Page 97 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
The temple was a maze of murals and corridors. Even in the faint light, she discerned the difference between the wallpaintings and those that hid underneath the ruined city in the valley below. These told of more modern times, particularly when the First Earthers landed. She wished she’d paid more attention to these the last time she’d visited, though at the time, she and Kase had just witnessed Zeke’s death and were attempting to protect the Gate from the Cerls.
Several nerve-jangling disconnected heartbeats later, she found herself in a very familiar corridor. Debris and rubble lay strewn about, but she’d kissed Kase on the cheek just there, beneath the empty sconce that hung at an odd angle. It was where he’d almost kissed her for the first time, though they’d been interrupted.
Now, she was glad for that interruption. Their first kiss was worth the wait…though she hadn’t chosen the most romantic of settings, unless you were into the dank and dreary dungeon thing.
The heart in her chest gave a painful throb. Stars, if this was what it was like to truly love someone, to miss them with each waking moment when apart, was it worth it?
She knew it was, even as her eyes stung, her vision blurring. Just like she knew Kase felt the same. The look in his eyes when they’d said goodbye had told her that. She swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d never felt that with Niels, no matter what eighteen-year-old Hallie had believed. Leaving him hadn’t felt like tearing her heart out and leaving it behind with someone else.
Thump-thump.
This one crashed through Hallie like an ocean wave, and her power surged. The smoke throbbed with the heartbeat.
Just a little further. I’ll see what this is, then I’ll find Niels, and we’ll go back to Jayde.
But what about Fely and King Filip? What about the sword?
She shook those thoughts away. She couldn’t let guilt command her decisions.
The phantom heartbeats and the smoke meant something. The Gate was around the corner, and if the front door of the temple was in such terrible shape, she could assume this one would be the same. She closed her eyes for a second and stretched her hearing as far as she could. She didn’t want to walk into a trap.
No growls or roars, so probably no dragons. She couldn’t hear anyone inside. But that didn’t make her feel safer. She could be mistaken; worse, she could be hallucinating. She might’ve very well hit her head in the palace, and this was all something she’d made up in her mind.
She wasn’t sure that would be a bad thing. If she woke right now, it might be better.
Her power hadn’t abated after the last heartbeat, and it burned through her body as if she were an eternal flame, never burning out. It stung, but she kept hold of Kase’s goggles. Her brother’s pocket watch might have tempered the pain completely, but the goggles helped a little.
The only real sound was a light crackling, like a bonfire, which would explain the smoke. But the better question was how and when a fire had started in the first place, and what kind of fire produced glowing smoke.
All the more evidence in favor of all this taking place completely in her head.
An urgency tugged at her, one she couldn’t quite put into words. It begged her to round the corner. It pleaded for her not to turn aside now.
And as the reckless Hallie that had been born as of the last year, she marched right around the corner and into the Gate chamber.
Blackened walls riddled with gouges matching the temple entrance scoured the floor. Rocks and bricks and Zuprium littered the floor, and in the center of it all stood the glowing Gate.
Thick twists and coils of her smoke guide wafted from the glowing center of the archway. Images no longer flashed. Instead, all that remained was a simple black sword with a ruby in the pommel. It was as if the sword was caught in a stream, the smoke from the Gate flowing over it like water.
Her skin crawled, like a thousand tiny beetles scurrying up her body.
The Gate was angry.
The ground shook with its fury, tossing her aside like chaff in the wind. She curled into a ball and huddled against the ruined door frame. Shouts echoed in the corridor, but she couldn’t tell if they were her own or the screams of vengeful ghosts.
“Hal…” A hand brushed her back.
Niels.
How did he get here? Had he been in the temple the entire time? The quaking had stopped, but the tremors still rattled in her bones. She uncurled herself.
“Was that you shouting?” His face was whiter than snow.
She made a cursory glance at his leg. It was still bloody, but the stain was brown and beginning to fade. Old blood. He didn’t seem to be favoring it. Her healing hadn’t reverted. Yet.
“No,” Hallie answered, getting to her feet. She shrugged off his offer of help and dusted her trousers. “I don’t think so.”
His face visibly relaxed. “I saw you head up this way, but I wasn’t sure if you still needed time…I’m sorry. I just—I just—”
