Page 73 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Zylah barely heard the witch over the drumming in her ears as she pushed to her feet. To go where, she didn’t know, but she only knew she couldn’t sit still. Zack and Holt were part of that mission, and neither had returned. She pressed a hand over her chest as if the action might call Holt back to her, dread pooling in her gut. Something flickered in response along with voices shouting outside the tent, and Zylah darted through the rows of cots, out into the open, her heart galloping under her ribs.

Holt knelt over her brother, hands pressed to Zack’s chest, shouting something at Arlan. But Zylah didn’t hear it, all she saw was her brother’s ashen face, the blood coating Holt’s hands, and she ran for him, sliding to her knees beside her brother.

Zylah’s hands fell over Holt’s where he was putting pressure on the wound—still no sign of his healing magic—and he eased his hands away, his gaze heavy on her face before he moved aside to let her work. Zylah sucked in a breath at the extent of her brother’s injuries, Holt and Arlan’s argument continuing around her, but she tuned out the sound. Tuned out everything to focus on her brother.

“It’s alright, Zack,” she told him, unspooling her magic again to feel for every torn piece of flesh and broken bone across his body. A gash across his sternum, two broken ribs, a fractured hand. Too many small wounds to count. Zack didn’t respond, and Zylah’s heart thrashed against her chest as she willed the threads to mend what they could, the knowledge that she’d already used a portion of her power to heal Maya nagging at the back of her mind.

She fought with the urge to drain herself too quickly. None of the wounds were deep or over arteries, but with the sheer volume of them, the broken bones, the way his face contorted in agony, all of it turned her stomach. Zylah willed herself to focus, to breathe slowly until her brother’s breaths steadied, until his eyes fluttered open and settled on her face.

“Zy,” he wheezed, already pushing to his elbows.

“Stay,” she barked, pushing a hand a little too roughly into his shoulder. “I’m not done yet.” She’d mended flesh and the fractured hand, until all that remained were the two broken ribs, and she resisted the urge to yank her threads roughly just to try and dissuade him from putting himself in danger again. But that wasn’t Zack, and it wasn’t her, either.

Still, he gasped at the pain as she eased the broken ribs back into place, her magic mending the breaks. He flexed his fractured hand, eyes widening in awe as he dragged his fingers over the healed skin at his sternum. “Amazing.”

The arguing ceased, Arlan and Holt quiet for a moment, but Zylah paid them no heed as she checked on her brother until she was satisfied he could be moved. She threw Zack’s arm over her shoulders, helping him slowly to his feet, a brief wave of nausea causing her to stumble, but she blamed it on her brother’s height. Holt took a step closer, hands coated in Zack’s blood. He didn’t intervene; no doubt the murderous expression on her face told him not to.

“Father would be so proud of everything you’ve become, Zy,” her brother told her as they staggered back inside the healers’ tent.

“Flattery will get you nowhere. Do you have any idea how furious I am with you?”

“I know I am,” he said, ignoring her question. “Proud of you, that is. Truly, Zylah. Thank you.”

Some of her anger cooled as she helped him onto a cot. “What happened?”

“There were too many of them.” He shook his head. “We’ve been trying to gather up their weapons so that they don’t return for them later—Black Veil from every unit secure the vanquicite in a designated location. This time we were just outside of Morren, but two more vampires came when we were securing everything. Bastards must have been hanging back, watching us rip apart the others.”

“What do you mean, secure the weapons? Why aren’t you distributing them to the humans in the towns and villages?”

Zack laughed. “That’s exactly what Holt said. Arlan didn’t want us arming the humans against the Fae. Didn’t want them to have an advantage in the future.”

“We already have an advantage.” Zack raised an eyebrow at her words in the way only a brother could. “I don’t need to tell you we’re stronger, or that many of us have magic. Maybe the vanquicite weapons will show them we’re true to our word.” Zylah finished checking him over, content that she hadn’t missed anything that could become infected.

“Holt said that, too,” her brother added.

That explained the arguing. Zylah ran a hand through her hair, the effects of using her magic beginning to creep into her awareness when a sharp stab of pain flared across her shoulder. “Holt,” she breathed.

Zack frowned, glancing around the tent. “He should be in here, he took a blow trying to protect me when I was moving the weapons.”

Zylah pushed to her feet. “I have to go,” she breathed. “You’ll be alright?”

“Go,” he told her with a dip of his chin, and again, Zylah was running, feet carrying her without knowing where she was going, cutting through tents until she settled on one and swung the flap aside.

Holt caught her eye in the mirror opposite the tent opening where he held a soaked cloth to the bronzed skin of his shoulder, a wound as long as Zylah’s forearm broken and bleeding across his back.

Zylah didn’t ask to enter. Just closed the space between them and prised the cloth from his fingers. “Sit.” She forced her emotions down as she cleaned her hands on a piece of unsoiled cloth, rinsing and drying them carefully, adrenaline still heating her chest. She hadn’t touched Maya’s or Zack’s wounds directly, wouldn’t need to touch Holt’s, but her old human life and medical hygiene were still muscle memory, the familiarity of the movements softening the sharpest edges of her temper.

“You’re angry with me,” Holt said, brow pinching together as he studied her face.

Zylah ripped the cloth off her eyes. “Angry doesn’t begin to—Sit down. Please. It’s easier for me if I don’t have to reach up.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Holt’s mouth but he did as she asked, sitting on one of only two cots that filled the tent. She didn’t ask who the other bed belonged to. Told herself it didn’t matter as she sat beside him, taking in the extent of the wound and settling her hands above the broken flesh before he could protest.

His back tensed as her healing magic moved through him, the muscles of his jaw tightening so much it was a wonder he didn’t crack a tooth.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, “I’m trying to be gentle.”

Holt glanced over his shoulder, eyes meeting hers. “It doesn’t hurt.” She almost turned away from how he studied her eyes now that they were free of the cloth, but she held his gaze. “Don’t burn yourself out for this. It’ll heal,” he added.

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