Page 109 of A Legacy of Poison and Lies

She pulled away the shattered wood surrounding the boy, eyes darting over his cuts and scrapes. He clutched one hand awkwardly to his chest but pushed himself to his feet with determination.

“Please.” He choked out the word against the smoke. “You have to help her.” He was already tugging at the beam with his good hand, and Zylah fell to her knees beside him, coughing and spluttering as she heaved the wood, clawing at the rock to pull it away.

Zylah.Holt’s voice was laced with panic in her thoughts, but she just needed a few more seconds to reach the girl.

Another part of the tunnel collapsed behind them, just as her fingers brushed against the girl’s hand. It was all Zylah needed. She reached for the boy, sending a silent prayer to whoever was listening that his sister wasn’t already dead.

Now,she told Holt, evanescing back to the surface, her lungs burning and her skin prickling from being surrounded by so much vanquicite.

For a moment, she felt herself slip into the aether, concentrating as hard as she could on where she wanted to go, the effects of the vanquicite muddying her thoughts.

An explosion split the rock, shards of it splintering and cascading over the entrance of the mine, a boom shaking the earth beneath their feet as the wall beside the entrance caved in. Rocks splashed into the lake at the base of the waterfall.

A surge of water fell from above directly onto the hole the explosion had created, pouring into the mine from where Rin and the soldiers had widened the waterfall’s mouth, the roar of it drowning out the sound of the fighting.

Zylah tugged on her magic to heal the girl first, the same red hair as her brother’s tangled around her face. The girl’s chest heaved, and the boy was on his knees beside her, tears streaming down his face. “Anya, you’re alright, I’m here.”

Zylah turned to him next, the burn from her lungs fading along with the sting of the vanquicite as she healed the boy, then evanesced them back to the safety of the camp.

She felt Holt’s caress in her mind as if he were checking her for any lingering injuries as her feet landed back on the lakeshore once more.I’m alright.Another flash of blond. “Jesper.”

She darted after him, almost tripping over a corpse but she didn’t dare look down. It was just as likely to have been Fae or human as it was vampire or thrall, and Zylah didn’t want to let the thought deter her.

Holt appeared beside her, blocking an attack from Jesper as the vampire bared his fangs at them both.

“We really have to stop meeting like this,” he said with a sneer, those endless black eyes stark against his pale skin. He wore a sword at his hip, but it wasn’t the vanquicite sword he’d stolen from Arnir, Zylah noted with a small flicker of relief.

She didn’t offer him a response, because she’d finally found what she’d been searching for, swiping her own sword at Jesper at the same moment she finally found a graspable edge of the compulsion in Holt’s mind.

She imagined herself pulling a physical thread, tugging and tugging and tugging it as Holt swung his sword at the vampire, his vines erupting from the earth to reach for Jesper’s feet. But Jesper was too fast for them.

They needed to buy some time, for the scouts to take the remainder of the humans to safety, and for their soldiers to pull back to the lakeshore if Holt was going to be able to use his magic as safely as possible.

Jesper laughed as he dodged a blow from Zylah’s sword, his empty gaze raking over her. “Your Fae body suits you, Zylah.”

Holt darted forwards, a vine clasping Jesper’s ankle and his sword slicing flesh as the vampire twisted away.

Zylah clawed at the last of the compulsion, tore at it with everything she had until it cleaved away, pictured it burning to ash in her fingertips as Jesper prattled on.

She felt Holt’s understanding as she moved with him in bursts through the smoke, through the soldiers, through the thralls, the world a blur around them as she followed his evanescing like an echo. He stumbled for a moment, and she reached for him, pulling him with her through the aether, feeling everything he was feeling as years of Jesper’s compulsion peeled away. Felt the flicker of confusion as so many memories hit him at once, the sense of peace left behind as the coercion left him and how heavily it had weighed on him for so long.

His fingers tightened around hers, and Zylah realised he was evanescing them now, gratitude and warmth and elation flaring down the bond.

But Holt didn’t break his focus away from Jesper.

“Raif was quite keen to fill me in on everything I’d missed in my time away from Virian,” the vampire mused as he continued to evade them. Zylah had no time for a rebuke, too busy keeping an eye on the soldiers’ retreat, on ensuring she was working with Holt to back Jesper towards the mine, beyond the line Rin and Kej had marked for them.

“He’s quite descriptive you know,” Jesper said on an exhale, raising an eyebrow as Zylah swapped her sword for a dagger. “I do love listening to his stories about your pretty little c—”

Holt roared, slammed his body into Jesper’s with such force that he brought the vampire crashing down into the dirt, fangs bared. Holt didn’t baulk. Vines erupted from the earth, wrapping around Jesper’s limbs, one at his throat.

But as Holt raised a hand, flames already licking around his fingertips, a blast of lightning struck him, throwing him off the vampire and onto the earth.

Marcus.

Chapter Forty

Lightningcrackled.“I’dbeenwondering where you’d got to,” Marcus sneered, another blast of lightning aimed at Holt as Zylah pulled him away. Marcus shifted his gaze to her. “You’ve caused quite a stir, haven’t you,Zylah?” His eyes traced over her pointed ears before meeting hers.

---