Page 12 of A Legacy of Storms and Starlight

“You washed my undergarments?” she seethed, trying not to wave them at him. Her hair fell around her shoulders, and she was certain its messiness undermined her demeanour.

Holt ran a hand through his own tousled hair, but it did little to tame his bedhead. “They were dirty,” he said with a shrug, and with one graceful movement, he was on his feet and in the kitchen, unwrapping another canna cake.

Where in the seven gods did these things keep coming from? How many godsdamned cakes had he baked whilst she was in the bath?

“I think we need to establish some ground rules,” Zylah said, eyeing the canna cake as her stomach unceremoniously broke the silence and hoping her face wasn’t as red as it felt.

Holt threw her a cake, and Zylah shoved her clothes under her arm just in time to catch it. “Fine. Rule number one, no more touching Zylah’s undergarments,” Holt said, biting into a cake to hide his smirk.

Zylah remembered her dagger, but she’d foolishly left it on the lounger. She sat back down as casually as she could, casting her clothes to one side and biting into the cake. Gods, this Fae could bake.

“Rule number two,” Holt continued, wiping his hands together. “No elbowing each other in the face.” His eyes moved to her hand, already tight around the hilt. “No hurting each other at all.” His mouth twitched, and she wondered if he ever actually truly smiled.

Zylah swallowed down the last of the cake and held her hand out to silence him. “Rule number three,” she said, holding up three fingers for emphasis. “I’m not going anywhere else with you until you tell me what you want from me.”

Holt had already turned his back to her, clattering around with something on the kitchen counter. He made his way over to the hearth, waving a hand across it and hanging a kettle with the other. The fire roared to life. “Tea?” he asked, not even turning to look at her.

“No, I don’t want any tea. What I want is—”

“Are you sure? I use honey and alea blossom; it might help with that,” he said, flicking his chin towards her throat again. Except it didn’t hurt anymore, because it had somehow miraculously healed in the night, and she was sureheknew that, could see that. He got a point for the alea blossom, though.

Zylah crossed her legs on the sofa and busied herself with looking at her dagger. “Who are you, what are you, and why are you helping me?”

Holt pulled two cups down to the hearth, dropping in dried alea blossoms and spooning some honey into each. “I’m Holt. I’m Fae. And I’m not in the habit of just leaving people to die out in the wilderness.”

Zylah ground her teeth. “There are others like you? More Fae?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

“But I’m not… I’m just ordinary.” He had it wrong, surely. There were no Fae in Dalstead, Zylah had always been taught there were none left in Astaria at all.

The kettle whistled, and Holt poured steaming water into both cups. “I think we both know you’re far from ordinary.” A heartbeat of silence stretched out between them. “Do you know your real parents?”

“No.”

He handed her a cup. “And you’re what, let me guess, early twenties?”

Zylah nodded. “Twenty-three.”

“Precisely the number of years ago that the Fae were driven out of Astaria.”

Zylah blew against the hot tea, the aroma of the alea blossom pulling her back to her father’s apothecary.

What if something had happened to him, just for knowing her? She cast the thought aside. “Discussing the Fae in Dalstead is punishable by death. All I know is that there were Fae, once, and now there are none.”

Holt rolled his eyes. “Arnir and his rules. Is that what you did, to end up on the gallows, discuss the Fae?” He sat cross-legged before her, his back to the fire, his frame illuminated by the flames as he sipped at his tea, and for the second time, she noticed how absurdly big his hands were.

Zylah studied his hands as she fought back the memories of being in the prince’s quarters, focusing on the way Holt’s fingers rested around the cup. She swallowed as she recalled the prince’s avenberry breath against her skin, the rage in his eyes as he struck her across the face. “I did not.”

“And you won’t tell me what you did?” Holt asked, meeting her eyes.

“I stabbed someone for asking too many questions,” Zylah said, holding his gaze over the edge of her cup as she took a sip of her tea.

That elicited a smile, a real one. Ethereal beauty, Kara’s books had said. They were right.

“Few Fae remain outside of Dalstead, but they still exist, scattered here and there. All keep a low profile, keep out of the way of Arnir’s men,” Holt said.

Gods, Kara would never believe it. So many times they had talked of meeting Fae as they sat in the tall grass in her father’s garden. Her home. “You mentioned you hide your ears because of your profession. What is it, exactly?”

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