1. Chapter One

Chapter One

I ’ll find you.

Zylah wasn’t sure how long it had been, only that the sight of a vanquicite sword sliding into her mate’s chest played over and over in her head on repeat. What she was sure of was the haunting silence left in his absence. The hollowness inside her where she should have felt him.

It had been weeks, maybe even months since it happened, since her heart had been torn from her body. Zylah couldn’t be certain, because whatever they’d done to her when they’d freed Ranon—Aurelia and the others—had left her weak, far weaker than the vanquicite in her spine ever had, her days a blur of restless sleep and pain.

She’d pulled apart every minute, every second of what ensued after Aurelia had showed up at the mine so many times that there was no longer any distinction between her dreams and her waking moments. If she could turn back the hands of fate, offer her life for his, she would.

The scent of mint and lemongrass stirred her from her nightmare, the sound of soft footsteps drawing closer. Zylah physically recoiled at the approaching male, her tired gaze fixed on his, even though the sight of those black, empty eyes filled her with dread.

“You need to eat something, Zylah. Please.” Raif didn’t approach, didn’t try to touch her—not since the day he’d brought her here and she’d managed to mumble a slur of curses so foul her father would have turned in his grave at the sound of them.

Wherever here was, she was yet to determine. Zylah couldn’t evanesce; she’d had no magic since Ranon’s release. The farthest she’d managed to make it was a few wobbly steps, just beyond the open doorway, face pressed into the dirt when she’d fallen. It had only been the sheer determination of not letting Raif lay a hand on her that had got her back to her makeshift bed. He’d asked about the dirt on her face, but she’d said nothing to him that day, had said nothing to him since.

There was no way of knowing how long he’d held her captive. How long she’d been there in the dark, alone with a monster while she existed somewhere between sleep and whatever he thought this sorry excuse of a half-life was. She certainly wasn’t going to ask him. Though she recalled few meals since he’d brought her there, Zylah suspected it was because she’d been recovering from whatever Aurelia had done to her when Ranon had been released. She ignored Raif’s plea, examining the scars at her wrists, her jaw clenching tight at everything his cursed family had done. Everything they had taken from her.

He blew out an exasperated breath. Toyed with an orblight in one of his hands and ran the other through his short black hair, the same way he used to when it was much longer, when he was still High Fae and not this… this thing that stood before her. A vampire, created by his mother. A monster.

“I have to leave for a short while tomorrow,” he said, watching her closely. “I need to know you understand that it’s not possible to leave here, not without a guide. And we will leave when you’re better, but…” He tripped over every sentence, hands sliding into his pockets as he spoke—another old gesture—as if to remind himself he shouldn’t be affected by such things now.

Zylah just stared at him, reshaping every drop of pain and sadness and hurt into something else. Something sharp and deadly. If she could summon claws to grow from her fingertips so that she might gouge out those black, soulless eyes, she would. Time had been afforded to her in abundance since her arrival in this place. Time to hone her hatred, to give it teeth.

A thin shaft of sunlight hit the dirt beside Raif’s feet, letting Zylah know it was late afternoon. Which meant she hadn’t eaten for two days. With aching joints protesting every movement, she reached for the tray Raif had left at the end of her bed. A small dish of seeds sat in one corner, and with another little pang of sadness, she nestled it into her blankets for later.

Zylah didn’t take her eyes off the vampire before her as she ate the simple meal he’d delivered. He sat on the only other piece of furniture in the room—cell, perhaps, though it had no door, but Raif knew she was too weak to walk far. On the first day, Zylah had thought they were underground with the scent of damp earth and old leaves, the thick roots that twisted around the walls, a strange, dark ivy wrapping around most of them. Sunlight worked its way across the dirt throughout the day, barely the width of a ribbon, and occasionally a gentle breeze rustled her hair, one that Zylah had since realised was another piece of the magic keeping everything together in this strange little bubble she’d been residing in.

Her bed consisted of nothing more than a mound of lush green moss topped with threadbare blankets. On the far side of the room, a screen of tightly woven roots disguised the entrance to a small bathroom that, along with a toilet and sink, held a copper tub, barely bigger than a large laundry pail. Zylah had been too weak to properly use it, anyway. More magic—warm water when she needed it, waste water removed every time she returned to her bed. But she wouldn’t ask Raif how. This place, whatever it was, was so heavily warded the first day had felt suffocating; it had been no wonder she’d believed they were underground. Still wasn’t certain if they truly were.

The vampire shifted on his wooden stool, rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “There’s… some things I need to tell you, for when—”

“For when you leave me in this prison to rot?” Zylah rasped.

Raif’s eyes widened, lips parting. They were the first words she’d spoken to him since that first day. He frowned, the expression there and then gone, his features settling back into cool indifference. “This isn’t a prison, Zylah. This was Ranon’s… my grandfather’s maze. Rose and I used to play here as children.”

The thought of the two siblings, their long black hair unbound and messy, playing alone in this desolate place made her lose what little appetite she had left, but Zylah didn’t voice any of the thoughts that formed, didn’t stop eating. She needed to be strong if she was going to escape.

“Your blood was bound to Ranon’s.” Raif rolled the orblight between his hands, the only source of light Zylah was permitted in the evenings. “That’s why—”

“Why I have no magic.”

A nod. “Why you’re still healing. Though my grandfather is weak and…”

Zylah’s grip tightened on her plate. “So Holt…” She collected herself at the sound of his name on her lips, willing the nightmare not to replay all over again. “That was for nothing?”

Raif looked away. Fucking coward. If she had the strength, she’d smash her plate and take a shard to his throat. He’d sink his fangs into her with that preternatural speed, but Zylah would gladly die trying.

“He killed your father. But you… you hated Marcus,” she went on quietly, rage welling up inside her, hands shaking where her fingers curled over the plate. “Why did you do it? You were like a brother to him. And he’d…” Zylah swallowed back the lump in her throat, willing her words not to waver. “He’d have died for you anyway. He’d have done anything to save you from this.”

There was no emotion on Raif’s face now; his features were hard, cold. “I’m more than I ever was.” It was the same line he’d spouted before, before he’d brought her here. She thought of the way he’d coiled ash around his hand back in the forest outside the Aquaris Court, how it seemed like she’d never known him at all. Zylah knew now with certainty. She hadn’t.

“Food will be delivered,” Raif added. More magic, no doubt, but again, Zylah wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of her questions, her interest. “I’ll try not to be more than a few days. No one will disturb you; you’re safe here, but you must remain within the wards.”

Safe . Zylah almost scoffed at the word. She was trapped in the dark with a monster, too weak to escape. And whatever game Raif was playing, Zylah wanted no part of it. She watched him still—never took her eyes off the vampire when he entered the room for fear that he might lay a hand on her. His black shirt was fresh, his face clean shaven. He’d been coming and going from this place, and that meant Zylah could find a way out. Had to.

A gift for him. That was how Aurelia had described this imprisonment Zylah found herself in. And what Raif had admitted… that he’d known she and Holt were mates. Had known and bedded her anyway. The food curdled in her stomach, but she forced herself to keep swallowing.

“I know you must think—”

“You have no idea what I think,” Zylah spat, but the words came out weak. She was weak, and just talking and eating had made her want, need , to lie down again already.

Raif nodded. Rose from the stool. “You’re safe here, Zylah,” he said again, and she wondered if it was more for himself. He took the empty tray from her bed, leaving a pitcher of water beside it, and didn’t meet her eyes again.

Zylah glared at his back as he walked away, as he disappeared out of sight around a corner in the passage that led away from her room. Only when she was certain she could no longer hear him did she allow herself to fall back into her blankets, elbow nudging the little bowl of seeds.

Nestled in another scrap of fabric at the head of her bed, Kopi slept deeply. He was weak, too, though Zylah had thought he was dead the first few days when he hadn’t stirred at all. Raif had tried to offer help, but she wouldn’t let him near her little friend.

She gently stroked Kopi’s head, wondering if she should wake him, to try and coax him to eat, because she’d be damned if she was going to lose him too. The tiny owl was all that was keeping her together. As soon as he was strong enough to fly, she would tell him to go. To find their friends, to be free. She had no idea who had survived the mine attack—if any of the others had made it out. Or if they’d fallen like Holt.

I’ll find you. Zylah would look upon his face one last time. Press one last kiss to his lips as she uttered his final rites.

Before she killed them all.

Aurelia, Ranon. Raif.

Though if her blood was bound to Ranon’s, if the reason her blood had been used to free him had in some way tied them together… Zylah swallowed. She’d have to leave him for last. And there were other matters, like how Aurelia’s vampires and thralls could have overtaken half the continent by now for all she knew. Which meant humans and Fae were still just as much in danger as each other. Would be just as caged as she was.

Kopi stirred beneath her touch, one eye peeking open as he made a little garbled sound that let her know he was content. Raif had said he didn’t know how long he would be gone, but Zylah silently vowed not to let more time go to waste. She would get her strength up, explore where she could. And then she was going to get the fuck out of there.

“I don’t know what my legacy will be,” Holt had told her after he’d found her in Varda. “ But it will be something of my own making. Nobody else’s.” Her legacy would not be to rot in a cell at the hands of a family of monsters. Zylah refused to let it be her fate.

To live. To find her freedom. That was what every step had been about since fleeing the gallows in Dalstead. Since joining the uprising in Virian. Since seeing how the Fae existed, trapped in their courts. Since learning of the hold Raif’s family had over Holt.

To living free. That was her vow. The words Holt had repeated back to her once. She fought against the fresh sting of tears, the space inside her where he should have been, fractured and empty.

Zylah would have her freedom. Would give it to as many Fae and humans as she could. She swore on it as at last, the tears silently fell. Swore on the old gods, the Fae who had abandoned them all, her grandmother included.

“To living free,” she murmured to her empty room, swiping the tears away with fierce resolve, something like hope fluttering in her chest for the first time since Raif had carried her into the dark.