27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Z ylah reached for Holt at the same time he moved for the vampire. Her fingers had already closed around Zack’s wrist, and as she sank her fist into the fabric of Holt’s shirt, she could have sworn she felt his recognition, his anger, at what she was about to do. But it didn’t stop her evanescing the three of them away.

She all but slammed into him when they reappeared in the tunnels, her brother tugging her upright. “What have you done?” Zack asked.

The only thing she could do. Get them to safety.

“If Ranon and Aurelia get their hands on him, all of our friends are dead.” She prayed that Nye wasn’t, that the remaining Fae had used the distraction to fight. Zack looked between them, waiting. Zylah hadn’t told her brother or her friends about Ranon’s orb, nor the details of the torture Holt had endured, and it was clear Holt hadn’t told anyone, either.

“Take me back,” Holt snapped, the words clipped and short. There was only the faintest bit of light in the tunnel from a torch burning at the far end, but Zylah no longer needed light to see, and the way he was glaring at her… She had to turn away from it.

“I can’t,” she managed, wondering if this was it, the moment he chose to break whatever remained of the bond between them. She wouldn’t blame him. “Ranon will only use you to charge the orb. You know that’s what that attack was really about.” And it would destroy him.

Resignation flickered across Holt’s face, quickly replaced by hurt. “Don’t do this, Zylah, please.”

“I have to.” She forced herself to take a step back. Away from him. “Even if you hate me for it.” She tried to hide the way her voice wavered with the words. “Stay together.”

Zylah evanesced away, the betrayal in Holt’s eyes burning a hole in her heart. When she reappeared in the market square a heartbeat later, not even the span of a few minutes had passed, and her gamble had paid off. Nye and the other Fae had pulled free, but fighting against vanquicite swords was a losing battle, their movements sluggish and slow.

They were all going to die. She’d known it the moment the vampires had drawn their gleaming black blades. Without another thought, she evanesced behind the one who’d feasted on Nye, slamming her sword through his ribcage as Nye’s dwindling shadows yanked at his wrists. It was enough for the general to take a dagger to the monster’s throat, to kick his body away from her with a snarl as Zylah pulled her own weapon free.

A quick glance at Nye’s neck told Zylah the puncture wound had clotted over, but her friend’s shadows had almost completely receded at the proximity to the vanquicite. Zylah knew they had less than minutes before the vampires regained control, adrenaline fuelling her moves as she fought beside Nye and wondering whether the general would rather die with her remaining soldiers than retreat.

She wasn’t certain if she could evanesce to the tunnels again, not without burning herself out, without risking Holt. Somewhere closer maybe. Too few soldiers remained, some already dead and dying in the few seconds since Zylah had returned from the tunnels. She swung her blade at another of the monsters, her sword narrowly missing its mark. He’d already lunged forwards, slamming his weapon into a Fae’s neck.

The second scout. He lay dead only a few feet away, far too many vampires fighting with the remaining handful of Fae soldiers for them to come out of this alive. She couldn’t save them all. But she could save Nye, even if it meant disappointing her. Even if it meant inciting her anger just as Zylah had incited Holt’s.

Another solider fell, leaving Zylah and Nye with two soldiers at their side against six vampires. Three vampires charged for the soldiers, Nye’s shadows attacking a fourth, the remaining two coming for her and Zylah. Too many. Too fast.

A Fae cried out behind them, but Zylah didn’t dare peel her attention away from the vampire before her. Not as the cry was cut short, as the threads of her magic told her the second soldier charged and a strangled gasp quickly followed. Her hand closed around Nye’s, evanescing them as far as she dared, to a rooftop just off the market square, out of sight of the monsters below.

Enough blood stained the street that Zylah hoped it would cover the scent of Nye’s wound, that her friend wouldn’t protest as Holt had and draw attention to them. But when Nye blinked at their new surroundings—the roof of a laundry house, abandoned sheets still billowing on lines around them, she mouthed a silent thank you and crept on quiet feet to a gap in the parapet wall, peering into the street below.

Zylah willed her breaths to slow, her racing heart to steady. Her skull ached as though she’d evanesced much farther, and she wondered if Holt was pacing the tunnels where she’d left him, trying to call on his magic, to evanesce over and over. If their roles were reversed, it’s what she would have been doing.

They watched the vampires in the market square in silence, assessing the scene that surrounded them. Dead thralls, humans and Fae lay scattered at their feet, Zylah’s strange sight affording her details she might not have noticed before: the way the black thrall blood mixed with the crimson of the humans’, the way some of the vampires seemed weakened at the proximity to the vanquicite too. That would explain why they had been slower than the vampires Zylah had previously encountered.

Whatever had been blocking their signature before was gone; she’d bet money on it that one of the dead vampires had possessed shielding abilities. The six remaining split up in pairs, and this time, Zylah was able to follow them with the threads of her magic. But she slumped against the parapet as another tremor shook through her. Pain, sharp and familiar.

“Zylah?” Nye murmured beside her.

“Holt. I think he’s trying to evanesce.” She pressed a hand to her chest, as if it would stop the pain from spreading. “He was furious with me.”

“You were protecting him and your brother,” Nye said quietly, her attention still on the street below. “He’ll get over it.”

“I was protecting all of you.”

Nye’s attention snapped to Zylah’s face at that, assessing her with a look that was wholly Niossa the general, and not Nye, her friend. It wasn’t her story to tell, but Zylah loosed a reluctant breath, knowing she would have to tell it anyway. That Holt would resent her for it as much as he had resented her for leaving him in the tunnels; another crack in whatever fragile thing remained between them. Zylah explained about Ranon’s orb, about the torture Holt had endured and the purpose of it. How Ranon could control Holt’s power with a single command and had done so, over and over and over. She didn’t give details, they weren’t hers to give, and though she wanted to take away every last drop of Holt’s suffering, it wasn’t hers to share without his permission, either.

Nye was quiet for a moment, amber eyes studying Zylah’s face. “You did the right thing, Zylah. He shouldn’t have come with us, and he knows it. And for what it’s worth, thank you for not leaving me to the same fate.” She flicked her chin at the corpses below them, some who might have been her friends, though something told Zylah Nye was careful about befriending her soldiers for that very reason. “You pulled apart his compulsion,” Nye mused. “Can’t you pull this apart, too? He’s not the kind to sit anything out, you know it as well as I do.”

Zylah tilted her head back against the parapet wall, choosing her words carefully. “He’s changed, Nye. Aurelia and Ranon… Thallan. They’ve changed him and I…” Her voice broke, and she had to swallow back the lump in her throat. “I don’t know if he’ll let me try. And if he will, I don’t know if I can do it, do anything without hurting him.” A sharp pain had her pressing a hand to her chest again, but this time it was her pain, her heartache, not his. “And I think our magic, our healing, it’s tied to each other’s, because neither of us is healing as we should be, neither of us has the magic we once had. Even though I have this, whatever this is.” She waved a hand at her face, the cloth over her eyes.

A quiet huff from her friend. “Of course it’s tied. You’re still his mate, Zylah. He’s still yours.”

Zylah shoved aside a memory. She couldn’t let herself break apart. Not here. Not now. “Until he rejects the bond.”

“He won’t.”

If only it were that simple. The healer’s words had followed her since the day before. “If you could choose to simply let your pain go, wouldn’t you?” And if Zylah were in Holt’s place, she knew the answer would be yes. Her magic stretched taut as he continued whatever it was he was doing deep within the tunnels, and her grasp on the vampires’ whereabouts dwindled.

“I’ve lost four of them,” she told Nye, “but the final pair are heading towards the palace.”

“How would you feel about a little hunting?” Shadows seemed to snap back into Nye as she waited for Zylah’s answer.

“Daizin and the others?”

Nye tilted her head as if she were listening. “They still haven’t left the palace, but they’re safe.”

“You want to clear a path for them,” Zylah murmured.

The general dipped her chin. “You don’t have to stay, Zylah. But I want to give them as strong a chance as possible.”

Zylah pushed to her feet. Held out her hand, returning Nye’s grin. “We’ll reappear right in front of them. Be ready.”

The moment Nye’s hand met hers, Zylah moved. She evanesced just as she’d promised, bringing them directly in front of the two vampires and slamming her sword down hard into the chest of the one before her. Nye made quick work of the second, disarming him of his vanquicite weapon before she slashed her blade across his exposed throat.

Zylah’s attention snapped towards the palace district, her chest heaving. “Two more,” she told Nye, holding out her hand. “This way.”

A tremor rippled through the threads of her magic this time, her breath hitching. She was pushing too hard. Or maybe Holt was. But Zylah had no choice but to ignore it as they reappeared before the next two vampires, a male and a female this time, the female crying out in surprise at their attack. The element of surprise was still on their side, but the male managed to nick Zylah’s arm before she could spin around him and slice a dagger across his throat.

“The final two?” Nye asked through ragged breaths, the female dead at her feet.

Zylah swallowed, reaching out for Nye’s hand, for the remaining vampires, and evanesced away before she could talk herself out of it.

When they reappeared at the edge of the palace district before the two monsters, Zylah’s sight wavered, black creeping in. There wasn’t time to yank at the cloth over her eyes as the startled cries of the vampires told her they were swinging for them; the rush of air had her ducking at the last moment, tugging at the cloth regardless.

The moments it took for her eyesight to adapt were too many, a sword slicing her thigh and a female voice calling out to one of her companions, “Send word to General Thallan. Go!”

Zylah’s step faltered. There had been no adjusting to the light, the two versions of her vision warring with each other as they had before, causing her head to spin. Shadows were of no help to her, either, her body moving on nothing but instinct and her unwavering determination to live. Another slice, this time to her calf, shallow like the one before it, like the vampire was enjoying toying with her.

The female laughed, the sound cut short as the vampire sucked in a breath, followed by the unmistakable thud of a body falling to the dirt. The male. Zylah used the moment to blindly slash her blade, but the vampire evaded the strike and she staggered back at the force of it. Zylah braced herself for the female’s killing blow, but the vampire cried out, Nye grunting as she collided with the female.

Zylah blinked away the shadows as Nye and the female rolled and rolled across the empty street until the vampire stilled.

“Nye!” Zylah called out, running to her friend and sliding into the dirt to shove the vampire away. She couldn’t see Nye’s face, but she heard the unmistakable wet wheeze that sputtered from her friend’s lips.

“Go,” Nye told her.

“I won’t leave you,” Zylah said, hands running over the Fae’s armour to feel for a wound she couldn’t see. She didn’t know if she could heal Nye. Didn’t know if it would hurt Holt. Didn’t know if she had the strength to even stay upright.

“Just go, Zylah,” Nye breathed.

Zylah’s hands didn’t cease moving; she wouldn’t, not until she found the wound to staunch it. “Your family needs you. Your army needs you.”

“Tell Rin and Kej…”

“You fucking tell them yourself!” Zylah snapped, the sticky wetness of blood coating her fingertips as her hands came over Nye and put pressure on the wound to her gut. “Call out to Daizin or whatever it is the two of you can do. Tell him where we are. Now.” She shoved her panic down, every scrap of pain she felt, physical and mental, and focused on her friend bleeding out beside her. Nye had gone silent, but Zylah could still hear her shallow wheezes, could still feel the slow rise and fall of her stomach as she forced herself to focus.

At the first tug on her magic, more pain answered. She ignored it, pulling harder from that place it had once been inside her, the place where all she needed was even a kernel of that healing power to spark into life for her friend. “Please,” she whispered, something answering in her chest with a flare of warmth. A warmth that quickly became a burn, her insides igniting as healing magic soared to life and rushed through her, flowing from her hands and into her friend. Zylah groaned against it, pulling and pulling and pouring into Nye until her veins felt like they ran with nothing but liquid fire, her breaths too hot, her heart galloping in her chest as she fought to heal her friend, praying it would be enough.

Stop. Zylah couldn’t breathe at the voice in her head.

But she couldn’t stop, not yet. Just a few more seconds, even though Zylah couldn’t see the wound, she could feel, somehow, and she was almost there. Stop.

It shouldn’t have been this way, Zylah thought. Shouldn’t have been his suffering that had him reaching out to her, whether he understood it or not. But the thought was sluggish, her face pressed against something cold. Dirt, maybe. Something shook. Her body, she thought, or maybe something was shaking her. Zylah couldn’t be certain, darkness swallowing her completely.