Page 34 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

There hadn’t been time to test the limits of her new magic, to learn what she might be capable of. But she could lead the vampires at the throne room doors away from their stations, have them chase a sound they’d never find the source of. The moments it took for them to leave felt like hours, but the minute they did, Zylah eased open the door and slipped inside the throne room. There were other prisoners in there, barely alive, but the moment she moved around the throne, twelve vanquicite cages came into view, and in the one closest to her, Holt.

It was an effort not to call out his name. Zylah evanesced the distance between them, her hands closing around the vanquicite bars, his name barely a breath on her lips. “Holt,” she whispered, sinking to her knees before him and ignoring the hum of the vanquicite rippling through her.

His dark brown hair was a mess, a short scruff of a beard covered his jaw, and dark smudges marred the skin beneath his eyes. He moved towards her cautiously from the other side of the cell, but didn’t reach out as his eyes roamed her face. Her magic muted the colour, perhaps the vanquicite too, but Zylah couldn’t help the tears that fell at the sight of them, every shade of the forest and just as perfect as she’d remembered.

It felt like the first time they’d met all over again, the way he assessed her, head tilted to one side, this time taking in the cloth over her eyes, her pointed ears, the spear she’d let fall to the floor. “You…” His voice was rough, as if he hadn’t spoken in weeks. “You know me?”

Zylah sucked in a breath, something inside her shattering at his words. “I…” More tears fell, but the cloth over her eyes caught them. “You don’t…”

Holt shook his head, and Zylah’s heart stuttered. He didn’t recognise her. Didn’t know her, remember her. Memories are fickle things, he’d told her once. And the lack of response, the emptiness she’d felt. It wasn’t that he was gone, but thatshewas gone from him. Erased. Perhaps it was the prolonged exposure to the vanquicite, to the suffering she knew he’d endured during his confinement. But something told her there was more to it than that, because she would know him anywhere, from the sound of his heartbeat to the way he drew breath, his scent. The vanquicite made her bones ache, but she didn’t let go, couldn’t move away from him, couldn’t breathe at the way he looked at her like a complete stranger.

“How did you get in here?” Holt asked, glancing over his shoulder towards the throne. “It isn’t safe. If they see you—”

“I’m not leaving you,” she rasped. She wanted to reach for him, touch him, but knew she had no right to when he had no idea who she was. What they were to each other.

Holt dragged a hand through his dishevelled hair. He was exhausted, that much was obvious. She wasn’t sure how he was still upright with so much vanquicite surrounding him; he hadn’t had years to build up a tolerance to it as she had. “What are you doing here?”

Zylah swallowed. Willed her tears to stop. This was Aurelia’s doing, it had to be. Whatever had happened after Raif slammed the vanquicite sword into Holt’s chest, when he’d fallen to his knees in the dirt before her, she had done this, Zylah was certain of it. Taken his memories, but how many and how far back, there was no telling. “I made a promise,” she whispered, the words barely audible.

Holt sat back on his knees, a frown creasing his brow as he took her in. His shirt was ripped at the sleeves, the chest torn open, the scar from the vanquicite sword like a burst star over his heart. With the vanquicite bars between them, her new sight was blurrier than usual, details harder to determine. Like the look that had fallen across his face as he continued his assessment. Was it recognition? Zylah didn’t dare hope. Tentatively, she let her magic reach for his mind, searching for whatever Aurelia had done to him, for how far and how deep his memory loss might be. But she didn’t trust herself to tamper with something so complex for fear of doing more damage, pulling back almost as soon as she’d begun.

“That sword,” he said, eyes widening as they fell to his mother’s blade at her hip. “Who gave it to you?”

Zylah didn’t think she could breathe, let alone speak. “You did,” she told him, willing her voice not to break along with her heart. This couldn’t be happening, could it? She didn’t know enough of Fae lore, or mates and the bond that tied them to each other to understand how it was possible that he didn’t recognise her, if not by sight but by feeling alone.

Holt,she pleaded in that space that had once been just for the two of them.

He jolted back as if she’d struck him, hands pressed to his temples. “Stay out of my head,” he gritted out, eyes scrunched shut, pain lacing his words.

Zylah pressed a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. “I… I’m sorry,” she managed, pulling back from the bars to offer him space. All this time she’d been calling to him, and he’d deemed it an intrusion. A violation. That was how he’d referred to mental attacks the night he’d led her out of Virian. She shivered at the thought, that she had hurt him in that way. “No one believed you were alive after the mine attack. After Raif…” Zylah couldn’t finish the sentence. “They all thought you were dead.”

Holt looked back towards the throne again. “Nye and the others. They’re alright?”

A sharp exhale left her. Not all his memories. Only her. Aurelia had promised her revenge, and this was it. Zylah forced herself to nod, though she felt like she was floating above her body, watching everything unfurl. “Everyone’s fine,” she reassured him with a sad smile, her vision faltering in proximity to so much vanquicite. She called her water canister to her hand and passed it to him through the bars, hoping he didn’t notice the way she trembled. He drank deeply, eyes closed as Zylah summoned a brin fruit and handed it to him next. His fingers brushed hers as he took it, and Zylah bit her lip at the bittersweet touch.

Something flickered across his face again, there and gone, his eyes darting up to her face, searching. “Good,” he said quietly. “That’s good.” That their friends were fine, Zylah reminded herself, though even he didn’t seem so certain what they were talking about anymore.

She shook the thoughts away, willed herself to focus, to not dwell on how the vanquicite was affecting her new vision. Holt was still trapped in a cell, still in pain. Getting him out of there was the first step, the only thing that truly mattered. They could find answers for the rest after, no matter how wrong this all was. No matter how badly her heart was hurting.

She took a deep breath. Composed herself as her mate put more distance between them and bit into the brin fruit, watching her carefully. Of all the ways she had imagined their reunion, this hadn’t ever been one of them, not even close. The desire to reach for him, to feel him, run her hands through his hair and breathe him in was so overwhelming it was an effort to force herself to sit still.Focus, she willed herself. What mattered was getting him away from the palace, from Ranon and Aurelia.

With another flex of her magic, Zylah pieced together a plan, canting her head as she followed the path the vampires that had been stationed outside the throne room had taken through the palace. “Want to get out of here?”

Holt smiled and her heart skipped a beat at the sight of it. He studied her face again, his attention settling on the cloth over her eyes. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Chapter Nineteen

Twelvecells—cages—becauseonewasbarely big enough for Holt, lined the throne room, the plush carpets and tapestries across the walls surrounding them in stark contrast to the gleaming black of the vanquicite. Most of the occupants were dead, all of them Fae, both High and Lesser, from what Zylah could tell.

Holt was alone in his cell, but the others each held two Fae, and he’d insisted Zylah free them first. The few that were still breathing. Six of them across three cells, but they were weak. Zylah approached the first, early morning sunlight filtering in through the windows behind the throne and casting long shadows across the bodies lying still in the ones beyond it.

There was no telling how long the corpses had been there, though she tried not to look too closely. No blood stained the carpets beneath them, no obvious wounds or signs of injury, as if they’d merely just fallen asleep. A chill danced over her spine and she glanced over her shoulder to find Holt still watching her.

“Please,” a female rasped from the nearest cell, a slumped over male staring into nothing beside her. Both High Fae, their clothes tattered and stained. “Help us.”

Zylah stood before the bars, wondering if she was going to fit beside them both, and more importantly, if she’d be able to leave again. She took a deep breath and evanesced inside, the vanquicite rippling over her skin. There wasn’t time to waste dwelling on it; she rested one hand on the male’s shoulder, the other on the female’s elbow and held her breath as she evanesced them to the secret passage behind the throne.

When they reappeared together in the dark, Zylah’s hand slipped from the female and she slumped against the wall, the familiar and unwelcomed feel of the vanquicite skittering along her bones. “Follow this to the tunnels and don’t stop.” She didn’t wait for a response, pushing through the door back into the throne room, nausea turning her stomach. The door fell shut behind her, invisible against the wall as if it were just another panel in the wooden cladding, but she could feel it’s outline in the wood, and that was enough. Three more trips, that was all she had to manage. She stumbled without her spear as she rounded the throne again, pulling back on her magic where it spread too thin across the palace.

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