Page 46 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Zylah couldn’t help her quiet chuckle, the warmth spreading through her chest at seeing them safe. Hiding beneath the city wasn’t exactly the life she would have chosen for them, but they were alive. That counted for something.

“Zylah. It’s so good to see you safe.” The old Fae pressed a warm hand to her shoulder, a wide smile across his face.

“I owe you an apology,” she told her friend, taking his hand in hers. “I’ve had to borrow from the gardens a few times.”

Jilah chuckled. “All for a good cause, no doubt—”

Zylah didn’t hear the rest of his words, pain almost bringing her to her knees.Holt.She hadn’t meant to call to him, panic flaring through her alongside the pain. But it was his pain, the pain of using his ability.

“Zylah?” Luan asked gently, a hand resting lightly on the centre of her back.

“I-I have to go. I’m sorry,” she breathed, already turning, pushing past a group of Fae, their surprised voices trailing behind her as she broke into a run.

It felt like hours passed before she found him, but Zylah thought it might have only been minutes. She recognised the space, the wooden door marking the entrance to the tunnels she’d broken into the night she’d rescued him from Marcus. Holt sat slumped with his back against the damp stone, two vampires dead before him, his chest heaving with broken breaths, his head in his hands.“It’s like a drug,”he’d told her once, and she could see the war going on inside him. He’d killed them both, and he’d been exhilarated by it.

Zylah knelt before him, fingers flexing to reach out but then she pulled away. She had no right to touch him without his permission, no matter how much she wanted to. “Hey,” she whispered gently. “I…” She wanted to apologise for calling out to him, for hurting him, wanted so many things she didn’t know where to start. “It’s alright, Holt. You’re alright.” Zylah knew she was saying it for herself just as much as she was him, her voice breaking with her words. “Talk to me. Please. Tell me what I can do.”

He lowered his hands, lifted his chin to look at her, eyes studying her face. She’d have given anything to see him with her own eyes and not the strange, hazy lens she saw him through now.

“Just stay with me,” he rasped, another echo from another time cutting her heart in two.

Zylah took his hand in hers, rubbing a thumb over the back of his. “I’m here,” she told him.

He was silent for a while, his breaths slowly steadying, his eyes never leaving her face. “I fell asleep.” Something shifted in his expression, some of the darkness lifting. “You were telling me how we met, and I fell asleep.”

“Some of us need to work on our apologies, for some of us, it’s our storytelling abilities,” Zylah said with a half shrug, her hand never leaving his.

A huff of air left Holt in as close to a laugh as she thought he might be able to manage in that moment. “Looks like my gratitude needs some work, too.”

“How about another deal? Come back to the tunnels with me, and I’ll tell you more.”

“You drive a hard barg—” His brows pinched together.

“Holt?”

He scrunched his eyes shut, one hand dragging through his hair in a way Zylah couldn’t decipher. “I’d like that,” Holt told her, his husky tone travelling over her skin. He pushed to his feet, pulling Zylah with him, and she was careful to keep a respectable amount of distance between their bodies as he released her hand, no matter how much everything in her seemed to be drawn to everything in him, no matter how much it was killing her not to touch him. He remained close, his gaze sweeping over her face.Remember me, she wanted to tell him. Beg him.Remember me, please.

For a moment, she thought he’d recalled something. Anything. Some tiny detail about their past. But Holt just gave her a small smile, his head inclined and his hand held out to one side as he said, “Lead the way.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Zylahwasn’tsurehowmuch she should tell him.Couldtell him. Whether it would be too painful for both of them to relive what happened in Virian with Raif, too much of a risk to Holt’s mind after what Aurelia had done to him. She’d got as far as telling him about her work at the botanical gardens the day before until their duties had separated them for the remainder of the afternoon and evening. Exhausted, she’d fallen asleep in her brother’s bed, no sign of Holt, and woken up with no sign of him, either.

Luan was cheerful at morning rounds, delighted when she’d been able to fill a barrel with fresh water summoned from the springs outside Virian, overjoyed when she’d handed him fistfuls of fresh baylock and besa from the forest surrounding the city.

Her ability to evanesce hadn’t returned, though not through lack of trying, but her new sight was restored to what it had been before she’d entered Virian, the threads of her magic spooling across more of the tunnel network as the morning stretched on.

“I could heal before Aurelia got her hands on me,” she said quietly as Luan rebandaged what remained of a soldier’s arm after a thrall attack a few days before. She couldn’t regrow limbs, but she should have been able to heal the wound, remove any traces of infection.

“You’re using an incredible amount of magic already,” Luan replied, no hint of judgement in his tone. “Far more than I’ve ever witnessed, anyway.”

Maybe that was the problem. Trying to do too much at once. She scrubbed her hands over her face, fingers catching on the fresh cloth she’d covered her eyes with when she’d awoken. If Deyna was right, if her magic was constantly fighting to prevent the venom from causing permanent damage, it was already working overtime, anyway. Though Zylah wasn’t holding out hope for her eyesight recovering now, not after so much time had passed, and she couldn’t help the sigh that escaped her at the thought.

“Go,” Luan told her. “Rest a while. There’ll be plenty to do later when your friends arrive.”

“But we haven’t finished here.”

“And you’ll be no good to me if you’re in a bed next to them. Go.”

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