Page 53 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

“You were protecting him and your brother,” Nye said quietly, her attention still on the street below. “He’ll get over it.”

“I was protecting all of you.”

Nye’s attention snapped to Zylah’s face at that, assessing her with a look that was wholly Niossa the general, and not Nye, her friend. It wasn’t her story to tell, but Zylah loosed a reluctant breath, knowing she would have to tell it anyway. That Holt would resent her for it as much as he had resented her for leaving him in the tunnels; another crack in whatever fragile thing remained between them. Zylah explained about Ranon’s orb, about the torture Holt had endured and the purpose of it. How Ranon could control Holt’s power with a single command and had done so, over and over and over. She didn’t give details, they weren’t hers to give, and though she wanted to take away every last drop of Holt’s suffering, it wasn’t hers to share without his permission, either.

Nye was quiet for a moment, amber eyes studying Zylah’s face. “You did the right thing, Zylah. He shouldn’t have come with us, and he knows it. And for what it’s worth, thank you for not leaving me to the same fate.” She flicked her chin at the corpses below them, some who might have been her friends, though something told Zylah Nye was careful about befriending her soldiers for that very reason. “You pulled apart his compulsion,” Nye mused. “Can’t you pull this apart, too? He’s not the kind to sit anything out, you know it as well as I do.”

Zylah tilted her head back against the parapet wall, choosing her words carefully. “He’s changed, Nye. Aurelia and Ranon… Thallan. They’ve changed him and I…” Her voice broke, and she had to swallow back the lump in her throat. “I don’t know if he’ll let me try. And if he will, I don’t know if I can do it, do anything without hurting him.” A sharp pain had her pressing a hand to her chest again, but this time it washerpain, her heartache, not his. “And I think our magic, our healing, it’s tied to each other’s, because neither of us is healing as we should be, neither of us has the magic we once had. Even though I have this, whatever this is.” She waved a hand at her face, the cloth over her eyes.

A quiet huff from her friend. “Of course it’s tied. You’re still his mate, Zylah. He’s still yours.”

Zylah shoved aside a memory. She couldn’t let herself break apart. Not here. Not now. “Until he rejects the bond.”

“He won’t.”

If only it were that simple. The healer’s words had followed her since the day before.“If you could choose to simply let your pain go, wouldn’t you?”And if Zylah were in Holt’s place, she knew the answer would be yes. Her magic stretched taut as he continued whatever it was he was doing deep within the tunnels, and her grasp on the vampires’ whereabouts dwindled.

“I’ve lost four of them,” she told Nye, “but the final pair are heading towards the palace.”

“How would you feel about a little hunting?” Shadows seemed to snap back into Nye as she waited for Zylah’s answer.

“Daizin and the others?”

Nye tilted her head as if she were listening. “They still haven’t left the palace, but they’re safe.”

“You want to clear a path for them,” Zylah murmured.

The general dipped her chin. “You don’t have to stay, Zylah. But I want to give them as strong a chance as possible.”

Zylah pushed to her feet. Held out her hand, returning Nye’s grin. “We’ll reappear right in front of them. Be ready.”

The moment Nye’s hand met hers, Zylah moved. She evanesced just as she’d promised, bringing them directly in front of the two vampires and slamming her sword down hard into the chest of the one before her. Nye made quick work of the second, disarming him of his vanquicite weapon before she slashed her blade across his exposed throat.

Zylah’s attention snapped towards the palace district, her chest heaving. “Two more,” she told Nye, holding out her hand. “This way.”

A tremor rippled through the threads of her magic this time, her breath hitching. She was pushing too hard. Or maybe Holt was. But Zylah had no choice but to ignore it as they reappeared before the next two vampires, a male and a female this time, the female crying out in surprise at their attack. The element of surprise was still on their side, but the male managed to nick Zylah’s arm before she could spin around him and slice a dagger across his throat.

“The final two?” Nye asked through ragged breaths, the female dead at her feet.

Zylah swallowed, reaching out for Nye’s hand, for the remaining vampires, and evanesced away before she could talk herself out of it.

When they reappeared at the edge of the palace district before the two monsters, Zylah’s sight wavered, black creeping in. There wasn’t time to yank at the cloth over her eyes as the startled cries of the vampires told her they were swinging for them; the rush of air had her ducking at the last moment, tugging at the cloth regardless.

The moments it took for her eyesight to adapt were too many, a sword slicing her thigh and a female voice calling out to one of her companions, “Send word to General Thallan. Go!”

Zylah’s step faltered. There had been no adjusting to the light, the two versions of her vision warring with each other as they had before, causing her head to spin. Shadows were of no help to her, either, her body moving on nothing but instinct and her unwavering determination to live. Another slice, this time to her calf, shallow like the one before it, like the vampire was enjoying toying with her.

The female laughed, the sound cut short as the vampire sucked in a breath, followed by the unmistakable thud of a body falling to the dirt. The male. Zylah used the moment to blindly slash her blade, but the vampire evaded the strike and she staggered back at the force of it. Zylah braced herself for the female’s killing blow, but the vampire cried out, Nye grunting as she collided with the female.

Zylah blinked away the shadows as Nye and the female rolled and rolled across the empty street until the vampire stilled.

“Nye!” Zylah called out, running to her friend and sliding into the dirt to shove the vampire away. She couldn’t see Nye’s face, but she heard the unmistakable wet wheeze that sputtered from her friend’s lips.

“Go,” Nye told her.

“I won’t leave you,” Zylah said, hands running over the Fae’s armour to feel for a wound she couldn’t see. She didn’t know if she could heal Nye. Didn’t know if it would hurt Holt. Didn’t know if she had the strength to even stay upright.

“Just go, Zylah,” Nye breathed.

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