Page 56 of A Legacy of Storms and Starlight

Just sit with me for a while, he’d said. He didn’t like to be alone, and despite what she’d told Raif, she didn’t want to be either. And Holt looked as if he’d barely escaped death at the hands of the Asters. “She’s lucky to have a brother like you,” Zylah said, watching the way he stared into nothing. “I know you miss her.”

A muscle feathered in his jaw. “Memories are fickle things. But sometimes they’re all there is.”

Zylah thought of her father and her brother. Of laughing in the garden with Kara. That’s all they were now. Just memories. Holt didn’t like to be alone, but she’d learnt something else about him tonight. He had no regard for his own life. Mala had accused him of as much back at the safe house before she’d stormed out.

“Leader of a Fae uprising. I never would have guessed that. Were you ever going to tell me?” She kept the question as light as possible.

He angled his head to look down at her. “Would you have believed me, if you hadn’t been there tonight?”

“Stranger things have happened. For a while, I thought you were a bounty hunter and hadn’t made up your mind about what you were going to do with me.” A smile tugged at Zylah’s lips as she said it, but Holt frowned and looked away.

His gaze fell on Kopi, huddled up on the dresser. “Leading the uprising is one of many… roles.”

“A multi-tasker. I see. Why you? Why not someone else?” Raif and Rose seemed capable enough, but she’d seen the way they all looked to Holt earlier that evening, the way each faerie there hung on his every word.

“Because I’d had enough of needless suffering.”

And Zylah saw it then, in the tightness of his jaw and his empty stare. How he felt just as responsible as she did for Mala’s death.

“It isn’t your fault she’s dead,” Zylah whispered.

His eyes slid to hers. “It isn’t yours either.”

Zylah drew in a shaky breath. “What happens now?”

Holt rubbed his hands against his knees. “We’ll have one chance at the festival. We make it count.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Arnir extended his stay. The festival was a little under three months away, and it took all of Zylah’s resolve not to seek him out every moment he was in the city. Not that it would come to any good.

Training with Holt had been going well, but she was no assassin. She doubted she could even get past Arnir’s guards, his elite unit, who Zylah had now learnt to identify. Three times she’d encountered them: in her room at the tavern, by the river with Raif, and the night Mala died. Holt had known what they were doing, trying to draw the Fae out. He had no doubt known how it would end, too.

It was the fifth afternoon of Arnir’s visit as Zylah made her way to the safe house after her shift at the botanical gardens. Six days since Mala’s death. Purple banners embroidered with gold thread marked the date of the festival; some even had a silhouette of Arnir’s face on them. It turned Zylah’s stomach. Mala was innocent. She’d been murdered for nothing more than existing. Zylah paused beneath the drooping branches of a tree and pressed a hand to her chest just as Kopi flew down to her shoulder.

“I’m alright, buddy,” she whispered.

It washerArnir was looking for. And yet Mala had been the one to lose her life. She hadn’t killed anyone, hadn’t been the one to murder the prince. Zylah drew in a deep breath, the sweet smell of venti lilies hitting her as three giggling women walked past and disappeared beyond a gilded door. A restaurant, Zylah had learnt from Raif, that served very little food and a lot of women, as he’d put it.

She left the shade of the tree and made her way to the bridge, focusing on Kopi’s wings as he flew across the water. Further upstream, small boats were being loaded with heavy sacks, and Zylah found herself wondering what it would be like to live a life on the water.

“We’ve got to stop bumping into each other like this,” a familiar voice said to her left. Zylah didn’t need to peek out from under her hood to know it was Raif.

“Are you following me?” Her mouth twitched as she said it, but she tried her best to conceal her smile.

“I’m just walking in the same direction as you. It’s not a crime, is it?” His voice was bright, playful, and it was exactly what she needed to lighten her mood.

She glanced up at him. One hand was in his pocket, the other cradling a white box to his side. His hair was loose, black wisps blowing across his face. Zylah couldn’t help herself, she reached up and tugged at a strand. “Doesn’t this irritate you?” This time she didn’t hold back her smile.

He caught her hand and twined his fingers through hers. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Oh?” she asked, pulling away from him at his tone. He knew who she was. Knew she’d lied, surely.

He shoved his hand back into his pocket as they stepped onto the bridge. “Mala wasn’t the only casualty the night of the attack.”

“What?” Zylah knew the colour had drained from her cheeks and willed herself to take steady, even breaths, to not press a hand to her chest or her stomach again.

“We found two more bodies the next day.”

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