Page 54 of A Legacy of Storms and Starlight

Candlelight flickered off the Fae’s earrings and her vanilla perfume filled the space between them. “He’s doing what his father did, and his father before him.” She dipped the flannel in the water and wrung it out between her hands, took the mug from Zylah and placed it on the floor beside her.

“But there has to be a reason why.” Zylah let Saphi take her hand and wash away the blood. She was certain she hadn’t been injured. A little bruised from the creature—theAster—knocking her off her feet. But nothing she hadn’t endured before.

Saphi’s brow scrunched together for a moment before she looked up at Zylah through thick lashes. In this light, her amber eyes were a dark gold—kind, gentle. Like Kara’s. The pain seemed to pierce Zylah’s chest again.

The Fae turned her hand over and washed the blood away in methodical, gentle movements. “I could tell you it’s about balance. About humans wanting to be treated equally. And it might have been about that once. But after a few hundred years of bloodshed, it became clear that it was about greed. On both sides.” Saphi wrung out the bloodied flannel and took Zylah’s other hand.

Zylah was barely paying attention. She should have stemmed the blood flow right away, should have compressed Mala’s wounds. It was one thing for Zylah to come to terms with her part in the plans to take Arnir’s life, to accept the fate that awaited him, whether he deserved it or not; a life was a life. But it was another thing entirely to have had Mala’s life snuffed out as she lay in the dirt.

“The Fae are not native to these lands. It’s said we came here and lived peacefully with the humans at first. But we got greedy. Took too much and treated the humans as glorified slaves. A rebellion was inevitable.” Saphi wiped the last of the blood away and set her flannel to one side before handing Zylah the tea. “Drink,” she said with a small smile. “Raif will walk you home in a minute.”

Zylah took a sip and watched Saphi clear everything away. “I’ll evanesce back. I’ll be fine.” Truthfully, she didn’t know if she could.

The glass beads on the curtains tinkled as Raif slipped into the small room and sat beside her. “Asha asked me to thank you. For bringing her back to him.” Candlelight danced in his eyes, as bright as endless pools of clear water. Nothing like the darkness that had swallowed them whole when he’d turned the Aster to ash.

Zylah finished her tea and tried to stamp out the image of Asha clutching Mala’s lifeless body to him. She knew it was useless. Knew it would be all she would see when she closed her eyes later on.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” Raif asked, taking the mug from her hands and wrapping a hand around hers. His skin was warm, the weight of his hands a comfort. There was no hint of his earlier playfulness in his expression, only concern.

“No. I want to go home.” The word struck her like a stone. Somehow, in the last few weeks, that little room above the tavern had become her refuge. Her one constant.

Raif gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Come on. I’ll walk you.”

Zylah half expected to see Mala’s body still on the floor in the reception area, but the room was empty as Raif held the door to the alley open for her. She raised her hood as she stepped out into the night, Raif right behind her. Kopi flew across from one rooftop to another, his little shadow snagging Zylah’s attention. He was safe. Of course he was. She looked at the stars for a moment and thought of the little lights that had swarmed the Aster. Could they have been sprites? And where had they been when Mala’s wings were being hacked off?

“Copper for your thoughts,” Raif said quietly as they made their way to the bridge.

There were so many things she wanted to ask. So much she wanted to know. Why Mala? Was it just because she was alone, an easy target? And why had she gone out without any of her deceits in place?

Zylah sighed. “Your eyes. Does it hurt? When you turn things to ash?”

“The cost of my magic. I know it looks unpleasant; I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

She looked up to meet his gaze. His eyes were still clear, bright and crystalline, with no hint of black. “And it doesn’t hurt?” The night air was crisp and cool, but this part of the city always seemed to have a lingering odour of decay clinging to it, even when the streets were empty.

A smile tugged at the corner of Raif’s mouth. “Now, now, Liss, anyone might think you care.”

Zylah rolled her eyes. “Insufferable.” She looked out across the river, inky in the darkness with ripples of silver moonlight skittering across the surface. Would Mala meet with the dead who left the river? Or would she go somewhere else, some faerie afterlife where her wings hadn’t been torn from her?

“You did well tonight,” Raif said quietly as they stepped off the bridge, Kopi swooping past them.

“Not well enough.”

Raif took her hand and gently urged her to face him. “Mala’s death wasn’t your fault.”

Zylah wanted so desperately to believe it. But she couldn’t. The faerie’s deathwasher fault. “What I don’t understand is, why Mala? Why just leave her there? At first, I thought it was a trap, and that I’d walked right into the middle of it, but, no, nothing.No one. Why go to all that trouble?”

Raif pressed on towards the tavern but didn’t release her hand. “To send a message.”

“Because of the festival?” There were no street vendors left at this hour. But there were still signs of life in the city, the smell of warm bread drifting from the bakeries making fresh batches for the morning, delivery carts rolling by.

“Because of Arnir’s visit,” Raif said as they neared the tavern.

“Don’t they realise it had the opposite effect? That now we want to wipe out that piece of shit even more than we did before.” She looked up at the bell tower and realised Holt hadn’t been at the safe house when they’d returned. Rose had said Holt was still out there. Even now? He could take care of himself, but against how many? She’d told them all she could find Mala, and Holt had believed her. She’d failed him.

Failed Asha. The uprising, all of them.

Raif gave her hand a light squeeze. “Possibly. This war has lasted far longer than Arnir’s lifetime, and with Jesper gone, our hope is that a time of peace might follow.”

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