16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

“I ’m so fucking sick of snow,” Kej grumbled on the fourth morning. The day before, they’d been forced to take shelter far earlier than they’d have liked, the snow too thick and heavy to continue.

Zylah had been tempted to test her magic and try to steal a sled, but she wasn’t entirely sure how well that idea would go down with either Kej or Daizin. And besides, the combination of an item so large and one she didn’t know the precise location of was far beyond what she knew she was currently capable of achieving. Though not through lack of trying. Every few minutes she tested her ability to evanesce, called and begged and pleaded with whatever magic now ran through her veins to move her through the aether the way it once had, but it never answered.

Now and then she caught glimpses of snow sprites with her strange new vision, gentle light and the suggestion of soft white fur amongst the snow, there and then gone. A reminder of her father, as they always were. If he truly was somewhere watching everything unfurl, if what he’d said had been the truth, that she was his legacy, Zylah only hoped he was proud. Though she’d never entirely subscribed to the notion. His legacy was the apothecary, the lives he’d helped, the people he’d loved. The sum of all his actions over the course of his life. His decisions. Something of his own making, as Holt had put it.

Zylah dodged a rock, no longer relying on Kej or Daizin to cut her a clean path through the snow. Her magic was growing stronger, and though she hoped it meant she was getting closer to Holt, she knew it could just as likely be a whole host of other reasons. Some connection to Ranon, perhaps, though the thought had her swaying on her feet, bile rising in her throat.

Kej had been questioning her about Ranon’s maze, fascinated by every detail she fed him. “Father is going to tear out a few hearts when he finds out the court was built by Ranon.” The Fae barked a quiet laugh, petting Kopi on the head as they paused for a rest.

Not that she could truly see the gesture, more their unique signatures. Kopi’s was brighter, Kej’s a bit smoky at the edges, something to do with his shifting abilities, Zylah suspected. Hints of colour, like Kopi’s peppered feathers, Kej’s rich brown skin, the dark blue of his tunic. Still hazy, but there. A big part of what she could see was more what she could feel, from what she understood of her magic, little pieces adding up to make a whole that she saw with her mind’s eye.

“What happened to Imala?” Zylah only knew the version she’d been taught as a human who believed the original Fae to be gods, that Imala had died during childbirth.

Kej shrugged, ripples of that smoke-but-not-smoke rising from his shoulders with the movement. “I was never one for history lessons.”

Zylah wasn’t surprised. But she wondered what Imala had made of it all, of Arioch and Sira. And it made her think of Raif’s sister, Rose, and the mate she’d rejected, Thallan. The wildness in Thallan’s eyes, the desperation when he’d asked after Rose.

“I’ll have to ask Nye if she ever read anything about it in the library. She’s obsessed with those books,” Kej added.

If only they could get hold of the book Laydan stole and its twin from Raif’s library. Not that Zylah expected them to hold all of Ranon’s secrets, but they were important enough to steal, important enough that Aurelia needed them to free her father.

“Hey.” A hand touched her elbow. “You seem distracted today. Everything okay?” That explained his constant questioning. “I haven’t asked about Holt because I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk about him,” Kej went on. “But we can, if you’d like. You know he’s family to me.”

Is. Not was. Zylah could have hugged her friend for that, but she rested a hand over his instead. “He’s out there, Kej.” She wanted to say more, to hear whatever stories Kej could offer up about Holt’s time at the Aquaris Court, but a wave of magic drew her attention. “Daizin’s on his way back.”

Which could mean nothing good. Over the last few days, he and Kej had alternated which one of them went on ahead, their only reason to return if they needed to divert the route. His shadows found them first, and since it was easier for Zylah to see magic, she caught the moment his shadow wolf shifted into a male before them.

“Thralls. Three, I think,” Daizin said between breaths, like he’d pushed himself to run as fast as possible. “No sign of a vampire, but…” But they usually weren’t far away. “We should be fine if we head east for a while. Maybe we can stay in a decent bed for the night if we make it close to Iskia.”

They’d been heading south, along the eastern edge of the Rinian Mountain range in the hopes of avoiding prying eyes from Dalstead and the surrounding villages, which made it even more strange to encounter any thralls at all.

“We’ll go slow,” Kej told him, already moving away to settle into his shift, but Daizin reached out, shadows curling around smoke, and the shifter paused.

“Tight circles,” Daizin warned, the words almost a plea. “Don’t go too far.”

Kej chuckled. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, Wolf.” Then the smoke shifted, followed by the thud of paws bounding away.

“He’ll be fine,” Daizin murmured to himself.

“He will,” Zylah reassured him. “He can hold his own.”

“He was badly injured in the mine attack.” His voice was distant, like he was reliving the memory all over again. “I’d have torn Jesper’s head from his body if you hadn’t killed him so spectacularly over the lake.”

“You saw that?”

A hum of acknowledgement. “Right before Enalla came for Kej. A priestess almost took out the scout. Their magic is strange, not like ours. Spells, Nye thinks.”

Zylah recalled the glow of the priestess’s magic. If they were truly Sira’s, they were all witches, like Laydan. Aurelia still believed her mother to be dead, and though Zylah hated the idea of it, it was something she could use to her advantage the next time she saw Raif’s mother.

Daizin led the way east; though Zylah no longer needed assistance to traverse the snow, she accepted it. He was distracted, pausing often to listen for any sign of thralls. Kopi remained close by, sometimes circling back around to check in with them, the little owl on alert, too.

“Kerthen feels like a strange spot to set up a military camp,” she said after a while, hoping to ease some of the tension that had Daizin wound so tight.

A quiet laugh from the Fae. “You don’t seem like the sort to be scared by a few ghost stories.”

It was Zylah’s turn to laugh. “They’re not stories. I spent months there getting acquainted with what the forest has to offer. All of it very, very real.”

Daizin was quiet, but she felt his gaze on her. “Then you of all people know why Nye picked the location.”

It was a smart move, if not a dangerous one. To deter anyone from stumbling upon the camp. Zylah tried not to think of her time in Kerthen, of the bargain she’d made when she was in so much pain she’d have given anything to ease it. If it had truly been Sira she’d met back in the shop in Morren, the not-quite-Fae who’d been all but trapped there, it couldn’t have been Sira she’d bargained with in Kerthen, too.

A chill wind blew, and Zylah tried to shake away the shiver that danced down her spine. “Kerthen sounds like it’s got nothing right now on Virian.”

“Arlan’s plan of attacking the palace got my vote. Your brother’s idea, Kej told me. I had friends living in the city, and the thought of them in those vanquicite cells boils my blood.”

Zylah stilled. She hadn’t discussed the cells with anyone. But it was another reason for her to believe Holt was alive, another explanation to cling to, her dreams of black bars still harshly vivid in her thoughts.

“Zylah?”

She was about to tell him her suspicions about Holt when she felt a tremor in her magic, something mixing with Kej’s signature, and a screech quickly followed. A thrall. “Kej,” Zylah breathed. “All three of them found him.”

Daizin barely waited for her to finish the sentence. His shadows dispersed, heading for Kej faster than she could follow. Zylah didn’t need them to guide her now. She broke into a run after him, wind biting her cheeks, her heart a steady drum in her chest. Where there were thralls, there were vampires, and they wouldn’t be far behind.

With every step she pressed against her magic, willing herself to evanesce a few steps ahead, to reach her friend, to move faster, but nothing within her responded. She shoved aside the frustration, casting the web of her new magic as far and wide as she could to feel the thrall’s exact movements.

She felt it a fraction of a second too late, unaccustomed to the speed with which they moved as a body slammed into her. Zylah rolled away, her spear lost to the tackle. It didn’t matter; as she leapt to her feet she called the spear to her open palm, swinging it around and slicing the tip across her assailant’s arm.

His surprised gasp and a muttered curse were her only warnings before he moved again, but Zylah already had a firm grasp on his signature, the inky blackness that surrounded him like those empty eyes all vampires seemed to possess. She dodged him easily, taunting him to follow her.

“You’re blind,” the vampire spat. “What are you?” Another swing, this time with a sword, the unmistakable whine of it being pulled from a hilt giving her warning. Another miss.

Zylah huffed a laugh. “Retribution.” But she wasn’t a fool; she couldn’t defeat him alone. She took another few steps back, leading him towards Kej and Daizin fighting the thralls. They were close enough now they’d be able to see her, and that was all she needed.

She hurled her spear and ran, pulling and pulling and pulling and—it was like passing through a ward, but one that was made entirely for her. When her feet touched snow, she reached for her sword, bringing it down on one of the thralls circling Kej. There was no time to dwell on the fact that she’d just evanesced the short distance between them. The creature swiped at her and she parried the blow, the thing shrieking as her blade cut through rotten flesh.

Zylah brought a foot to its chest as she yanked her weapon free, swinging it around with the full force of her weight to slice it into the creature’s neck. Kej had already leapt for the vampire, leaving her to face the second thrall alone.

This one was already badly wounded, black blood like ink blotting out the snow. Still, it lunged for Zylah, and she slammed her blade through its chest, long fingers clawing at her bracers until it stilled. She kicked the corpse away with a grunt, just as Daizin called out for Kej.

With gasping breaths, Zylah steadied herself. Kej circled the vampire, body low to the ground, hissing. The vampire hissed back. Daizin still fought off the final thrall, and somewhere nearby, Kopi called out a warning.

“Kej!” The vampire lunged for her friend, and Zylah summoned her spear to her palm. She risked injuring Kej if she threw it, so she moved closer, disappointment flickering in her chest when she tried to evanesce again and nothing happened. But she kept trying, kept creeping closer, Daizin’s shadows moving with her the moment he’d finished off the thrall.

The wildcat and the vampire tumbled through the snow, fangs snapping at each other, the vampire dangerously close to Kej’s throat. Shadows swarmed them both, and Zylah threw her spear, the blade lodging in the vampire’s shoulder. He staggered back as Daizin appeared between him and Kej, swiping a blade across its throat.

Then the thing laughed. Laughed . Zylah sucked in a breath as Kopi looped around her, his wings beating fast as he made little panicked noises. She was moving, running for her friends, willing herself to evanesce the gap between them. Too late.

Everything seemed to happen at once. Zylah moved through the aether, her strange magic showing her the moment the vampire’s teeth narrowly missed Daizin’s neck and sank into his shoulder instead, Kej slamming into the creature to shove it back.

Kej snarled as Zylah reappeared beside Daizin, barely catching him as he slumped to the snow. Kopi landed on her shoulder as she closed her free hand around Kej’s tail, evanescing the four of them away from the vampire.

They appeared beside a lake, Daizin on his back and Zylah’s hands pressed to his wound, the warm stickiness of blood coating her skin.

Kej shifted beside them, tilting Daizin’s face to his. “Why did you do that?”

“You’re practically a prince,” Daizin rasped. “I’m a thief. No one’s going to miss me.”

Kej made a pained sound, more animal than Fae. “I would miss you, you fucking idiot. I had him.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Zylah snapped, willing her healing magic to pour from her fingertips and heal her friend before it was too late. She wouldn’t lose anyone else. Not now.

Eyes closed, fingers resting over Daizin’s shoulder, Zylah willed her breaths to steady, her focus to narrow to the place she imagined her magic sat within her. Called to it, coaxed it, pleaded with it, because the alternative was her friend bleeding out beneath her. This time, it answered. Warmth bloomed in her chest, spread from her fingertips and into Daizin, until sweat dampened her tunic and a piercing pain pressed at her temples. The familiar feeling surged to life within her, waking up after its long slumber.

She felt Kej shift his weight. Heard his intake of breath as Daizin’s wound knitted together beneath her touch. “Zylah. Your magic.”

But Zylah barely heard his words. Because it wasn’t the sensation of the magic at her fingertips that surged to life within her. She could feel Holt.