Page 87 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
Jove had a wife relying on him. Kase relied on him. He couldn’t begone.
He had no one now. He had to be the leader. But how could a drowning man lead anyone anywhere but the bottom of the sea?
His vision narrowed. He needed to breathe, but his lungs felt too full and too empty at the same time.
Someone waved what looked like a stuffed tea bag in front of his nose. Kase shivered, and that woke his lungs. He took a short, tight breath and breathed insomething.
It smelled rich and deep…a hint of ripened fruit, of family holidays on the Silver Coast. It was mixed with a soft floral musk, dry and sweet as the last bloom of autumn. The scent warmed the cold in his core.
With slightly shaking fingers, Kase took the sachet, blinking until he could focus.
“What…” His voice sounded hoarse, even though he hadn’t been screaming. It was as if his throat was figuring out how to function in the right way again after disuse, even though the episode had been short. “What is this?”
It truly did look like a tea bag, but bulbous and overstuffed. His vision cleared up with each new inhale of whatever lay inside. Impossibly tiny stitches held the top closed.
Harlan stepped back, and Kase took another whiff of the tea bag. It relaxed his tense muscles even more.
Surely his father couldn’t have helped him. He looked back toward the tent flap, looking to see if someone else had entered. But it hung still, undisturbed. Only the background noise of a crowded cavern just beyond the canvas walls met his ears. He turned back to his father and held up the tea bag. “What is this?”
Harlan had clearly given it to him. But how had he known it would help the panic that kept seizing Kase out of the blue? Andwhyhad he given it to him?
Harlan Shackley never did anything altruistically. He never did anything tohelpKase. And if for some reason he had, it would most definitely come with a cost.
“Something that will keep your emotions in check while you answer my questions.” Harlan folded his arms across his chest. “Now answer me.Where have you been?”
Moment of kindness over, apparently. If it had ever started.
Even with his heart still skittering and his skin still clammy from his reaction to Jove’s likely death, anger flushed Kase’sfeatures. But whatever was in the little teabag allowed air to flow to his lungs with each breath. It tempered the anger at Harlan’s dismissal.
“I came back to help.” The words were tinged with the bitterness Kase couldn’t keep in check even with the strange bag’s help.
Harlan stepped back, his fist clenching, but he didn’t strike. Not yet. “To help? Help what? The current state of the city is your fault.”
“And how do you figure that?” If he played dumb, he might get just get by. Even if part of him knew he’d only said it to get under Harlan’s skin.
“Because the entire city rioted for a week straightbeforethe Cerls arrived. Because you told someone you started that fire. And when the Cerls attacked, we had no support. It was a miracle so many are here in the tunnels.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.” Recently. Besides Hallie. Eravin had already known.
“Then how did the entire city find out?”
Kase’s stomach turned violently. He knewexactlyhow. However, would it behoove him to betray the tentative truce he had with Eravin? He ought to for his own sake, but this was Harlan. The retaliation wouldn’t be mild.
Would he execute Eravin? Throw him in one of the gaping tunnel holes? Set him in front of a firing squad?
The leader of One World deserved it. He’d killed that Cerl without any remorse back at the Jayde Center. He’d threatened Kase more than once.
But Eravin had once been his friend. And it was Kase’s fault Eravin’s mother was dead.
Kase ran his tongue along the edge of his upper teeth. If he wanted to earn penance for Eravin’s mother’s death, saving her son was his best chance.
“I can’t answer that,” he hedged, “but I do have information. The Cerls need the last Essence for some ritual. It’s why they attacked the city.”
Harlan went still. If Kase hadn’t been so on edge, he might’ve marveled at catching his father off guard. Harlan recovered quickly, his scowl finding its place on his face once more. “How do you know that?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Don’t play with me.” Harlan fisted his right hand. “You’ve already lied to the High Council, and that charge is probably the least of your worries.”
