Page 50 of A Legacy of Poison and Lies

“Then summon anything you like.”

Zylah dug her fingers into the sheet and frowned. “I can’t.”

“Try.” He turned back to face her and rested against the wall, arms folded across his chest, head ever so slightly angled to one side, challenging her.

A smile tugged at the corner of Zylah’s mouth, and she held out her hand,reachedfor the item she wanted and her dagger appeared in her palm, fingers instinctively curling around it.

“Any pain?” Holt asked as he carefully prised the dagger from her fingers, and it disappeared to the gods knew where.

Zylah shook her head, too surprised that she’d actually done it to chide him for asking.

Holt raised an eyebrow. “Try again. Something else.”

Asshole. Either he didn’t think she could, or he wanted to test her abilities. Zylah held out both hands, one for the bottle of amber liquid that had been left on the dresser in her room, the other for the matching glass to the one he’d been drinking from moments before.

“Smart ass.” His lips twitched. “Another.” His skin was warm against hers as he took the bottle and glass and placed them on the wall beside them.

Zylah thought of her bracers on her bedside table, reached for them with her mind’s eye and watched with satisfaction as they appeared in her hands, black blood smeared across the leather. There had been losses earlier. Rin had almost died. “Why do I get the feeling that no matter how many Fae step up to help us in this, it’s not going to be enough?”

“Because it isn’t,” Holt said quietly, taking the bracers and sending them to wherever he’d sent her dagger. “Not against an army of vampires, thralls—whatever the priestesses are amassing. Our world is going to look very different when this is over.”

“Why is Marcus doing any of this?”

Another flick of his chin, urging her to summon something else. “He and Aurelia had a vision of how this world should be a long time ago, and everyone dismissed their ideas. Their greed was partly what led to many of the High Fae being murdered in their sleep.”

“And what was that vision?” Zylah asked as Holt’s shirt appeared over her arm, the shirt she usually slept in.

She’d managed to ignore it, but now a sharp stab of pain settled between her shoulder blades, a fire lighting up beneath her skin.

She’d suspected as much during her time in Kerthen; using her magic made the effects of the vanquicite much, much worse.

“To take us back to our roots. To what the original nine had intended. Lines of pure power. No humans, no lesser fae.”

“And how do vampires and thralls bring them closer to that?” She handed him the sheet as she shrugged into his shirt, hoping to disguise her wince of pain. The sheet disappeared the second it left her hand and his fingers closed around it.

“Because they’re far easier to control.”

Zylah held out her hand for her last vial of tonic as his words sank in.

“I told you not to waste those,” he said, his voice a little rougher than it had been moments before, but his expression gave away his concern. His fingers brushed hers again as he touched the vial and it disappeared. “Turn around.”

She did as he asked, partly because she was too tired to argue with him, but partly because not even ten of her tonics would provide as much relief as his healing—the only reason she’d been relying on her tonics so easily since he’d found her. “That was a thrall chasing after the Asters back in the forest, wasn’t it?”

He hummed his agreement as his fingers pressed against her shirt, warmth pouring from him.

“Did you see it?” Zylah asked over her shoulder.

His attention was fixed on his hand, his jaw tight. “No. I saw you fight the Aster. Saw it claw at your leg, but I was dealing with two more.” He paused, his eyes flicking up to hers for a second. “And then the sprites covered you, and the distraction nearly cost me an eye.” His throat bobbed. “Then something screamed—a thrall—the remaining Asters fled, and I couldn’t get you out.”

Zylah pivoted to face him, but he kept his hand pressed to her back, still healing her, his hold firm but gentle. “I’m sorry. It must have reminded you of Raif.” The sprites had covered his body, too. Protecting him from Jesper. But it was too late.

She thought of her dream. Of Raif’s empty eyes. But the memory faded as she met Holt’s stare, his eyes every shade of a spring forest, his dishevelled hair falling in waves over the tips of his ears. “What were you dreaming of?” she asked softly.

His thumb brushed her back for a moment. “That I couldn’t get you out of the sprites’ cage.”

Like he couldn’t get Raif out. Zylah frowned, and Holt readjusted his hand.

He’d lost so many people. And yet he still kept going, fighting for the freedom of the Fae. “I saw Pallia that day,” she said so quietly it was almost a whisper. “She told me few things in this life belong to us.”

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