Page 24 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

“The palace in Virian is heavily guarded. The city is in chaos and loaded with vanquicite. But that’s where we’re focusing our efforts, where we think Ranon and Aurelia are stationed.”

“Youthink? What about the humans, the Black Veil?”

“They’re no match against vampires and thralls. We can’t just send them in as cannon fodder.”

Zylah couldn’t believe what she was hearing, shaking herself from her friend’s grip. “I think you’re all making a lot of choices on behalf of others, and I’m surprised at that, given how often your father has done the same to you.” Rin was quiet. “I can’t see. I can’t evanesce. I have very little magic left at all. But my mate is out there, somewhere. And I’m going to find him. And then we’re going to finish what we started. Together.”

“Zylah…”

Zylah called her spear to her hand, tested the ground before her and stood tall. “We have two months, Rin. Two months until whatever Ranon is planning unravels beyond our control. Every day counts.”

Chapter Fourteen

Theconversationsthatfollowedwere fraught. Deyna had requested another day to tend to Zylah’s eyes, but Arlan was reluctant to stay.

“We’re exposed here,” he repeated for the fifth time. Nye had already returned to their forces with Enalla, one of the scouts who had helped at the mine attack. They’d travelled as a small group to find her, and Isaias, the other scout, had brought Deyna the moment Kopi had found them.

Rin explained that Malok’s scouts, Nye’s now, always travelled in pairs; if one was wounded, there was no risk of any forces falling behind. She and Kej had been taking it in turns with the others to patrol the area around their tent, where Deyna had requested they remain for the time being. Zylah didn’t question why Arlan stayed when he had an army to return to, though she had her suspicions the betrothal wasn’t entirely political.

And he was right to believe them exposed. Neither Ranon nor Aurelia were at full strength, but it didn’t matter, not when they had command of their monsters.

“The longer we leave her eyes as they are, the longer we risk permanent blindness,” Deyna snapped at Arlan.

Zylah tuned out their arguing. They spoke like she wasn’t there, anyway. And the moment Deyna had returned to the tent, she’d shuffled Zylah back to bed to rest.Rest. She almost scoffed at the word. Every minute felt like hours, every moment they remained, wasted. Virian seemed the most likely location to search for Holt, and that was where she intended to go first. The witch had explained how her magic was fighting the venom, keeping it suspended somehow, which meant she wouldn’t be at full strength until the venom could be neutralised.

The tent flap opened, light leaking in, and a voice announced, “You have a visitor.”

Kej. Followed by a quiet hoot and a flap of wings. “Kopi?” Zylah breathed, holding her palms open for her little friend. He cooed as she stroked a thumb over his soft feathers, the owl pressing his head into her fingers. “Thank you,” she told him quietly. For every feather he had dropped. Every spark of hope he had given her in the dark.

He belonged to no one, Zylah knew; had more than likely remained at Pallia’s side for more years than she could even conceive of, and yet he’d chosen to return to her. To seek out her friends, to help. And though she’d had to endure Ranon’s maze alone, she wouldn’t have wished it any other way. Kopi was safe, and she would watch over him as he had her for however long he chose to stay.

Shadows moved as Arlan and Kej left the tent, the bed dipping as Deyna sat beside her. “May I?”

Permission to touch Kopi, Zylah presumed. She nodded.

“He wouldn’t leave your side back in the Aquaris Court.”

Zylah tried to think of a reply, attempted to push the memories of everything that came after from her thoughts. The confession she and Holt had offered each other, the words murmured between kisses. A spark of warmth flared in her chest, and Zylah closed her eyes, a hand pressed against her heart to savour it.

“I didn’t know you were Pallia’s granddaughter back then.” Something clicked and clanked as if the witch were working tools. A pestle and mortar, Zylah presumed, the sounds so familiar to her, a herby scent permeating the air. “But it explains your resistance to the vanquicite.”

“It does?”

Deyna hummed her acknowledgement. “You can evanesce.”

“Could.”

Another hum. “So you understand the concept of aether more than most.”

Zylah canted her head at the witch, waiting for an explanation as Kopi shifted to his spot on her shoulder.

“I told you witch magic draws from nature. From the world around us.”

“From the aether.” Not a question, because Zylah already knew the answer, somehow. Something Holt had told her once about the way his father had drawn magic.

“You poisoned Raif with baylock?” Deyna asked, switching topics so quickly it made Zylah’s head spin. Whatever she’d been mixing, the scent came closer, a cloth placed over Zylah’s eyes.

“Triedto poison. But it only knocked him out.” She repressed the urge to shudder at the memory of him calling her name through the maze.

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