60. Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty

P allia’s magic hit Zylah like a bolt of lightning.

Kopi clawed at the Fae’s face, and with a flick of her wrist, her grandmother sent him skittering across the dirt. Zylah tried to breathe his name, but no sound came out. Only a curl of smoke, the taste of ash on her tongue.

“My greatest regret is setting foot on this blight of a world.” Pallia waved a hand, one of the arrenium daggers from a fallen soldier appearing in it. “But leaving was never an option before.” She dragged the blade across Zylah’s wrist, deep enough for the blood to flow freely. “I needed one of the others to help me. And I needed my blood. Lots of it. So much I’d have never survived the crossing.”

Don’t lose focus, Zylah rasped as Holt’s attention faltered at her predicament. She needs Ranon.

“But since Ranon set his heart on leaving, I found myself coming up with reasons to stay. Set my sights on another goal instead. You and your friends made a fine attempt to destroy all that he and Aurelia had created. My blueprints, all of them.” She looked at the lifeless bodies beyond Zylah. “My priestesses.” Then Pallia squeezed her wrist, fingers digging into the wound. “But no matter. Your blood will revive them all. And Ranon will play his part.”

Zylah screamed as Pallia pressed harder, magic making the blood bubble as her grandmother began chanting. But all Zylah had to do was hold on. To give Holt as much of her power, their power as she could as his magic slammed into Ranon, every wave of it sending the ancient Fae staggering back in the dirt.

And if she could pull apart the bargain, fight back against the magic that made her little more than a compliant doll in her grandmother’s grasp, she might buy Holt the precious few seconds he needed to take out Ranon entirely.

The blood drained from her wrist slowly, whether by Pallia’s command or the remnants of Aurelia’s magic, Zylah wasn’t certain, but she didn’t let it distract her from her task. She’d achieved the unthinkable with her magic; she could break this bargain with Pallia, pull it apart piece by piece. If she could only hold on for long enough. If Holt could, too.

Every wave of his magic shuddered through her, every ripple of exertion interlaced with euphoria, the addictive nature of it seeping into his bones, into hers. And therein lay the danger of it: the stronger the ecstasy, the weaker his grasp on his other senses became.

But Zylah’s threads had already found the snag in the bargain’s magic, had already begun to unravel it, even as the rest of Pallia’s magic continued to burn through her. The chanting quickened, her body arching where her grandmother had her suspended a few feet off the ground, blood dripping from her wrist in slow, steady drops.

Every part of Zylah shook. Every part of her felt as if the magic was peeling the flesh from her bones. Her vision had long since narrowed to nothing but a dark tunnel, but it wouldn’t be long now, and she held onto that knowledge with everything she had, searching deep inside herself for every scrap of strength she had left.

She’d helped topple kings. Fought a three-headed water serpent. Slaughtered giant spiders. Run with wolves. Woven magic from nothing but the aether. Zylah would do this one last thing before she left this life.

Comfort and affection flared from Holt as he fought against Ranon’s magic, his soul speaking to hers in the way only he could. She’d known from the beginning they wouldn’t walk away from this. Had known it was always going to end this way. But being his, for as brief a time as it had been… she’d meant every word of it when she’d accepted the bond between them, when she’d told him that the greatest privilege of her life had been to stand beside him as his mate.

She offered up every bit of magic she could spare him as her threads ripped away at Pallia’s bargain.

Piece by piece.

Until—Zylah fell from her grandmother’s grasp, her body crumpling in the dirt.

Now , she told her mate.

And Holt unleashed himself. A burst of magic so great the ground shook beneath their feet, rocks falling from above. Power entwined with flames, so much fire it tumbled over itself like waves, Ranon’s howl a gasping shriek as it consumed him whole.

“No!” Pallia cried. Magic erupted from her fingertips, slamming into Holt’s chest and knocking him off his feet. Zylah raised a hand at her grandmother to attack, but Pallia was faster, another bolt of lightning piercing through Zylah’s body.

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Could only look at Holt, unmoving in the dirt a few feet away, tears and shadows blurring her vision as she willed him to rise, willed the thread between them to hold on just a little bit longer.

Move. The thought was as much for her as it was for him.

Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes, her breaths little more than gasps.

And then Holt groaned, rolled to his side, and Zylah choked back another sob. His eyes found hers immediately, darting to the open wound at her wrist and back to her face, concern etched across his features. And though she knew every part of him felt like it was on fire just as she did, he dragged himself towards her, because Zylah suspected he no longer had the strength to stand. Magic sparked again, but she reached out a hand, trembling fingers brushing against Holt’s.

We need to have our perfect day, remember, he told her gently, easing himself closer despite the pain she knew coursed through his body, an echo of every inch of agony she felt in hers.

Pallia resumed her chanting, magic swirling like a storm in the air around them, but Zylah had nothing left to give, nothing left within her to fight against it. Neither did Holt. And as his hand folded tenderly over hers, she wasn’t afraid.

He pulled her towards him, curling his body around hers, his comforting scent wrapping around her one final time. His love. Tremors wracked his body just as badly as Zylah’s, but he threaded his fingers into her hair, tilted her face up to his, his thumb stroking the tears from her cheek.

So that you’re the last thing I see , he said softly, and she knew he had done it just as much for her as for him as she looked up into his eyes, her failing vision narrowed only to him. I’ll find you , he told her one last time.

And she believed him.

Shadows swarmed, blotting out every last bit of crimson light as magic crackled so thickly the air vibrated with it. Holt’s lips came over hers, his arms wrapped tightly around her. He tasted of blood and ash and tears and home , and Zylah curled her fingers into his shirt as she kissed him back, as they braced for the sting of Pallia’s magic.

Together. Whatever came next, they would meet it together.

Someone screamed. Something . Multiple somethings, a crescendo of voices and sounds, something beating heavy like a drum, the ground shaking beneath them. The shadows began to clear, and a single Fae stood before them. Not Pallia… Nye, a gaping wound on her head, her shadows lashing out at the ancient Fae. To protect them; to fight back, no matter how futile.

And then their friend’s shadows were joined by fire. Shadows and fire and lightning and flashes of magic: white, blue, red, so bright Zylah had to curl her face into Holt’s chest and look away from it.

The shrieking. They were Iyofari. The great birds Cirelle’s people bonded with, the beating the rhythmic sound of their wings. Shouts cut through the noise, Arlan’s voice commanding soldiers. Rin’s too, a broken laugh escaping Holt as he held Zylah tighter, as magic and soldiers and chaos erupted around them and their friends fought back against Pallia, together.

“To the plinth,” a voice Zylah didn’t recognise called out as multiple hands grasped her shoulders to pull her and Holt back from the commotion.

Healing magic poured into them both, weak, but enough to staunch the flow of blood from her wrist, to stop them bleeding out in each other’s arms. Zylah twisted in Holt’s embrace as Sira chanted in the same strange language Pallia and Ranon had used, as their friends joined her, driving Zylah’s grandmother back onto the stone base she’d emerged from.

Shackles wrapped around the ancient Fae’s calves and her grandmother cried out.

“For my daughter,” Sira told her, the aether rippling and bending and warping her silhouette with the strength of her power. “And for yours.”

The ground shook, pieces of rock hauled by unseen hands towards Pallia as she tried and failed to fight the onslaught of so much magic. Piece by piece it surrounded her, the fissures healing over with a burst of light, sealing her into the rock until all that remained was a stone statue in her likeness.

With a final word, a final command to their friends to join her, Sira raised her hands, magic and fragments of rock swirling around her, and the stone shattered.