Page 259 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
Just give in. Give in to the darkness.
The voice was small, soft, yet too familiar. He’d heard it before. It was the same one that always spoke to him in his darkest moments.
Ana’s betrothal dinner ending in a plan to run away. His father nearly killing him when they’d tried. The fire, his aching lungs. Ana bleeding and burning in his arms. Her sweater melted into her skin. Eravin slamming the door in his face.
It’s over. There is nothing you can do.
TheEudoramission, the storm, the stone statues, Ebba’s death, Hallie’s ruined hand, Zeke’s blood. Another slamming door, his dying brother on the other side. Skibs’ betrayal. Getting hit with the Cerl pistol in the Narden Pass. Hallie’s kidnapping. Correa’s torture. Achilles. Saying goodbye.
The weight of his failures bludgeoned him, crushing him into the stone beneath his knees. He couldn’t see. It was too dark.
You’re worthless, reckless, a waste.
Gray whimpered against black, a shadow puppet acting out every last thing that had chiseled cracks into his heart.
Hallie’s trembling lips as she stared at his ring. “I don’t want to marry you…”
Closing Harlan’s sightless eyes. “I…I love…”
Eravin’s black blood spurting from the place his head once sat. “We’re friends again, remember?”
Kase didn’t know if he was breathing. He couldn’t feel his lungs filling and contracting. He could only feel the pain.
Just let go.
Hallie
THE FIRE WAS TOO BRIGHT to be natural. The ashamox was too thick. It was as if the Gate bled its life out into each burning gust. Hallie and Ben stood before it, unsure of anything but the improbability of what they needed to do.
“Do we put out the fire first?” Hallie asked, spinning Kase’s ring around her finger. She purposefully did not look at him, wherever he was. She couldn’t, not if she was going to do what she needed to do. One look at him would unravel any courage she managed to scrounge up.
Ben pressed his glowing hands to the ground a foot or two from the blazing archway. “It’s this Gate’s soul. It’s too weak. I don’t know if putting out the fire will do anything besides prolong its death. This one is unfamiliar. It doesn’t feel like the other two Gates.”
“What if I heal it? I don’t know the first thing about doing that with a soul, but it’s the only idea I have. Could you…I don’t know…maybe…”
She was at a loss. It didn’t make sense in her mind. Nothing did. It would just be easier to put the Essence powers into the swords and return them to their respective Gates, but according to Saldr, they needed the soul that was locked inside this one to even do that. Did they take the shadow sword Skibs had set aside and thrust it into the Gate? Hack at the carved Zuprium bricks with it?
Navara shouted something behind them, and Hallie peeked over to see a wall of flames colliding with shadowy power. The whole thing rocked and bowed when hit, but it held.
Stars, why had that woman run away from being the Essence of Time? With that kind of power and skill, she would’ve been a far better candidate than Hallie. Anyone would’ve been better than her.
Time was a thief and a liar.
“Pour your power into me,” Ben said, holding out a glowing hand. “As if you’re healing. If we join our power, we might be able to stop the complete destruction. Then we can reassess.”
She didn’t have a better idea, so she clutched his hand and funneled all the burning heat she could into the connection. He winced, but he pressed his hand into the flames anyway.
Holding a single tendril and letting the others loose into her hand, she fought the urge to let it all go. It was easier this time, though, than the other ones. She didn’t have to fight as hard.
She opened one eye. How? How was she able to channel so much power into Ben without feeling the effects? Last time she’d slowed time and caught him after he’d fallen from the dragon, she’d felt herself falling deeper and deeper into the black hole, unable to pull herself out or even slow her descent.
This time was different. She wavered, but she kept a grip on reality, the power pouring out of her in a torrent. It was endless.
“Stop!” Ben said, releasing her hand.
She cut it off with barely a thought.
Stars. Was it because she was in Valora?
