20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

R anon sighed. “There. That wasn’t so difficult, was it?” The orb glowed bright red, the only detail Zylah could make out anymore, and a sickening realisation washed over her as it blazed.

All Fae possess a certain amount of magic. Ranon had said as much back in his maze. And Holt’s was a mixture of his parents’—he’d inherited his father’s ability, but where his father could only use his magic one on one, Holt’s was far greater—a blast of power he could release in a wave, taking out everything in its path.

“That kind of magic takes its toll over time… it’s like a drug… you want to feel the rush the more you use it,” he’d told her back in Varda. And Ranon had been forcing him, over and over again. To kill Fae… and to harness their power for himself in the orb he held at the end of his staff. Zylah would put money on it.

“Look at me,” Zylah whispered, her voice breaking as she sank to her knees, pain squeezing at her heart. “Holt. Look at me.”

The orb tapped against the bars of Holt’s cell again, but Holt didn’t look up, and Zylah’s sight had failed her too badly to know if his eyes were open. She could hear his breaths, his rapid heartbeat, and she wished more than anything she could send him some comfort down their bond, but there was still nothing in the place it should have been.

“Holt. It’s alright. Just breathe with me,” she told him.

Aurelia clicked her tongue. “You’re wasting your breath on him, Zylah. The male you knew is gone. And his mind is very fragile. It will only be a matter of time before you fall prey to his power.”

Because Ranon had meant for Holt to kill her with his command too. Yet she was still there with him, somehow. “Holt,” she said again, but still, he didn’t look up.

“Come, daughter.” Ranon moved, the red orb cutting a path across the throne room and allowing Zylah to track his movements.

Aurelia hummed. “Very well,” she told her father, pausing at Zylah’s cell. “I’ll be back for you later.”

And Zylah didn’t doubt it. But she couldn’t dwell on whatever sick plans the Fae had for her. Wouldn’t let herself think of anything but how the fuck they were going to get out of there. She scrunched her eyes shut, tried to focus on her other sight to ground herself long after the doors had closed behind Aurelia and Ranon, leaving Holt and Zylah alone.

“You should be dead.”

Zylah’s eyes flicked open. Holt’s shadow remained still in his cell. But he was watching her now, the feel of his gaze so familiar to her.

“Your apology needs some work,” she said, hoping to incite a smile from him, even if she couldn’t see it.

“I…”

“How many times?” she asked.

Silence stretched for so long, she thought he might not answer, but then—“I’ve lost count. Daily. To begin with, they had me use my ability over and over. But then they realised it was strongest if I had time to get my strength back, though I don’t know how, exactly.” He was silent at that, and she knew he was likely taking in the bodies scattered across the cells. “So every day, without fail, they bring more. Sometimes I can control it, but…” His voice grew tight, regret so heavy in his words. “I’m sorry. You must be in a great deal of pain.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” She was in pain, but not the kind he thought, not entirely. And how did she tell him that he wouldn’t be getting his strength back anymore, that the reason was likely because he’d been getting it from her, through whatever was left of their bond. Now she was surrounded by vanquicite too, and unless someone handed her a key or a lockpick… A lockpick . Zylah held out her palm and concentrated as Holt pulled himself to his feet.

His swallow was audible. “You came here for me, and I hurt you. I almost killed you.”

“But you didn’t.” She wished more than anything that she could see his face. That she could reach for him, comfort him, anything. But he’d reacted so viscerally before to her being in his mind. “ The male you knew is gone ,” Aurelia had warned. Zylah refused to believe it. “I know this has changed you,” Zylah began, willing her voice to be gentle when all she wanted to do was scream, to gut Aurelia and feed her to the grimms. “How could it not? But their deaths are not your fault. It’s their fault. The family who have used you time and time again.”

“How do you know that? Did Raif tell you?”

Zylah lost her focus at that. Of course, he would still remember Raif. She was certain Aurelia would be laughing to herself somewhere in the palace at the thought of pouring salt in the wound. “You did.”

Holt was quiet for a while, and Zylah used the opportunity to tear off a sleeve and fasten it over her eyes. “Why did you come for me?” he asked as she secured the fabric behind her head.

She knew what he was asking: why her . The words were on the tip of her tongue, but if Aurelia was right, if his mind had been damaged by whatever they’d been doing to him, whatever she’d done outside the mine, what was important right now wasn’t causing him more pain, but getting out. “I had to,” she said softly. The truth. Nothing would have kept her away from him.

He’d told her once that time was all he could give her. And he’d given her so much more than that, but she could do the same for him now. She could be patient as he had, selfless just as he had been with her. Because she wouldn’t let herself consider the alternative: that they were both going to die in their vanquicite cages.

Covering her eyes helped with the nausea, but the weakness in her limbs had Zylah on her knees, huddled in a corner as far from the two corpses beside her as she could get. If she couldn’t call a lockpick to her palm, which was looking highly unlikely, there might be something in the throne room she could use. Something on one of the dead Fae, and her search would have to begin with the two beside her soon enough.

“How are you feeling?” she asked when Holt was quiet for too long. If she could just keep him talking, keep his mind occupied, maybe it would make a difference. “Raif told me he could feel his magic take something from him every time he used it. Like a little piece of him was chipped away.” If he hadn’t told Holt the same, Holt would have witnessed it for himself, would understand it more than ever now. “You can talk about it. If you want, if you need to. I’ll listen.”

She wondered what he saw when he looked at her, whether he felt any flicker of recognition, anything at all down what remained of their bond, and how it had felt to hear her voice in his thoughts. All those times back in Ranon’s maze when she’d convinced herself it was him, it couldn’t have been anything but her blind hope.

“This is the most I’ve spoken in months,” he admitted.

“So talk to me.” She toyed with his bracelet wrapped around her wrist, rolling the little bell between finger and thumb.

“What happened to your eyes?”

Zylah blew out a breath, as if she could simply exhale any thoughts of Rhaznia from her mind. If only it were that easy. “Another monster. Her venom.”

“But you can still see.”

A statement, not a question, because he’d witnessed her do far more than Aurelia had, and at least that was something to be grateful for. Something she could use to her advantage if Aurelia believed her to be blind.

Zylah sighed, the hum of the vanquicite evening out along her skin, settling, as if her body were adjusting to the sensation. “Right now, I can’t see very much of anything.”

“Thank you. For saving them.”

“It should have been you. We would have been long gone from here. But I…” I could never deny you, she’d almost said. “It was important to you.”

“It was. Is.”

Zylah nodded, eyes burning with unshed tears. She hated that he was suffering. Even if she hadn’t known him, even though she couldn’t see him, she could hear it in his tone, in his quiet breaths. He was in so much pain, so much pain it was breaking him.

She sucked in a breath, mentally preparing herself for what she was about to do. “I need your help with something.”

“Anything.”

“Since you haven’t tried already, I’m going to assume you can’t summon anything within your cell.”

A quiet exhale of frustration. “Correct.”

“I need you to tell me if you can see anything I can use as a lockpick. And I need you to keep talking to me whilst I search for anything I can find on them.” Zylah jerked her chin towards the bodies beside her.

“I can do that.”

There were questions she needed to ask him. Answers he might have, but those could wait. He should have been dead from so much exposure to vanquicite; the pain he must have felt from that alone would be maddening. Zylah shouldn’t have been able to move, either, but it felt as if the worst of it was over now that she was accustomed to the nausea, the weakness. She’d lived with it for so long already. She reached for the first body, carefully feeling for pockets, pins, anything she might use. It was a young male, she realised as she searched, the scent of baked bread clinging to his clothes.

“So, you and Raif?”

Zylah stilled. Of all the questions he could have asked. “Are nothing.”

“But you were something.” There was something in his tone, and though Zylah had asked for the distraction from the task at hand, this was its own kind of torture.

“Yes,” she told him. If she started from the very beginning, would it help him remember? Would it help him piece everything together for himself? Or would it only cause him more pain?

“Before—”

“Before Aurelia made him into a monster. Before I watched him put a vanquicite sword through your chest.” Her voice wavered. “Yes.” Only Raif had been a monster all along; Zylah just hadn’t known it. She swallowed down the lump in her throat, hating that every solution she thought of came with another five questions about Holt’s wellbeing that she had no answers for.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what made me ask that.”

There was nothing on the male of use, so Zylah moved to the next body as carefully as she could, cursing under her breath when she almost tripped over a limb. She wanted to believe Holt’s interest was because part of him remembered her, but her heart was hurting too much to get her hopes up. “It’s alright, Holt. I have no secrets to keep from you.” Except that was a lie, wasn’t it? Because if she risked telling him what they were to each other, there was no knowing what damage it might do.

“The female in the cell to your right has her hair fastened with pins. I think, judging by the style.”

Zylah smiled at that, the memory of Holt fixing her hair in the tavern not far from where they sat hitting her square in the chest. He used to style his sister’s hair for her, and he was rather good at it.

“There are also metal hooks holding fabric to the base of the throne, but I don’t know if they’ll be too thick to bend out of shape,” he added.

Her search of the female had been futile, and though she wasn’t certain if she could summon anything to her in that moment, knowing there was the possibility of useable items within reach was better than nothing. Because there was absolutely no doubt in her mind that if she stood any chance of getting her hands on anything, it would need to be in very close proximity.

“That’s good.” She moved the bodies as carefully as she could, hoping it wouldn’t look distasteful and that Holt would understand her need to sit. “My weapons?”

“The vampires took them.”

“Of course they did,” she murmured to herself.

“I’m going to throw your water canister over. To your right.”

She didn’t have the chance to protest, the container landing with a thud beside her and Zylah forced herself to reach for it.

“Raif was right,” Holt said quietly as she sipped at the water. “Every time Ranon commands me, it’s like I lose a little piece of myself. Like there’s a crack right down the front of me, waiting to split me in two.”

Zylah pressed a hand to her heart at his words. She knew all too well how that felt. How much energy it had taken to hold herself together when she was breaking. And he had been there for her, through all of it. She unwound his bracelet from her wrist, rubbing the bell one last time. “Here.” She tossed it through the bars, hoping it would reach him.

His shadow moved, and Zylah knew he was inspecting the leather cord between his fingers. “It’s yours,” she told him. “A reminder. That sometimes we have to get a little lost before we find ourselves again.”

Holt was quiet for a moment, before he said, “Thank you, Zylah,” his voice a little rougher than it had been a few moments before. The sound of her name on his lips was as painful as it was comforting, but it felt like a small gift in the mess she’d found herself in. “It doesn’t ring,” he added.

Zylah chewed her lip, considering her words and how much she should tell him. She settled on the truth. “I had a pin added to stop the pellet before I gave it to you.”

Another quiet moment, and then, “Why a bell?”

“Rule number six: no bells.”

“You have rules?” There was a trace of humour in his tone, and she imagined the side of his mouth quirking in an almost smile, the tilt of his head.

“We do. Did.” She hated that she couldn’t see his face properly, the subtle way his expression would have shifted.

“Will you tell me the rest?”

Zylah hummed. What if he could piece things together for himself? Repair the damage Aurelia had done? She made her decision. “A number of them were to do with my undergarments.” She chuckled quietly at that. “But the important ones…” She held up a finger as she listed them off. “Number two: no elbowing each other in the face. Well, technically it was no hurting each other. Number six: no bells, and number seven…” Her voice thickened, the sight of the sword going through his chest a nightmare she didn’t think she’d ever learn to live with.

“What was number seven?” he asked gently.

“No dying on each other.”

His shadow moved, and she thought he might have raised a hand to his chest, to the scar that spread across it. “I think we should move that up to number one.”

Zylah couldn’t help the choked laugh that escaped her. “I think so, too.”

“Two vampires will bring food this evening, same as they have every night. Think you can be ready by then?”

To unlock her cell, if she could summon the items Holt had mentioned. That was a very big if. “You think you can take them out?”

“If I know you’re hiding behind the throne.”

Where he couldn’t hurt her again. She knew he’d have said it to anyone, but Zylah still let it fill her with another little piece of hope. Hope that Aurelia was wrong, and that the male she knew and loved was still in there. “It’s a deal,” she told him, settling into the corner of her cell for what lay ahead.

Her mate was alive, and Zylah forced herself to focus on that as she attempted to carry out the first part of their plan.