31. Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

“T his place was swarming with grimms last time I was here,” Zylah murmured the next day when they stopped a healthy distance away from the mouth of the maze, both of them catching their breaths.

They’d pushed themselves harder than they should have all day, but neither she nor Holt had voiced it. Perhaps Holt hoped Arioch might have answers for him, too, though as the days had passed, Zylah had become less confident in anything the Seraphim might be able to share with them.

Her fingers tightened over the hilt of the sword at her hip, and should she need it, Nye had set aside a staff back at the camp to save her from having to carry the extra weight. Zylah knew it was likely just as much her position as a general than as a concerned friend that had Nye providing a backup option, but Zylah was grateful for it either way. If she lost her sight, she’d need a staff to walk. And the thought of losing her sight in Ranon’s maze was enough to almost have her turning around and returning to camp.

A flurry of snow had begun, which under any other circumstances would have reduced visibility, turning the landscape into an expanse of white and grey. But Zylah let the threads of her magic spread as far as she could manage, passing over timid rabbits and sleeping foxes until she found a nest of grimms on the far side of the mountain that housed the cave. Only one nest, but there were dozens of the creatures within it.

“My previous question still stands,” Holt said beside her. “Is there any monster you haven’t stood up against and won?” he’d asked her the day before.

And Zylah knew he’d meant it light-heartedly, but she could only think of the cyon wolf bleeding out in the snow and wondered if it had been able to join its mate somehow in the afterlife. The memory of the dead female followed the thought, fear seizing her heart just as Rhaznia had seized the wolf’s heart from its chest.

This had been a bad idea. Returning to the maze. Coming back for her. They should leave Rhaznia, search for Arioch instead, and return to camp as quickly as possible. Zylah was risking Holt’s life by asking him to help her, and she tried desperately to stamp out the dread that was working its way at the brin fruit she’d eaten earlier, turning her stomach and seizing her breath.

“Hey,” Holt said, reaching for her hand and swiping his thumb over hers before seeming to remember himself. “We’ll get the venom.” His voice was firm but kind, reassuring. “We’ve got a secret weapon with us.”

“We do?”

That almost smile tipped the corner of his mouth. “You.”

He could fight better than anyone she’d ever met, and there was a reason Ranon and Aurelia had chosen him to charge the orb—Holt’s power was vast. But even he showed signs of exhaustion from their journey, shadows under his eyes from where he’d let her sleep through the night and stayed awake keeping watch. He didn’t need her protection, what little of it she could offer to him, but the instinct to give it to him anyway was almost overwhelming.

“I shouldn’t have asked this of you.” Her attention settled on their joined hands, the way he hadn’t let go, as if maybe he still felt the pull to her just as much as she did to him.

“I came for entirely selfish reasons.”

“You think Arioch might be able to help you, too?” She studied his face, his eyes roving over hers, searching, always searching.

“Something like that,” he murmured. Though she hoped he’d meant something else entirely. “Ready?” Holt slipped her hand from his and unsheathed his sword.

Zylah drew her weapon, sucking in a deep breath of frigid air. You can do this. She had her magic now to evanesce away in a heartbeat, and this time, she wasn’t alone. Snowflakes dusted Holt’s hair and settled on his eyelashes, but he didn’t seem concerned with it at all, only that she was ready. She wanted to tell him she didn’t think she’d ever be ready to return to the depths of the maze, but just his presence at her side gave her comfort she hadn’t had before.

At this distance, they evanesced separately, and Zylah allowed herself a moment of elation at following the trail of his magic through the aether, marvelling at the beauty of it. She reappeared a second after he did inside the mouth of the cave, her magic spreading out around them and her attention fixed on Holt and the way he’d been looking at the spot she’d appeared in as if he knew precisely where she was going to be. As if he could see her move through the aether, too.

It was an effort to pull her attention from him, to survey the cave and seek out any signs of Rhaznia. There were a few empty silk cocoons, including the one Raif had freed her from before she’d slashed at him with her dagger. But no other evidence that he’d ever been there at all, and Zylah wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or very, very bad.

“Up there,” she told Holt, pointing her sword at the ledge she’d climbed down from during her escape. The maze was too complicated to piece together a route in her mind, so for now, they’d have to retrace her steps in short bursts.

Holt appeared a fraction of a second after she did, and again Zylah wondered if he could see her magic the way she could see his, if he had pieced together what it meant that their magic and their healing was tied to each other’s.

She cast the thought aside, focusing on the task at hand. “If you hear a clicking sound, ready your weapon.” Roots protruded through the rock beside them, twisting up and over their heads, and Holt tracked their path with a tilt of his head. Zylah had yet to see if his ability to pull roots and vines from the earth had returned to him, but the look on his face told her he hadn’t forgotten it.

“Lead the way,” he told her quietly and Zylah moved. Testing her theory that he could follow her, she evanesced a short distance and he reappeared beside her, a smile that she couldn’t help but match lighting up his face.

It was enough to ease some of her apprehension at what they were moving towards, a laugh bursting from her when she tried to trick him by backtracking a handful of paces, almost reappearing nose first into his chest. He rested a hand under her elbow to steady her, his smile turning into something warm and tender.

“You didn’t sleep last night,” she told him when he didn’t step away.

Holt’s smile faded. “I still see their faces every time I try.”

She silently scolded herself for forgetting. Zylah had been so wrapped up in trying to tell him about Raif, about all of it, she hadn’t asked him what he needed.

“I’ll be fine.” His hand squeezed gently at her elbow and a burst of comfort surged in Zylah’s chest.

She sucked in a ragged breath. He’d done that. Through their bond. Had either heard her thoughts or understood what she was feeling, and that—

Click.

Zylah pivoted from his touch, sword raised, and Holt moved beside her. “Some of Rhaznia’s children,” she murmured.

They’d agreed on their approach to attacking the spiders on their way to the maze; Rhaznia had been able to scent their blood on Zylah before she’d escaped. “Three. Two on your right.”

Her new magic afforded her certain advantages, like being able to feel the arachnids’ approach before she could see them, and she was intent on using every opportunity available to her until they were back in the safety of the camp.

She advanced on the nearest spider, charging for it and evanescing at the last moment to appear behind the arachnid. The creature paused, and Zylah dove between its legs, dragging her sword across its underbelly and narrowly missing the thick, clear liquid that oozed from it.

By the time she rolled to her feet, Holt was already finishing off the second of the two he’d been fighting, slashing at a piece of spider silk where the creature had begun to trap him.

“More are coming,” Zylah warned him. But they couldn’t leave, not yet. Not if they were going to draw Rhaznia to them.

Too many spiders to count descended from above, stalking slowly towards them and no doubt taking in their dead kin. The nearest seemed to collapse, legs bent and body low, and then it attacked, Holt and Zylah moving for it at the same time.

Strike, pivot, strike. Zylah moved, Holt moving with her, always at her back, her side, never letting the spiders pull them away from each other. But another half dozen of the things descended all at once, beady eyes and pincers rubbing together as they stalked closer. Thick roots erupted from the dirt, lashing around skeletal legs and ripping, tearing limbs from bodies.

Holt’s magic. But as he did it again, Zylah’s faltered, threads cut away one by one until only a limited version of her sight remained. It was too much; they’d pushed too hard, dug too deep, and all she could do was focus on the creatures closest to her, anything farther away falling into shadow.

“We’re about to be surrounded,” Holt told her breathlessly, roots and vines bursting from the ground around them. “Stay or go?”

“Stay,” Zylah rasped, slicing through spider silk where they’d attempted to bind her.

If Holt took issue with her decision, he didn’t voice it, only kept fighting as the creatures continued their onslaught, as the circle around them closed ever tighter.

She’d been able to channel his magic before, but now things were different; she thought she might have an idea of how to wield it at a much greater distance, on a much larger scale. Zylah sheathed her sword, knees hitting the dirt beneath her, then her palms.

“Zylah?”

“I’m alright, don’t stop. I just need a minute.” She closed her eyes beneath the cloth, willing herself to close off her other sight too, to surround herself in darkness until only her other senses remained.

Holt pressed closer, but he did as she asked—continued with his onslaught, and Zylah tried to block out the commotion around them. Let herself feel for the threads that had been cut away, the places in the dirt the spiders’ legs touched, the way Holt’s roots and vines erupted and lashed at them, the energy of it all pulsing through her body.

At first, nothing answered. But then she managed to snag one of the severed threads. And another, and another, and another. And instead of pulling, Zylah imagined the spool inside her, an endless well of thread that she could send out in any direction. And she did. Everywhere a spider stood, roots erupted, crawling up their legs, their bodies, wrapping around them and binding them, pinning them to the spot, slamming through heads and slicing at underbellies, thick ooze leaking from them as they twitched and stilled.

Holt made a sound halfway between surprise and pain, but he didn’t falter, using his blade to take out any of the creatures that neared. Too many. A gust of air lifted the strands of hair from Zylah’s face that had fallen loose, but she wasn’t sure if it was at a spider’s proximity or Holt’s.

Her head began to throb, sweat dampening her tunic at the back of her neck, and it was an effort to pull back, to stop what she’d started, to not let herself unravel a little more. But she willed herself to focus on the feel of the dirt beneath her fingers, the sound of Holt’s breaths, his heartbeat, his sweat-slicked scent, the sensations in her own body all weaving back together.

Then a shriek broke through the ringing in her ears, and an arm bracketed her waist, tugging her to her feet.

“Pull it back,” Holt warned her. Her magic, as if he’d known precisely what she’d been doing.

Zylah slipped free of his arm, willing her sight to return, but nothing happened, panic fluttering in her chest. “I can’t see,” she murmured, drawing her sword and focusing on his position from what she could feel, hoping he couldn’t hear the fear in her voice.

Click. Click. Click.

“She’s here.”