Page 91 of A Legacy of Storms and Starlight

“The king had him beaten within an inch of his life after he returned from the festival. To teach him a lesson,” Zack said, his eyes firmly on their father. Dark shadows bloomed beneath his eyes. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in the last three days. If this was what he’d come home to, he probably hadn’t.

“Have you given him any celandia?” Zylah asked, lifting the blanket to reveal the stained bandage tied around their father’s chest.

Zack grabbed her arm, pulling her away. “He isdying.” His grip was tight enough to bruise, but Zylah didn’t shake him off. She had to explain.

Their father wheezed behind her. “I knew you’d come. I waited for you.”

Zylah shrugged out of Zack’s grip and took her father’s hand, smoothing back his sweat-slicked hair. “I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m here.” His eyes slid to hers—not bright like they once were, but hazy, distant. As if he was looking through her. She held her hand to his face and kissed it as her tears fell. The calloused skin was just as she’d remembered it, just as it had always been. How many times had he held her face in his hands, looking upon her with eyes filled with nothing but love?

Her father drew in a rattled breath to speak. “Oh, my darling girl. I thought we’d have more time.” The ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he slid his thumb over a tear, the haze lifting from his eyes. Guilt gnawed at Zylah’s insides, and she loosed a shaky breath.

“You were never like us,” her father said softly, his mouth still a faint smile. “That day you fell from the weeping eye tree, you should have broken every bone in your body, but you didn’t.” His voice was scratched and strained, barely a whisper. “You can run faster than anyone we know; you can hear things we can’t.” He wheezed. “You can probably hear this old ticker of mine giving up on me.” He lifted a hand, but it fell to his chest. “I knew. I always knew and tried to hide it, to keep you safe.” Speaking had made his breathing worse, and the haze had returned to his eyes.

Zylah’s tears fell freely as she held his gaze. She wouldn’t look away. Couldn’t. A faint smile tugged at her father’s lips, and he clasped her cheek as he let out a breath like a soft sigh.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” She searched his eyes, waiting for words that would never come. Zack took a step closer, and Zylah pressed another kiss to their father’s hand as a sob shook through her. He was already gone.

Her brother moved to the far side of the bed, taking their father’s other hand, resting it on his chest and straightening the sheets. He’d always been the same, cleaning and tidying the cottage, the garden, the space out front whenever anything had unsettled him.

“I knew he was holding on for you. With his injuries, he shouldn’t have lasted more than a day,” Zack said quietly.

Zylah wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet. She held her father’s hand, his eyes still fixed on hers, and still, she couldn’t bring herself to look away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

She laid his hand gently over the other, smoothed aside his hair the way he liked it. Zack closed their father’s eyes and eased his head until it was resting straight on the pillow. Zylah wiped her tears away as another sob escaped her. She pressed a kiss to his forehead; his skin was warm, but he was still, and she couldn’t make those two facts make sense. He was gone.

“The moment you evanesced from the gallows they knew what you were.” Zack turned to look at her then, and it was fear she saw in his expression. “They will hunt you down until they find you. They’re afraid of you.”

Zylah twisted her fingers against her apron. Her brother had always looked after her. Fought for her. Taught her how to defend herself when he couldn’t. “And you. Are you afraid of me? Your own sister?”

“You’re not really my sister.”

The words seemed to slice through her skin. She couldn’t find her voice to respond.

Zack waved a hand at their father. “You brought this on him.”

A shaft of evening sunlight poured in through the window behind their father’s bed, but Zack’s face remained in shadow. “I’m still the same person I always was, Zack,” Zylah whispered. “I’m still me.” Kopi made a noise in the next room, but all Zylah could hear was,you’re not really my sister.

Zack sighed, resting a hand on their father’s. “Go. The guards check here regularly. Go before they find you.”

“But I… we need to bury him. His funeral.” Zylah looked at her father, at the way the sunlight turned his hair golden, how it gave some warmth to his ashen skin. Kopi cried out again, but Zylah couldn’t leave, not like this. Not yet.

“They’ll kill me if they find you here,” Zack whispered. “Go.”

A floorboard creaked in the next room, but Kopi was silent. Zylah was on her feet, dagger in hand as she heard the creak of a bowstring being pulled back. But she wasn’t fast enough.

“Pull your little party trick, and I’ll kill the King’s Blade.” The man had an arrow pointed at Zack’s chest, and Zylah didn’t doubt for one second that he wouldn’t follow through on his threat. He was a bounty hunter, just like the ones that had attacked her and Holt that day in the forest. Kopi screeched in the next room, and a man cried out.

“Cal?” the archer called out, his arrow still pointed at Zack, his gaze unwavering. Zylah was fast, but not fast enough to catch an arrow. Maybe she was, but she couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk harming Zack.

Another man spat on the floor behind the archer. “That fucking owl almost took my eye out.” He clasped a bloodied hand over an eye, glaring at Zylah. “Let’s hope your pet is trained, I could quite go for some bird for my dinner.”

“He isn’t mine,” Zylah said, calculating if she’d be fast enough to throw a dagger from her bracers before the archer could release an arrow.

“Cal,” the archer demanded. “The cuffs.”

“Oh, yeah.” Cal shoved a hand into his shoulder bag and pulled out a pair of vanquicite cuffs. He took a step closer to Zylah, removing his hand from his face and squinting against the wound. Kopihadalmost taken his eye out. Three gashes ran from the centre of his eyebrow, across his eye and around to his ear. It was an effort not to smile at quite how spectacularly Kopi had wounded him.

She shot a look at her brother, praying he’d have a way out of this. His head moved just a fraction, as if to say,don’t. But she could do this for Zack. To keep him safe. She held out her hands for the cuffs, the cold stone clicking shut far tighter than necessary over her wrists. She didn’t dare try to pull on her power to test how effective the cuffs were. Not with the archer’s arrow still pointed at Zack.

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