Page 269 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
He’d never leave her. But how could he just sit here while she was…
How could he let her go?
“Vrali anora ess kinl nah!” Skibs shouted.
Kase jerked his head up to see Skibs thrusting the new sword back into the Gate. Light burst from the center of the archway. Kase shielded Hallie from it, tucking her against hischest. A shockwave rocked the cavern cathedral, knocking them over. He cushioned her fall and took a knock on the head.
He gritted his teeth against the pain. A second and third shockwave rolled over them like the waves of a raging sea. He held Hallie so they wouldn’t fall apart.
The quaking stopped.
Earsplitting screeches echoed in the cavern. It wasn’t him, nor Hallie, nor Skibs.
It was the smoke.
Kase peeked up. The bulbous, foul-stenched mass roiled and writhed. It fought its fate, but the light was too strong. Another blinding flash burst from the Gate.
The ashamox screeched out one last death throe before silence fell.
Kase’s head still ached from where he’d hit it, but he pushed himself to his elbow, still holding Hallie to him. The Gate’s light faded to gold, the blue disappearing completely. Suspended in the center like an angelic wraith hung Navara’s sword, its pommel gemstone a diamond.
Skibs stumbled over and fell to his knees beside Kase. “Are you all right? I think…I think we did it.”
His breaths came heavy, and sweat dripped like rain down his face. It was as if he’d run miles, though he’d only walked fifteen feet. His eyes were awash with the Gate’s glow, reminding Kase that Ben was more like himself than he’d known, yet so different at the same time.
Kase held Hallie’s hand. The ring still had a soft blue glow. It wasn’t the reflection from the Gate. Had he…?
No, surely not. He looked back at Skibs. “How? How did you do it? I thought it was the swords, or…or Hallie had to reset the Gate in Myrrai.”
Skibs nodded to the woman in Kase’s arms. “She figured it out. Creating a new Gate with my power and hers…it worked.Technically, we did combine all the Essence powers.” He gestured back to where the two other swords lay, the Gate’s light reflecting off their blades. “In a way.” He laid a hand on Kase’s shoulder. “You did well.”
Not well at all. He’d defeated his own darkness, only to find he’d hurt the person he loved most in the world.
Skibs pushed himself to his feet and walked to Eravin’s corpse. Another victim of Kase’s rage. He gritted his teeth against the wave of pain, terror, and relief warring within him.
Glaring down at the shell of the man, Skibs muttered, “For Kase, I’ll give you a Yalven Burning. You don’t deserve it for what you did to my home, my family, and nearly did to me.” Skibs snapped his fingers. Tongues of fire leapt from them and encompassed the body and blood beneath it.
In moments, it was gone. But it didn’t entirely feel different. The boy who had lost everything had been gone for a while. He’d died years ago, replaced with a bitter man who would never be able to overcome his grief. Kase hadn’t really known that man.
Kase swallowed hard. That had almost been him.
Skibs did the same to Stradat Loffler, whom Kase had forgotten about in the fight.
“I’ll be around the corner,” Skibs said after he extinguished the flames from both pyres with another snap of his fingers. “Let me know if…let me know when you’re ready.”
Kase shook as Skibs walked away from them, another light at his fingertips. Hallie had healed him, he’d said. He’d been a prisoner in his own head for months, yet now, he was almost like the man he’d known before theEudoramission. But even before he’d taken on the Essence, he’d had a light about him that no one could’ve given him. It came from within. Learning what Kase had in the past day or so, it was amazing Skibs could function at all. He’d grown up without a father, deemed illegitimate andtreated as such. He’d lost his mother young, assassinated by Jayde for the sake of a secret.
And now? Now, he was King of Cerulene and had found a family he hadn’t known he had—Kase, Les, and Jove.
If he could do it, so could Kase. Hadn’t he been on that path before this?
It’d been Hallie who’d taught him how to fight. It’d been her strength and the light that pushed away the darkness.
If she died now, would he fall back into that all-encompassing grief?
She wouldn’t want him to. She’d want him to live.
It was too hard. Impossible. But he would do it. He’d never meet someone else with her fervor for life, her tenacity, her trust in him—but he’d have to be okay with that. He would have to learn to live with the guilt he was the reason she was no longer there.
