15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Z ylah ran, Daizin’s shadows her guide despite the fact she still wore the cloth over her eyes. It didn’t make any sense, but she was too busy swinging at the last few remaining grimms to stop and wonder at it.

“Down!” Daizin called out again, one of his shadows lashing out at something just over her shoulder. Zylah pivoted, smacking her spear into the side of a creature and slamming it into snow, bones crunching until it stilled. She allowed herself a moment to catch her breath, chest heaving, limbs trembling, focusing on the sounds around her. No more beating wings, at least. Then a hand wrapped around her elbow, and Zylah let Daizin tug her away.

Kej remained in his wildcat form, his snarls and growls and huffing breaths leading the way as they moved. They barely stopped to catch their breath, not even when snow began to fall. Zylah tugged her hood tighter over her head, grateful for the warmer clothes Nye and Rin had given her, all the while trying to call on that place inside herself that had once allowed her to evanesce, smothering her disappointment when nothing answered.

A few times, that voice from an old version of herself tried to rise up and whisper that Luc’s death had been her fault, that if they all hadn’t been there to find her, he’d have lived. But Zylah didn’t try to shove the thoughts aside. She acknowledged them, let them wash over her, recognised that Luc was following orders. Instead of feeling guilty, she felt only sadness that his life had been cut short.

“Nye won’t risk sending more scouts.” Daizin pressed a canister into her hands when they stopped to rest. “We were prepared for this outcome. There’s a meeting point three days from here.”

A warm flank pressed against her side, followed by a low rumble. Kej.

Zylah flexed her fingers, summoned a bowl to her palm from the Aquaris Court and tipped some water in it for the wildcat. “Your three days or my three days?” When Daizin and Kej had gone on ahead to find her, they’d both been on four feet rather than two.

Another rumble from Kej.

“I thought so,” Zylah murmured, Kopi’s little reassuring hoot sounding from somewhere nearby.

“How much can you see?” Daizin asked, a wary tone to his voice. She wondered how she looked to them, eyes bound and her movements something akin to a baby deer.

Her fingers tightened around her spear despite Kej’s weight at her side. “Hazy images. Your shadows. Luc’s blood staining the snow. I’m still relying heavily on my other senses, but… I don’t understand it.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I can’t evanesce; I can’t do most of the things I could before. It’s like there’s just… nothing here.” The hand moved to the cloth over her eyes. “But I can see your shadows reaching out around you. I can make out a hazy presence at my side. I can’t decide if my brain is just filling in the blanks from the sound of Kej licking his paws or if I can truly see him. Even though that’s impossible.”

“Maybe it’s a little of both,” Daizin said after a moment. “You fought well, but we’ll need to improve your footwork.”

Logical, practical steps. This, Zylah could do. And she needed to be able to move without the support of the spear, without stumbling or relying on an elbow to nudge her in the right direction.

“Kej can help with that, can’t you, Prince?”

The licking stopped. A low hiss Zylah presumed was in Daizin’s direction for the monicker, and then a wet nose nudged her fingers.

Daizin chuckled. “Let’s keep moving. Heavy snow is coming.”

Without the Fae’s shadows to rely on, moving was harder. Kopi flew ahead, making little sounds of encouragement when Zylah successfully figured out the path Kej cut for her through the snow. She tried to reach out further with her senses, like casting an invisible web over everything, gossamer threads sinking into the snow to feel for the earth beneath it, slithering over rocks and hazards jutting up in her way.

It was like the way she’d pulled apart deceits before, only in reverse. Whereas that had been like unravelling a tapestry from a single thread, this was like reweaving it, only the tapestry was the terrain, the world around her. Like she was mapping it out with her newfound magic.

Not every step was a success. Kej led her with intention—he’d avoided deep drops and steep inclines, but there were still enough small hazards that she had to keep her wits about her at all times, and there were plenty of stumbles. Plenty of moments her hands and knees smacked into the snow.

When Zylah thought she could go no farther, the terrain changed, those threads weaving a path through a narrow pass, light blotted out by more rock. Exhaustion had her following Daizin’s shadows instead of pushing her strange new sight, leading them into a small, musty cave.

Zylah slid to the dirt as Kopi made his familiar little warbling sounds somewhere nearby. She held out a hand to summon the bag she’d left behind in Deyna’s tent, some blankets, more magic passing over her as Kej shifted back into his Fae form. With the last of her energy, she stole a bundle of firewood and a small amount of food from the Aquaris Court, certain this time Malok and Cirelle wouldn’t mind if it was for their son. Neither Daizin nor Kej commented on her theft, working in comfortable silence to build a fire.

Zylah could do nothing but bundle herself in a blanket. “There’s a flint in my bag, take whatever you need,” she murmured, her limbs growing heavier.

“We moved too fast today,” Kej said quietly as the fire blazed to life and sleep pulled her under.

Vivid images filled her dreams. And pain, always pain. Rhaznia’s legs caging her in like the bars of a cell. A cell made of vanquicite, hands gripping the bars, hands as familiar to her as her own.

Zylah.

“Zylah.”

Her head throbbed. Chest ached.

“Zylah,” Kej said again. “You were dreaming.” He helped her to sit up. “You need to eat something.”

A water canister was pressed into her hands and Zylah took a swig with trembling hands, almost choking on the liquid as it went down. It wasn’t a dream. It was Holt. And it wasn’t her pain, but his. Every moment of agony in the maze, every wave of suffering, it had all been his. She pressed a hand to her chest, a sob lodged in her throat, her stomach in knots and her thoughts a scattered mess.

“Zylah?” Kej’s voice was soft. “What is it?”

“Holt,” she whispered.

“Rin told us you think he’s alive.” There was no accusation in Daizin’s tone, no hint of scepticism.

“You believe me?”

Daizin’s shadows moved closer, fingers gently closing hers around a bowl. “He’s your mate. It doesn’t matter what we saw. Only what you can feel.”

Zylah made a noise that was more sob than laugh. “I can barely feel anything. Pain, mostly. His pain, I think. But sometimes…” She tilted her head to the bowl in her hands, tested her magic to try and see the contents, but the scent of the brin fruit and bread gave it away. “Sometimes a fraction of that warmth I felt before. Even if it was only for a few days.”

A few days. A few days were all they’d had before they’d been pulled apart. It only sharpened her wrath. She was going to find him, even if she had to tear apart the continent to do it.

“Eat,” Daizin told her. “You slept all night, but we need to keep moving.”

Zylah didn’t feel like eating, but she did as he asked. Changed the cloth over her eyes, applying the oil Deyna had prepared for her. Her vision remained the same, but her other sight she would test once they were out of the cave.

“I can try to send a message to the others.” She fastened the new cloth behind her head. “Let them know we’re alright.” A beat of silence passed; Zylah was certain Kej and Daizin were exchanging glances. “What is it?”

“Nye and I found a way to communicate,” Daizin admitted.

“Your shadows.” There had been no doubting the similarity in their strange shadow abilities. Daizin’s to shift into a shadow wolf, Nye’s shadow fox. Zylah suspected Nye had been investigating their likeness since the moment they’d met.

A hum of agreement from Daizin. She didn’t press him for more as they packed away their things, as Kej explained that they were still in the Northern Territories moving south. Soon they would be passing Dalstead and Eldham, the closest she’d been since fleeing Arnir’s gallows. Since the day she’d met Holt. She replayed every moment of their first meeting over and over as she followed Kej and Daizin through more snow.

Daizin took his wolf form, taking it in turns with Kej to alternate shifting, giving Zylah time to pepper them both with questions about what had happened in the time she’d been away.

Kej explained they’d still mostly been camped out south of Virian at the edge of the Kerthen Forest, dealing with vampires and their thralls, the occasional Aster. “Last I knew, your brother had been getting what remained of the Black Veil into the tunnels.”

Zack. He’d been heading up the Black Veil, Holt had told her, and it had come as no surprise. Zack had been King Arnir’s Blade for years, and when everything had happened, when she’d had no choice but to flee, he’d wanted to become involved with the uprising in her absence.

“Why the tunnels?” she asked, fingers tingling where her hand pressed against rock as she paused to catch her breath. The threads of her magic unspooled through the rock itself, until she knew how high it stretched and how deep it sank into the earth beneath her feet.

Kej pressed a brin fruit into her hand. “The city has been overrun by vampires and their thralls; most of the citizens have fled. Aurelia forced her way into the palace the day Ranon was resurrected.”

“Of course she did.” Zylah thought of Jilah and the children, of where they were and if they were safe. Daizin howled somewhere nearby, and she felt Kej relax a little beside her. “The two of you are getting on well,” she said dryly before taking a bite of her brin fruit.

She recalled how things had been between them outside the mine: bickering, mostly, but that was Kej, always riling up those around him, affectionately pushing buttons, regardless of the recipient.

“He needed a friend after what Laydan did,” the Fae said beside her, his face turned away in the direction of Daizin’s howl, Zylah presumed.

“A friend, huh?”

Kej elbowed her gently. “Just a friend.”

For now, those three words seemed to say. But Zylah didn’t tease him further. Laydan hadn’t just betrayed Daizin, he’d broken his heart, and though she didn’t know the Fae well, he didn’t deserve that.

Shadows worked their way into the edges of her sight as Zylah finished her brin fruit. “I think our break is over.”

Kej huffed a laugh. “No rest for the weary.”

But guilt trickled through Zylah at his words. She shouldn’t have been resting at all. Not when Holt was out there, and that thought had her racing after Daizin’s shadows across the snow.

It took five days instead of three to make it to the meeting point, a large cave network nestled in the mountains. But Zylah already knew, as she let her abilities unfurl ahead of them, strands of magic spreading through the caves to search for their friends: it was empty.

“There was an attack here,” Daizin said as they approached. Zylah tucked that piece of information away—that his and Nye’s shadow communication was limited.

“It’s empty,” she told him.

Kej made a whining sound, and Zylah shared the sentiment. Five days, wasted. Four more nights where Holt’s pain had cut through her, over and over and over. She would take all of it if she could, if it meant helping him.

“We’re about a week away from Virian,” Daizin explained. “That’s where they’ll be headed next.”

A whole week. They’d already lost so much time. Zylah pressed a hand to her heart, wishing she could know for certain that Holt was in the city. That she could figure out precisely where. Magic pressed against her skin as Kej shifted back, a string of curses muttered under his breath.

“Looks like you’ll have to put up with a few more nights’ shitty conditions, Prince.” Daizin’s shadows licked at Kej’s feet as the Fae paced, and Zylah might have smiled at that had she not been so preoccupied with Holt. Two months until the blood moon, and two weeks of it wasted on travelling since she couldn’t evanesce. Couldn’t evanesce, but could feel the hum of the earth beneath her feet, could feel Kej’s and Daizin’s magic rippling from them, could feel all kinds of useless fucking things, but she couldn’t reach her mate.

She wanted to tear her hair out at the unjustness of it, to scream and shout until her voice was hoarse. But she didn’t. Instead, she worked with the others to set up for the night, Kej rejoicing when he found a bottle of wine in the supplies Rin had left behind for them. A drink would be a welcome reprieve.

“I’m sorry I suspected you,” Zylah said when the three of them sat around a fire a short while later, handing Daizin the bottle of wine. Suspected he’d been the one to steal the key, and not Laydan.

“I’ve done my share of thieving and deceiving, Zylah. I’m used to the suspicion and raised eyebrows that come with it.” Daizin’s voice was steady, something she’d had time to analyse in the days without her eyes to rely on his expression for clues. Steady but kind.

“I’ve done my share of thieving and deceiving, too.” She understood all too well the desperation that drove someone to those tasks. Even when she’d first met Daizin in the fighting ring back in Varda, he was doing it for the same reason she was, because he’d needed the coin to survive. “And I’ll gladly do more than that. I’ll do whatever it takes to find Holt.”

A hand rested over hers. Kej’s. “You know how much I want that to happen, Zylah. I’ll help you however I can.” His body bumped beside her, and she knew he’d elbowed Daizin.

“I’ll help, too,” the Fae offered.

Zylah couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. Of relief, mostly, but part hysteria, too. The old her wouldn’t have accepted help, but for Holt, she would take all the support she could get. She took another swig as Kej pressed the wine bottle back into her hands. “To unlikely alliances.”