Page 37 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Aurelia clicked her tongue. “You’re wasting your breath on him, Zylah. The male you knew is gone. And his mind isveryfragile. It will only be a matter of time before you fall prey to his power.”

Because Ranon had meant for Holt to killherwith his command too. Yet she was still there with him, somehow. “Holt,” she said again, but still, he didn’t look up.

“Come, daughter.” Ranon moved, the red orb cutting a path across the throne room and allowing Zylah to track his movements.

Aurelia hummed. “Very well,” she told her father, pausing at Zylah’s cell. “I’ll be back for you later.”

And Zylah didn’t doubt it. But she couldn’t dwell on whatever sick plans the Fae had for her. Wouldn’t let herself think of anything but how the fuck they were going to get out of there. She scrunched her eyes shut, tried to focus on her other sight to ground herself long after the doors had closed behind Aurelia and Ranon, leaving Holt and Zylah alone.

“You should be dead.”

Zylah’s eyes flicked open. Holt’s shadow remained still in his cell. But he was watching her now, the feel of his gaze so familiar to her.

“Your apology needs some work,” she said, hoping to incite a smile from him, even if she couldn’t see it.

“I…”

“How many times?” she asked.

Silence stretched for so long, she thought he might not answer, but then—“I’ve lost count. Daily. To begin with, they had me use my ability over and over. But then they realised it was strongest if I had time to get my strength back, though I don’t know how, exactly.” He was silent at that, and she knew he was likely taking in the bodies scattered across the cells. “So every day, without fail, they bring more. Sometimes I can control it, but…” His voice grew tight, regret so heavy in his words. “I’m sorry. You must be in a great deal of pain.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” She was in pain, but not the kind he thought, not entirely. And how did she tell him that he wouldn’t be getting his strength back anymore, that the reason was likely because he’d been getting it from her, through whatever was left of their bond. Now she was surrounded by vanquicite too, and unless someone handed her a key or a lockpick…A lockpick. Zylah held out her palm and concentrated as Holt pulled himself to his feet.

His swallow was audible. “You came here for me, and I hurt you. I almost killed you.”

“But you didn’t.” She wished more than anything that she could see his face. That she could reach for him, comfort him, anything. But he’d reacted so viscerally before to her being in his mind. “The male you knew is gone,” Aurelia had warned. Zylah refused to believe it. “I know this has changed you,” Zylah began, willing her voice to be gentle when all she wanted to do was scream, to gut Aurelia and feed her to the grimms. “How could it not? But their deaths are not your fault. It’stheirfault. The family who have used you time and time again.”

“How do you know that? Did Raif tell you?”

Zylah lost her focus at that. Of course, he would still remember Raif. She was certain Aurelia would be laughing to herself somewhere in the palace at the thought of pouring salt in the wound. “You did.”

Holt was quiet for a while, and Zylah used the opportunity to tear off a sleeve and fasten it over her eyes. “Why did you come for me?” he asked as she secured the fabric behind her head.

She knew what he was asking: whyher. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but if Aurelia was right, if his mind had been damaged by whatever they’d been doing to him, whatever she’d done outside the mine, what was important right now wasn’t causing him more pain, but getting out. “I had to,” she said softly. The truth. Nothing would have kept her away from him.

He’d told her once that time was all he could give her. And he’d given her so much more than that, but she could do the same for him now. She could be patient as he had, selfless just as he had been with her. Because she wouldn’t let herself consider the alternative: that they were both going to die in their vanquicite cages.

Covering her eyes helped with the nausea, but the weakness in her limbs had Zylah on her knees, huddled in a corner as far from the two corpses beside her as she could get. If she couldn’t call a lockpick to her palm, which was looking highly unlikely, there might be something in the throne room she could use. Something on one of the dead Fae, and her search would have to begin with the two beside her soon enough.

“How are you feeling?” she asked when Holt was quiet for too long. If she could just keep him talking, keep his mind occupied, maybe it would make a difference. “Raif told me he could feel his magic take something from him every time he used it. Like a little piece of him was chipped away.” If he hadn’t told Holt the same, Holt would have witnessed it for himself, would understand it more than ever now. “You can talk about it. If you want, if you need to. I’ll listen.”

She wondered what he saw when he looked at her, whether he felt any flicker of recognition, anything at all down what remained of their bond, and how it had felt to hear her voice in his thoughts. All those times back in Ranon’s maze when she’d convinced herself it was him, it couldn’t have been anything but her blind hope.

“This is the most I’ve spoken in months,” he admitted.

“So talk to me.” She toyed with his bracelet wrapped around her wrist, rolling the little bell between finger and thumb.

“What happened to your eyes?”

Zylah blew out a breath, as if she could simply exhale any thoughts of Rhaznia from her mind. If only it were that easy. “Another monster. Her venom.”

“But you can still see.”

A statement, not a question, because he’d witnessed her do far more than Aurelia had, and at least that was something to be grateful for. Something she could use to her advantage if Aurelia believed her to be blind.

Zylah sighed, the hum of the vanquicite evening out along her skin, settling, as if her body were adjusting to the sensation. “Right now, I can’t see very much of anything.”

“Thank you. For saving them.”

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