Page 9 of A Legacy of Poison and Lies

The door pushed open, Holt’s gaze fixed on the floor as he sat beside the tub, back facing her to offer her some privacy, despite the fact that they’d shared a room for months back in Virian.

“Pass the soap?” Zylah asked quietly.

He held out a hand and the soap appeared in it.

“Show off.”

She caught the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth, but he tilted his head down to hide it. He was still soaking wet, his scar peeking out of the top of the shirt clinging to his back and neck. The scar Marcus had given him.

Zylah dipped the soap in the water, trying to shove Raif’s father from her thoughts. “So you watched the fight? Any pointers?”

“You did well, until that Fae cheated you at the end.”

“You noticed?”

He nodded. He seemed tired. Haunted. As if the last six months had taken as much of a toll on him as they had her. He was playing with something in his hands, but Zylah would have had to lean over the edge of the tub to see what it was, so she didn’t.

“I hung back for the three men that followed you,” he said.

She clutched the edge of the tub, water sloshing as she leaned towards him. “What men?”

Holt frowned. “They had hefty bets on you, and you lost their coin.”

It wasn’t something in his hands. It was a piece of leather at his wrist. The bracelet she’d given him at the festival of Imala.

He rolled the tiny bell between finger and thumb as he spoke, the one she’d had the pin removed from. “They followed you for a few streets, but they won’t bother you again. I hung back to make sure there were no more.”

Zylah rested her cheek against the edge of the tub, watching him. Stubble peppered his jaw, and even from this angle, she could see he wasn’t just tired; he was exhausted, as if he’d been travelling for days without rest. “You killed them.”

He turned to meet her gaze, green eyes darkening. “Yes.”

Zylah couldn’t say she was sorry, a very vivid image of what their idea of reclaiming their losses might have looked like threatening to take over her thoughts. She held his stare as she said, “Good.”

A heartbeat passed before Zylah cleared her throat, pushing off from the side of the tub. Holt turned away from her again, and she set to scrubbing the mud off her arms. “Tell me about the bounty hunter. His name was Cal, if I recall.”

Zylah hadn’t forgotten his name. Or the way he looked, or the sound of his voice. She’d killed Oz, the bounty hunter who took her, concealed their whereabouts with a spell and then lashed her, but she’d always promised herself she’d find Cal one day—the hunter who took her brother and delivered him to King Arnir.

“He was reluctant to tell me about the spell,” Holt said, still toying with the bracelet as if it were an old habit.

“I hope you made him suffer for it.”

“I did.”

Zylah smiled as she rubbed the soap into her hair.

“After Arnir had used the same spell, I had my suspicions. Cal confirmed it. It was Marcus who taught them.”

Raif’s father. “Marcus… why?”

“Part of his long game. Aurelia and Jesper. Arnir. Marcus has been pushing all the pieces around the board for years.” Raif’s mother, who they’d long believed to be dead but wasn’t. The prince. The dead king. Their paths were so tightly woven thanks to Aurelia and Marcus. Raif’s parents had always wanted more power, Zylah had been told back in Virian. To be High Queen and King.

“Aurelia… is she… a vampire too?”

“No. She just learnt how Ranon and Sira made them, and she made Jesper. And now Jesper is making an army forher. For Marcus.”

The hairs on the back of Zylah’s neck stood on edge. Ranon and Sira were two of the original Fae to come to Astaria, but when they hadn’t liked what the other seven had planned for this world, they’d broken away and created creatures of their own. Dark things, monsters, like the vampires. They’d used humans, their experiments having a thirst for blood that Ranon and Sira had hoped would cull the human population quickly. But they soon developed a taste for Fae blood, and lots of it. Zylah had seen first-hand what that thirst looked like, a shiver dancing across her skin at the memory.

Which could only mean… “An army for what?” she asked, her voice small, quiet.

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