Page 31 of A Legacy of Storms and Starlight

“I’ve had it since I was a child,” she murmured as she stepped out of the bath, pulling the towel tighter around herself.

“Is it painful?” He didn’t reach out to help her, just watched her intently as if she might explode in front of him.

Zylah shivered. “Only when I was evanescing away from Arnir. And a little since.” A half-truth, because she was too tired for the whole of it. She sat on the edge of the bed, vaguely registering the dip of the mattress as Holt sat down beside her.

“What happened tonight?”

She’d been a fool to think she could outrun this. She’d killed a man. Two. She was a criminal.

“Zylah?” Holt’s fingers carefully prised her own from the dagger. His skin was warm and rough with callouses, and she looked up at his face as he placed the dagger on the bedside table. His throat bobbed as he stared back at her, his brow etched with concern.

Zylah cleared her throat. “I thought it was you. I—” She pulled the towel tighter around herself, watching the drips of water that landed on the rug. “By the time I realised it wasn’t, they were already in here. A guy with a hood—I didn’t see his face. It all happened so fast. He grabbed me and I…” She looked at Kopi, fast asleep in the corner. “He saved me.”

“I doubt Kopi locked the door and pushed the dresser in front of it,” Holt said with the hint of a smile.

“That part was me.”

Holt rummaged through the dresser for some clothes. “And you thought getting in the bath was a good idea?”

“I just… I wasn’t thinking.” He was right, though. It was a stupid thing to do. Her assailant could have returned and then what?

Her heartbeat quickened again, her breaths coming faster.

“Hey, it’s alright. It doesn’t matter now.” Holt handed her the bundle of clothes. His clothes. “I’m sorry about this morning.” He drew in a deep breath. “I’ve lost a lot of friends over the years. I’m not ready to lose another.”

He turned away as she shuffled into the clothes, not bothering to roll up the ridiculous sleeves or do anything with the shirt hem.

She sat back down on the edge of the bed in a daze. “I killed Prince Jesper.” It was more for herself than for Holt; he’d already seen the posters.

He sat beside her again, and she could feel the warmth that radiated from him.

“I was working a shift for my friend at the palace. I’m never normally in his room. But I knew the look on his face the moment he saw me. And when—I justfroze.” She swallowed, remembering Jesper’s hands tugging against her tunic and the avenberry liquor on his breath.

“Did he—?”

“He got me in the face. Well, you saw my lip and my eye. And then I got him with the fire poker after that.” She looked up at Holt, who had gone utterly still, his face darkened again with another expression she couldn’t read.

“Tenacious,” Holt murmured, but Zylah wasn’t really listening.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said quietly. “For the things I said this morning.”

“No, you were right. I didn’t mean to make a decision for you.” He glanced around the room, signs of a struggle everywhere. “I should have started training you the first time you asked.”

“This wasn’t your fault, Holt.”

He lifted the table with one hand and righted it, placing the chairs back neatly beside it.

“Do you need anything?” he asked softly.

Zylah let out another shaky breath. “Can you sit here for a while, until I go to sleep?”

The bed was big enough for two, even though Holt had slept on the lounger every night. She missed hugs from her father and Kara. Missed Kara grabbing her hand to show her another book or squeezing up against her to whisper one of their stupid shared jokes. Zylah even missed messing around with Theo—just to feel someone’s touch, she realised, not because she missedhim.

She climbed into bed and shifted herself to one side, twisting her fingers together without her dagger to keep them still.

“Here,” Holt said as he sat beside her, handing over her dagger, now cleaned of blood. “You sleep better when you hold onto it.”

Zylah huffed a quiet laugh. “I do not.” She held it tightly all the same.

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