Page 52 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

But then a feeling skittered along her skin like a hum, familiar and uncomfortable all at once. Holt tensed beside her. Vanquicite.

“Where is it?” she asked him, fighting off another thrall.

Something slumped beside her, Holt yanking his blade free of a thrall Zylah hadn’t noticed approaching. “Their weapons,” he said, his voice devoid of any trace of emotion, though he had every reason to feel it.

The fight stalled around them almost at once, the remaining humans and Fae standing side by side in the ruined square, as if it might make any difference at all to their chances of self-preservation. The soldiers parted and a group of vampires approached, Nye and the remaining fighters from the front held captive, vanquicite blades pressed against flesh.

The one holding Nye dragged his nose along the column of her throat, her shadows attempting to coil around him in response and failing with the proximity to the vanquicite. “Tsk tsk tsk,” the vampire cooed. “Call off your shadows, or we’ll slaughter every one of you.”

Nye’s shadows snuffed out at once, her gaze flicking between Holt and Zylah in what Zylah could only interpret as adon’t you fucking darescowl. Holt might not remember her, but Zylah knew Holt, knew he’d be weighing up his odds, not to get away, but to save his friend. The soldiers. All of them. Knew he’d have been working his way through options, discarding ideas one by one as every avenue for getting out of there safely was taken from them.

Zylah knew he might loathe her for the option she’d settled on, but she wasn’t losing him again.

The vampire flicked his chin at Holt, his vanquicite blade never leaving Nye’s throat. “Ranon is waiting for you.” Then he grinned, revealing those sharp canines and sank them into Nye’s throat.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

ZylahreachedforHoltat the same time he moved for the vampire. Her fingers had already closed around Zack’s wrist, and as she sank her fist into the fabric of Holt’s shirt, she could have sworn she felt his recognition, his anger, at what she was about to do. But it didn’t stop her evanescing the three of them away.

She all but slammed into him when they reappeared in the tunnels, her brother tugging her upright. “What have you done?” Zack asked.

The only thing she could do. Get them to safety.

“If Ranon and Aurelia get their hands on him, all of our friends are dead.” She prayed that Nye wasn’t, that the remaining Fae had used the distraction to fight. Zack looked between them, waiting. Zylah hadn’t told her brother or her friends about Ranon’s orb, nor the details of the torture Holt had endured, and it was clear Holt hadn’t told anyone, either.

“Take me back,” Holt snapped, the words clipped and short. There was only the faintest bit of light in the tunnel from a torch burning at the far end, but Zylah no longer needed light to see, and the way he was glaring at her… She had to turn away from it.

“I can’t,” she managed, wondering if this was it, the moment he chose to break whatever remained of the bond between them. She wouldn’t blame him. “Ranon will only use you to charge the orb. You know that’s what that attack was really about.” And it would destroy him.

Resignation flickered across Holt’s face, quickly replaced by hurt. “Don’t do this, Zylah, please.”

“I have to.” She forced herself to take a step back. Away from him. “Even if you hate me for it.” She tried to hide the way her voice wavered with the words. “Stay together.”

Zylah evanesced away, the betrayal in Holt’s eyes burning a hole in her heart. When she reappeared in the market square a heartbeat later, not even the span of a few minutes had passed, and her gamble had paid off. Nye and the other Fae had pulled free, but fighting against vanquicite swords was a losing battle, their movements sluggish and slow.

They were all going to die. She’d known it the moment the vampires had drawn their gleaming black blades. Without another thought, she evanesced behind the one who’d feasted on Nye, slamming her sword through his ribcage as Nye’s dwindling shadows yanked at his wrists. It was enough for the general to take a dagger to the monster’s throat, to kick his body away from her with a snarl as Zylah pulled her own weapon free.

A quick glance at Nye’s neck told Zylah the puncture wound had clotted over, but her friend’s shadows had almost completely receded at the proximity to the vanquicite. Zylah knew they had less than minutes before the vampires regained control, adrenaline fuelling her moves as she fought beside Nye and wondering whether the general would rather die with her remaining soldiers than retreat.

She wasn’t certain if she could evanesce to the tunnels again, not without burning herself out, without risking Holt. Somewhere closer maybe. Too few soldiers remained, some already dead and dying in the few seconds since Zylah had returned from the tunnels. She swung her blade at another of the monsters, her sword narrowly missing its mark. He’d already lunged forwards, slamming his weapon into a Fae’s neck.

The second scout. He lay dead only a few feet away, far too many vampires fighting with the remaining handful of Fae soldiers for them to come out of this alive. She couldn’t save them all. But she could save Nye, even if it meant disappointing her. Even if it meant inciting her anger just as Zylah had incited Holt’s.

Another solider fell, leaving Zylah and Nye with two soldiers at their side against six vampires. Three vampires charged for the soldiers, Nye’s shadows attacking a fourth, the remaining two coming for her and Zylah. Too many. Too fast.

A Fae cried out behind them, but Zylah didn’t dare peel her attention away from the vampire before her. Not as the cry was cut short, as the threads of her magic told her the second soldier charged and a strangled gasp quickly followed. Her hand closed around Nye’s, evanescing them as far as she dared, to a rooftop just off the market square, out of sight of the monsters below.

Enough blood stained the street that Zylah hoped it would cover the scent of Nye’s wound, that her friend wouldn’t protest as Holt had and draw attention to them. But when Nye blinked at their new surroundings—the roof of a laundry house, abandoned sheets still billowing on lines around them, she mouthed a silentthank youand crept on quiet feet to a gap in the parapet wall, peering into the street below.

Zylah willed her breaths to slow, her racing heart to steady. Her skull ached as though she’d evanesced much farther, and she wondered if Holt was pacing the tunnels where she’d left him, trying to call on his magic, to evanesce over and over. If their roles were reversed, it’s what she would have been doing.

They watched the vampires in the market square in silence, assessing the scene that surrounded them. Dead thralls, humans and Fae lay scattered at their feet, Zylah’s strange sight affording her details she might not have noticed before: the way the black thrall blood mixed with the crimson of the humans’, the way some of the vampires seemed weakened at the proximity to the vanquicite too. That would explain why they had been slower than the vampires Zylah had previously encountered.

Whatever had been blocking their signature before was gone; she’d bet money on it that one of the dead vampires had possessed shielding abilities. The six remaining split up in pairs, and this time, Zylah was able to follow them with the threads of her magic. But she slumped against the parapet as another tremor shook through her. Pain, sharp and familiar.

“Zylah?” Nye murmured beside her.

“Holt. I think he’s trying to evanesce.” She pressed a hand to her chest, as if it would stop the pain from spreading. “He was furious with me.”

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