Page 65 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

Second Gate? What was that? No one else asked about it. It seemed like Niels was on the outside. What did this mean for him?

Everything sounded like he’d gotten stuck in a fantasy book. He remembered Jack loving one when they were younger about an epic black sword that spoke. The one on the table had yet to utter demands, thank the stars. The blade was still unnerving, though he wasn’t sure why.

The Yalv, Saldr, held out his hands, “May I?”

He grabbed it from the table when no one objected and inspected it in silence.

The man whispered something before setting the sword back onto the table in front of him. “Many souls have lived on as keys, but none greater than Kainadr and Xera. How did you come across it?”

“The Gate.” Hallie’s voice shook a little. She glanced at Fely before continuing, “It showed it to me, and I took it.”

The man muttered something in a different language vehemently under his breath. Kase leaned toward her, away from the sword. “I don’t think I quite understand.”

Hallie took a deep breath before saying, “Stradat Loffler stabbed King Filip with it. And then the chamber started coming apart at the seams. We escaped through the Passage…and ended up here.”

No one else in the room moved. No one else spoke. It was as if the world around them had stopped.

“And where is the Essence of Spark?” Lord Saldr asked.

For the first time since they sat down, Hallie looked back at him. He shivered, more from the ice in his veins but her eyes asked the silent question. He ignored the unease in the room. “I…I only acted because…”

He didn’t know what had happened. The man had killed the King of Cerulene. He was going to kill Hallie. Niels had acted on instinct.

But the man had still been a Stradat of Jayde.

“Go on, then,” the Stradat Lord Kapitan said, his arms crossed.

Would he arrest Niels for what he’d done?

It’d been self-defense. Niels cleared his throat to give himself another second.

“He’d killed the Cerl King already. I tackled him before he swung that sword at Hallie or Lady Fely.

” He nodded to both. “And then I kicked him into whatever that archway thing was where Hal had gotten the sword.”

A few painful beats before the Stradat Lord Kapitan said, “At least he can no longer cause issue here. He was working with the enemy, though I now think the enemy is no longer solely Cerulene.”

“We must find the second Gate and restore both Kainadr and Xera with the powers infused into the swords.” Fely smoothed back flyaway pieces of her dark hair.

“Using that information, we might be able to bargain with the General to leave your city alone. He’s bent on revenge, but in the end, you both aim for the same goal— to save Yalvara. ”

“I’ll never give in to those blasted—” The Stradat Lord Kapitan used a word to describe them that wasn’t polite for anyone’s ears, much less the women in the room. Kase started to rise, but Hallie pulled him back down.

Niels just stared straight ahead. The cold had spread into his shoulders and his hips. He wanted to sleep.

“But what must we do? What will finding the swords accomplish?” Hallie sounded so much calmer than Niels would’ve figured possible, considering the circumstances.

It was Saldr that answered, “Some believe in combining the Essence powers, including the final sliver of Toro hidden within Valora, which would stop the destruction of the planet…for a time. No prophecy or ancient text tells us what will happen after.”

“How would that work?” Niels asked, but everyone ignored him.

“There is a chance it all fails? That whatever we do will have no effect?” Hallie’s freckles stood out starkly on her pale skin.

Niels could’ve counted every single one.

“Why wasn’t this done earlier? When the Essences were together?

And Loffler. He’s somewhere in the Gate. He had an Essence power.”

Saldr rubbed his jaw. “The secondary Gate—”

Saldr’s answer was interrupted as one of the guards entered. The rush of noise from outside the tent physically hurt. Niels swayed. He gripped the edge of the table, but no one noticed, too focused on the guard.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Stradat Lord Kapitan, but the Walkers are outside.”

Hallie jerked her head toward the entrance and tried to stand, but the table was in the way. She cursed softly as her leg collided with it. She sat back down. Niels couldn’t do anything to help. He was too numb.

“We are in a meeting,” the Stradat Lord Kapitan said with irritation coloring the words. “I will not stand for petty interruptions.”

Niels caught the feathering in Kase’s jaw.

Niels and his own father hadn’t had the closest of relationships, but that didn’t mean he hated him.

Niels knew he hadn’t been an easy child to raise, that he would never be as good as his brother, even if Niels had stayed to help provide for the family when Andre had left to sell furs in Nar.

He’d failed and had returned home to help with the struggling farm.

But then they’d all died. Except for Niels.

Niels gripped the table even harder until it hurt. The pain kept the swaying at bay.

“They are quite insistent, Stradat Lord Kapitan.”

“They will wait.”

The soldier saluted and closed the flap behind him. The Stradat Lord Kapitan glared at Kase, “This is your doing, isn’t it?”

“They’re Hallie’s parents.” Kase crossed his arms. “They deserved to know when she returned.” His voice was the fire to his father’s ice.

Hallie stiffened. Niels’ neck went cold.

The Stradat Lord Kapitan’s eyes narrowed further as he opened his mouth to argue back. The tent flew open, interrupting the scathing remark he was sure to make.

Zelda Walker barged in, and for all her short stature, she looked about ten feet tall.

“I don’t care who you are or that you could order my execution tomorrow.” Zelda aimed her words at the Stradat Lord Kapitan. “But I will see my daughter.”

Niels couldn’t even muster up a smile at her audacity. It was like his face was frozen.

Hallie shot out of her seat. Kase stepped between his father and Zelda. Niels couldn’t move. Hallie grabbed her mother by the hand and dragged her back to the tent entrance. “Mama, you need to wait.”

Zelda did not like that one bit, but her dropped jaw and ready response got cut off by a rumble through the tunnels. Kase dove for Hallie, protecting her with his body. Something large and heavy crushed the sleeping cot.

Niels fell sideways onto the table and banged his head before tumbling out of his chair.

He barely felt it.

The other side of the tent collapsed around them, ripping it in two as the side with the Stradat Lord Kapitan’s desk toppled into a growing, rattling crevice ripping open the stone floor.

Both Fely and Saldr’s chairs fell into the abyss.

Fely screamed, scrambling for purchase along the giant crack that appeared in the floor.

Saldr lunged, catching her by the wrists and pulling her up.

“What in the blazes?” Zelda asked as Stowe crawled over from where he’d fallen just outside the tent, only half of which remained. The loose pieces fluttered around them. The soldiers, too, crawled along the ground.

Niels was able to get his body to move enough to push himself up onto his good elbow. He shivered harder. It was so cold.

Behind the Walkers, the cavern had broken into mass chaos.

People screamed. Mothers shouted for their children.

Half of the cavern had fallen into the gaping hole.

Other soldiers clamored for order. Anyone who ran toward the Stradat Lord Kapitan’s tent was thrust backward.

One of the soldiers brandished his sword in one hand, a flashpistol in the other.

The rumbling ceased.

Out of breath, Saldr still managed to say, “That is why we must make peace with the Cerls, Stradat Lord Kapitan.”

He pointed back toward the earthen maw marring the part of the tunnel that had collapsed down into the depths of the planet.

In its place, a deep dark, congealed-looking gas oozed and seeped out of the center, floating in the air.

It was almost like a grotesque mockery of smoke.

That’s when the scent hit him. It was almost as if his senses hadn’t caught up with the chaos around him until that moment.

The acrid burning smell stung his nostrils.

If you dug down deep enough, you could find it—yalvar fuel. As miners, they’d been warned to never touch it but to let the overseer know. Then a few of the more experienced miners were brought in to extract it for expedition to Achilles and Kyvena.

But why was Yalvar fuel floating up like that?

Why did Lord Saldr seem to think the Yalvar fuel was the reason they needed to ally with Correa? What had it to do with anything other than how Jayde fueled most of their engines?

Lord Saldr’s voice was clear even with the surrounding turmoil. “Jagamot’s corruption of the Zuprium crystals is complete.”

Whatever emotion Niels was feeling barely registered in his brain.

He shivered even harder. Something was wrong.

He just couldn’t say what. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the words.

His lips were frozen shut. Blood loss. It had to be.

Whatever help Lady Fely had given him earlier had worn off.

Or maybe Hallie’s other healing had failed again. He couldn’t tell if it’d reopened.

He didn’t hear anything, could barely see the shapes in front of him. He attempted to launch himself to his feet.

But he was frozen, the ice finally reaching his heart.

He needed to help Hallie.

He needed to win her…

He needed…

He…

And then he collapsed.