Page 97 of A Legacy of Poison and Lies

“Rose told me you’d figure it out sooner or later. She saw it,” Raif said, dismissing her entirely and turning his attention to Holt, his expression blank. Raif’s black, empty eyes fell to where Holt’s hand rested on her shoulder, to the way his body pressed against hers.

“Figure what out?” Zylah asked, angling her head to catch Holt’s eye, but he didn’t break his attention away from Raif.

The wisp of ash snaked up Raif’s arm, and a corner of his mouth turned up into a smile that was as cold and empty as his eyes. Soulless. That was how he seemed. As if the warm, kind Fae he had once been had been chipped away entirely. It made sense, Zylah supposed, that Marcus would subject his own son to this fate. To not have him killed, as she’d thought, but to use Raif’s abilities to his advantage, to utilise his son as a weapon in his army of creatures against the humans.

Raif barked a bitter laugh. “He didn’t tell you?” He shook his head. “Of course he didn’t. Always so fucking noble.”

Zylah didn’t want to play whatever game he seemed to be delighting in, not as multiple thralls screamed in the forest around them.

Raif stalked closer, and it was all the invitation Holt needed to move in front of her, tucking her behind him, one hand falling to her wrist.

“What did Rose see?” Zylah asked, realisation slicing through her, her insides turning to liquid as she braced herself for whatever Raif was going to say. What he couldn’t possibly have known, or else he wouldn’t have—

“I always liked Thallan,” Raif said thoughtfully, tucking a hand under his chin as he spoke of Rose’s rejected mate, the ash spiralling around his arm as he moved. “But Rose never felt safe with him. And it made her wary of the mating bond, whenever she happened upon it in others. Something about you, Zylah, always set my sister’s teeth on edge.”

Holt had gone utterly still in front of her, his breathing shallow. The way Raif had said her name, like it was a bitter taste in his mouth, sent another flare of panic skittering along her flesh as his words sank in. She’d known for a while what she was to Holt, what they were to each other, knew he had been waiting for her to come to terms with it. But this truth Raif had offered, the implication of his words, turned her panic to icy rage. “You knew.”

“Did I know that you were his mate when I fucked you every night for months?” He dipped his head to one side, smirking at Zylah with his fangs on full display, disdain dripping from his soulless eyes. “Yes.”

Holt released her wrist, lunging for Raif with a vicious snarl. Jesper had kept them both at bay before because he held vanquicite, but Zylah could see none on her quick scan of Raif as Holt swung for him.

Raif darted away from the attack, so quickly that Zylah barely realised what had happened. He moved in that preternatural way Jesper had, as if he were death reanimated. Still, it did little to quell her fear as the ash that snaked from his fingertips extended towards Holt.

“Holt!” Zylah called out.

But she didn’t have the chance to see if he’d heard her, because something barrelled into her side, shoving her into the snow.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Thethrallknockedtheair from Zylah’s lungs, unrelenting in its grip as she grappled against its bony fingers. She braced herself for teeth to sink into her flesh, but it only persisted in trying to restrain her.

She didn’t waste time dwelling on that, bringing her knee up to its groin and scrambling to her feet as the creature staggered back in the snow. This one was female, a half-head of ebony hair resting over one shoulder, the other half of her scalp exposed to the bone.

Holt and Raif fought without magic, but there was little time for Zylah to watch as another thrall stepped up beside the first. No time to think about everything Raif had said. With a dagger in her hand, she swiped for the female thrall, wishing she’d had time to coat all her blades with baylock. The thing hissed as the blade nicked rotting flesh, the second reaching for Zylah’s cloak as she pivoted away.

She needed to put space between them, to not allow them to surround her, but she saw no easy route up the nearest tree. Instead, she tugged on her magic, evanescing behind them and thrusting her dagger into the second thrall’s shoulder with all her strength. His scream was feral, the female spinning around to face Zylah, but she’d already evanesced back to her previous position, drawing another dagger and plunging it into the female’s ribs.

Kopi flew down from the trees and clawed at what remained of the flesh on the male’s face, tearing at rotting skin and clumps of hair.

Leave, Zylah. Take Kopi with you.

She froze at the sound of the voice in her head. The one she’d heard so many times before, the nights she’d been alone in Kerthen, all the times she’d questioned whether she’d been imagining things. It had always been him. He’d been with her, all this time.

“I won’t leave you,” she called out as she drew her sword, unsure if he could hear her thoughts just as she could hear him. She didn’t dare look away from the thralls to search for him, but she could feel him near, could feel the frantic energy of his fight with Raif, and she didn’t let herself think about the way she knew Raif could turn someone to ash at his touch.

I’ll find you, Holt’s voice said in her thoughts. The words he’d said to her when she’d fled Virian. A promise, even though she didn’t realise it at the time.

The male thrall pulled the dagger from his back, his neck cracking and his head tilting to one side like it was barely held onto his body.

Zylah swiped her sword at his chest and it roared in pain, his rotting flesh sizzling where the blade had sliced it open, a frown drawing her eyebrows together at the sight.

She didn’t doubt Holt, but there was no way she was walking away from him again. She thought of the way she’d seen him work with his surroundings, using his magic to pull from the earth and use it to his advantage. She evanesced behind the thralls again, ducking to slice her blade across sinew and bone and pulling on her power at the same time, trying to visualise the tree roots beneath the snow at her feet as the thralls screamed, their skin bubbling and blistering.

The ground shook, yet it wasn’t roots that emerged, but a flash of eyes. And wings.

Sprites.

Hundreds of them fluttered down from the trees, pulling themselves up from the snow.

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