Page 252 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
Hallie
AFTER THE MOST GRUELING HIKE she’d ever done in her life, the smell of Yalvar fuel turned Hallie’s stomach as they stepped inside the cave. The chasm in the tunnels where the Stradat Lord Kapitan’s tent had been had boasted a good bit of it, and the smell hadn’t been this strong.
This stench made her gag, forcing her to pull her jacket collar up over her nose as if that would help. She had to try something.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to find inside. By the stench, she was expecting some sort of pool boiling with the stuff. It was odd to find the Yalvar fuel this high up in the mountains. You usually had to dig deep to find it.
The cave was pitch black, the only illumination coming from the late afternoon light streaming from behind them. They didn’t have a lantern or torch, and she was uncertain if she wanted to continue to feel her way when the Yalvar fuel could’vebeen anywhere. Dying from chemical burns would be a rather anticlimactic way to go while trying to save the world.
Actual fire might not be the best idea with all these fumes…but maybe she could do something better.
Ben had said she’d healed him with her power. She’d suffered the consequence of losing control, of course, but she’d done it. Here in Valora, her power didn’t feel so foreign and hostile. It felt like something that had always been a part of her, just waiting for her to realize it was there. She couldn’t explain why she felt that way. It might very well have something to do with her brother. Just being with him, talking with him, teasing him—it healed her soul in ways she hadn’t known were still missing.
Her power bobbed in her chest, a nudge of sorts. It wanted to be used.
If she tried what Saldr had taught her, could she summon that ball of Yalven fire? There were no trees to destroy in this cave. Just a gaseous entity that might explode.
But something in her knew she could do it right. And so she did.
“Yrea.” She snapped her fingers softly.
A weak tongue of fire sparked to life above her fingers. It didn’t go out. It didn’t explode. Her hand didn’t tingle.
She gasped.
It wasn’t nearly as bright as anything the other Yalvs had made, nor did it mold itself into a ball, but it floated there above her fingers, shimmering with faint light.
“I knew you could do it,” Kase said, putting a hand on the small of her back. She smiled up at him, the light just brushing the edges of his features. They made his eyes brighter and the shadows less severe. Something had happened after she’d been thrust into this strange reality. Something that would explain the sword clasped in his hand.
“Yrea.” Skibs’ flame was a little bigger and a little brighter.
Navara took the lead with her own. “Doing that without Zuprium is how I know all of you have passed into this realm the way I did, rather than through death.”
“How do you stand it?” Skibs asked as he directed his to follow them down the tunnel. “Living in a place made for the dead?”
It took her a few moments to respond, the only sound being their footsteps on the stone beneath their feet. At last she sighed. “Truthfully, it hasn’t been a terrible place to be…though I do miss the taste of real food.”
Hallie let out a soft gasp. “So it tastes like ash because…it is the soul of food in the living realm?”
“The Soul it contains is enough to sustain a living person here, but that is its only good quality.”
Hallie thought back to the journals. How far Navara had come—how far both of them had come. In the Stoneset cavern, she’d just figured out how to work the last journal, the one with the memories infused inside the ink. They were the last attempt of a woman who desperately wanted to save her son.
And it had led her here, to this place of souls.
“Why did you stay?” Hallie asked. “Why did you not use the Aurora Gate to go back to your people? Or back to Stoneset?”
Navara slowed, her skirts swishing against the silent stone. She looked at Hallie with those ageless eyes, the ones that Hallie had found in the Lord Elder. The only reason he’d given over his power to Hallie was because she’d told him about Navara. It was a destiny of a power that might very well doom them all.
Had he known? About Navara being here? Or that Hallie would one day join her in Valora?
He’d been the Essence of Time, the most powerful of all the Essences. Hallie had proven she could speed up time, and Saldr had told her the Lord Elder had thrown himself backward. Whatif he’d seen the future in those moments right before he’d given Hallie his power?
Had he always known it would end this way? Had he willingly given up his own life just so she could save the world? And in doing so, find the daughter he’d lost nearly a century ago?
She swallowed hard at the lump in her throat.
Her great grandmother smiled and rubbed a hand across Hallie’s cheek. “Jack was right—you are full of questions.”
