Page 95 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
Mentally, she built a wall to hold the simmering power back. She didn’t let go of her tendril—not until the wall was secure. With each brick laid, the tension eased in her shoulders. Her fingers fumbled to find Kase’s goggles at her waist. She squeezed them until the edges bit into her palm.
She was going to be okay. For now.
She slowly pushed herself to her feet. Outside the palace, the city was just as bleak as it had been the previous day. The acrid stench of charred wood, melted metal, and, oddly, Yalvar fuel filled the air, mingling with the suffocating smoke that hung like a shroud over the ruins. Had it only been a few months since she’d been standing here with Kase and Zeke, praying that they could make it to the Gate temple in time to protect it from whatever scheme the Cerls had?
She picked up the electropistol from where she’d dropped it and held it in her other hand. The smell of smoke grew stronger the more breaths she took.
Wait.
She took in her surroundings. Why was there smoke? She hadn’t set any fires. Maybe the earthquake?
Maybe it was stupid to come out here at this time. She wouldn’t be able to find anything now. She could use a torch or something like that to search, but that would be tedious.
Panic replaced her relief, and the fire licked at the wall she’d constructed.
The smell of smoke grew stronger, but there was no telltale glow. Almost too soft to hear, a subtle rumbling and athump-thumpechoed in the night.
A trail of cold wound its way down her spine. Something was very, very wrong. Her mind might have been playing tricks on her. It made sense that she was hearing things, but there was something within her that told her she wasn’t imagining the sensations and the smell. It was a sign, as if the power itself was trying to tell her something.
It was much like the warm pulses she’d gotten after Achilles that told her to go find the Passage…except this time, there weren’t any images flashing in her head. She looked back toward the palace, all quiet and dark.
She’d just started walking back toward the palace to find a torch when the strangethump-thump, like a heartbeat, started again. She paused. It wasn’t her own heart. Hers fluttered a little and sped up at the unease settling in her blood. This one was low and slow. It was how she imagined a dragon’s heartbeat might sound.
She quickened her pace toward the palace. Dragons—or, as the Yalvs called them, dragonars—roamed freely on this side of the world. Hallie would rather not relive her experience with the one in the forest. She didn’t have Kase to outwit it this time.
Stars, where was Niels?
Thump-thump.
The pulse reverberated in her bones. It burned like acid, like layers of bone and muscle were peeling away. Her legs nearly gave out, but she caught herself when she stumbled. “What in the—”
Thump-thump.
By the time the next one struck, she’d reached the palace. She caught herself on the palace archway, digging her fingernails into it as she held back a scream.
When the sound ripped through her body again, her power met it. The sensation struck the heat and puddled there, simmering, but it didn’t hurt nearly as badly. She fumbled for Kase’s goggles and gripped them.
When the next phantom heartbeat tried to shatter through her, it hurt even less; the Essence power within her seemed to be tempering it. An image of the Gate flashed in her mind. She looked up toward the mountain temple.
Finally, something.
She was probably being a stars-idiot, but she pushed herself toward it without a light to guide her. She wasn’t sure what she was going to find inside, but it didn’t matter. She had to go.
The Essence inside her wanted her to go. It needed her to do…something. It was what led her to Myrrai in the first place with the Passage, and that instinct hadn’t dimmed. She would rather go to the library and figure out what her next steps were, but that could wait. It was like the Gate inside the temple was a lantern, and she the moth drawn to its light.
Her boots scuffed along the lane as she headed toward the temple, the cobblestones stained with ash, blood, and debris she tried to ignore. Memories flashed in her mind, of Ebba’s chest lit with a golden glow as the bullet struck her, of Kase shielding her from a Cerl bullet, of the Cerls using Rodr’s blood to force open the temple door.
She inspected the doorway itself. Deep claw marks raked across the metal and stone, splintering it in jagged lines. Something large had burst through, leaving the door bent and misshapen, hanging at a grotesque angle from torn, rusted hinges. She blinked. Zuprium didn’t rust. Maybe…that was…wait…
She shuffled closer, looking at the nearest hinge closely. That wasn’t rust.
It was old blood.
Her stomach churned, and she stepped back, willing the nausea to abate. But she made the mistake of looking down.
The stain streaked down the door, the rusty reminder pooling beneath her feet. Time and weather had reduced it to nothing but pigment, but…
This was where Zeke had died.
