Page 60 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Zylah sucked in a breath, wondering if he’d heard her thoughts, too afraid to ask him for fear of the answer. “You said as much back at the Aquaris Court.” Did he remember? Or was he just being kind, sparing her any embarrassment? “Minus the part about the eyes,” she added with a small smile, but it quickly faded. “And then we all watched Raif fall at Jesper’s hands. And I mourned him. For months. Until we discovered what he’s become.”

Zylah knew she was skipping parts, but he’d asked about Raif, and he deserved to know. “Raif used to keep things from me.” She hated the irony of that. “He never wanted to teach me about my magic, and there were things that never added up.” She shrugged. “Maybe it was Aurelia’s doing all along, I can’t be certain.”

Holt’s gaze moved from her face to the fire, his eyes glowing in the dancing light. “Eat,” he told her, flicking his chin at her bowl. “It’s been a long day; we need to be ready for Rhaznia.”

Zylah picked up her bowl without argument, if only for something to do with herself other than wonder why he’d said nothing more about Raif, about his behaviour, about their relationship. Perhaps he thought she was making excuses, grasping at reasons to justify her actions. She barely managed a few mouthfuls of her soup before pushing it aside, an involuntary shiver making her grasp her knees.

“We’ll deal with Rhaznia first before retrieving Arioch; three might be better against one but we can’t risk losing him,” Holt said, his eyes on her discarded bowl.

Zylah could barely manage a nod, pulling a blanket Holt had summoned from the tavern over her shoulders and swallowing down another lump of emotion at the way it folded her in his scent.

“Get some rest,” he told her when she didn’t reply.

“Don’t you want to try—”

“Sleep, Zylah. It’s been a long day. I’ll take the first watch.”

He must have been as exhausted as she was, but Zylah didn’t have it in her to argue with him. Any attempt at pulling apart what Aurelia had done to him was only going to cause more pain, and she already felt raw, cut open around him in this strange new dynamic. With their healing connected to each other’s her exhaustion wasn’t going to do them any favours, so she settled into the blanket, the weight of Holt’s gaze still heavy on her skin, another shiver dancing over her flesh.

“Goodnight, Holt,” she whispered.

“Goodnight, Zylah.”

Chapter Thirty-One

“Thisplacewasswarmingwith grimms last time I was here,” Zylah murmured the next day when they stopped a healthy distance away from the mouth of the maze, both of them catching their breaths.

They’d pushed themselves harder than they should have all day, but neither she nor Holt had voiced it. Perhaps Holt hoped Arioch might have answers for him, too, though as the days had passed, Zylah had become less confident in anything the Seraphim might be able to share with them.

Her fingers tightened over the hilt of the sword at her hip, and should she need it, Nye had set aside a staff back at the camp to save her from having to carry the extra weight. Zylah knew it was likely just as much her position as a general than as a concerned friend that had Nye providing a backup option, but Zylah was grateful for it either way. If she lost her sight, she’d need a staff to walk. And the thought of losing her sight in Ranon’s maze was enough to almost have her turning around and returning to camp.

A flurry of snow had begun, which under any other circumstances would have reduced visibility, turning the landscape into an expanse of white and grey. But Zylah let the threads of her magic spread as far as she could manage, passing over timid rabbits and sleeping foxes until she found a nest of grimms on the far side of the mountain that housed the cave. Only one nest, but there were dozens of the creatures within it.

“My previous question still stands,” Holt said beside her.“Is there any monster you haven’t stood up against and won?”he’d asked her the day before.

And Zylah knew he’d meant it light-heartedly, but she could only think of the cyon wolf bleeding out in the snow and wondered if it had been able to join its mate somehow in the afterlife. The memory of the dead female followed the thought, fear seizing her heart just as Rhaznia had seized the wolf’s heart from its chest.

This had been a bad idea. Returning to the maze. Coming back for her. They should leave Rhaznia, search for Arioch instead, and return to camp as quickly as possible. Zylah was risking Holt’s life by asking him to help her, and she tried desperately to stamp out the dread that was working its way at the brin fruit she’d eaten earlier, turning her stomach and seizing her breath.

“Hey,” Holt said, reaching for her hand and swiping his thumb over hers before seeming to remember himself. “We’ll get the venom.” His voice was firm but kind, reassuring. “We’ve got a secret weapon with us.”

“We do?”

That almost smile tipped the corner of his mouth. “You.”

He could fight better than anyone she’d ever met, and there was a reason Ranon and Aurelia had chosen him to charge the orb—Holt’s power was vast. But even he showed signs of exhaustion from their journey, shadows under his eyes from where he’d let her sleep through the night and stayed awake keeping watch. He didn’t need her protection, what little of it she could offer to him, but the instinct to give it to him anyway was almost overwhelming.

“I shouldn’t have asked this of you.” Her attention settled on their joined hands, the way he hadn’t let go, as if maybe he still felt the pull to her just as much as she did to him.

“I came for entirely selfish reasons.”

“You think Arioch might be able to help you, too?” She studied his face, his eyes roving over hers, searching, always searching.

“Something like that,” he murmured. Though she hoped he’d meant something else entirely. “Ready?” Holt slipped her hand from his and unsheathed his sword.

Zylah drew her weapon, sucking in a deep breath of frigid air.You can do this.She had her magic now to evanesce away in a heartbeat, and this time, she wasn’t alone. Snowflakes dusted Holt’s hair and settled on his eyelashes, but he didn’t seem concerned with it at all, only that she was ready. She wanted to tell him she didn’t think she’d ever be ready to return to the depths of the maze, but just his presence at her side gave her comfort she hadn’t had before.

At this distance, they evanesced separately, and Zylah allowed herself a moment of elation at following the trail of his magic through the aether, marvelling at the beauty of it. She reappeared a second after he did inside the mouth of the cave, her magic spreading out around them and her attention fixed on Holt and the way he’d been looking at the spot she’d appeared in as if he knew precisely where she was going to be. As if he could see her move through the aether, too.

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