But a new wave of pain set his leg twitching, forcing him to close his eyes against it. After a moment, the wave dissipated.

She was right. He couldn’t move another inch. Not until some of the pain subsided.

“I know a few cave plants and mosses that might help your pain and speed your healing if I can find them,” his mother said from somewhere above him.

Jove’s eyes popped open. “But your ankle—”

“—Will feel better once I put some prunella vulgaris on it.” She smoothed his hair once more. “Don’t worry about me.”

Prunella what?

Jove gave in. He wasn’t in any state to argue, let alone stop her from going and finding whatever she needed. Had he not been in so much pain, he might’ve insisted he do the foraging—but then again, Jove had never cared much about plant life. He’d probably pick something lethal by accident.

He couldn’t see her anymore. Every now and then, he’d hear a small grumble, but he couldn’t quite make out what she was saying.

The longer he lay there staring up at the hole, his pain pulsing with the beat of his heart, he couldn’t help but wonder how he’d even gotten here in the first place.

How far he had fallen…literally. He’d somehow been promoted to High Guardsman not even a year ago, and now he found himself in a cavern deep within the planet, unable to move without vomiting or nearly blacking out, letting his mother fuss over him and wander around a potentially hazardous space alone.

He couldn’t see well enough to tell what lay around him…and on second thought, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. He and his mother couldn’t be the only ones down here. She’d mentioned multiple cave-ins.

Though it hadn’t felt like a cave-in. In the moments leading up to the accident, he recalled the ground beneath him flying up into the sky, like a rug ripped out from under him by some vengeful beast. How that was even possible, Jove didn’t know.

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe his mind was going after everything he’d been through in the last twenty-four hours. Maybe he’d finally leapt off the brink into insanity.

He didn’t feel insane, though. His mind was sound, and he felt very much the pain his body was in. Granted, he didn’t think people with unstable minds thought they were unstable. But what other explanation was there?

Chunks of the planet didn’t just soar into the sky.

“Oh, dear!” his mother exclaimed in a panic, interrupting his thoughts. Jove tried to turn his head in her direction, but the pain nearly made him black out. He heard a scuffling sound, still far away. “Here, I’ll give you some of this. It’ll stop the bleeding and—”

Another raspy, low voice replied, “Just…the dust…my pouch…sprinkle it on my face and chest.”

The accent. Yalven. A man, Jove was sure, though he still didn’t quite trust his ears…or any of his senses, really. But he sounded so much like Saldr, if younger.

Someone else was down here, after all.

A few heartbeats later, the Yalv began to sing softly. Jove couldn’t even begin to translate the words. He knew enough to read some of the more modern dialect, but the spoken word was something else entirely.

A brilliant glow lit the chamber as the man’s song died off. Jove closed his eyes against the light, but that only made his head spin harder.

His mother gasped. “So it is true!”

“We praise Toro for his swift answer,” said the Yalv, his voice stronger now. “Allow me to heal your injuries, Miss.”

“If you would, could you attend to my son first? I’m afraid his wounds are much worse.”

A few seconds of shuffling and footsteps later, Jove squinted through the pain pounding in his head to make out the dim outline of the Yalven man.

He had a short beard and familiar dark hair, though instead of a slick braid, the man’s was rather unkempt.

A gift from the fall, no doubt. His eyes were dark gold, closer to topaz than the brighter honey-like tones Jove was used to seeing.

“This is Kainadr,” his mother introduced. “He’s going to help you.”

“Your mother gave her name as Shackley.” Kainadr’s face floated above him like a specter in the night, looking entirely too thrilled given the situation they found themselves in. “You are the Jaydian that Lord Saldr has spoken highly of?”