Page 235 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
“Uncle!” Skibs shouted, pushing past the Stradat Lord Kapitan and forming a fist with his hand. It started glowing. “Stop trying to—”
But Correa wouldn’t be stopped. “I refuse to listen to the spawn of Jaydian filth! My sister was deceived, and look where it has led!”
Kase wasn’t sure what the man was speaking about. He tensed, ready to move if Correa tried to use his Essence power on anyone, though he was nearly useless without a weapon. Besides, the man was tainted and working with Eravin. Maybe the General had gone mad.
“Kase.” He recognized his mother’s voice just before fingers closed around the back of his shirt, pulling him back. “Let them handle this. You are in no state.”
He came by his own stubbornness quite honestly.
Kase half turned. “Go back to Clara. This isn’t—”
“You’ve lost it, Uncle! I have no Jaydian blood—and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. If my brother is truly dead, as Lady Fely states, I am your king. You granted me legitimacy yourself.”
Whether it was the power corrupting him or the black veins deteriorating his mind, Correa laughed and laughed like some kind of madman. It echoed in the near-empty tunnel. “You’re wrong.”
“My father was the stable master,” Skibs spat. “You told me that yourself. Had him executed for it.”
“Your father was Ezekiel Fairchild, the man who betrayed his own country and got your mother killed.”
The words sucked up all the air in the room. His mother gasped. His father looked back, his grip on the sword wavering only a little. Kase could only stare forward. Saldr still stood in front of Lady Fely. The ward had emptied out, thankfully.
Skibs shook his head. “You’re lying.”
It was the Stradat Lord Kapitan’s voice that spoke up next, a little hoarse. “He’s not.”
Everyone swung toward him. Kase’s mother brought a hand to her mouth and shook her head. Harlan continued, “I knew Ezekiel had fathered a child with Queen Astraea, but I was told the child died in infancy.”
“That doesn’t make sense. My mother wouldn’t have lied about that,” Skibs said, looking lost. His fist had unclenched, and the golden light had vanished.
It was Kase’s mother who stepped forward next. Harlan tried to grab her hand, but she yanked it out of his grip and pressed forward. She walked up to Skibs. He looked down at her, and she nodded. “I’d know those eyes anywhere. What the Stradat Lord Kapitan says is true.”
Correa took the moment to attack and grabbed Les’ arm. She screamed as the lightning pain shot through her.
Kase barreled forward with a shout—but his father was quicker. In a flash of snow-white steel, he cut in with the efficiency of a trained soldier and sheared Correa’s arm off near the elbow. Correa’s scream rocked the entire ward.
“You killed my brother. You tortured my son. You will not touch my wife!” Harlan yelled as he swung the sword around again and—before anyone, much less Correa, could react—stabbed the man through the heart.
Correa folded down over the blade, gasping, gurgling through blood; Harlan stepped closer, driving the sword through to the hilt. He leaned in face to face with the general, lips peeled back over gritted teeth, gaze bathed in hatred as he growled, “I’ve been waiting for this day a very long time. You have been a dead man walking since the day you spilled my brother’s blood.”
He wrenched the sword from the man’s chest. Correa tipped sideways, eyes sightless, collapsing into a growing pool of his own blood. Kase couldn’t tell if the blood looked black because of the lack of light, or…something more frightening.
The same clot-dark blood splattered on Harlan’s military uniform. Breathing unevenly, the Stradat Lord Kapitan wiped the sword on his own trousers. The weapon glowed subtly in the darkness.
No one else moved. Kase and Skibs met each other’s eyes. In the cast of silvery light, everything wavered around him like a moonlit dream; he could barely process it as reality.
Stowe moved first; Kase hadn’t realized he was still there. He knelt beside Les, who had fallen beside Skibs, and dug around in his pack for one of his vials. Correa’s hand still wrapped around his mother’s arm. Harlan bent down and wrenched it off, flinging it down the corridor.
Black, tar-like blood grew in a puddle beneath the body. His eyes were no longer the color of midnight, but a soft, loamy brown.
“I…I—” Ben started, but the words wouldn’t work.
Kase shook his head. His body fluctuated between hot and cold. His mouth was too dry. “I don’t believe…I don’t think…does that mean…”
Stowe helped his mother from the ground. Zelda sprinted over and held her other arm.
Harlan had a hand over his eyes.
Sheathing his sword, Saldr took Fely’s hand. “Besides Master Kase’s account, that man confirmed Jagamot is indeed here. We must find the second Gate and Miss Walker, though I fear it may already be too late.”
