43. Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Three

R eturning to the Aquaris Court had been a test of their stamina. Though the courts were already likely to be a target, they couldn’t risk being tracked there, and it was almost dawn by the time they passed through the wards. They’d opted to leave Kopi behind with Dalana and Ellisar; Zylah felt confident he would return to the camp outside Kerthen if he wished to.

The salty ocean spray and the roar of the waves far below carried to them on the breeze, the sight of it taking Zylah’s breath away. With her new magic, the ocean seemed illuminated with energy, a wild force humming through it that she could reach out and touch with her threads if she released them.

She thought of the way Ranon had been amassing power, the way he held it in his orb, and of Aurelia’s weakened state. “We need to destroy the orb,” she murmured as Holt stepped up beside her. “Whatever happens,” she said, looking up at him. “We need to break it before he can use it.”

Only resolve cut through Holt’s polished mask of calm. Resolve and the determination to see this through, and Zylah let that soothe her as she unspooled her threads to the library behind them.

“The librarian is asleep,” she told him, the threads rolling over Serrula’s pillow. “You’re sure about this?” What they were about to do would compromise Holt’s relationship with the court, with its High Lord and Lady, and though she knew his answer, she needed to hear it.

“And have Malok waste our time on meaningless tasks and bargains whilst we beg for his permission?”

“Point taken.” She wondered if Holt remembered how it was Malok’s last meaningless task that had led to her almost dying in his arms, but kept that question to herself for the moment as they slipped into the library undetected.

A tome rested on a plinth near Serrula’s desk, the one Nye had used to search for which section of the library they’d needed to visit. Zylah would bet money that it was the same section that would contain information about the blood moon and what Ranon might need it for. She led Holt through the shelves in silence, threads pulling at shadows as her gaze darted across plaques, remembering the way Nye had concealed herself when they last visited the library together. Now and then, she summoned a book from a shelf, her threads lowering them carefully to the floor.

“Zylah?” Holt murmured at her side.

“Serrula will wake up soon. This will keep her occupied for hours.”

“And the shadows?”

Wisps of black tucked in tight against them both, dancing over Holt’s forearm as he turned it to inspect the inky shadows.

“I-I,” Zylah stuttered, taking his arm, shadows pulsing at her touch. “I didn’t realise I was,” she said quietly. Or rather, it was her magic, more specifically. One thought of Nye’s shadows and her threads had woven them for her, surrounding them both like a blanket to conceal their progress through the library.

“You’re getting stronger, too,” Holt said softly as he studied her face, but Zylah didn’t press him. There was too much packed into that statement for them to discuss in the middle of their little library heist.

“This row,” she whispered, tugging him along with her. He was fitting everything together, remembering things, but that didn’t mean Zylah was blind to how much it cost him. What price he paid every time a new piece fell into place. He could still choose to let the pain go. To let her go. Zylah shoved the thought aside, another stab of fear twisting her heart.

The rows opened out to a section of shelving around a table, the exact spot she’d visited with Nye. “Here. I’ll take this shelf.” She found the book Nye had shown her, searching through that first, her attention snagging on the page with the strange mirror in the sky above the nine original Fae, Arioch beside them.

Zylah leafed through the pages depicting their story, the seven she’d grown up believing to be gods. Pallia. Imala. Altais. Gentris. Diotin. Acrona. Farian. Ranon and Sira, a child in Sira’s arms.

The pages that followed depicted the monsters the pair had created, the suffering they’d unleashed on Astaria. Nothing about a blood moon, or any moon at all for that matter. But then she thought of the Seraphim, the child in Sira’s arms, wondering what Arioch had learnt of his mate’s fate since his departure from Ranon’s maze.

There was the other reason she so desperately wanted to search the library, though Zylah doubted the likelihood of any such thing being documented. Still, that would have to wait until later. Her threads spread beyond the library, the first few Fae rising and going about their morning duties. Had she and Holt not just spent so long travelling without a break to get there, Zylah might have spread her magic farther, beyond the court and into the forest beyond, but she knew better than to burn herself out. Mae had been given seventy-two hours, and though Zylah’s threat wasn’t an empty one, she still intended to return as agreed to give the Fae one final chance at redeeming herself.

Stacks of books soon filled the table, both of them stealing glances at each other as they leafed through pages, Zylah’s thoughts flitting back to everything they’d done together at Mae’s court. Holt’s lips twitched more than once, as if he knew precisely what had been occupying her thoughts. But he quietly continued his search, flicking through pages and replacing the books carefully when he was done. Now and then he pulled down a book out of her reach, the hard planes of his body pressing against hers and his quiet chuckle rumbling through her every time her breath faltered at his proximity.

One question burned through Zylah’s thoughts, outweighing her desire until she heard his answer. “Does it bother you, the ultimatum I gave Mae?”

“I trust you,” Holt said at her side, books strewn across the table before him.

“Even if I told you I wasn’t bluffing?”

Holt snapped his book shut. “Would it bother you if I told you I liked knowing you did it for me?”

He held her gaze, no hint of disgust or disapproval in his features. Only openness, vulnerability. It felt like a test. Their darkest parts laid bare for each other, a challenge from which one of them might back down first. But Zylah would never run from him. She had no regrets about poisoning Mae, and his response only strengthened her belief that the Fae more than deserved it.

She cleared her throat, flicking through the book in her hands, one she hadn’t been able to make any sense of other than a few inked sketches, pausing when one caught her attention. “Can you read this dialect? There’s a page here with moon phases, and the full moon is inked red.”

Holt leaned over her shoulder. “That isn’t ink. And no, I can’t.”

Another page, another moon inked in blood, if Holt’s suggestion was correct. And on this one, another of those strange mirrors beside it.

“The memory you showed me,” Holt said, resting his palm on a textured leather cover, fingers splayed wide. “Here at the court.” Zylah lowered her book as his gaze shifted to her face, bracing herself for the pain that was coming; bolstering her hold on their bond to make sure she was in full control of everything she couldn’t let slip through. “The vanquicite hid who you were.”

A disruption in her threads had her hesitating for a moment, some argument between a few members of the court Zylah had no interest in dividing her attention with. She turned to the shelf to replace her book, Holt plucking it from her fingers when she reached up onto her toes.

Zylah turned to face him, her back pressing against the spines, her fingers spreading over his chest and covering the scar over his heart. Holt’s hands rested on the shelf either side of her head, enveloping her in his warmth and his scent, and again Zylah wished she could stop time, that she could stretch out this moment between them for as long as possible.

“When we met, I’d spent my whole life believing I was human. And then I evanesced from the gallows, and you told me I was like you.” She tipped her chin, angling her face up to his, thinking of the day they’d first met. Of how she’d thought him a god. Of how familiar he’d felt, even then.

“I thought you were half Fae,” he murmured, studying her face with that quiet reverence he always offered her, his face inches away from hers.

Zylah braced herself for the echo of his pain, but none came. Her thumb brushed over Holt’s shirt above his scar, as if she might erase it from his skin, undo every terrible thing that had happened to him. But then they might never have met. Never have found each other in all the ways that mattered.

She swallowed down the lump in her throat, willing her emotions not to pour from her and realising she was probably failing miserably. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve been so many different versions of myself,” she admitted, thinking back to his words in the maze. “ Something tells me every version of you has been incredible.” They hadn’t felt incredible. Her brow pinched as she thought of how he’d stood by her through all of it, even when she’d been at her worst. Her lowest. “Sometimes it’s difficult to align them all,” she whispered. “Like my vision.”

Holt’s hands cupped her face, his thumb brushing her cheek. “Something tells me I have loved every version of you,” he confessed against her lips. And then he was kissing her, tongue parting the seam of her lips to meet hers.

Her hands found their way to the nape of his neck, fingers curling into his hair, so much love and emotion pouring from her that she had no fucking hope of shutting it out. Holt made a sound deep in his chest, one hand slipping to the back of her head as he deepened their kiss.

Books fell off the shelf beside them, ancient tomes clattering to the floor as the kiss turned into something wild and frenzied, obliterating Zylah so wholly she felt the earth shake beneath her.

Then the bookcase began shaking, too, and they pulled back, breaths ragged as the stack opposite crashed to the floor. Holt pulled Zylah aside, evanescing to the entrance of the library before it could all come collapsing down around them.

“Serrula,” Zylah gasped, rounding the main desk and dragging a bewildered Fae from her chair. “The court is under attack,” she said, and then they were evanescing, Holt following her as they reappeared at the far end of the court where Rin and Kej had been hiding the humans.

“There are humans here,” she told the librarian. “Stay with them, keep them hidden.”

The old Fae didn’t argue, and Zylah and Holt didn’t wait for her questions. This time Zylah followed the echo of Holt’s evanescing through the court, reappearing beside him on the balcony where they’d celebrated Jorah’s life.

Guards and members of the court fought vampires and thralls, Malok in the midst of them all. The deceits covering his scars were long forgotten, his sword slicked with blood. The High Lord’s attention snagged on them both, eyes widening in something that could have just as easily been ire as relief. So much for their sneaking in and out undetected.

Zylah summoned her sword to her hand just as Holt did, both of them exchanging a look that said more than words could. There was no holding back on their bond now, every feeling she had for him tumbling from her so quickly she had no hope of stopping it. She braced herself for his pain, but he pressed a hand against the scar over his heart, understanding settling over his features.

A group of thralls charged. Holt and Zylah moved together like they had outside Mae’s court, swords swinging, their bodies spinning around each other as if they were merely dancing and not at the heart of so much brutality.

So many Fae lay dead at their feet. So many lifeless thralls. They needed to target the vampires, but there were far too many Fae for Holt to use his magic; he wouldn’t risk harming them.

Four vampires fought. One with the same preternatural speed Jesper had possessed, two wielded swords, and one controlled a crackling magic far too similar to Marcus’s for Zylah’s liking. The latter attacked the High Lord as if she knew the Fae’s history and the precise details of how he’d received his scars, her sparks of magic taunting him.

There were too many of them in close proximity, too little space to fight. Another thrall lunged for Zylah and she pivoted, her sword swinging out in a wide arc to slice into the creature’s back. Magic crackled again and the female vampire pushed Malok towards the edge of the balcony, perilously close to the edge of the great drop into the ocean below.

But Zylah had her own assailant to worry about. The thrall screamed, swiping with decaying fingers wrapped around a dagger, the blade barely missing her in her moment of distraction. Then a sword appeared through the creature’s stomach and it fell to its knees. Holt. Zylah used the moment of cover to wrap her threads around the vampire’s bolts of magic, gasping at the heat of them as she willed her threads to pull.

The female’s empty eyes met hers across the balcony, lips curling into a snarl as she turned to Zylah. Two more flanked the vampire, but Zylah wasn’t interested in waiting for them to come to her. She evanesced to Malok’s side, fingers wrapping tightly around his wrist as she yanked him through the aether, away from the deadly descent into the crashing waves.

He raised his sword the moment they reappeared, cutting down a charging thrall. Malok offered her a dip of his chin, and then they turned their attention to the three vampires.

“Leave her to me,” Zylah told him, threads pulling at another of the vampire’s strikes, the magic bursting white hot and bright between them. This time Zylah heaved at the strands and the vampire staggered forwards a step, eyes wide as she drew her sword, swiping her free hand up the blade, the metal coming alight at her touch.

“Fuck,” Zylah breathed. She moved before the female did, roots and vines bursting up through the rock to slow the two vampires with blades, praying she wasn’t using too much magic and that Holt wouldn’t be affected. Strands of power spiralled around the lightning bolt sword, their magic spitting and hissing against each other, but the female evaded her assault.

The vampire screamed. The weapon connected with Zylah’s threads, setting them alight at its touch and burning bright in every direction. Every direction; each of them beginning within her .

Zylah’s insides were on fire. A choked cough broke from her chest, smoke billowing from her mouth and coating her tongue with the taste of ash. But the vampire only laughed as she brought her sword down; Zylah barely managed to parry the blow.

Holt moved to her side, and with Malok at the other, the three of them advanced on the vampires together, Holt and Zylah using bursts of magic, of evanescing, of whatever they had at their disposal. Beyond them, the fourth vampire still commanded a group of thralls, backing a group of Fae guards against the balcony wall, shattered and crumbling from one of the earlier explosions.

Dread coiled in Zylah’s stomach. This wouldn’t end well.

The High Lord broke away to aid his soldiers, the three vampires closing in on Zylah and Holt. All she could taste was ash, but Holt’s presence steadied her, bolstered her failing strength.

The female’s blade sizzled and crackled with magic, a knowing smile curling her lips. Zylah moved. She evanesced, sending shadows spiralling around all three vampires at the same time, threads tearing at the female’s sword to pull the lightning into her own. Pain and ecstasy skittered over her skin, and Zylah had to grit her teeth against it.

Holt followed her path through the aether. He made short work of the two males wielding swords, using their distraction with the shadows to his advantage. But there was no time to let her heart soar at the way he trailed her, the way he could predict her moves just as she made them.

The female swung for her, their swords connecting and the magic rattling through Zylah’s hands and into her bones, her flesh burning at the force of it. She groaned as the magic flared through her body, another breath of smoke escaping her mouth.

But the vampire bared her fangs in a vicious, knowing smile. “Let it go, and I’ll make this swift.”

Her magic. “Not a chance,” Zylah muttered, the shadows at the edges of her vision beginning to darken.

“Your choice,” the female spat. She slid her hand up her blade a second time, the sword crackling with more magic, swinging it at Zylah without hesitation.

The moment their blades connected, a deafening crack rent the rock between their feet, the ground tilting as the balcony began to shatter. But Zylah didn’t let it distract her. Didn’t let the taste of ash divert her attention, or the stench of burning flesh where her hands held tight to her sword, adrenaline and the ecstasy of using her magic this way cutting through the pain.

She evaded another swipe of the female’s blade, threads tearing at the magic from both swords and channelled it through her fingertips, aiming for the centre of the vampire’s chest. Pain erupted down her arm. Bolts of white-hot power slammed into the female’s body, halting her in her tracks.

The vampire’s sword clattered against stone, face contorted in pain, mouth open in a silent scream as cracks formed along her skin. Bright, white light erupted from her, so blinding Zylah had to look away from it. With another ear-splitting boom the light receded, leaving only the vampire’s charred corpse and her sword sputtering out beside it.

Zylah fell to her knees, clutching her burnt hand to her chest, barely remaining upright as she caught her breath. The threads sizzled and spat, every one of them an assault to her senses. But she forced herself to her feet, her attention snapping to the far side of the balcony where Malok and Holt fought together to take on the final vampire, shadows narrowing her vision.

Malok’s guards attacked more of the creatures at the balcony’s broken edge, pieces of it crumbling away and falling into the ocean far below. Two guards followed it, but there were too many thralls to cut through for Zylah to evanesce after them, regret slowing her movements, knowing that no one could survive that drop into the water.

The balcony shuddered beneath them again, her gaze darting to the two large cracks that zigzagged across it. “Malok,” Zylah called out. “Order your guards back. Now .”

“Do as she says,” the High Lord bellowed, and Fae scrambled for purchase against the tilt of the balcony, some scrambling over thralls and dead Fae.

Holt still hadn’t used his power to its full extent, Malok always too close for him to use it safely. The vampire darted between them, so much faster than Jesper had been, barely a blur as he laughed at the two powerful Fae.

Zylah helped the guards clamber to safety, cutting through thralls as she kept her eyes pinned on Holt. Her threads were sluggish, too slow for the vampire pivoting and spinning, and she caught the glint of his blade slashing out at Malok a moment too late to stop it.

But Holt had seen it. Roots erupted from the shattered balcony, one wrapping around the blade and another shoving Malok back just as the sword pressed against his chest, a third anchoring the High Lord to part of the balcony.

The vampire snarled. Released his weapon and threw his weight at Holt. The pair of them slammed into the crumbling balcony, rolling too fast towards the precipice.

Zylah screamed Holt’s name, threads reaching out a heartbeat too late before the rock broke away, the vampire tumbling with him over the edge.