Page 43 of A Legacy of Poison and Lies

Holt made the introductions. “Zylah, this is Cirelle, High Lady of the Aquaris Court.”

Zylah introduced herself, offering a polite dip of her chin, unsure what to make of this High Lady after her last experience. Holt glanced at the blue door, and Zylah knew he was hesitating for her benefit. “Go,” she murmured.

He shot her a grateful look before excusing himself to pay his respects, and Zylah watched him leave, fingers twitching at her sides with the urge to do something for him, anything to ease the pain of what lay on the other side of that door as Rin and Kej spoke quietly with Cirelle behind her.

The High Lady circled her slowly, her gaze resting on Kopi at her shoulder. “I suspect you have quite the story to tell.” A faint smile danced across her face before she turned and left through a doorway on the opposite side of the courtyard.

Zylah barely registered the words. Barely registered Rin and the others leaving after Cirelle. She was too busy focusing on the crashing waves. Too busy telling her feet to comply, to turn back to the wall and to breathe slowly. She took in the cliff edge as it fell away beneath them, the way windows and platforms cut into the white rock as far as she could see. The passages they had walked through must have been carved through the cliffs as if this were a small city set amongst them.

The vanquicite sent a splinter of pain searing through her, and she welcomed it. Her tithe. And it wasn’t enough. Would never be enough for what she’d done. For six months, since Raif’s death, time had stopped. Had they held a funeral for him, without his body? Had they spoken words of remembrance? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

As a child, Zylah had watched funerals in Dalstead with Kara, hiding out of sight. Once, after an old woman’s burial, Kara had scratched their names into the trunk of an old tree.So that everyone will know we were here,she’d said, breathlessly.That we existed.

Zylah gazed across the water, to where the sky seemed to melt into the sea. Bhuja was out there, a continent twice the size of Astaria. A bird cried out, its call not unlike the pained sound she’d heard back in the forest before the Aster had attacked her. She frowned at the memory. Had Holt seen what the creatures were running from? Now was not the time to press him on the matter.

An army of vampires, armed with vanquicite. Neither humans nor Fae would stand a chance against Marcus, and perhaps that had been his goal all along. Holt had said he coveted Fae with powers… to turn them? To make them into creatures loyal only to him?

Astaria was on the precipice of change, and for the first time since his death, Zylah was glad her father wasn’t alive to see it.

He was too old, too frail to endure a war. But Raif… he would have wanted to fight. To make a difference.

Her attention drifted to the room Holt had entered, where he no doubt sat beside the body of his old friend. How many more friends would he lose before this was over?Don’t you fucking die on me. Did his guilt swallow him whole every night, too?

The waves crashed beneath her, spray misting her face and prompting Kopi to ruffle his feathers at her shoulder. Running from Arnir had been about her freedom, no one else’s. Running from Marcus had initially been about that, too. But she couldn’t ignore what she knew now. This was so much bigger than her, and her freedom, her fate, was now tied with the rest of Astaria’s.

And for as long as she could, Zylah was willing to fight.

Chapter Fourteen

“Yourfirsttimeseeingthe ocean?” Cirelle asked, stepping into place beside Zylah.

Jora’s body had just been committed to the water, swirling waves swallowing the bundle of cloth in seconds, and already a celebration of his life had begun around them. High Fae filled the terrace, drinks in hand, music matching the chatter of voices.

“I was raised in Dalstead under Arnir’s rule. As a human.” Zylah didn’t know why she offered up the information, why she felt a little lighter in Cirelle’s presence, but the words fell freely from her lips. “My schooling was limited to the very basics: letters, numbers, the gods.” Her attention shifted to Kopi in a small alcove, nestled from the wind, and Cirelle followed her gaze. “My father taught me his love of plants, and I believed the books I shared with my friend were just that, stories. Believed the storybooks I read back in Virian, too. Up until a year ago, I didn’t know what I was, didn’t know the gods were Fae.”

It was a risk, to be so honest.

But lying had got her nowhere, had done nothing but complicate things, and Zylah was done with it.

Cirelle’s expression remained impassive, as if she were used to people confessing their histories to her in a single breath. “You’re offering up a lot of information about yourself.”

For a moment back in Varda, it had humiliated her. The sum of all the lies stacked up on top of each other; that no one had supplied the information to her freely when she was in Virian. She’d felt a fool. But how could they tell her, if they didn’t know? If they assumed it was common knowledge? She sifted through her recollections of Raif’s books, trying to pick out what was history and what was fable. All of them were written as a story, perhaps because Raif considered it too great a risk to keep any evidence of the Fae in his home. She pushed out a breath, choosing her words carefully. “Secrets and lies only ever seem to cause pain.”

“And you’re tired of hurting?”

“Something like that.”

Zylah’s attention snagged on three males, their gazes lingering on her for longer than they should, their lips upturned in an unmistakable sneer as they sipped their drinks and spoke amongst themselves.

“Half Fae are rare these days,” Cirelle offered, her eyes roving over Zylah’s ears, across her face. “Mortals,humans,are too afraid of us to invite us into their beds, so to meet someone like you…”

Zylah waited.

She knew Holt was seeking allies who were tired of the division, not in favour of it. Perhaps that was why he’d brought her along; because she represented both sides of this war. But this court had wards to keep humans out, for safety, or because the Fae here detested them, perhaps the latter given the response of the males opposite.

Cirelle reached out, a quick squeeze of Zylah’s hand, but there was nothing spiteful about the gesture—it was soft, gentle. Reassuring. “I was in love with a human once. Long before I met my husband,” the Fae said.

An offering. In return for the truths Zylah had imparted.

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