Page 85 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Mae rose from the bed, one of her attendants draping a gossamer robe over her shoulders that did little to cover her exposed flesh. “Leave us,” she told the room. “You too, Finn, Sarina.”

Heads inclined, one of the Fae bowing so low her wings brushed the stone floor. The attendants left one by one, until only Finn remained. “My Lady.”

“I’m among friends, Finn. You said it yourself, they defended our court as if it were their own.” Mae’s smile sparkled with mirth as she waved Finn away, Zylah’s threads confirming that had indeed left the three of them, and Kopi, alone.

The Fae inspected her gloved hands, a pout pulling her lips together. “I know why you’ve come.”

Had it not been for Zylah’s threads, she wouldn’t have thought much of Mae’s odd choice of accessory. But as her magic unspooled farther across the room, they snagged on one of Mae’s gloves and what lay beneath it. She reached for Kopi at her shoulder and held out her palm to urge him to return to the trees in the court beyond.

“Ever the loyal companion,” Mae hummed, her eyes shifting to meet Zylah’s. “Curious,” she said quietly, just as Thallan had back in the palace in Virian, her gaze darting between Holt and Zylah. “Very curious.” She said nothing of Zylah’s eyes, of her being Fae, of how different she was from their last visit. If Mae had detected anything different about Holt, she said nothing of it.

“Out with it, Mae.” Holt folded his arms across his chest, waiting.

“The arrenium,” the Fae explained, circling them both, assessing, and Zylah began to wonder if she knew what they were to each other. “I can’t help you.”

Of course she wouldn’t. That wasn’t Mae’s style. No, not unless there was something in it for her. A bargain, perhaps. But Zylah wasn’t interested in more of those. She left Holt’s side to take in the room, the different plants in hanging baskets, some in a broad frame compacted into moss that seemed to be growing through the stone. Behind the bed, a table overflowed with fruit and platters of strange looking sweets, jugs of wine and trays of glasses.

“Take off the glove, Mae,” Zylah said, eyeing the food and trying to work out what was strange about it.

“A willing sacrifice,” the Fae explained after a beat of silence. She conceded to Zylah’s request, holding up her hand for Holt. Arrenium, just as Zylah had suspected.

Holt’s power crackled through the room, and Zylah’s gaze snapped up to his face. “You left your court defenceless, for this?” he snapped at Mae.

The Fae only clicked her tongue. “Come now, my prince, I taught you better control than that.” She reached her gloved hand to Holt’s face, but he stepped back from her touch, out of reach. “With Thallan and my archers lost to Ranon, I needed more arrenium to protect my court.”

“You expect us to believe you didn’t merely gift them to him?” Zylah said, detecting the strange note that laced everything across the table. Saca, a known aphrodisiac. Predictably, Mae’s attention remained fixed on Holt, and Zylah used it to her advantage.

“My archers were my greatest achievement. Thallan a lifelong friend. Do not lecture me on whatIhave had taken fromme. This”—Mae almost spat the word, waving her strange new hand—“was the compromise I was offered from the Yzdrit.”

Zylah swilled one of the wine jugs as she listened to their exchange, made a quick calculation to double-check her dilution.

“Compromise?” Holt’s laugh was quiet, deadly, his attention flitting to Zylah and the glass in her hand as she rounded the bed. “You’d protect yourself and leave your court, the rest of the continent to suffer?” He remained still, but his exasperation rippled through every inch of him. “The humans you just took shelter with, the court you have built here will be gone, Mae, all of it.”

“Go to the Yzdrit yourselves. I’ll gladly provide a map. Negotiate your own terms if you need the arrenium so badly. I have all I’ll ever need.” Mae snatched the glass from Zylah’s hands just as she’d raised it to her mouth, downing the contents in one. The Fae’s lips curled in displeasure, eyes darting between the empty glass, then back at Zylah, recognition settling over her features. “You.”

Mae took a step closer, but one of Holt’s vines erupted from the stone at her feet and wrapped around her body, the glass slipping from her fingertips and shattering across the floor.

Zylah clicked her tongue at the mess. “That bitter aftertaste is often confused with ash root,” she said as she circled Mae slowly, just as the Fae had done to her and Holt. “First it causes heart palpitations. Then cold sweats. Spreading through your veins so very slowly, until those palpitations become stutters.” She paused to study Holt’s face, to search for any signs of anger at what she’d done. She found none. “And eventually,” Zylah went on, “Your heart. Just. Stops. Seventy-two hours is the usual lifespan after ingestion. Sometimes more, sometimes less.” She paused in front of Mae, the Fae struggling against her bindings. “Bring one of your Yzdrit contacts here to meet us, and I’ll give you the antidote.”

“It took three weeks to get there and back,” Mae snapped.

Zylah only shrugged her shoulders at that. “You’re resourceful. I’m sure you’ll find a way to convince them.”

“Why?” the Fae breathed.

Zylah leaned in close, close enough she could see her wild reflection in the Fae’s eyes. “For everything you did to him.”

Mae looked at Holt, her gaze imploring, and Zylah wondered if the High Lady would beg. But he didn’t baulk, didn’t release the bindings at her wrists.

“We have our own business to attend to,” Zylah explained, taking in the mess one last time. “We’ll return in seventy-two hours to administer the antidote.”

“Holt, please.”

“Seventy-two hours, Mae,” he told her and followed Zylah from the room.

Chapter Forty-Three

ReturningtotheAquarisCourt had been a test of their stamina. Though the courts were already likely to be a target, they couldn’t risk being tracked there, and it was almost dawn by the time they passed through the wards. They’d opted to leave Kopi behind with Dalana and Ellisar; Zylah felt confident he would return to the camp outside Kerthen if he wished to.

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