Page 42 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Zylah swallowed. Squeezed his hand to reassure him she was fine. “You still need to work on your apologies,” she said, willing a teasing edge into her voice.

Another explosion rattled the earth, dirt and dust and debris billowing around them and urging them to keep moving, Holt’s hand warm over hers as he led the way.

Whispered voices carried to them, and though Zylah couldn’t see, she could still feel. “Humans.”

“Black Veil?” Holt asked.

“I think so.”

They moved silently, putting distance between them and the palace, the thrum of the vanquicite, the voices getting closer.

“This way,” a human called out to them. “We almost sealed you in.” Into the palace, Zylah suspected, and she couldn’t suppress the shudder that shook through her at the thought.

A strange smell lingered in the air, whatever explosives the humans possessed reminding her of being inside the vanquicite mine outside the city.

“Take the tunnel on the right,” another human instructed, the sound of glass clinking accompanying his words. Powder for the explosives, no doubt.

Zylah didn’t question Holt’s judgement as he kept going, steadying her with a gentle touch whenever she stumbled. A third explosion shook the tunnel; the humans hadn’t been exaggerating about having almost sealed them in. She knew from her time living in Virian that the tunnels stretched far across the city, had evanesced around them for countless nights alone—the tunnel system was vast. Still, no amount of distance between them and Aurelia and Ranon was enough, not when they had an army of vampires at their disposal with an inclination for Fae blood. They rounded a corner, more humans up ahead of them, only this time Zylah heard their heartbeats first.

“Holt, what are you doing here?” a familiar voice asked. “We thought you were dead.”

“Zack?” Zylah choked out, tearing the fabric from her eyes so that her brother might recognise her better.

“Zylah? Is that you?” Arms came around her in a tight embrace, lifting her off her feet and holding her close. “In Pallia’s name,” Zack murmured into her hair. “I thought I’d never see you again… Your ears…” He pulled back, hands firm but gentle on her shoulders. “What happened to you?”

“Surprise, I guess,” Zylah said with a shrug, a nervous smile tugging at her lips that he wouldn’t want to know her now that she was Fae, now that she was even less like him than she had been before.“You’re not really my sister,”he’d told her after their father died. She knew he hadn’t meant it, but they’d barely had any time together since, and now she was different…everythingwas different.

“And your eyes?” he asked, his voice thick with concern.

Relief washed over her at those three simple words, that only her wellbeing was what mattered to him, and Zylah shoved aside all her other worries. “It’s a long story.”

Another explosion shook the tunnel, a few humans crying out in surprise.

“They wouldn’t fucking wait,” Zack breathed. “This way.” He barked commands at the remaining humans, leading Zylah and Holt through tunnels and doors, turning left and right more than once, until at last, they came to a stop in a section filled with dozens of quiet voices. “Nye told me you’d be coming with the army three days from now, Zylah. What are you doing here alone?”

“She came for me,” Holt said quietly, something heavy in his tone.

Zack huffed a laugh. “I guess she owed you one.” He had no idea of knowing the truth to those words, how many times Holt had saved her life over and over again.

“Holt,” another male voice said before he had the chance to reply, the two breaking away in what Zylah assumed was another reunion.

“Aurelia tampered with his memories. Tortured him,” Zylah murmured quietly to her brother. “He doesn’t remember me.”

Zack tensed beside her, his concern palpable. “I’ll follow your lead, Zy,” he reassured her with a squeeze to her shoulder. Since she still couldn’tseeanything with her magic, all she could make of him was his shadow, light spilling through from behind and beside him every now and then as people moved about them.

It was the first time they’d been together since Jesper attacked Raif, since Holt had helped her flee the city. How much did he know of everything that had followed? When they’d said goodbye that night, she believed it would be the last time she’d ever see him.

“I want to hear everything,” Zack told her, as if he’d had the same thought. “But I need to postpone our catch-up whilst I go and find the idiots who set off those explosions three days early.” He ushered her into a room, the voices quieting with the distance between them. “These are my quarters, use them as your own. There’s a medical bag over there.” That last part he’d said to Holt, Zylah realised as his familiar presence washed over her and a door clicked shut, leaving them alone together.

Absent the hum of voices, she focused on the sound of Holt’s heartbeat, her throat tight. So many nights in Ranon’s maze she’d lain awake, wishing more than anything she could hear that sound, put her head to his chest and breathe him in. One out of three was something, she told herself. Zylah still couldn’t see anything more than light and shadow, but even with her other sight failing her, she still had a much better sense of her surroundings somehow, knew that a chair sat before a table to her right. She slid into it, palms on the table to steady herself as she willed her breaths to remain even.

A bag hit the table beside her, another chair scraped along the stone floor. A cork popped, the scent of celandia filling the air, Holt’s fingers closing around hers as he took her hand. Zylah hissed at the sudden sting of the liquid, the injury on her hand from where she’d nicked it on her blade long forgotten.

“I lost your spear.” Holt cleaned her wound with careful movements, and she wondered if it bothered him that he couldn’t heal her with magic as he once had.

The two versions of her sight warred with each other, and Zylah scrunched her eyes shut. “I stole it,” she admitted. Though she doubted the skeleton she’d taken it from had missed it.

His next movement was gentler, as if he’d mistaken her actions for him being too rough with his treatment, and Zylah remained quiet, so many emotions running through her she didn’t know whether to sit or stand. He wound a bandage around her hand with the same measured, tender movements, the air thick between them. “Thank you. For coming for me. For keeping your promise,” he said almost reverently.

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