Page 226 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
Kase tried to get up, but dropped back on his elbow, panting against the pain. Clara and Les both helped him sit up, but even that much effort poured sweat down his brow, his lungs heaving with every gasp. Maybe Saldr could give him more dust.
“Eravin Gray and General Marcos Correa are in the Catacombs. They’re hunting her. I need to find her.”
The muscle in Harlan’s jaw feathered. “Lady Felyra Besette and Miss Walker were seeking the Gate in another portion of the Catacombs. They discovered and inspected it, and whenLady Besette went to fetch Lord Saldr, they returned to find her missing. Lady Besette believes Miss Walker went through the Gate, leaving behind this notebook. Now, how did she know aboutthissword?”
Les closed her eyes before opening them once more, this time finding her husband’s hazel gaze. It used to be warm, if hesitant; in the years since Ezekiel’s betrayal, it had frozen to ice.
“I don’t know anything about the blasted sword!” Kase shouted; he doubled over, coughing. Fear stabbed Les’s heart. She made him lie back, and the desperate way he looked up at her didn’t break her heart. It ripped it out completely.
“We need to find her!” he shouted.
Her husband simply looked to Jove. “What about you?”
Les refused to let him keep pushing. She spoke the words so softly, she wasn’t sure if anyone else would hear: “It’s the Shackley sword.”
The very one he had strapped to his hip.
Every eye in the tent glanced toward it. Harlan pulled it from its sheath for all to see. The runic pattern on the flat sides of the long blade winked in the lantern light as people moved out of the way. Les knew more runes lay beneath the worn brown leather wrapping the grip. Those were copied almost exactly on Hallie Walker’s sketch. The very end was jagged, as if it had been broken. The blue sapphire in the pommel twinkled in the light.
It was the same sword Harlan had taken from the Cerl commander all those years ago in Ravenhelm, the one that Carleton had added to the family crest to make Harlan feel more a part of the Shackley legacy.
Harlan sheathed the sword again with quick efficiency.
Kase still did his best to push himself out of the cot, pushing himself even as agony doubled him up. He wasn’t fully healed, and Les held him steady. Kase spat through gritted teeth,“I’m not sure why Hallie would have drawn it. She had no reason to.”
He swayed a little, and Jove caught him on his other side. She slid her arm around Kase’s waist, careful of the bandages.
That was when Saldr peeked in, another parchment in his hand. He held it up. “It’s Xera’s sword. I had one of our scholars confirm it.”
On the parchment, the Shackley sword lay drawn in fading ink.
“I’m unsure what this means,” Les said, trying to comprehend what her husband was getting at. What did it matter if Hallie had drawn the sword into her own book? Perhaps she’d seen it in the family crest or from that parchment and thought it would be good to add to her own sketchbook. Kase had mentioned ages ago that she enjoyed art. She didn’t understand what the point was here.
And what did they mean, she’d gone through some gate? She hadn’t seen any gates in the Catacombs.
“This sword is the key to the Gate.” Harlan paused, a brief flash of uncertainty in his eyes before it disappeared. “Why she did not reveal this knowledge to us, we are not certain, which is why it is imperative you tell us everything you know, Kase. It might very well save her life.”
Les still didn’t understand, but Kase and Jove both seemed to. Kase turned white as a sheet. He no longer fought to stand. Jove frowned.
It was Zelda Walker who spoke up. “Where is she? What is this Gate?”
But no one was able to answer her, because a messenger interrupted. He gave a missive to the Stradat Lord Kapitan, who practically tore it open. He read the message, the line between his brows deepening with each word. He looked at Kase. “Ben Reiss is awake. He’s requesting to speak with you immediately.”
Chapter 44
THE FRIEND HE’D KNOWN
Kase
HIS SIDE STILL BURNED LIKE the sun, but there was no way in the stars that he would just sit there in that thrice-blasted tent and wait until someone else found Hallie. Eravin and Correa needed her. They needed her dead.
The thought that Hallie had gone through the Gate on her own without telling anyone only worried him more. He didn’t know what her plan was now. She didn’t have the swords. His father had one—still unsure about howthathad happened—and the other, Saldr had sheathed at his own waist. She couldn’t sacrifice herself without them with her, which means she was either going to reset the Gates like Saldr wanted…or she had changed everything entirely and hadn’t thought to tell him anything at all.
Or they were all wrong, and something worse had happened to her.
He just needed to see her, hold her, hear her say she was okay. If she’d come up with a new plan and gone through the Gate purposefully, he trusted she knew what she was doing, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Eravin and Correa were looking for her. And if they found her before he could…
Jove helped him into his last semi-clean shirt, the one Hallie had worn just yesterday. It still smelled faintly like her, like the crisp, clean mountain air. Shocks. He clenched his jaw and played it off as side pain instead of what it truly was when his mother gave him that waspish look of hers.
