Page 214 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
How long had that been? A day? Two?
The hollows beneath his cheekbones had only sunk further. Maybe it was the dimly lit hangar, but stark black shadows lined his eyes. Eravin stopped a few paces away. “Just want to talk.”
Kase didn’t loosen his grip on his knife, but he also didn’t throw it at the other man. Not yet.
A muffled yell came from behind him. Kase spun. A gagged Sergeant fought against an attacker—a man Kase had dreaded ever seeing again and had hoped had somehow died in Achilles, even though Hallie had told him otherwise. It’d been a pointless wish.
General Marcos Correa looked worse for wear, too. His skin had gone sallow, his hair unkempt. Shadows darkened his pale brown eyes to lightless pits. His clothing was dirty and torn. He had the same black lines around his eyes as Eravin. He finally wrangled Sergeant into a submissive position, though it took enough effort to keep Sergeant there that sweat beaded the Cerl general’s brow. Sergeant still tugged and twisted best he could.
Kase took a step toward him, knife coming up to…to…to do what? He couldn’t throw it at Correa. The Cerl would use Sergeant as a shield, and Kase wasn’t skilled enough at knife throwing to avoid that outcome.
“Let him go,” Kase demanded. “This doesn’t involve him.”
“We have a deal for you, Shackley,” Eravin said, drawing Kase’s attention. “Agree to help us, and we let your babysitter free.”
Kase spat something foul at him. Eravin’s eyebrows shot up. “Didn’t realize you cared that much. Interesting.”
Eravin nodded at Correa, who touched a finger to Sergeant’s cheek. Sergeant screamed and collapsed into Correa’s hold.
Kase flinched so hard, he nearly dropped his knife. He knew that pain. He’d lived it at Achilles. “Stop!”
Eravin walked back into his view. The lantern light hit him in such a way that his eyes were more visible. The veins in his eyes were black, not red—so numerous they nearly swallowed the whites entirely. Kase couldn’t even find the voice to scream. Eravin was like a nightmare come to life.
“What—what are you?” Kase managed to choke and stumble away.
Eravin smirked, but it didn’t look mischievous as it always had in the past. It spread nearly too wide for his face; his lips parted slightly, twitching, baring his teeth in a sinister slash that dragged chills down Kase’s spine. “We are Jagamot.”
“I don’t understand.” Kase’s limbs turned cold. He could barely feel the knife in his hand. “You’re not…Jagamot is something else. A god or something.”
“Jagamot is darkness. He is inside all of us; you need only surrender to him for him to manifest. That stupid old man, Loffler, set it all off by destabilizing the planet enough to allow Jagamot’s essence to filter throughout the atmosphere and enter every single person on this planet. Just inhaling the scent of the ashamox—the gaseous form of Yalvar fuel—allows him to take root. Particularly if you’re broken enough.” Eravin stepped closer. “And this city is rife with broken people.”
Eravin was too close. Kase tried to raise his arm to stop him from doing anything else, from stepping closer, but his hand wouldn’t work. His fingers refused to move; his knife slipped right out of them.
Eravin’s smirk deepened. “Want this all to end? Hand over your girl. Give us Hallie Walker, the Essence of Time, and we’ll allow you, your babysitter here, your mother, and your brother’s family to live. Not many will get that gift. We’ll even let the Stradat Lord Kapitan die. A gift for you. He was supposed to die weeks ago.”
Kase still had enough in him to spit, “I already told you: touch her, and you die.”
“Not really an option now. We can’t have her combining the Essence powers or resetting the Gate, and she’s very determined. She’s got spunk.” Eravin smiled, and Kase nearly puked. His gums were black. Darkness.
Jagamot.
Eravin was about to say something else when his eyes flicked up past his shoulder. “No! Don’t—”
The right side of Kase’s chest caught fire. But when he screamed, slapping at the flames, his hand met something wet and warm.
When he opened his eyes again, he was on the floor, everything tipped at a sickening angle; above him, Eravin yanked the King Arthur knife out of its wielder’s hand—Neville, whom Kase hadn’t seen in the room until now.
In the blink of an eye, Eravin slit the man’s throat.
Blood spurted from above him, splattering across Kase’s cheek as Neville choked on a wet, bubbling gasp. He clawed at his throat and fell to his knees.
Neville. Kase blinked, trying to understand, trying to stay awake.
Neville had stabbed him with his own knife.
“Fool,” Eravin shouted. “You let your petty revenge get the better of you, and now you’ll die, just like Lavinia.” He kicked Neville in the chest. He disappeared from Kase’s line of sight. “Should’ve figured out I did that one in, too.”
Kase couldn’t move, and his brain couldn’t comprehend his words, not fully. The pain in his chest grew with each passing second. But he couldn’t let Eravin near Hallie. “Stay…away…”
