58. Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Eight

T wo grimms dove for Holt, but he used his magic, the magic Aurelia had tried to command from him to shove them away, and Zylah loosed a sharp breath. Her threads frantically searched for pockets in every bit of power Aurelia possessed, pulling and tearing and shredding at whatever they could find, invisible to all but her and Holt. The shield, the shield, the shield, she told them, over and over and over.

Rose moved tentatively in her mother’s direction. The mother she hadn’t seen since before Zylah drew breath, but as Aurelia took another step towards Holt, the last of her composure frayed, threads lashing out. Aurelia doubled over, clutching at her stomach as Zylah’s threads tore at her, ripping through layer after layer of magic.

“Wait! Please,” Rose begged, but Raif held her back.

“Whatever you thought you did, you failed,” Zylah seethed at their mother, her threads joining the roots Holt summoned to restrain the Fae.

“I tore every piece of you from him with my bare hands.” Aurelia’s words were lined with mirth as she slumped against her shackles, panting and gasping, sweat beading her brow despite the chill of the wind.

Inside, Zylah was reeling, emotions threatening to cloud her judgement. But the effort of searching for all the snags in Aurelia’s magic was taking its toll, and she wouldn’t give the Fae the satisfaction of seeing that any of it affected her, that Aurelia’s actions had caused so much suffering. “You tried.”

All around them, their friends and the remaining soldiers fought with the creatures. Nye and Daizin worked together to corner two of the Asters, a wildcat snapping at the monsters’ heels. Kej. Ranon’s orb grew brighter, the priestesses reaching their hands to the blood moon as they sang, the storm around them intensifying. Every minute they wasted on Aurelia was a minute the moon came closer to its peak, Ranon’s ritual coming to its close.

“Let us handle our mother,” Raif told her and Holt. “Just get me some of Ranon’s blood.”

Aurelia laughed, but Holt’s roots squeezed tighter and the sound came out like a wheeze. “He won’t give it to you. Have you learnt nothing?” She breathed a command and a grimm swooped low, but Holt was faster, slashing at the creature, the thing falling still at his feet.

“You did this to your son, and you won’t help undo it?” Rose asked, twisting from Raif’s hold.

Their mother merely sneered, shaking her limbs against the restraints, testing the magic. “I expected more from you, Rose.”

“You mean you expected I would have magic like yours? Like his?” Rose waved a hand at her brother. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’ll never be like you.”

The chanting increased, thunder and the howling wind growing to a crescendo, sparks of lightning crackling against Ranon’s orb. They were running out of time.

Zylah wouldn’t ask Holt to walk away from Aurelia, not after everything the Fae had done, but she couldn’t take Ranon without him.

We can’t get through her shield, either, he told her calmly.

I can break it, if you’ll help me.

Holt held her gaze, so much emotion in his expression, his love and concern, his hope. But it was all the confirmation she needed.

“Being fed to the grimms will be the last of your concerns if you deceive us,” he told Raif.

Holt moved to kneel beside Zylah at the edge of the shield protecting Ranon and the priestesses, resting a hand to her back as she pressed her hands to the dirt. She looked up into his eyes at the same moment he let another lick of his healing magic pour into her. Save the protests , he said quietly in her thoughts. How bad is it?

Zylah couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth. Her other sight had begun to fail her when she’d been sifting through Aurelia’s magic, and he knew it. I can still see you. That’s all I need.

Holt didn’t move his hand away even as Zylah began, a few of her threads remaining with Aurelia, the rest she sent through the rock beneath her palms, willing them to pass beneath Aurelia’s shield over the priestesses to crack it from within. The magic pushed back at her like a crashing wave, knocking the breath from her lungs and pressing at her temples. Holt placed a hand beside hers, but a familiar snarl had him twisting away.

An Aster. As he fought the creature, Zylah shoved at Aurelia’s shield, her threads roving over every inch of it to seek out cracks and fissures in the magic. Her hands shook as she pushed, her remaining threads straining to follow the argument Aurelia held with her children, the three of them embroiled in some centuries-old dispute.

Through the rock, through the magic, through the aether, Zylah willed her threads to unspool and unspool and probe the Fae’s shield, her body trembling, vision receding to nothing but her diminished eyesight as she panted into the dirt. More grimms had joined the Aster, and she knew Holt was holding back on his magic to spare hers, even as one of the creatures sank their teeth into his shoulder and he roared in pain.

“Holt!” Zylah cried, willing her magic to hold until the shield broke apart. Flames danced at the edges of her vision, the Aster screaming, the grimms joining it, and a heartbeat later Holt slid to his knees beside her, blood streaming from his shoulder. Behind him, Aurelia fought with her children, their words turning into something physical as she struck Rose across the face.

Holt pressed his hands to the dirt with a stroke of affection down their bond, his magic joining hers to urge her threads to push harder. Aurelia screamed, but still Zylah pushed, groaning at the effort until Holt let loose the magic Ranon had once commanded from him, the force of it splitting the rock beneath his palms with a deafening crack.

For the first time since their arrival, Ranon tore his gaze away from the priestesses, his eyes narrowing at the fissure in the rock beneath his feet, but still, the shield held.

Something else cracked. Not the shield, Zylah’s remaining threads told her. Rose’s arrenium leg, a cry escaping the Fae at whatever attack her mother had released. Raif’s feral snarl turned guttural, but Zylah couldn’t keep her attention divided. She yanked at the remaining threads, her veins alight at the effort.

“Again,” she told Holt through gritted teeth.

Another wave of his power, the rock beneath them shaking, and this time, Ranon lost his footing.

Every part of her was burning. Sizzling. Every inch of her on fire. Lightning struck the shield, and an idea took root. Zylah began to hold out a hand, but hesitated. The last time she’d tried this, she’d almost caused more harm than good.

Do it , Holt told her as he released another wave of his magic, his arms trembling with the effort. If they both depleted themselves, if they both reached the end of whatever well of magic they shared, but Holt cut short the thought— I’ve got you.

Zylah raised a hand, directing her threads towards the next lightning strike and heaved, a silent scream leaving her as it struck her magic directly.

Burning. She was burning from the inside out. Zylah choked, thick smoke curling from her mouth. But she tore at the lightning, her threads weaving it across Aurelia’s shield like a blanket of light. Zylah sucked in a broken gasp as she finally understood the magic, the way it connected to the Fae, to her very core. The way it filled the air, the aether, everything.

Holt roared with effort as he unfurled a final wave of his power, twining it with flames that lit up every crack in the rock, and at the same moment, Zylah pulled , Ranon’s wild gaze meeting hers.

Everything seemed to pause. The chanting. The wind. The storm. The fighting.

Then both the shield and the orb shattered.