Page 8 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

She pushed against her magic again: to evanesce, to summon a weapon, anything, but still there was nothing, no feeling where it should have been, just an absence of everything she had once been.

“Chairs?” Ranon asked, and though Zylah presumed the question was directed at his daughter, he didn’t so much as glance in Aurelia’s direction, his attention fixed on the way Raif stood between them all.

Aurelia waved a hand, four wooden chairs appearing in the small space, and took a seat beside her father, like they were all sitting down to tea. Zylah didn’t move. Neither did Raif.

“It seems your blood did not restore me as it should have, Zylah,” Ranon began without preamble. He inspected his fingernails, a novelty, Zylah supposed, after so many years in his tomb. He wore a dark grey overcoat, two rows of silver buttons making him seem broader than Zylah suspected he was after centuries of withering away. “Sit,” he told her, and with a wave of his hands Zylah found her legs moving of their own accord towards the chair before her.

It didn’t matter whether her blood had restored him or not, it had freed him. That was enough. The images of what he’d done had been burned into her mind from the book Nye had shown her back at the Aquaris Court, and though she wasn’t certain what to believe, there was no doubting his ill intentions. His actions; the spiteful way he’d trapped Arioch in his maze.

“Your monsters. The vanquicite… your puppets,” she said with a pointed look at Raif before turning her attention back to Ranon. “Isn’t it enough?”

A broad smile split the ancient Fae’s face, but there was nothing but menace in it, and Zylah willed her heart to remain steady, her breaths even.

“It’s not a matter of greed, though I can see why you reached that conclusion.” He rested a hand over Aurelia’s, looking at her with a softness Zylah wouldn’t have thought a monster capable of. “But to answer your question: No, it’s not enough. Not yet.”

“Not yet?” Zylah seethed, though her head pounded relentlessly. “Look at your grandson. Is that not enough?” What Zylah felt for Raif went beyond hatred, but she still could not wrap her head around what had been done to him.

Ranon’s head tilted to one side, assessing her. “It can be undone with my blood,” he said simply, as if turning Raif into a monster was of no consequence to him. What a risk Aurelia had taken, altering her son so wholly before successfully releasing her father. None of them seemed troubled by it, least of all Raif.

“What was the mine for? What could someone with your abilities need with that much vanquicite?” Zylah asked, though she wasn’t certain she wanted to know the answer. All of this was very, very wrong.

Aurelia hadn’t stopped staring at her; Zylah couldn’t say she was surprised. If it even matched half of what she felt towards Aurelia for Holt, the Fae was nothing but white-hot anger and the desire for retribution. Wrath and the visceral need for reckoning colliding.

“You’re new to this. So I’ll enlighten you,” Ranon said slowly with the same tone he might use with a child, which, Zylah supposed, given the centuries he had on her, she was. “All Fae possess a certain amount of magic. Whether it manifests into an ability or not, it’s in our blood.” He turned his hand over, as if he might see the magic settled there.

Zylah sucked in a breath as realisation slammed into her. The cells. Holt had mentioned there were vanquicite cells in Virian. If that were true and Ranon had been using them to trap Fae, to harness their power… Aurelia must have known this would happen, that her father would be weak upon his release from his tomb; prepared for this eventuality all along. “You’re making cells to hold them. How many?”

Ranon seemed to study her. If he was surprised at how much she knew, he didn’t let it show. “As many as it takes.”

“But they’reyourpeople. The people you came here to save. Why would you do that?”

“I never came here to save our people. That was the others’ intent.” His stare was empty for a moment, lost in whatever memory had enraptured him. “I came here to save myself. To start over. To begin anew.”

“That’s why you created the monsters.” To create a world in their vision, as Nye had put it.

“You are as much a monster to them as they to you, Zylah.”

She had so many questions. About how much Ranon had witnessed. About Aurelia’s supposed death. Questions about herself, too, that only Ranon might know the answer to. Like what had happened to her parents… the vanquicite she’d grown up with inside her. Something told Zylah he knew everything, would hold everything over her to get what he wanted.

“Enough of this,” the ancient Fae snapped, as if he could sense the questions on the tip of her tongue. “Call Pallia here.”

“I can’t. Do you truly think I’d still be here if I had a way to ask for help? If I could simply snap my fingers and tell her I’m ready to leave?”

Ranon laughed. “Call her here, Zylah.”

She had to have been dreaming when she’d almost died, believing her grandmother had come to her aid. Because what kind of heartless creature would leave their grandchild alone with three monsters, with no way to escape? Zylah gritted her teeth. “I told you. I can’t.”

Without warning, Aurelia was out of her chair, hand striking Zylah’s face so quickly the force knocked her back a step. Raif darted between them, shouting something Zylah couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears, a hand on his mother’s arm. But Zylah could do nothing but choke out a sob. She could barely breathe at all.

Acani berries.A hint of acani berries in Aurelia’s strike. Zylah doubled over, a hand clutched to her stomach as her thoughts spiralled over themselves. Every little flutter of warmth she’d felt, every little instance of hope. What if it wasn’t Ranon’s blood diminishing her magic?What if…It was foolish to let herself be so optimistic. To let herself believe the impossible, but she had to.

Raif and Aurelia’s argument had heated, the words coming back into focus as understanding struck Zylah so sharply she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Where is my mate?” she breathed.

Raif and Aurelia didn’t stop arguing.

“Where is my mate?” she asked louder this time.

Still, the arguing continued.

---