13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Z ylah vaguely recalled Kej leading her to a cave, Daizin lighting a fire and both of them tending to her injuries, then they’d bundled her in blankets and insisted she rest.

Fitful sleep had consumed her, nightmares filled with shadows and Rhaznia’s legs caging her. Venom, black and shiny. And pain. Always pain, pulling her in and out of sleep, the warmth of the fire and the quiet murmur of conversation dragging her back under each time. Whatever Ranon had done to her, whatever using her blood had meant, the pain always seemed to find her when she slept.

Female voices woke her. Zylah recognised all three, though she still couldn’t see.

“Rin, Nye, is that you?” Zylah rasped, pushing up onto her elbows.

“We’re here, Zylah.” Rin’s voice. An arm draped over Zylah’s shoulders in a sideways hug.

They were no longer in a cave, Zylah guessed, though she still couldn’t see much. Light danced off white. Not snow, but canvas, perhaps, and the lingering smell of damp no longer filled the air.

A hand closed around hers, and someone pressed a cup gently into her palm. “Drink, then let’s take a look at those eyes of yours.”

“Deyna?” Zylah asked. The healer from the Aquaris Court, the woman who’d removed the vanquicite from her spine with Holt’s help. A different kind of pain coursed through her to the one that had haunted her dreams. The memory of Holt’s embrace. His comforting scent. His firm body against hers.

“Your friends have been worried,” Deyna said, her voice soft, pulling Zylah from her thoughts.

“But not you?”

“You’re made of strong stuff.” The cup tipped towards Zylah’s mouth as she made to pull away. “All of it. I know it’s awful, but you need it.”

Awful was an understatement. The scent of incense and spices drifted from Deyna, and it reminded Zylah of her father’s apothecary. “Kej told me you were two days away,” she said quietly. He’d explained that it was Kopi who’d led them to her, but Zylah had been too exhausted to question him further.

“We were.” Nye’s voice, at her other side. “We just got here a few hours ago. It’s really fucking good to see you, Zylah.”

Another hug, and Zylah let herself be held as she made sense of everything she felt. “You too. What I can see of you.” Relief, mostly. So much relief she was lightheaded with it.

“And what is that, exactly?” Deyna asked.

Zylah shrugged, waving the empty cup before her face, and seeing nothing but a blur. “Shadow and light, that’s about all. I know you’re there. But when the shadows get too dark, I’m as good as blind.”

“Kej said you didn’t do too badly against the grimms when he found you.” Rin’s shoulder bumped against hers, her friend’s voice edged with pride.

For a heartbeat, she was back in the snow, fighting with nothing but her spear and her senses, the cyon wolf beside her, the flapping of the winged creatures and their shrieks surrounding her. “I had a bit of help.”

“And a great teacher,” Nye added.

Zylah smiled at that. Frowned. Took stock of her body. Where the grimms had attacked, there was no trace of any wounds. A quick press of her fingers to her face told her it was free of scars save for one close to her right eye, that the wounds she’d accrued since escaping Raif had been healed. A light tug on her magic told her she still couldn’t evanesce, but still, she felt better than she had since Aurelia had taken her. Strong. Except for—“ Holt, ” she whispered.

“We’re so sorry, Zylah.” Rin squeezed her shoulder, her words laced so thickly with emotion Zylah resisted the urge to shove her friend away.

“He’s alive.” The voices around her were silent, but it didn’t matter. His scent on Aurelia, the small flickers of something in her chest, her heart. “I may not be able to see, but I can certainly feel the way you’re all looking at each other.” He was alive, and she was going to find him.

“We saw the vanquicite sword go through his chest,” Nye explained after a beat of silence. Zylah didn’t need the reminder. It had been all she saw when she closed her eyes in the days that followed, and now it danced in the shadows everywhere her broken gaze fell.

Rin pulled her in for a hug. “No Fae could have survived that.”

But Holt had survived it. There was no considering the alternative. Zylah shrugged out of her friend’s grip, tried to stand, but a hand closed around hers again. “He’s alive,” she insisted.

“We saw two priestesses take his body, Zylah.”

Zylah shook her head. It could mean anything. It didn’t mean he was gone. It couldn’t. She would know, would feel it. She pressed a hand to her chest, hating that she couldn’t feel anything at all. “Ranon is using him,” she forced herself to say. “He means to start a war.”

“We’re already at war,” Nye said at her side. “We lost a lot of soldiers during the mine attack.”

Zylah’s breath faltered. There was no use arguing with a general. What mattered was filling them in on all that happened, exchanging information for whatever they knew, so she started from the beginning. Told them everything that had transpired since the mine attack. They listened to her explanation in silence as Deyna’s hands roamed over her face, a damp cloth pressed against her forehead and the scent of celandia in the air. Now and then, water sloshed in a bowl and Kej’s laughter filled the air from somewhere outside the tent.

“How long have I been gone?” Zylah asked when she’d finished her explanation.

“Three months,” Nye told her, a hint of wariness in her tone.

It couldn’t have been that long… could it? There had been so much pain, passing in and out of consciousness… but, three months?

“Three months and you’ve met a Seraphim, slain a water serpent and giant spiders, trapped that asshole vampire with a monster, escaped Ranon’s maze and taken out over a dozen grimms, blind , I might add,” Rin cut in. Her voice was heavy with emotion. Concern, Zylah thought, but there was something that might have been awe there, too.

She ran her hands over her hair, wishing she could pace, get some air, anything but be still. Rin gently pulled her hands away and began to run a brush through the tangled tresses, and Zylah was too mentally exhausted to argue.

Holt had been rallying allies; Nye had an army behind her, ready to fight. But she couldn’t shake the lingering sense that they were running out of time to amass the numbers they’d need to take down Ranon’s forces. “The blood moon. When is that?”

“Two months from now,” Deyna said quickly.

Two months. Zylah knew little of warfare, but an army took time to build, to move, and to an ancient Fae as old as Ranon, months were nothing in the span of his life. “What do you know of it?”

Deyna hummed. “Do you know what I am?”

Zylah looked at the blurry shadow before her that she knew was the old woman, her ruined gaze flicking over the shadows of Deyna’s face. “You’re no Fae.” Her handling of the vanquicite had proven that. “A witch?”

A quiet exhale. “I heard Laydan stole the key Malok sent you to find. Set the wheels in motion for everything that’s happened to you.” A hand closed over Zylah’s. “We’re not all that way.”

“I would never assume—”

“I know. But what that boy did was unforgiveable.” Deyna’s fingers squeezed gently. Laydan had stolen the key and the book from the Aquaris Court. Handed them over to Aurelia to free Ranon. Broken Daizin’s heart. “Fae harness the power in their blood,” Deyna went on. “Witches draw from other sources. Nature, mostly.”

She tried to recall what Holt had told her about his mother’s magic, that it had been rooted in nature, that he’d tried to teach Raif the way his mother had taught him. “The blood moon,” Zylah murmured. “Why would Ranon need the blood moon? He’s one of the original Fae.” But he and Sira had always been different to the other seven; their power had always been stranger, darker. Like they were something else entirely. “They’re witches. Ranon and Sira?”

“Sira is both witch and Fae. And Ranon learnt everything from her.” Zylah didn’t miss the remorse in Deyna’s tone, the way she’d pulled back.

She thought of Ranon’s sickly pallor. Aurelia’s weakness, as if she’d been allowing her father to syphon off some of her magic. He needed more power. To fully heal, to command his monsters, to create more of them. To finish what he and Sira started. She tried to recall everything that had happened in his tomb: Laydan and the key, the chanting priestesses and the way they’d used magic, piecing everything together. “The priestesses… they’re witches, too?”

“Aurelia’s priestesses have amassed an army of their own,” Nye cut in from the other side of the tent.

Zylah shook her head. “They’re not Aurelia’s.”

“No, they’re not,” Deyna agreed. “They work for Sira.”

Rin paused her brushing. “How is that possible?”

Because she was alive. And Zylah knew where she was. Had been a fool not to realise it at the time. Deyna’s hand rested over hers once more. “Zylah. Did you know that Pallia…” The witch cleared her throat. “She and Sira bound themselves to each other as sisters.”

Sisters . The seven had confined Ranon to his tomb; he’d given in so that Sira could flee, Nye’s history book had explained. But Zylah already knew it was her grandmother’s blood that had sealed him in. What if it was to help her sister? “Arioch,” Zylah breathed. “Ranon and Sira weren’t together when the others trapped him.”

“The Seraphim?” Nye asked.

Zylah nodded. “He and Sira…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word. “Ranon punished him for it. Cut off his wings, trapped him in the maze.” Whatever version of history they thought they knew, it was all wrong. “You’ve heard my story. Tell me yours. Please. I need to know everything.”

Deyna gave her leave, promising to return to check on Zylah and Nye followed. But Rin remained. “Arlan sent his forces after the mine attack,” the Fae explained.

Arlan. “ You’re wasting time on court politics when a war is being waged out there,” the Fae had said the first time Zylah had met him. “Don’t you think we should be doing something about it?”

Rin cleared her throat. “Word reached him that a wildcat was injured during the mine attack, and he arrived with his forces soon after.”

“But it was Kej…” Rin was quiet. Arlan and Rin were to be married, a political union between their courts, one Zylah thought her friend had refused. But she didn’t press the matter. Arlan must have heard the news of a wounded wildcat and assumed… “He thought it was you.” Rin hummed. “And your father?”

“Mother can be quite persuasive,” Rin said, laughter lining her words. “The Iyofari riders are coming.” The Iyofari were the great birds Cirelle’s people had an affinity with. The riders their soldiers, Zylah presumed. “Don’t you see, Zylah?” Rin added with a squeeze of her fingers. “Holt’s plan worked. We have three armies, a fourth if Maelissa comes through with the archers she promised. And your friends Rose and Saphi have been in touch, they’ve found allies, too.”

Raif’s sister. Rose had known the truth about her and Holt and kept it from them, had stood by and watched, or so he’d claimed. And Zylah had left him for dead back in the maze. “They’re here?”

“No. They’re on their way back to Virian to help your brother.”

Zylah’s head spun. Her brother. Rose. Saphi. Maelissa. “What happened after the mine attack?”

“Vampire-led violence is on the rise. Thralls are raiding villages. We’ve been trying to work with humans where we can, but they’re afraid. Everyone is. Zack has been setting up Black Veil posts in as many towns as possible.”

“You’re spread too thin,” Zylah presumed.

Another hum from her friend. “Kopi found us four days ago. He’s alright, Zy. We’re in the Northern Territories, north of the Rinian Mountain range. It took Enalla and Isaias to get us here.” Two of Nye’s scouts. “Kej and Daizin went on ahead to reach you faster.”

“Thank you,” Zylah managed, her voice catching. “For coming for me.”

“You really thought we wouldn’t?”

“I don’t know what I thought, Rin. Only that I had to get the fuck out of there.” She twisted her hands in her blanket, reminding herself she was out. But with her vision as poor as it was, it was impossible not to see those narrow passages, spiralling staircases, and endless, empty caverns dancing in her vision. The serpents’ thrashing heads. Rhaznia’s marred face, claws dripping venom.

“I’ve heard stories of Ranon’s maze,” Rin said quietly. “I never thought it was real.”

Zylah thought of what Raif had told her, about someone bringing him and Rose into the maze as children. Of how he’d been coming and going, and that there must have been another way in. Not that it mattered. She was never going back. And she saw no use in dwelling on her time there. She blew out a breath. “So what now? What’s the plan?”

“Enalla’s taking you and Deyna back to the Aquaris Court as soon as possible.”

“No.”

Rin had put space between them, her shadow pacing. “You need to rest, Zylah. You’re… you can’t see.”

“I can still defend myself.” She shoved off her blankets, swung her feet to the ground and tested her strength.

“I don’t make the decisions here.” Rin’s voice softened when Zylah stumbled, a hand gripping her arm. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

Zylah bit back a curse. She needed her spear. “And the plan? The one you all decided for me that I was no longer a part of?”

“The palace in Virian is heavily guarded. The city is in chaos and loaded with vanquicite. But that’s where we’re focusing our efforts, where we think Ranon and Aurelia are stationed.”

“You think ? What about the humans, the Black Veil?”

“They’re no match against vampires and thralls. We can’t just send them in as cannon fodder.”

Zylah couldn’t believe what she was hearing, shaking herself from her friend’s grip. “I think you’re all making a lot of choices on behalf of others, and I’m surprised at that, given how often your father has done the same to you.” Rin was quiet. “I can’t see. I can’t evanesce. I have very little magic left at all. But my mate is out there, somewhere. And I’m going to find him. And then we’re going to finish what we started. Together.”

“Zylah…”

Zylah called her spear to her hand, tested the ground before her and stood tall. “We have two months, Rin. Two months until whatever Ranon is planning unravels beyond our control. Every day counts.”