Page 45 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

ANSWER ME

Kase

SITTING IN HIS FATHER’S TENT didn’t feel much different than waiting for his punishment in the Manor’s study. No matter where he waited to take the brunt of his father’s fury, he still felt small.

Between the confined quarters and the bedraggled furniture, his father had little room to pace, as was his usual habit in Kase’s company. The sporadic quiver of his father’s feet told him he wanted to, but resisted. Kase refused to look anywhere but at Harlan’s worn and muddy boots.

Never in his life had he seen his father so unkempt.

In the small glimpses he chanced, days of salt-and-pepper stubble decorated his father’s cheeks—more salt than pepper.

Kase couldn’t remember a time when he’d worn anything but a perfectly trimmed mustache.

The only thing that was normal was the hair smoothed back from his face and his hard stare.

Kase quickly dropped his eyes back to the mud-speckled boots.

“Where have you been?” Harlan asked, his voice cold, not betraying the anger and frustration smoldering beneath the surface.

But Kase wasn’t cowed completely. He wouldn’t just sit there and allow himself to be trod upon.

“Where’s Jove?” The words came out filled with disdain. He knew that tone would lead to an argument—it always had in the past—but it was just a reflex, a way to defend himself against the man before him.

A flinch of Harlan’s left foot. Kase thought one of the mud smudges reminded him of a Zuprium crystal. His father’s rough hand grabbed him by the chin and thrust his face up. Kase gritted his teeth, but he didn’t resist.

“Do not change the subject,” Harlan ground out, dragging Kase a little closer. “Answer me. Now.”

He couldn’t yell here—not if he wanted to keep their conversation mostly private.

Guards stood on the other side of the tent walls.

Kase wasn’t sure where Stowe had gone, nor was he aware of Eravin’s whereabouts.

He was stuck with the man he hated most in the world, though Correa ran a close second.

But he’d faced down torture at the hands of the latter. If he could do that, he could handle his father.

Kase grabbed Harlan’s wrist and pushed it away. He stared his father directly in his eyes, the ones that reminded him so much of Zeke.

For the first time in months, he didn’t have to repeat his mantra when he thought about his middle brother. He knew Zeke had made a choice, and Kase would never have taken that away from him. Unwavering, he held his father’s gaze. “Tell me where Jove is.”

Harlan’s nostrils flared, not unlike Jove’s did when he argued with Kase. He waited a minute before responding. “A section of the tunnels collapsed a week ago. We believe Jove fell in, but we aren’t certain how far.”

Kase’s skin went hot, then cold. It was true. He’d fallen. If Kase hadn’t been sitting, he might’ve lost feeling in his legs and fallen himself. “No.”

“We have a crew searching, but without our technology, it’s been fruitless,” Harlan said, no emotion leaking into his voice, not even anger or concern.

As if they were discussing the recent weather changes instead of the potential death of his eldest son.

But he continued, “Now answer my question. Where have you been?”

The words didn’t quite reach Kase’s ears.

His thoughts still hadn’t caught up to the conversation at hand. His head swam like he was drowning, the water pouring into his lungs and filling him up. He worked his mouth, trying to say anything, but nothing came out.

He tried to suck in a breath, but everything had stopped working. Kase was barely aware of his father moving about. Kase could only focus on the reality that he was the only Shackley child left. On how unfair it was that, out of all of them, he’d been chosen to survive.

He’d needed Jove to be there, to take control. Jove would know what to do—he always knew what to do.

Jove had a wife relying on him. Kase relied on him. He couldn’t be gone.

He had no one now. He had to be the leader. But how could a drowning man lead anyone anywhere but the bottom of the sea?

His vision narrowed. He needed to breathe, but his lungs felt too full and too empty at the same time.

Someone waved what looked like a stuffed tea bag in front of his nose. Kase shivered, and that woke his lungs. He took a short, tight breath and breathed in something .

It smelled rich and deep…a hint of ripened fruit, of family holidays on the Silver Coast. It was mixed with a soft floral musk, dry and sweet as the last bloom of autumn. The scent warmed the cold in his core.

With slightly shaking fingers, Kase took the sachet, blinking until he could focus.

“What…” His voice sounded hoarse, even though he hadn’t been screaming. It was as if his throat was figuring out how to function in the right way again after disuse, even though the episode had been short. “What is this?”

It truly did look like a tea bag, but bulbous and overstuffed. His vision cleared up with each new inhale of whatever lay inside. Impossibly tiny stitches held the top closed.

Harlan stepped back, and Kase took another whiff of the tea bag. It relaxed his tense muscles even more.

Surely his father couldn’t have helped him.

He looked back toward the tent flap, looking to see if someone else had entered.

But it hung still, undisturbed. Only the background noise of a crowded cavern just beyond the canvas walls met his ears.

He turned back to his father and held up the tea bag. “What is this?”

Harlan had clearly given it to him. But how had he known it would help the panic that kept seizing Kase out of the blue? And why had he given it to him?

Harlan Shackley never did anything altruistically. He never did anything to help Kase. And if for some reason he had, it would most definitely come with a cost.

“Something that will keep your emotions in check while you answer my questions.” Harlan folded his arms across his chest. “Now answer me. Where have you been ?”

Moment of kindness over, apparently. If it had ever started.

Even with his heart still skittering and his skin still clammy from his reaction to Jove’s likely death, anger flushed Kase’s features. But whatever was in the little teabag allowed air to flow to his lungs with each breath. It tempered the anger at Harlan’s dismissal.

“I came back to help.” The words were tinged with the bitterness Kase couldn’t keep in check even with the strange bag’s help.

Harlan stepped back, his fist clenching, but he didn’t strike. Not yet. “To help? Help what? The current state of the city is your fault.”

“And how do you figure that?” If he played dumb, he might get just get by. Even if part of him knew he’d only said it to get under Harlan’s skin.

“Because the entire city rioted for a week straight before the Cerls arrived. Because you told someone you started that fire. And when the Cerls attacked, we had no support. It was a miracle so many are here in the tunnels.”

“I didn’t tell anyone.” Recently. Besides Hallie. Eravin had already known.

“Then how did the entire city find out?”

Kase’s stomach turned violently. He knew exactly how. However, would it behoove him to betray the tentative truce he had with Eravin? He ought to for his own sake, but this was Harlan. The retaliation wouldn’t be mild.

Would he execute Eravin? Throw him in one of the gaping tunnel holes? Set him in front of a firing squad?

The leader of One World deserved it. He’d killed that Cerl without any remorse back at the Jayde Center. He’d threatened Kase more than once.

But Eravin had once been his friend. And it was Kase’s fault Eravin’s mother was dead.

Kase ran his tongue along the edge of his upper teeth. If he wanted to earn penance for Eravin’s mother’s death, saving her son was his best chance.

“I can’t answer that,” he hedged, “but I do have information. The Cerls need the last Essence for some ritual. It’s why they attacked the city.”

Harlan went still. If Kase hadn’t been so on edge, he might’ve marveled at catching his father off guard. Harlan recovered quickly, his scowl finding its place on his face once more. “How do you know that?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t play with me.” Harlan fisted his right hand. “You’ve already lied to the High Council, and that charge is probably the least of your worries.”

Kase’s nostrils flared. He’d lived through a nightmare in the last month. Nothing his father nor the High Council could do scared him anymore. The entire government and city were in shambles.

He stood, the sachet dropping to the ground. He was taller than his father. Not by much, but the inch felt like a mile. Kase feared nothing. “Correa took Achilles. All our people are dead.”

It was Harlan’s turn to be silent. He didn’t even move. After a few tense seconds he said, low and slow, “I don’t believe you.”

Kase rubbed his own unshaven cheek. The puckered and healing cut interrupted his short beard—a physical representation of the scarring no one else could see.

“I think they had inside help. The only Jaydian survivors are Stoneset villagers holed up in the mountain caverns. Not sure how much longer they can hide.”

His father cursed loudly and kicked the pebbles beneath his boot, adding yet another scuff.

Kase gazed steadily at his father as the older man took it all in. He remembered the last conversation he’d had with Harlan—the one that had ended with a busted lip. He traced his tongue along the inside of his lip, tasting phantom blood.

“You can believe me or not, but it’s true.” Kase crossed his arms, growing more confident with each passing moment. “I watched it happen; nearly died at Correa’s hands myself.”

It was Kase’s curse—to survive against the odds.