Page 48 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

IN EVERY WAY

Hallie

HALLIE TURNED THE FINAL CORNER in the undamaged palace and found herself back at Niels’ abandoned pack. She ground her teeth. Here he was in an unfamiliar, dangerous city, and he thought it was just fine to wander off without anyone knowing where he went.

She couldn’t deny the thin rivulet of relief that trickled in, because his absence meant she wouldn’t have to face him right away.

She rubbed her eyes. What a horrible thing to think.

They were wandering in an abandoned city with the world on the edge of possible destruction, and all she could think was about how fortuitous it was she didn’t have to break his heart for a second time just yet.

Shame fluttered in her cheeks.

She really needed to get her priorities straight. She let out a frustrated sigh. Maybe she should just go to the library on her own. Let him stew or do whatever he needed until she found something that she thought would help them. Maybe she’d even find him there.

She walked back through the palace, distracting herself by making a plan.

Once she found the information on Jagamot and the Essences, she would find Niels.

Once she found Niels, she would somehow figure out a way back to Kyvena.

Maybe she could use her power to open up one of the Passages in the Gate Temple.

She could probably handle that. She’d healed Niels, after all.

Oh stars, what if her healing had reverted like it had the first time? What if he was actually bleeding out somewhere, and she was too selfish to try looking for him?

A wave of warmth greeted her as she stepped through the archway at the palace entrance and entered the city once more.

Dread, heavy and black, filled her stomach. With the city’s empty, scorched lanes surrounding untouched Zuprium-roofed homes, it felt like entering an empty tomb, eerie and pregnant with anticipation.

Power gathered in her core and tingled in her fingertips.

With her more frequent usage, she could now tell the difference between the onslaught her Essence power had been and the gently flickering candle it was now.

She knew she could tug more out and turn that candle into a respectable campfire or even a controlled blaze, but if she wasn’t careful, she’d lose control and create an inferno.

She didn’t think she could finesse it in a way that would light that little fireball like King Filip had.

With her, it was all or nothing. The King could probably teach her how to control it, but he was currently at the bottom of the mountain in a bad state.

Hallie was going to leave him there, and she told herself he deserved it. All her life, she’d known that the Cerl King cared little for his people. He’d had his military attack Jayde in small bands for years and years after the Great War. He was a despot. He was a monster.

That was what she’d always been told. That was what all the traders had said. She’d seen what the Cerls could do on the Eudora Jayde mission. She remembered Rodr and the way they’d used him to gain access to the Gate Temple by cutting off his arm.

But the look on Fely’s face when they’d found the King comatose, trapped under the beam, would stay with Hallie forever. It was the look of horror she’d worn on her own face the day her brother died. She’d seen it in the mirror for days after.

It was the same sort of anguish she’d felt when Correa had tried to make her kill Kase.

The heat of her power flooded her with vengeance. She paused, hand on the palace wall, teeth clenched against the pain.

Find a tendril, hold on.

The power was elusive. The ground beneath her came too fast, but she caught herself before she could bust her face. She lost control, channeling the power directly into the Zuprium bricks beneath her splayed fingers.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, moaning, still searching for that tendril. She grappled for it. Her breaths came too fast.

She reached far into herself until finally, her mental fingers caught the tail of one tendril and grabbed hold. Crushing it in her grip, she couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything. She just held on.

Breathing heavily, she pushed herself to her knees.

Mentally, she built a wall to hold the simmering power back. She didn’t let go of her tendril—not until the wall was secure. With each brick laid, the tension eased in her shoulders. Her fingers fumbled to find Kase’s goggles at her waist. She squeezed them until the edges bit into her palm.

She was going to be okay. For now.

She slowly pushed herself to her feet. Outside the palace, the city was just as bleak as it had been the previous day.

The acrid stench of charred wood, melted metal, and, oddly, Yalvar fuel filled the air, mingling with the suffocating smoke that hung like a shroud over the ruins.

Had it only been a few months since she’d been standing here with Kase and Zeke, praying that they could make it to the Gate temple in time to protect it from whatever scheme the Cerls had?

She picked up the electropistol from where she’d dropped it and held it in her other hand. The smell of smoke grew stronger the more breaths she took.

Wait.

She took in her surroundings. Why was there smoke? She hadn’t set any fires. Maybe the earthquake?

Maybe it was stupid to come out here at this time. She wouldn’t be able to find anything now. She could use a torch or something like that to search, but that would be tedious.

Panic replaced her relief, and the fire licked at the wall she’d constructed.

The smell of smoke grew stronger, but there was no telltale glow. Almost too soft to hear, a subtle rumbling and a thump-thump echoed in the night.

A trail of cold wound its way down her spine.

Something was very, very wrong. Her mind might have been playing tricks on her.

It made sense that she was hearing things, but there was something within her that told her she wasn’t imagining the sensations and the smell.

It was a sign, as if the power itself was trying to tell her something.

It was much like the warm pulses she’d gotten after Achilles that told her to go find the Passage…except this time, there weren’t any images flashing in her head. She looked back toward the palace, all quiet and dark.

She’d just started walking back toward the palace to find a torch when the strange thump-thump , like a heartbeat, started again.

She paused. It wasn’t her own heart. Hers fluttered a little and sped up at the unease settling in her blood.

This one was low and slow. It was how she imagined a dragon’s heartbeat might sound.

She quickened her pace toward the palace. Dragons—or, as the Yalvs called them, dragonars—roamed freely on this side of the world. Hallie would rather not relive her experience with the one in the forest. She didn’t have Kase to outwit it this time.

Stars, where was Niels?

Thump-thump.

The pulse reverberated in her bones. It burned like acid, like layers of bone and muscle were peeling away. Her legs nearly gave out, but she caught herself when she stumbled. “What in the—”

Thump-thump.

By the time the next one struck, she’d reached the palace. She caught herself on the palace archway, digging her fingernails into it as she held back a scream.

When the sound ripped through her body again, her power met it. The sensation struck the heat and puddled there, simmering, but it didn’t hurt nearly as badly. She fumbled for Kase’s goggles and gripped them.

When the next phantom heartbeat tried to shatter through her, it hurt even less; the Essence power within her seemed to be tempering it. An image of the Gate flashed in her mind. She looked up toward the mountain temple.

Finally, something.

She was probably being a stars-idiot, but she pushed herself toward it without a light to guide her. She wasn’t sure what she was going to find inside, but it didn’t matter. She had to go.

The Essence inside her wanted her to go.

It needed her to do…something. It was what led her to Myrrai in the first place with the Passage, and that instinct hadn’t dimmed.

She would rather go to the library and figure out what her next steps were, but that could wait.

It was like the Gate inside the temple was a lantern, and she the moth drawn to its light.

Her boots scuffed along the lane as she headed toward the temple, the cobblestones stained with ash, blood, and debris she tried to ignore.

Memories flashed in her mind, of Ebba’s chest lit with a golden glow as the bullet struck her, of Kase shielding her from a Cerl bullet, of the Cerls using Rodr’s blood to force open the temple door.

She inspected the doorway itself. Deep claw marks raked across the metal and stone, splintering it in jagged lines. Something large had burst through, leaving the door bent and misshapen, hanging at a grotesque angle from torn, rusted hinges. She blinked. Zuprium didn’t rust. Maybe…that was…wait…

She shuffled closer, looking at the nearest hinge closely. That wasn’t rust.

It was old blood.

Her stomach churned, and she stepped back, willing the nausea to abate. But she made the mistake of looking down.

The stain streaked down the door, the rusty reminder pooling beneath her feet. Time and weather had reduced it to nothing but pigment, but…

This was where Zeke had died.

She gripped Kase’s goggles, willing the grief and power bubbling up from her stomach to subside.

Squatting down and running her hand on the stone below her, she whispered the words of leaving as if they would make a difference now, even though they’d burned him a few months before.

“May you find your place amongst the stars.”

It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough, but it was all she could do for now. She would defeat the Cerls, make them pay for what they’d done—to Zeke, to Kase, to her.

She’d do it for Stoneset, for Jayde.

Thump-thump.