Page 90 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Chapter Forty-Five

Irememberyou,Zylah, Holt said again as he kissed her, another wave crashing over them.

Zylah could barely breathe at the sound of his voice in her head. At the use of their bond. That he was holding her, touching her.I couldn’t hear your heart, your breath. You weren’t—she began, fear stealing the last of the thought away as she ran her hands over his heart, up his neck and to his face, thumbs sweeping over his skin to commit every part of him to memory, to check he was real and she wasn’t just hallucinating.

I wasn’t.He brushed hair from her face, his hand lingering on her cheek.But you anchored me here. To you. You lit the way back for me, Zylah.“You burnt through Aurelia’s corruption. Brought me back to you,” he said thickly.

Another tremble wracked her body at his words, at the sound of his voice, and then they were moving through the aether, away from the unrelenting waves. Malok’s bellowing voice told Zylah Holt had returned within the court, but she made no effort to move from his arms, couldn’t even if she tried.

“Under any other circumstances, I might ask what you were both doing in my court uninvited,” Malok barked in their direction. “But,” he said, his voice softening just a fraction, “this is the second time you have defended my court at great risk to your lives.”

“Third,” Zylah muttered, but if the High Lord heard her, he didn’t acknowledge it.

“You have my thanks,” he told them. “The court is at your disposal.” A pause, and then, “My children? My…” Malok cleared his throat. “Niossa?”

“All well. All safe,” Holt told him. And then they were moving again, Zylah’s body curled against his where he held her in his arms as they evanesced, exhaustion weighting her bones. A fire roared to life when they reappeared, and she marvelled at the strength of his magic after he’d almost died. Had died.

You gave it to me, he told her, pressing a kiss into her hair and lowering her to her feet. “You need to stay awake, Zylah. To get warm.” He worked at her clothes with careful fingers, a blanket draping over her shoulders by the time he’d removed her bralette. Zylah could do nothing but shiver, the world still dark, focusing on the sound of him moving: his steady breaths, the rhythm of his heart. So many feelings poured from him, their bond alight with it, all his concern, his fear, his love. Even his desire as she stood bare before him, but he continued his task, wrapping her in another blanket, towel drying her hair and settling her before the fire whilst he removed his clothes next.

Panic flared from her when Holt stepped away for a moment, but then he was moving the blankets aside to slip beneath them, pulling her to his chest and bundling them both up together, his frozen skin a stark reminder of everything he’d just endured.I’m here, he reassured her.

“Can’t we have a hot bath?” Zylah murmured, teeth chattering as she welcomed his embrace.

Holt chuckled into her hair, his hands sliding down her arms to warm her skin, massaging her fingers one by one, the burns that had marred her hand healed over. “Terrible idea,” he told her softly.

His skin was still icy cold, his hair still wet where he’d towelled it quickly, yet he seemed content with just holding her, touching her, easing his hands over her flesh to help her thaw out. The fire hissed and crackled, close enough that it warmed Zylah’s face but not enough to stop her from trembling, her brain still catching up with everything that had happened.

“You died,” she choked out, angling her face up to his and wishing she could see him. He brushed his fingers against her temple, healing magic pouring into her and drawing a sigh from her lips. The shadows parted a little, just enough to leave her with the narrow field of view, enough to see his forest green eyes gazing down at her, the flecks of gold in them. Her heart broke again at the sight of him, like she was seeing him for the very first time, like that day she’d been running from Arnir’s men, exhausted and afraid.

Another tear rolled down her cheek, Holt swiping it away as he kissed her softly. “My body, maybe. But not my mind,” he said over her lips. “Not my soul.” Another kiss. “I heard you,” he told her, resting his forehead against hers, his hands running over her arms again to rub her frozen skin. “Felt you.” His voice harshened, but his hands kept moving, touching, rubbing, reassuring. “All of it.”

The lightning. Zylah trailed her hand over his chest, panic flaring through her again, fingers tracing over the scar from the vanquicite sword. “I didn’t know.” She searched for burns, for any sign of what she’d done to him, but only the starburst scar remained over his heart; the scar from Marcus, from arm to neck. “I tried everything,” she rasped, her voice breaking at the suffering she’d caused him.

You have nothing to apologise for, he told her, tilting her face up to his, a hand brushing the hair from her eyes.You brought me back to you. In every way.

Zylah knew better than to believe that meant it had erased everything Aurelia and the others had done, that the memory of it didn’t still linger.

I wouldn’t forget a moment of it, he said in her thoughts, his hands moving to her thighs, kneading, massaging every inch of her.Because you were there in every moment.

Even when you couldn’t remember?she asked him, though she knew it was selfish of her.

Part of me always knew what you were to me. It’s how I held on. He pressed a hand over hers where it lingered on his heart.Aurelia used the combination of her control and the vanquicite to break me in that cell. She’d already put me under her influence outside the mine when I wouldn’t use my magic again.“I was so close to breaking free of it, but then Raif used the vanquicite sword.”

Zylah tried not to let the memory that had been etched into her mind play out before her, intent on seeing nothing but him.

“She’d planned it all,”Holt went on.“To use me for her father. To use everything at her disposal to mould me the way she wanted. To strip away anything that didn’t fit.”But I felt you,he said in her thoughts,Held on to you, even when we were apart.A moment of hesitation and then he added,When I first saw you in the throne room, it hurt just to look at you. But part of me still knew. Still understood.

She felt the worry and regret tied up in his words. Not that it happened, not that he suffered, but that the truth was painful for her to hear. That he was causingherpain by giving her the truth.

“And you were right,” he said, another soothing caress dancing over her skin as he returned his hands to her legs to continue his task. “You weren’t healing because I wasn’t.”

“Because you couldn’t.”

Holt nodded. “When you told me our magic was tied to each other’s…” His hands stilled, but Zylah waited, her fingertips trailing his scars beneath the blanket as warmth slowly seeped back into her body. “Something inside me was thrashing,” he said roughly, studying her face. “Beating against my chest to break free.”

“Our bond,” Zylah murmured.

Another nod. “I meant it when I said the pain reminded me I was alive. I held onto it with everything I had. Held on to you. Even if Aurelia had broken something in me, torn apart everything I was. She couldn’t rip you from me, not entirely.”

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