Page 91 of Swords of Soul and Shadow (Gate Chronicles #3)

Ezekiel Fairchild looked little different than the portrait in the papers.

The ridges and valleys in his face were there, though more pronounced.

Along with a gas lantern chandelier casting a soft glow upon the office, the golden sunlight of an early March sunset yawned across the mahogany desk and reflected off the clock face.

It deepened the sadness in his brother-in-law’s face.

The mostly gray curls hanging around Ezekiel’s face were almost molten in the office light. It aged him nearly twenty years. His eyes had not dimmed, though they no longer lit with laughter.

Harlan rose and gestured to the leather seat in front of his desk.

Ezekiel fell into the chair, but then straightened, perched on the edge.

Elbows resting on his knees, his hands hung between them like the blooms of a bleeding heart.

It’d been over a decade, but it still took Harlan back when Ezekiel didn’t smile or make a quip at Harlan’s stiff gestures and solemn demeanor.

“Good to see you,” Harlan ventured, tapping a few fingers on his desk.

It was free of clutter. The reassignments and memos he’d need to respond to tomorrow lay beneath a simple Zuprium paperweight engraved with the Jaydian emblem.

Nothing else decorated his desk. Too much visual distraction would lead to lost details and focus.

In his office, the only indulgence he allowed himself was the clock.

Ezekiel pressed his lips together and his fingers into the armrest until both were white. “I’ve come because…” His eyes flicked to the window, to the opposite corner, and the door before resting on Harlan. “I’ve needed to…I think…”

Harlan just waited. The tick-tock of the clock filled the silence. His chest was empty in such a way that it ached. A soft and subtle tingle like the zing of electricity under his skin started in his left small finger. The stirrings of a headache.

He tried to focus on the ticking of the clock. He wouldn’t be able to make a poultice until he returned to the Manor. The herbal mix inside would help quell the worst pain, and he needed to be present that evening at the dinner. He prayed it was a manageable migraine.

Ezekiel rubbed a hand down his face. “I…I’ve discovered something, and I’m not sure how to…”

Even the way he spoke had changed. Instead of a steady, gentle fire, it’d become the lingering rain after a storm, sputtering and unstable.

“Your work?” Harlan prompted.

“I know how to save them.”

Ezekiel didn’t look at Harlan, only at his knotted fingers. Harlan blinked. “Save who?”

His brother-in-law and friend opened his mouth and closed it again, as if the words had withered on his tongue. Harlan pressed his nails into the desk until they hurt. The tingling like needles in a pincushion spread from his finger into his hand.

“Speak plainly, Ezekiel,” Harlan said firmly. “What are you on about?”

The man fumbled with the neckline of his wrinkled collared shirt as if searching for something only to find it missing.

“Rose.” Ezekiel’s voice was hoarse. “Emilia. Asa.”

It was Harlan’s turn to be silent. What did he mean? Rose and the newborn girl, Emilia, had been Burned over a decade ago. There was no saving them. The tingling made it to Harlan’s wrist.

He didn’t know the third.

“What do you mean? Who is Asa?”

Ezekiel opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. He fidgeted and cleared his throat. His eyes swept the room again as if to assess if they had an audience.

“I…I had another…son, but he…didn’t…”

Harlan could only stare at the man. It was like the words didn’t quite make sense. Another son?

“Ezekiel, what do you mean?”

His brother-in-law didn’t answer.

The tingling edged its way toward Harlan’s elbow.

Son. Another son. Asa. Who was the mother?

Certainly not Rose. It wasn’t possible that Ezekiel could’ve hidden another child for over a decade.

He’d never seemed the type to take a mistress, though Harlan guessed it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

He just hadn’t thought Ezekiel able to set aside his grief long enough to—

Oh shocks.

Harlan’s eyes flicked to the newspaper he’d set down when his friend had entered the room. Ezekiel’s haggard face stared into his soul. Right beneath the article about the Cerl Queen, her mourning period complete.

The consequences. The ramifications.

His heart hammered in his chest.

If it was true, it could very well be the spark that started the war waiting in the wings, the one Harlan had been working hard to prevent.

The gravity of that truth might just send the world into chaos. An emissary and spy having an affair with the enemy Queen? Surely, his brother-in-law hadn’t been so careless. Surely, the man in front of him wouldn’t have risked everything Harlan had stood for, that Jayde stood for.

“For the love of the stars, Ezekiel, if you have—”

The door slammed against the wall, rattling the clock. Harlan leapt to his feet, his hand ripping open the drawer where his flashpistol lay. The Cerls. They were here. They knew.

But instead of an attack, the orderly sprinted inside, his eyes wide.

“Apologies for the interruption.” Private Grantham panted, parchment crumpled in his hand. “Your wife, Brigadier General. Lady Celeste. Water broke. Refusing to go to the Guild.”

Harlan’s headache flared. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed the pain to wait. He shut the weapons drawer.

Ezekiel could wait.

Harlan could only handle one crisis at a time.

“Is my motorcoach—” Harlan started, but the man interrupted.

“In the front drive, Sir.”

“Thank you.” Harlan walked briskly to the door and grabbed his hat. “Come with me, Ezekiel.”

He nodded to the orderly. “Send my regrets to the Lord Kapitan.”

Fear raced through Harlan’s veins as he and his brother-in-law sped through the corridors and down the front staircase. Harlan saluted the men and women he passed, but he didn’t take the time to do more than that. He couldn’t.

Why Les would refuse to go to the Medic Guild, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t surprised. Last time, they hadn’t allowed her to bring her books. She was probably being petty even if her medic had recommended going when the time came because of her age.

Stubborn woman. He loved her anyway.

And soon, he would be a father of four. A spark of hope threaded through the fear of loss—for his wife, his children, and Ezekiel.

THE LABOR LASTED HOURS, TOO long for a fourth birth.

Les was weak. Harlan was haggard, and yet, the baby had yet to arrive. All of Harlan’s medical knowledge was useless. He’d researched many complications after Rose’s death, but all he could remember in the time he held his wife through the pain was that Rose died.

They shouldn’t have had another child. They had three strong, healthy boys. Ezekiel had gone to help the nanny attend to them. He wouldn’t be much help in his state, but Harlan couldn’t worry about his brother-in-law, not when the life leaked out of his wife.

Was this how Ezekiel felt? Helpless? Les was too pale. Her pulse was too weak.

Was there anything he could do to prevent the worst from happening? Would saving her mean sacrificing the babe she carried? Would Harlan do that? Would he wish that? If it would save his wife?

“One more push, my lady!” The midwife encouraged, her voice sounding ragged after hours of trying everything she could to help the labor progress.

Les whimpered, and Harlan smoothed her hair from her forehead and kissed the top of her head. “You can do this. It’s almost done.”

She squeezed his hand weakly as she cried out, pushing with all the strength she had left. Harlan never let her go.

“She’s here! It’s a girl!” the midwife cried. “She’s…”

Harlan didn’t hear the cry of life. All he heard was the midwife slapping the baby’s skin.

Les’ breathing was shallow. Harlan pushed himself up, his arm still around his wife. “Midwife?”

The woman’s face was haggard and pale at the end of the bed. She met his eyes, panic clear in her gaze. “Brigadier General…”

Stars, no.

Had he wished it true? Had his thoughts about saving his wife over the baby made this happen? White hot fear and anger flooded his veins.

“Harlan?” Les asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “Where is…where is…she? Why can’t I hear her?”

In that moment, the battlefield calm fell over him. He was no longer a husband and father. He was a medic on the front with soldiers who needed saving.

He pushed himself off the bed and went to the midwife. The baby girl in her arms was still wet and glistening, the birthing waters coating her blue skin. The woman tried to position the baby for better airway access. The baby wasn’t moving or reacting to anything the woman did.

No.

Harlan took the girl from the midwife and ordered, “Fetch Lord Fairchild and warm blankets now!”

He needed his medic partner, and the baby needed warmth. There had to be a solution.

The midwife ran from the room, and Harlan didn’t have enough knowledge of how to help a baby, but he looked toward his wife, whose blue eyes were wide with terror despite the exhaustion in the lines of her face.

He placed the baby on her chest, grabbing whatever blankets he could find and bundling them both.

Les couldn’t stop her tears as she clung to the girl. Neither could Harlan, though he was only vaguely aware of them cascading down his cheeks.

The baby’s pulse. He couldn’t feel it.

Her skin was too cold.

He could only feel his panic.

He couldn’t lose someone else. His heart could not take it. He…he…

The door to the chamber burst open. The midwife sprinted in with more blankets. Ezekiel flew in behind her, his eyes and hair wild.

“The babe…” Harlan managed to get out.

His brother-in-law searched the room, his head whipping right and left. “Your locket, Lessie. Where is your locket? The one I gave you?”

Les was crying too hard to answer. Harlan tugged it over her head and handed it to Ezekiel. His friend pulled a pocketknife from his pocket.

Harlan paused, rubbing the girl’s back as Ezekiel pressed the open knife to his finger and bled onto the locket in his hand.

“I need the baby’s blood,” Ezekiel commanded.

Harlan stopped him, pushing him away from his stillborn baby and his wife. “What are you doing?”

Ezekiel’s eyes were filled with rage and anguish. “I can fix this.”

Harlan still didn’t move. Les cried harder.

Ezekiel growled. “Move or it will be too late.” His blood coated the woodland scene and phoenix on the cover, making the Zuprium feathers turn red, noticeable even in the dim gas lantern light. “Just trust me, please .”

So, Harlan moved.

Despite all his medical expertise, the chaos of the moment, and the knowledge that Ezekiel was no longer the man he’d known, he still had a shred of stars-blasted, impossible hope.

Les held the baby tighter, her tears falling to the baby’s skin. Ezekiel moved closer, taking the small, shriveled girl’s foot, pressing the knife’s blade to her heel. The girl didn’t stir.

The midwife tried to intervene, but Harlan shook his head, watching as blood bubbled forth at last. Ezekiel smeared it onto the locket and clasped the necklace in his fist. He squeezed it so hard, his knuckles turned white. He panted as if the little blood leaving his body carried too much weight.

Opening his fist, the locket gave off a glow. A blue glow. Harlan could only stare, his mouth dropping open.

The gas lantern light was gold. The Zuprium was bronze. But the glow was distinctly blue, as blue as Les’ eyes.

“Ezekiel, what…” but Harlan couldn’t say more than that.

Ezekiel pressed the locket to the baby’s silent heart. Her skin matched the glow. It bathed Les’ wet, anguished face.

No one moved.

Harlan lost count of the heartbeats, but it wasn’t until several minutes later that the glow abated, fading with the night and the silence.

The girl cried.

Ezekiel pulled his hand back. Les gasped, her sobs mixed with those of her now living daughter.

Ice as cold as a Narden winter inundated Harlan’s veins. The baby was dead. Stillborn. More than likely from the prolonged labor. They couldn’t predict complications during the birth itself—not like they were able to on First Earth.

What had Ezekiel done?

He met his friend’s melancholy gaze. “What did—how did you—”

He couldn’t even begin to understand what had happened, much less organize his own thoughts. Too much was happening at once, too much he didn’t comprehend. What Ezekiel had done was nothing short of a miracle.

It felt unnatural.

His brother-in-law had somehow brought back the dead.

“I know how to save them,” Ezekiel whispered. “And it’s too late.”

Harlan stumbled over to Les and hugged them both. The baby was alive. Her skin’s blueish tint had bled into red with each new cry.

He looked back at Ezekiel, “What did you do?”

Ezekiel walked toward the door, pausing just before he left. “What needed to be done.”

“What is the cost?” Harlan choked over the emotions flooding his chest.

Ezekiel opened the door and looked back, his eyes once again shadowed and hollow at once. “The cost is worth it in the end.”

And then he left Harlan with a deep sense of dread in his bones.