Page 70 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

“There’s a Seraphim in the camp, and a severed hand that I’m regretting not sending to your bed,” Holt told him dryly.

“Any excuse to get between my sheets.” Kej sighed, nudging Zylah and offering her the wine. She bit back her smile, recalling how Holt had told her back at the Aquaris Court about Kej’s advances over the years. “I’ve planned a little gathering this evening with some of the soldiers, you’re welcome to join us, unless you have other plans?”

Zylah glared at him. She knew what he was doing. Trying to find out if Holt had remembered her yet.

“Will Rin be there?” she asked.

Kej waved a hand. “My sister’s whereabouts are of no interest to me.” But Zylah knew that wasn’t the case. That he was just as likely covering for his twin, perhaps keeping something from Nye on his sister’s behalf. “If you need an extra pair of hands for your trip to Maelissa’s court, you know where to find me. I’ve heard rumours about her that make even me seem chaste.”

Zylah stilled at his words, but the Fae didn’t notice. He was already halfway out of the tent, calling back over his shoulder about seeing them later.

“What do you know about Mae?” Holt asked her quietly. Something seemed to settle over him, like a mask sliding into place. Mae. Not Maelissa.

Zylah swallowed down the ugly feelings threatening to rise. What had happened between Holt and Mae was a long time ago; the past was in the past. “What you told me. The truth.”

When he said nothing and the silence between them became so thick she needed air, Zylah made to leave, but he grabbed her wrist, thumb circling the delicate skin. “You’re leaving now?”

Time. She had to give him time. Forcing his healing for her own selfish reasons would do him no good. Zylah grasped at every scrap of worry, every drop of turmoil inside her, and let it harden into resolve. Going to Mae for answers got them one step closer to Aurelia and Ranon, to seeking the revenge she so deeply craved. “I have to.”

“We’ve had a long journey. You should rest first.”

Zylah shook her head. “I can’t. Not whilst they’re out there. Not whilst they have the ability to cause you so much pain.” Something that might have been hurt flickered across his face, his hand falling from her wrist. “I’ll rest for a few hours, but then I’ll leave for Mae’s,” she added.

“I can go alone.”

That ugly feeling surged and sliced through Zylah.“He always comes back to me eventually,”Mae had told her once. Panic threatened to rise, and Zylah held her breath for whatever he was going to say next.

“But I’d be grateful for your company,” Holt told her. “And for Kopi’s.”

She was certain he could feel her relief. But then her threads seemed to hum, a strange yet familiar presence in the camp.

“What is it?” Holt asked, and a quiet part of her wondered if he’d felt it too.

“I made a bargain once. When I lived in Kerthen for a short while. I felt the same presence here before the mine attack, and just again, but it’s already gone.”

“The wards are strong. We’re safe here.” His tone was reassuring, but she saw the walls go up around him, like he’d decided to put distance between them after the reminder of what Ranon and Aurelia could do. Had done to him for months. “Come on. Come and eat something. Watch Kej aimlessly make a fool of himself whilst you rest.”

He didn’t reach for her again, and a strange sense of foreboding clung to Zylah as she followed him into the night air.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Camplifewasn’teasy,but it was painless compared to her time alone in Kerthen. The wards kept its creatures at bay, though Zylah could still feel them, more so now as she foraged for plants close to the perimeter of the camp.

A shadow flickered at the edge of her vision, the swish of a bushy tail disappearing amongst the inky black before the general stepped out from behind a tree.

“Don’t you have scouts to spy on me?” Zylah asked her friend, slicing another mushroom from a rotting tree trunk.

Nye clicked her tongue. “I don’t spy on my friends. I came to see what’s been keeping you out here all morning.” A wisp of shadow receded at her feet, and again Zylah wondered if the times she’d seen it before back at the Aquaris Court had been the beginning of this new version of her magic.

But she cast that thought aside, pressing her lips together as she considered her answer. She and Holt hadn’t been able to leave for Mae’s court; Nye had received a note the morning of their departure from one of her scouts, informing them that Mae hadn’t yet returned to court and would be delayed by two weeks. Her adviser hadn’t given her whereabouts, but that had come as no surprise.

Then there was the matter of what Zylah could feel out in the forest, a familiar lingering presence that could lead to no good, though she wasn’t certain whether she remained at the perimeter in a desperate attempt to protect her friends from whatever lurked beyond it or for her own selfish reasons.

“I’m collecting more amantias for poultices.” An excuse, but not entirely a lie. There were many wounded within the camp, many from the tunnels in Virian, others who had returned from missions and run-ins with vampires and their thralls. In the three days since returning from Ranon’s maze, Zylah had been busy helping Deyna and the other healers every spare moment she got.

“You’re avoiding him.”

Zylah straightened. “I don’t want these to go to waste; you know well enough supplies deplete quickly.” The truth was that she hadn’t been alone with Holt since they’d discussed Mae in Nye’s tent. Since she’d brought up his imprisonment. Despite their kiss, despite how he’d held her and told her he wanted to find out what they could become, he’d pulled away. And if space was what he wanted, Zylah would honour it. No matter how much it hurt.

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