18. Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

D awn was still a few hours away when Zylah woke. Kej and Daizin were still sleeping; Rin hadn’t returned. No doubt she’d sought out Arlan’s tent for the night. Nye was nowhere to be seen, likely already on duty somewhere within the camp.

Four days, the general had told her. Four days to get in and out before they attacked the palace. Kopi would be fine with her friends; Zylah wouldn’t risk his safety again. She made her way quietly to the edge of the lake, spear in hand, sword at her belt, hood pulled over her hair. Across the water, the remains of the mine dipped into the shore, the waterfall still at full force, and she tried to fight away the memories of the last time she’d been there. Her headache had gone, her new sight had sharpened. She felt stronger than she had in a while, as strong as she knew she could be for this.

Her magic alerted her to someone making their way towards her from the camp, shadows reaching out tentatively to greet her. Zylah turned to the general, an apologetic expression on her face, and hoped her friend would understand.

Nye called her name. Broke into a run, shadows grasping like long fingers. But Zylah slipped through them all, away from the lake, from her friends, and towards Holt.

The palace looked different with her new vision, though she observed it now from some distance away, hidden in shadows. The looming white structure stood amongst large gardens, set back from the much smaller buildings in the palace district beyond. The last time she’d seen it, she’d walked in side by side with her friends, ready to take down a king.

She’d move to the tunnels soon enough, but Zylah wanted to witness it for herself: the city deserted, only thralls lurking in the streets, the occasional vampire snapping at them like dogs, rats and crows picking at lifeless bodies.

Virian had been her home once, but now it was a shadow of what it had been. A fire had torn through the streets, parts of it still smouldering, corpses lying awkwardly where thralls had cut them down and left them to burn.

But the palace remained, the palace district largely unmarred. The hum of the vanquicite cells danced along her skin, but far stronger than that—Holt. Zylah could barely breathe as the overpowering sense of him hit her. Yet no matter how much she called to him, he didn’t answer. Every inch of her coiled tightly at whatever she might find within the palace walls, but she needed to be patient.

The moment she caught sight of two vampires together, Zylah knew it was time to move to the tunnels. Though her first choice would be to evanesce directly into the palace, she needed to be certain Holt had alternative means to escape if they were separated. After weeks in a vanquicite cell, there was no telling how long it would be before he could evanesce again. Before the two vampires came close enough to hear her quiet breathing, Zylah moved underground.

She brought herself inside the entrance she’d used the night she’d found Holt after Marcus had tortured him, not missing the irony that now she was torturing herself by reliving it. The same damp smell greeted her, the air as stale as it had always been. She’d spent many nights alone in these tunnels, mapping them out, practising her evanescing, her use of a sword. Somewhere down there, her brother and the Black Veil were hiding, working, scheming. But she couldn’t risk running into Zack just yet.

Zylah reached across the tunnel network, cast her magic wide to seek out all the places the humans might be. Not just humans. Fae too. Together. Hundreds of them. Trust Zack to bring them together. She moved closer to the palace, to a tunnel she knew to be beneath the gardens. Marcus would have used this route every time he met with Holt, every time he tortured him. The bastard. His end had been far too swift for the retribution he’d deserved.

This close, she was only one tunnel away from a large cohort of humans and Fae, their quiet movements and murmurs telling her they’d just begun to wake. This was good. In four days, when Nye and the others arrived in Virian, they’d be heading directly for the tunnels with fresh supplies and healers, the scouts who would evacuate children and any who were injured. Another reason Zylah had to come alone.

With every step closer she came to the palace, the hum of vanquicite became stronger and Zylah understood why the Fae were stationed as far back as they were. Her stomach turned over itself, palms clammy, heart pounding in her chest. They were far away, safe, and Holt was locked inside a cell made of the cold, unrelenting material.

She loosed a breath as she pressed on, finding her way closer until she reached the palace crypt. This was where Marcus was getting in and out. Graves lined the walls, coffins stacked three or four on either side of her. In the centre, two stone tombs lay side by side, the figures carved into them smashed and vandalised, their inscriptions scratched out.

So much vanquicite sat overhead, just a few floors up, so heavy in the air it was as if the palace were made of it. Zylah called to Holt over and over, but no answer came. She shoved down the panic that threatened to take over, the fear of whatever she might find waiting for her.

A winding staircase led to another passage, the dungeons in one direction—empty, save for a few dusty corpses and skittering rats, in the other, the cellars. Her footsteps were steady, but her hands trembled, and she clutched her spear so tightly her knuckles turned white.

Movement from the cellar had Zylah pausing, but it was just another rat. She took deep breaths, tried to steady her racing heart, and reached out again, every strand of magic unspooling like thread. The vanquicite made her magic sluggish, but only where it passed over the cells. And there were many of them. Most of the occupants dead, until—Holt.

Zylah broke into a run, pausing every now and then to check for any sign of Ranon and Aurelia. There were no thralls, only vampires, a few stationed at the doors either end of the room containing cells. The throne room, Zylah realised as she sprinted up another staircase to the kitchens, stumbling on the top step.

Empty. Rotten food littered the worksurfaces, a few broken bowls lay smashed at her feet. As if the humans had taken one look at whatever had come for them and realised the futility in trying to fight back.

The throne room was still another two floors above her, through countless receiving rooms and atop two winding staircases. Nobility had always loved to make their visitors work for their appointments. But there had to be another way in—a servants’ passage perhaps or— no . Tendrils of Zylah’s magic found it at the back corner of the throne room, just behind the throne. Not an entrance. An escape route, leading to the dungeon and down to the tunnels.

Zylah turned back, almost tumbling down the narrow staircase back towards the dungeons, running past cells as she searched for the other end of the passage. A choked sob escaped her when she found what she needed at the back of an empty cell with no door, concealed by cobwebs and rusted chains.

At a glance, it was nothing but rotten boards, no wider than a man, stretching floor to ceiling. Zylah pressed her hand to the wood, an ancient lock clicking open at her touch. Another door lay behind it, this one made of stone. Zylah lay her palm over it, fingers tracing over ridges she hadn’t been able to make out with her sight. Another lock lay within it, and she released her magic, let it seek out the moving parts, deadbolts whining against the stone as they pulled back. She shoved at the door, her heart in her throat.

The passage was stale, unused and untouched for years; no hint of Marcus lingered. Even he had not known of this route, and that thought filled her with hope. She sucked in a ragged breath as she took the first step inside, pausing to let her magic feel for any traps. Nothing. And nothing else could stop her now.

She moved as quickly and as quietly as she could, using bursts of evanescing to help her cover more ground, pausing every now and then to listen for movement either side of the walls, her heartbeat hammering in her chest, her head. More than two dozen vampires walked the palace, but no sign of Ranon or Aurelia. Four staircases, another narrow passage, and Zylah reached a door. She pressed her fingers to the splintered wood, hand shaking too much to still it now. Holt’s heartbeat was strong on the other side, his breaths quiet, familiar. So familiar it made her chest ache, and she swallowed down another sob.

There hadn’t been time to test the limits of her new magic, to learn what she might be capable of. But she could lead the vampires at the throne room doors away from their stations, have them chase a sound they’d never find the source of. The moments it took for them to leave felt like hours, but the minute they did, Zylah eased open the door and slipped inside the throne room. There were other prisoners in there, barely alive, but the moment she moved around the throne, twelve vanquicite cages came into view, and in the one closest to her, Holt.

It was an effort not to call out his name. Zylah evanesced the distance between them, her hands closing around the vanquicite bars, his name barely a breath on her lips. “Holt,” she whispered, sinking to her knees before him and ignoring the hum of the vanquicite rippling through her.

His dark brown hair was a mess, a short scruff of a beard covered his jaw, and dark smudges marred the skin beneath his eyes. He moved towards her cautiously from the other side of the cell, but didn’t reach out as his eyes roamed her face. Her magic muted the colour, perhaps the vanquicite too, but Zylah couldn’t help the tears that fell at the sight of them, every shade of the forest and just as perfect as she’d remembered.

It felt like the first time they’d met all over again, the way he assessed her, head tilted to one side, this time taking in the cloth over her eyes, her pointed ears, the spear she’d let fall to the floor. “You…” His voice was rough, as if he hadn’t spoken in weeks. “You know me?”

Zylah sucked in a breath, something inside her shattering at his words. “I…” More tears fell, but the cloth over her eyes caught them. “You don’t…”

Holt shook his head, and Zylah’s heart stuttered. He didn’t recognise her. Didn’t know her, remember her. Memories are fickle things, he’d told her once. And the lack of response, the emptiness she’d felt. It wasn’t that he was gone, but that she was gone from him. Erased. Perhaps it was the prolonged exposure to the vanquicite, to the suffering she knew he’d endured during his confinement. But something told her there was more to it than that, because she would know him anywhere, from the sound of his heartbeat to the way he drew breath, his scent. The vanquicite made her bones ache, but she didn’t let go, couldn’t move away from him, couldn’t breathe at the way he looked at her like a complete stranger.

“How did you get in here?” Holt asked, glancing over his shoulder towards the throne. “It isn’t safe. If they see you—”

“I’m not leaving you,” she rasped. She wanted to reach for him, touch him, but knew she had no right to when he had no idea who she was. What they were to each other.

Holt dragged a hand through his dishevelled hair. He was exhausted, that much was obvious. She wasn’t sure how he was still upright with so much vanquicite surrounding him; he hadn’t had years to build up a tolerance to it as she had. “What are you doing here?”

Zylah swallowed. Willed her tears to stop. This was Aurelia’s doing, it had to be. Whatever had happened after Raif slammed the vanquicite sword into Holt’s chest, when he’d fallen to his knees in the dirt before her, she had done this, Zylah was certain of it. Taken his memories, but how many and how far back, there was no telling. “I made a promise,” she whispered, the words barely audible.

Holt sat back on his knees, a frown creasing his brow as he took her in. His shirt was ripped at the sleeves, the chest torn open, the scar from the vanquicite sword like a burst star over his heart. With the vanquicite bars between them, her new sight was blurrier than usual, details harder to determine. Like the look that had fallen across his face as he continued his assessment. Was it recognition? Zylah didn’t dare hope. Tentatively, she let her magic reach for his mind, searching for whatever Aurelia had done to him, for how far and how deep his memory loss might be. But she didn’t trust herself to tamper with something so complex for fear of doing more damage, pulling back almost as soon as she’d begun.

“That sword,” he said, eyes widening as they fell to his mother’s blade at her hip. “Who gave it to you?”

Zylah didn’t think she could breathe, let alone speak. “You did,” she told him, willing her voice not to break along with her heart. This couldn’t be happening, could it? She didn’t know enough of Fae lore, or mates and the bond that tied them to each other to understand how it was possible that he didn’t recognise her, if not by sight but by feeling alone.

Holt, she pleaded in that space that had once been just for the two of them.

He jolted back as if she’d struck him, hands pressed to his temples. “Stay out of my head,” he gritted out, eyes scrunched shut, pain lacing his words.

Zylah pressed a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. “I… I’m sorry,” she managed, pulling back from the bars to offer him space. All this time she’d been calling to him, and he’d deemed it an intrusion. A violation. That was how he’d referred to mental attacks the night he’d led her out of Virian. She shivered at the thought, that she had hurt him in that way. “No one believed you were alive after the mine attack. After Raif…” Zylah couldn’t finish the sentence. “They all thought you were dead.”

Holt looked back towards the throne again. “Nye and the others. They’re alright?”

A sharp exhale left her. Not all his memories. Only her. Aurelia had promised her revenge, and this was it. Zylah forced herself to nod, though she felt like she was floating above her body, watching everything unfurl. “Everyone’s fine,” she reassured him with a sad smile, her vision faltering in proximity to so much vanquicite. She called her water canister to her hand and passed it to him through the bars, hoping he didn’t notice the way she trembled. He drank deeply, eyes closed as Zylah summoned a brin fruit and handed it to him next. His fingers brushed hers as he took it, and Zylah bit her lip at the bittersweet touch.

Something flickered across his face again, there and gone, his eyes darting up to her face, searching. “Good,” he said quietly. “That’s good.” That their friends were fine, Zylah reminded herself, though even he didn’t seem so certain what they were talking about anymore.

She shook the thoughts away, willed herself to focus, to not dwell on how the vanquicite was affecting her new vision. Holt was still trapped in a cell, still in pain. Getting him out of there was the first step, the only thing that truly mattered. They could find answers for the rest after, no matter how wrong this all was. No matter how badly her heart was hurting.

She took a deep breath. Composed herself as her mate put more distance between them and bit into the brin fruit, watching her carefully. Of all the ways she had imagined their reunion, this hadn’t ever been one of them, not even close. The desire to reach for him, to feel him, run her hands through his hair and breathe him in was so overwhelming it was an effort to force herself to sit still. Focus , she willed herself. What mattered was getting him away from the palace, from Ranon and Aurelia.

With another flex of her magic, Zylah pieced together a plan, canting her head as she followed the path the vampires that had been stationed outside the throne room had taken through the palace. “Want to get out of here?”

Holt smiled and her heart skipped a beat at the sight of it. He studied her face again, his attention settling on the cloth over her eyes. “I thought you’d never ask.”