Page 65 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

“Hey.” Holt’s fingers closed over hers, easing the staff from her hand. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Zylah yanked the cloth from her eyes, because seeing his shadow was better than seeing nothing at all. “I didn’t want it. I don’t want any part of him.” Her voice broke, a tear escaping and rolling down her cheek. “I know you remember him as your friend. Your brother. But I can’t forgive him for the things he’s done. I won’t.”

Another tear fell, and this time Holt brushed it away, his hand cupping the side of her face and another flicker of his magic pressing against her skin as if he was trying to keep himself in check.

“I’m sorry for what he did,” he said softly, and there was no mistaking the pain in his voice. “To both of us. For all of it.” He pulled her into an embrace, wrapping his arms around her and resting his head on hers.

Zylah fought back a sob.To both of us. If only he remembered. If only she could tell him without fear of hurting him. Because it was one thing for him to have witnessed it all, but another entirely to hear it explained. And what had happened between her and Raif before she and Holt… when they hadn’t known what they were to each other. More tears fell, and Zylah let them. For all the mistakes she’d made. For all the time they’d had taken from them, over and over again.

“Let’s get out of here,” Holt murmured into her hair.

It was an effort to pull herself away from him, but they had a task to complete. And Arioch didn’t deserve to remain imprisoned in the maze for a moment longer.

“I think we’ll be better off retracing my steps for a while since I can’t evanesce.” Zylah wiped a hand over her face, but Holt’s shirt had soaked up most of her tears, and she was glad for the way his scent enveloped her, blocking out any traces of Raif.

“Show me.”

In his mind. Zylah sucked in a breath. “No.” She held up a hand before he could protest. “We can’t risk you not being able to get out of here. You’re still healing, too.” And she knew he couldn’t argue with that, not with how many of Rhaznia’s children likely still crept through the maze.

Holt didn’t reply, the sound of snapping wood breaking the silence. Light danced amongst the shadows before her, woodsmoke filling the small space. He pressed the staff back into her hand, the grain rough against her fingers, then looped her free hand over his arm. “You’ll fill in some gaps for me whilst we walk?”

The hope in his voice made her squeeze her fingers reflexively against his shirt. “And you claim I’m the bossy one.”

His quiet huff of air was his only response as he led the way out of the space, wards rippling over Zylah’s skin the minute they stepped out into the passageway, the stale air just as she’d remembered. This first section was nothing but passageways hewn from rock, compacted dirt beneath their feet. She dragged the tip of her staff along the wall beside her, just as she had done with her fingers the first time she’d tried to escape, leading Holt through twists and turns, hoping she remembered the correct route.

All the while, Zylah filled him in on her time in Virian, her training with both him and Raif, how no one knew at the time about the control Aurelia and her family had over him thanks to Jesper’s compulsion.

Glints of magic began to return, enough that she needed to stop to replace the cloth when the two versions of her sight fought with each other. “Raif had to be using magic to get in and out. I just don’t know how. Or where,” she mused, taking a moment to let her sight adjust. The same tunnel vision from before, but better than nothing at all, threads unfurling from her like leaves curling open after winter.

“Did you like working at the botanical gardens?” Holt asked, ignoring what she’d said about Raif. If the thought of a door Raif could access concerned him, he didn’t show it; perhaps he had as little desire to talk about the vampire as she did. And if his anger at her cell had been anything to go by, his response to Raif forcing his blood on her, he loathed Raif just as much as she did.

“I did,” Zylah confessed. “I loved it. But you never let me pay you a single copper for staying at the tavern.”

“With me.” He almost said it like he remembered. They turned another corner, his hand over hers on his arm like they were taking an evening stroll together, not searching an ancient maze for an even more ancient being.

“You wouldn’t let me take the lounger, even though you’re far too big for it.” She thought of the way he’d sleep, one arm above his head, the way she’d always felt a pull to him but hadn’t been ready to face it. “You left the night Mala died.”

“You healed me then, too.”

Zylah almost missed a step at his words. Hewasremembering things; small details, but memories none the less. Another flutter of hope in her chest. “I did.” But he deserved to know what came next, too, no matter how much she wanted to erase it from her past. “And you were gone the next day until the attempt on Arnir’s life. Until everything went to shit.”

With her tunnel vision, she could only make out the flickering shadows from Holt’s torch dancing over the rock a few feet in front of them. But her threads she could spread much farther, far enough that she could feel another nest of spiders, sections of the maze full of the awful crawlers she’d encountered before, and—“Arioch,” she breathed. “This way.”

They were only a few passages away from where she’d first met the Seraphim, and Zylah called his name into the dark, spiders be damned. “Arioch!”

Holt remained close at her side, the torch still burning strong, and she realised then that he must have replaced it at least once. He tensed, and she followed his gaze. “It’s alright,” she told him, raising her staff to the Seraphim in greeting. “Arioch.”

“Zylah.” Arioch assessed them both, a hand over his eyes to shield them from the light, his gaze settling over the cloth at her eyes. “Facing this maze always comes with a price.”

“Rhaznia paid it,” Holt said as he lowered the torch, his demeanour shifting to the way she’d seen him hold meetings back at the safehouse in Virian.

Arioch dipped his chin, eyes darting between the two of them, and Zylah made swift work of the introductions. The Seraphim’s beard seemed a little more unruly than the last time Zylah had briefly seen it, and she wondered if the kernel of hope she’d offered him had been too much to keep hold of in the dark.

“We’ll take you wherever you wish to go. But we’ve come to ask for your help against Ranon and his family,” Zylah explained quickly. There were spiders on the move, but she didn’t want to pressure Arioch, not yet.

“I’m not sure I can be much help to you,” the Seraphim said thoughtfully, toying with his beard. “But I’ll gladly go anywhere that isn’t here.” He gestured to the small space they stood within, bare and dark and cold, and Zylah couldn’t begin to imagine how he’d survived there all those years without losing his mind. It had only been a few hours, and already she couldn’t wait to leave and never return.

“Is there anything you’d like to take with you?” She extended her hand for his but paused halfway, head tilting to the side.

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