Page 43 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Words lodged in Zylah’s throat. Nothing would keep me from you, she wanted to say. But instead, Zylah wondered how much she should tell him, whether the pieces she’d given him so far had hurt him in any way. What Aurelia had said about minds and tapestries was so similar to her new magic, it felt like too much of a coincidence not to be. She’d been able to pull apart certain types of magic before Aurelia had taken her, to see through deceits and to dismantle Jesper’s compulsion over Holt.

Before she’d been thrown into the vanquicite cell her new magic had felt like weaving it all back together again, threads and strands spreading out around her. Even now, no matter how weak, those threads allowed her to feel the room around them, the humans out in the tunnels, their excitement and fear; it was that magic that allowed her to ‘see’.

“You heal fast,” Holt told her when she said nothing, tying the bandage in a knot.

“He says, after a vanquicite sword to the chest and three months in a cage of the same damned stuff.” Not to mention everything Aurelia and Ranon had done to him, Thallan too.

Holt’s hand lingered on hers for a moment before he rested it on the table, his shadow moving as he tidied the space. “It should have killed me.” There was a question there, Zylah thought, but he didn’t voice it. And she’d already let too many pieces of nothing fill her with hope for one night, wasn’t sure she could bring herself to ask him about what happened after Raif had driven that sword through his chest just yet, though she feared she already had a fairly clear picture.

She pulled her bandaged hand over her face, her head pounding. “I need to cover my eyes,” she murmured against it. It was the same as it had been before back in the throne room, the two different versions of her vision fighting with each other and playing havoc with her head. Holt moved behind her, pressing a loose piece of bandage into her fingers and guiding her hand to her eyes. Zylah held her breath at the intimacy of it. “Why didn’t Ranon just have his vampires kill the Fae? Why you?” she forced herself to ask as he helped her wrap the bandage around her head, his movements slow and steady.

“I asked the same question. Ranon told me he needed powerful magic to generate a stronger transference.” His warmth and his scent wrapped around her, every nerve in her body aware of his proximity.

Zylah swallowed down the lump in her throat. “To his orb?” The red glow had been one of the only details she’d been able to make out from her cage.

Holt hummed in acknowledgement as he eased her hands away, fastening the bandage behind her head gently. “My magic bolstered whatever was in the Fae blood.”

Zylah turned to face him, even though she couldn’t see him. “Do you know why the blood moon is so important to him?”

“No,” Holt admitted, and she knew from his stillness that he was studying her face. “How do you know Zack?”

She wanted to believe it was their bond sparking possessive feelings in him, that part of him remembered her no matter what Aurelia had done to him, but she also accepted that it was a logical question to ask if he couldn’t piece the two of them together. “He’s my brother.”

He took a step back, his shadow and his scent moving away, followed by the sounds of him pouring liquid into cups, sliding one onto the table in front of her. Imprisoned in vanquicite and tortured for months, and he was still taking care of her. Some things hadn’t changed.

“You must be exhausted,” Zylah added when he didn’t say anything. She could only begin to imagine how he felt, parts of his memory stripped away, the way he’d been forced to use his magic over and over, the deaths he would have felt responsible for, the vanquicite exposure, the pieces of himself he was trying to hold onto. It was a wonder he was still standing. “Why don’t you get some rest?” she added gently.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see them,” he said roughly. The Fae he’d been forced to kill. He took the seat opposite her again, a little of his silhouette more obvious now that they’d put distance between them and the vanquicite, now that her eyes were covered again. “How did we meet?”

Zylah chewed her lip. “I don’t—”

“I know you don’t want to tell me. What I don’t understand is why?”

“Rule number two,” Zylah whispered. “No hurting each other.” The urge to reach for him was so overpowering Zylah had to twist her fingers together to stop herself. Time, she reminded herself. She could give him time while they worked this out, while they found answers. No matter how much she hated every second of it. And perhaps if she told him the truth, slowly and from the beginning, it might help him make sense of everything, help him piece together what was left. “But I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you how we met if you lie down on that cot.” She flicked her chin to the bed in the corner.

A huff of air escaped him. “Your other sight is improving. I want to hear all about that, too.”

“Demanding, aren’t you?”

Holt’s quiet chuckle was barely a puff of air. He tapped his knuckles against the table before moving to the cot, the wood groaning under the size of him. She imagined him sliding one arm under his head in the way she’d watched him rest so many times before, eyes staring up at the ceiling. “No leaving out any details. I want the whole thing or nothing at all. In fact…” The cot shifted, and she knew he’d held up a hand. “Rule number three: no lies.”

Zylah couldn’t help her smile, resting her chin on her hands as she began their story.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Zylahdidn’tknowwhenshe’d fallen asleep, the bed dipping as someone called her name. “Zylah.”

Zack. With the cloth still over her eyes, she could make out only hazy pieces: his face, the short beard he’d grown making him look older than she remembered.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she said, pushing to her elbows. It felt like it had when they were children, her brother coming to pull her from bed before they carried out their morning chores. “Thanks for moving me to the cot.”

“I didn’t move you,” he told her, and she could hear the smile in his words.

Which meant—“Where’s Holt?”

“Outside.” Zack pressed a steaming mug of tea into her hands as she sat up. “He has a lot of people to catch up with. This was his operation long before it was mine.”

“That’s going to take some getting used to,” Zylah admitted, blowing on her tea, the scent of honey and alea blossom hitting her.

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