Page 103 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

It’salwaysgoingtobe like this, isn’t it? This fear, Zylah asked weakly as Holt held her, more of his healing magic pouring into her.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. She felt it. Every emotion that raced through him, spiralling with hers. Fear and love and anger and concern and a burning desire to reduce the palace to nothing but ash.

Shadows blotted out most of her vision, her field of view narrowed only to him.There will be time for that, she told him. She tried to reach a hand to his face, but he caught her fingers in his and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, his hand shaking. He’d used his power to take out the vampires and thralls in the gardens.And Thallan?she asked.

Dead.

Twice he’d used his power, and had it not been for Thallan, he’d have had no reason to use it at all. She recognised the repercussions of it now, the way the addictive nature of it weighed on him, interspersed with everything else he felt. Thallan suffered a quick end for the punishment she’d have liked to see inflicted on him, but it was Holt’s choice and she respected it. And despite the consequences of using his magic, she knew his hands shook for her, not for him.

“Is she alright?” Kej asked. They’d all kept their distance, and if Zylah had the strength she’d have laughed at the absurdity of that.

“Mmm, fine,” she murmured, trying to sit up. With Holt’s help, she managed to shuffle against the parapet, fingers closing around a canister he pressed into her hand. She drank the water greedily, closing her eyes as she took stock of her body and mind. She didn’t tell Kej she’d lost her other sight, that all she could see was currently limited until her magic had time to replenish itself.

Holt tried to hide his frustration at that, but he couldn’t hide it from her. He’d endured months of mental attacks. She’d barely been able to withstand a few minutes.

You were preoccupied, he said in her thoughts.

And he’d evanesced inside the palace a heartbeat after she’d nullified the vanquicite. Just as well, because she didn’t think she could evanesce anywhere in her current state. This time his rumble of discontent was audible, and Kej took a step back from them both.

“You fucking did it, Zy. I had my hand wrapped around the bars of that cell and I didn’t feel a thing.” Kej held his hand in front of him to demonstrate, and Zylah knew she’d spent far too much time with him when her first thought was to crack a joke about what else he wrapped his hand around like that.

“Did you get all of it?” Kej asked, barely containing his excitement. He had a gash over his left eye, another on his right thigh, but he didn’t seem to care. Daizin had a few minor injuries too, but like Kej, they were only superficial.

“Everything that was in the palace,” she said, pressing a hand to her forehead and drawing her knees up. “But we already know they’ve begun distributing the weapons, so they’re still at a far greater advantage.” She closed her eyes. “Ranon and Aurelia weren’t there, which likely means she can evanesce again, or we’d have had word from the scouts if they’d left the city.”

“They will return soon,” one of the blacksmiths said but didn’t elaborate. Though they looked nothing alike, he reminded Zylah of Okwata, his companion too, but when her threads reached for their signatures, she found they’d concealed them. “He’s getting stronger,” he added. Quiet fell over them all for a moment as they considered the repercussions of his words, and then he introduced himself and his companion, Holt offering up introductions for their group.

“Lady Maelissa told us you would come. We hadn’t anticipated the vanquicite,” Hayat said, making no effort to hide his assessment of their group, no mention of their stint behind bars.

Zylah eyed them warily. Mae had returned with an arrenium hand. Finn missing an arm, Sarina an eye. Rescuing the blacksmiths had been entirely based on the army’s needs, but it didn’t mean they’d get what they wanted. It didn’t mean the blacksmiths were to be trusted.

“We owe you our thanks,” Hayat added, his companion still silent.

Kej raised an eyebrow. “You can thank us with copious amounts of arrenium.”

“He was talking to Holt and Zylah,” Daizin said dryly.

Holt had slowed his healing, but he hadn’t stopped, and Zylah was too mentally drained to argue against it, resisting the urge to slump into him beside her, her mind still reeling.

“You’re a mated pair?” Hayat asked.

Holt stiffened beside her, a drop of his magic pouring from him in warning.

The blacksmith smiled. “Recently, I gather.”

Kej nodded enthusiastically, and Zylah didn’t miss the daggers Daizin glared at him, silence falling over them all once more. There was something strange about the Yzdrit, but Zylah couldn’t work out if it was merely abrasiveness or something else. Whatever it was, she suspected they wouldn’t offer up the arrenium without some demands of their own. Two scouts appeared on the rooftop beside them a moment later, neither of whom Zylah recognised.

Two of Arlan’s, Holt told her, helping her to her feet. He didn’t let her go as the scouts split them into two groups; Kej with them and Daizin accompanying the blacksmiths. Didn’t leave her side until they’d returned to the safety of the camp, the wards pressing at Zylah’s skin as they passed through them.

“You aren’t prisoners here, but you won’t receive bargains the likes of which your kind struck with Mae and the members of her court. We’ve nothing to offer you,” Holt told the Yzdrit as they made their way through the camp to Nye’s tent.

Rose and Saphi had joined Rin and Arlan’s latest skirmish, none of them due to return for another day at the very least. Zack and Nye joined them almost immediately, her brother paling the moment he saw her, but Zylah swatted him away.

“I’m fine,” she murmured as she sank into the chair closest to her. Her threads felt lethargic, coiling in tight around her like they were settling down to sleep.

You should sleep. It helps, Holt said gently. After Thallan. After exhausting herself with the vanquicite.

After,she told him.She wouldn’t miss this. Wouldn’t sit discussions out because she needed time to fully heal; the other soldiers were rarely afforded the same exemption.

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