Page 114 of A Legacy of Poison and Lies

The sword had gone through his chest. A vanquicite sword. Zylah was shaking, a chill sweeping through her that had her teeth rattling together.He can’t be dead. He can’t be.

Holt,she called to him. But there was only silence. She couldn’tfeelhim. Could feel nothing since Aurelia had released her magic like a web over them both, snuffing out the connection they shared.

He can’t be dead.Kopi hooed in warning, and a hand clamped down around Zylah’s wrist, jerking her to her feet, but she barely registered it, a sob lodged in her throat, her head pounding as she fought to suck in a breath.

I’ll find you; I’ll find you. I’llfindyouI’llfindyouI’llfind you,she told him over and over, praying he could hear it, but nothing but that hollow, empty quiet answered her. A sob escaped her, and she pressed a hand to her stomach, staggering forwards as Aurelia yanked at her wrist again.

“No male is worth your tears,” Aurelia told her with a sneer.

“Not even your father?” Zylah asked, tears blurring her vision as she looked up into Aurelia’s cruel eyes. If this was a tomb, as Zylah suspected, there was only one reason for that.

Aurelia scoffed but said nothing.

Kopi’s claws dug into Zylah’s shoulder as Aurelia all but dragged her along, as if he were reminding her he was there with her; that she wasn’t alone. She stifled another sob and tried to take in her surroundings. It was dark and cold, a stale smell permeating the air, not unlike the decoy tomb where they’d found the key.

Holt,she tried again, clutching at her chest as if she could feel the echo of where the sword pierced Holt’s. She felt the answering silence in every cell, every nerve, every bone. Thelackof him, his presence, echoing against the absence of their magic, of everything Aurelia had stolen from her.

Kopi hooed again, just as Aurelia’s grip tightened, pulling Zylah into a narrow passage. “She stole me away from my parents, you know. Pallia and the others, the ones you might have once called gods,” Aurelia muttered, her other hand delicately holding her dress as if it mattered that the hem would scrape against the dirty stone beneath them. “The seven of them plotted from the very beginning. Hid me from my parents, and they from me. Made sure I would have no idea who I truly was. But then I died, or rather, I should have. And my mother came to me.”

Zylah had often wondered since learning of Aurelia’s return whether she’d faked her own death. But then realisation hit. “I know where your mother is,” she blurted as the passage ended, orblights casting shadows on the wall of a chamber. Hooded figures stood ahead, priestesses if Zylah had to guess. “I’ll… I’ll make a bargain with you. Return me to Holt, and I’ll tell you where she is.”

Aurelia turned to her, one eyebrow raised. Her face was in shadow, but Zylah could still see the bright blue of her eyes, the paleness of her complexion so similar to Rose, Raif’s sister.

“He’s gone,” Aurelia said flatly. “But don’t worry. You’ll follow him soon enough.”

Every retort fell away from Zylah at that.Holt,she called out again in desperation.

“Aurelia,” a voice said up ahead; one she recognised. Zylah looked up to see Laydan pull back a hood, a smug look across his face. Around his neck, he wore the stolen key, his robes the same as the priestesses beside him.

“Daizin loved you,” Zylah told him, but the words were hollow in her ears, her thoughts a scattered mess.

“Then he was a fool,” Laydan said flatly, lifting the key over his head to place it on the rock beside him. No, not rock. A tomb. Zylah’s eyes widened as she took in the twist of stone, layers of it wrapping and warping over each other like petrified vines, binding the tomb within it.

Ranon’s tomb.

Zylah finally looked at the six priestesses beside Laydan.It’s Sira we do this for. Everything is for her, the priestess had said outside the mine. Zylah’s attention flicked back to the tomb, to the unmistakable shape of a padlock sitting atop it.

Arnir, Marcus. Aurelia. All along it had been Ranon and Sira, recreating the world as they always envisioned it with the creatures they’d made. Even their daughter was a creation of their design.

“When Laydan told me Malok had someone who could locate the key, I didn’t let myself hope,” Aurelia said, running a hand over the stone plaque at the head of the tomb, the inscription long since eroded. “But when he returned with the second of my father’s tomes, all that left was you.”

Zylah could barely hear the Fae’s words over the ringing in her ears.Holt.She cried out for him, her voice sounding broken in her thoughts. But it had been too long since she’d felt him. Too long with nothing but silence in her soul in the space he should have been.

A hand shoved her forwards, and she stumbled over the stone dais, hands reaching forwards to steady herself at the foot of the tomb as the priestesses began to chant. Kopi darted from her shoulder as if he’d woken from slumber, flapping his wings and clawing at the priestesses’ faces, but Aurelia merely swiped a hand and he fell still, his tiny body landing on the stone at her feet.

“No,” Zylah moaned. But she couldn’t move. Aurelia’s fingers gripped her wrist, magic passing between them. Her paralysing touch.

She lifted Zylah’s wrist as the priestesses’ chant grew faster, Laydan joining them, his hands rising over the tomb, pushing the key into the lock. A crack sounded, the earth rumbling beneath them.

Holt,Zylah tried.Please. Answer me.Tears slid down her face, her vision blurring, and then something sliced deeply into her wrist, then the other, fingers clamping at her skin to urge the blood from her veins.

The tomb began to split, the priestesses chanting faster, louder, faster, louder, Laydan’s voice laced amongst them, Aurelia muttering words under her breath.

Zylah grew light-headed from the blood loss, her eyes beginning to close as a boom shoved them all back a step, tearing Zylah’s weak body from Aurelia’s grasp, her face hitting cold stone.

Her breaths were shallow. Too shallow, and from here, all she could see was Kopi’s little body, lying still after he’d fought for her. “I’m sorry,” she croaked, tears blurring her vision, but the words were soundless.

Stone scraped over stone, like heavy pieces sliding apart, shards smashing and showering over her face, slicing into her skin.

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