Page 69 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
Stepping up to the bookshelf, she picked up some of the scattered tomes, straightening them and setting them to rights, She ran her fingers across the spines. They were cold, but the embossed words welcomed her touch. In her mind, she could hear Kase’s voice as he read from the only one written in Common—the biography of a dragonar tamer. She pulled that book from the shelf and sat on the sofa. It was a soft comfort in such a place.
One thing that would never change about her: she never could resist a book. Simply holding it calmed her anxious spirit. What she wouldn’t give to be back in that time, Kase beside her.
Would she make the same choices if given the chance to relive those days? Would she still end up back here, alone?
Would she still choose to take on this power, knowing what it would cost her?
If she could control time, she was indeed the most powerful Essence of them all. Correa would never let her go, and she could understand why. But what did her power have to do with Jagamot? And what did it have to do with the legend of the two swords?
Navara was supposed to take the power from the Lord Elder. She’d been chosen to do so, but she’d run from her responsibility. She’d fallen in love and married on the complete other side of the world…and then her son had gotten the Fogs.
Maybe there were more answers in the journal, and she just hadn’t found them yet. It seemed the least Navara owed her.
Setting aside the dragonar book, Hallie pulled out the last journal and opened to the page where she’d pressed her bloodied hand to find it…empty.
Empty.
No blood. No ink.
“What in the blazes…” she whispered under her breath. She nearly ripped the page trying to turn it. The next was full of her great grandmother’s muddled Yalven.
The back of her head ached. She was missing something. Words didn’t just get up and walk away.
Unless something hadunwritten them.
Hallie flipped through the journal quickly. Nothing she could translate on the spot said anything about using Essence power. But Navara was Yalven. Saldr wasn’t an Essence, yet he could do certain things with that dust, the Vasa. He could pop in and out of existence, transporting himself when needed. It was like he bent time in those moments, not that Hallie quite understood the science or magic behind that. Maybe Navara could do something similar? Maybe she could manipulate…
Wait.
Hallie walked over to the window with Firstmoon’s light starting to poke through. If she held the book at an angle…
A soft sparkling poured across the pages, revealed by the light.
Zuprium. It had to be. Navara had lived in a mining village. The dust would’ve been everywhere.
And the Yalvs used the metal to heal, fight, and more.
Navara had mixed Zuprium dust with the ink to write her journals, or at least part of them. A smile played across Hallie’s lips. She could use this.
She unwrapped her hand, gritting her teeth against the pain of ripping the bandage off, some of the scab coming off with it. She pressed her fingers around the reopened cut and coaxed blood to the surface.
Once she had enough blood pooling in the creases of her palm, she turned to the next page and pressed her hand to it.
Within seconds, the chamber in Myrrai disappeared, replaced by impenetrable darkness. It was silent for a beat before the previous voices returned.
Quiet sobs rang through the void. “I can’t. I can’t do it. If only there is another way to…there has to be…I need Raern to fix him.” The woman’s voice.
The male one responded, “You left your people, and you did everything you could for Jack. Adrienne will need you to help with the birth. Jack said they’re going to name him Stowe if he’s a boy, and Ara after you if she’s a girl.”
“The Passage has to open again.”
“There is no cure for the Fogs. I’ve accepted it, and Jack has too.”
The ground shook, rocketing Hallie back to reality. The newly replaced books clamored, bumped, and fell off the shelves. Her bones rattled. She slammed the diary shut and stuffed it back into her satchel. Out the window, black smoke rose from the lower part of the city.
Another earthquake. This one was probably aftershock, but it felt just as powerful as the previous. It reminded her of when she’d been in the forest with Kase and they’d stumbled across a dragon.
But it was the smoke that gave her pause. She squinted. It wasn’t really moving like smoke. It floated in the air lazily, but it didn’t dissipate. It reached a certain height and then just…floated, the wind making it wave like tree branches.
