Page 48 of A Legacy of Poison and Lies

Sound advice, Zylah thought, or perhaps she mumbled it as she pushed to her feet, because Cirelle looked at her strangely. She hadn’t removed her hands from her daughter’s flank, just sunk her fingers into the fur as Rin’s ribcage expanded and contracted with each laboured breath.

Zylah staggered over to a bench against a nearby wall, fingertips reaching for the vial in her pocket, willing herself to stay upright. She pushed off the cork with her thumb and brought the glass to her lips with shaky fingers, taking the contents in one as she closed her eyes.

“Don’t waste your tonics.” The bench dipped, and Holt’s scent wrapped around her.

Zylah smiled weakly but didn’t open her eyes. The tonic was already doing its job; the pain in her back had eased a little, just enough to take the worst of the pain away. “You were occupied,” she said, hoping the shake in her voice didn’t show. “Otherwise I’d have tapped on your shoulder.”

“We both know you can’t reach.”

She laughed quietly but kept her eyes closed as the tonic continued to work its way through her system. “What were those things?”

“We call them thralls.”

Zylah opened her eyes at the sound of Kej’s voice. He had an arm wrapped around his sister, who held a hand to her side in her Fae form. Cirelle’s cerulean shawl covered her, and Rin dug her fingers into the fabric where she held the two halves together.

The wound had healed, but the pain would still linger. Zylah knew that all too well from experience.

“They’re vampires that haven’t properly turned—half-dead Fae,” Rin explained as their mother helped Kej lower Rin to the adjacent bench. “And they do whatever their master bids them.”

“The Asters were afraid of them,” Zylah said quietly, willing her face to remain impassive against the lingering feeling that still held onto her. The healing had almost depleted her, and she wanted desperately to lie down. But not here. Not yet.

“They’re rather difficult to kill.” Nye had joined them, kneeling beside her cousin to rest a hand against her cheek.

Zylah surveyed the terrace. Pieces of thrall were scattered everywhere: limbs, torsos, heads. Guards had already begun a gruesome clean-up.

“I dropped one,” she muttered, trying to stand and failing.

Holt steadied her, his hand resting on her back as he eased her onto the bench beside him. He was quiet as she sagged against him, but she felt his flow of magic, ground her teeth together as he eased more of her pain.

“You dropped—” Cirelle began.

Kej shot his mother a look, before patting Zylah on the arm. “It’ll be in several pieces on the rocks below, Zylah, I wouldn’t worry about that. Nicely done, though.”

Zylah didn’t return his smile.Half-dead Fae. Only Marcus would be sick enough to attempt to turn the Fae into vampires, knowing that many of them wouldn’t survive. Perhaps he didn’t care whether any of them did, and they were all simply soldiers to him. Slaves to do his bidding.

Holt was silent beside her, and Zylah was grateful for it. She didn’t want to explain the vanquicite to the others, not yet, and thankfully he hadn’t mentioned it in front of their audience.

“We anticipated Nevan’s return,” Rin said as her mother sat beside her. “It’s why we were patrolling the forest earlier.”

“We hadn’t expected there to be so many of them, though,” Kej added.

Zylah gave a weak laugh, watching a pair of guards haul the remains of another thrall over the wall. “Seems like you were well prepared to me.” Her attention shifted to Malok, barking instructions at his guards. A splatter of black—thrall blood, Zylah realised—dotted half his face, and for a moment she thought she saw something strange beneath it. But then he turned to the light, and whatever she’d seen was gone. Her attention fell to the sword at his hip, stained black along with his clothes.

Malok dismissed the guard beside him as he made his way over. “We lost two guards, but no guests were harmed.” He looked between Holt and Zylah as he spoke, and again she thought she saw something ripple beneath his skin, but the intensity of his stare forced her to look away as she watched the other guards carrying out the two who had fallen. The numbers hadn’t seemed that badly stacked, to begin with, but having seen just how fast the thralls were, Zylah couldn’t say she was surprised.

Malok rested a hand on Rin’s shoulder as he kept his attention on Zylah. “Thank you for healing my daughter.” A nod in Holt’s direction was all the acknowledgement offered for his help. “Get some rest, all of you.” The High Lord held out a hand for his wife and led her away. Whatever Nevan had been to Cirelle, something told Zylah a difficult conversation was about to follow.

“You said their bloodlust takes a while to settle.” She turned to face Holt. “But this is…” Her brow scrunched. “Do you think this is Aurelia’s doing?”

Holt at last removed his hand. His jacket sleeve was torn in several places, dried blood crusting the fabric. Zylah’s frown deepened. He’d been quietly healing himself too, and she suspected from Malok’s behaviour the High Lord had witnessed whatever injuries he’d received.

Holt watched Malok and Cirelle walk away, but as usual, his expression gave nothing away. “Marcus is proud. An army of strong, obedient vampires with a multitude of skills is far more his style. These…” He gestured to what remained. “They’re strong but wild. Good front-line fodder, but a mistake in Aurelia’s experiments.” He turned back to Zylah, and she saw the flicker of worry in his expression before it was gone. “Perhaps this was a test, to see how they fare. I’ll need to get a message to Rose and Saphi, they were heading to the Northern Territories.”

Not for the first time since leaving her old life, before she’d thought she’d killed Jesper, before she’d evanesced from the gallows, Zylah realised how little she knew of this world. How sheltered her life had been, how growing up under Arnir’s rule had left her uneducated and unprepared for life outside of Dalstead.

She had no idea what kind of numbers of Fae remained in Astaria, or if Fae lived across the oceans, too. Thanks to one of Sasha’s books, she knew the Northern Territories were once overflowing with Fae, and that they had slowly made their way south across Astaria.

How many there once were, or where, or how many remained were facts she still didn’t know.

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