61. Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-One

A few soldiers cheered, but their elation quickly faded, and a quiet part of Zylah was grateful for the fact she was too weak to see. She focused instead on the steady sound of Holt’s heartbeat, on his deep, slow breaths, his strength as small tremors wracked her body. Someone was still healing them both, the strange sensation of someone else’s magic setting her teeth on edge.

It was over. They were gone. Aurelia. Ranon. Pallia. Zylah had to say it to herself again and again as Holt held her, his love and reassurance sliding into her bones, her blood. Quiet sobbing cut through the murmur of voices, but she wasn’t certain who or where it came from.

Rose. So many mixed emotions wrapped around the thought as Holt thanked the healer. A quiet groan escaped him as he rose to his feet, hooking an arm around Zylah’s waist to pull her to his side.

I’m alright, she told him, though in truth, she could barely stand. He didn’t let go, hands sweeping over her to check. They’d both drained themselves entirely, neither of them left with so much as a drop of magic to replenish themselves with. Without the healer, Zylah had no doubts they wouldn’t be standing at all. She braced herself, testing the strength of her legs, but even her head felt like a lead weight atop her shoulders.

The storm had subsided, the reddish hue of the blood moon fading to the dark shadows of night. Flickers of light danced at the periphery of Zylah’s vision, orblights she assumed, summoned by Fae soldiers. The aftershocks of Pallia’s magic still rippled through her, but Holt supported her weight as he led her quietly, murmuring shadows—soldiers—parting for them as they made their way to Rose.

Zylah swallowed the sharp lump in her throat as her shadowed gaze dipped to the lifeless body before them. To the way Rose cried over her brother’s corpse just as she had cried over hers. She sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around her friend, not caring how tumultuous their relationship had always been. Rose shook beneath her embrace, and Zylah couldn’t fight her tears, her own grief too raw to hold back.

Not for Raif, though he’d been a good brother to Rose. He’d loved her, despite his faults. It was Zack Zylah cried for. For Rose. For herself. For who Zack, who Raif, might have become, and now would never get the chance.

Despite everything Raif had done to them, every bit of pain he’d caused, he’d wanted to change, and Zylah chose to believe that. Chose to believe there had still been a scrap of good in him before he’d left this life. Holt lowered himself beside her, just as many conflicting emotions spiralling through him as he reached for her, his attention fixed on the body of his old friend. His brother. His adversary.

Raif’s mouth and eyes were closed, no hint of the vampire lurking beneath the skin. He looked like any other sleeping Fae, with no traces of the dark magic that had irrevocably changed him. He’d fought to the end to protect his sister, and Zylah quietly wondered if he’d understood there was every chance he wouldn’t walk away from Aurelia and fought her anyway.

She shoved aside every terrible memory to make space for that. To think of how he’d once been: gentle. Kind. To try to remember the good heart Saphi had told her about the first time they’d met. The way he used to make them all laugh.

Holt’s love skittered over her skin. His gratitude, despite everything. Despite all the terrible, awful things that had transpired between them all.

“I told him to hold on,” Rose said at last. “That you would defeat them.” She swept a piece of hair from Raif’s face and smoothed it back carefully, her long fingers shaking. “But he died in my arms before the others arrived.”

Zylah took Rose’s hand in hers and squeezed, the only comfort she could offer as words lodged in her throat.

“It was this death I saw.” Bright blue eyes found Zylah’s, darting over her face, her ears, her eyes. “Back in Virian. Before you left.” When she’d told Zylah she’d seen Raif’s death. That Zylah had been there too, in the vision. Not the death Raif had suffered at the hands of Jesper, because it had never truly been a death at all. “He thought he was protecting you from Aurelia, keeping you here. Being this…” Rose stroked a hand down Raif’s cheek. “Leaning into what everyone saw when they looked at him was easier than facing up to the reality of what he’d done.” Zylah didn’t have it in her to refute Rose’s claim, not with Raif lying dead before them. “He loved you,” Rose said to Holt. “Despite everything he did, you were his brother.” The Fae’s face crumpled, but she blew out a breath through pursed lips. “I want to bury him. Like a Fae.” She waved a hand at her shattered leg. “Will you help me bring him back?”

Because the others would treat him just as they would the other fallen vampires. They would burn every last one of them, and there would be no honour in it, no emotion.

“We’ll carry him,” Holt said gently. He was in no condition to do anything, but Zylah knew what the sentiment would mean to Rose. What he was offering.

More tears streamed down their friend’s face, but she dipped her chin in quiet thanks.

They left Rose to check in with the others, but Zylah’s fractured vision settled on Sira, kneeling beside the pit of dead priestesses, her cheeks wet. She eased from Holt’s arms to sit beside the ancient Fae, forcing herself to look at the women in the pit just a few feet away who had given their lives for a false cause.

For her grandmother.

Nausea twisted her stomach and she clutched a hand to her chest, willing it to ease. The movement pulled Sira from her haze, Zylah’s skin prickling under the ancient Fae’s scrutiny.

“You look just like her,” Sira said quietly.

Zylah’s gaze remained fixed on the lifeless bodies before them. “I am nothing like my grandmother.”

“Not her. Your mother.”

“My—” Zylah’s head snapped to her right. She took in the ancient Fae, shadows dancing in front of everything. Her appearance gave no hint of her age, yet no deceits were in place. Short, dark brown curls framed the female’s face, brown eyes that hid no hint of malice, light brown hands folded neatly atop the skirts of her simple navy dress. “You look nothing like the woman I met in Morren.” A human, and yet not. But that otherworldly feeling was just as it had been, just as much power pressing against Zylah’s skin.

Sira hummed. “Idallia was a gracious host, though a little eccentric, even for me.” An almost smile tugged at her mouth. “Though I’m sorry to say she will not remember you should you wish to visit her.”

Zylah tried to recall the details of that day, the way Sira—Idallia—had given her almost every ingredient she needed to send back to Cirelle. “It was never about the key.” The key that Aurelia had used, along with Zylah’s blood, to release Ranon from his tomb. “You were testing me. Why?”

“All things in this world have a price,” Sira had said. Zylah hated the depth with which she understood that statement now, her brother’s body still waiting for her on the other side of Ranon’s gate.

“I had to know if you were like her.” The ancient Fae turned her attention to the shattered statues, Pallia’s nothing but a mound of dust.

“I would never—” Zylah frowned. “She took your daughter from you. And my mother…” The truth she had waited her whole life to hear. “She’s gone, too, isn’t she?”

Barely a nod from Sira, but a confirmation, nonetheless. “Your mother and father died together at the hands of one of Pallia’s hosts.” She pressed a hand to Zylah’s cheek, fussed over a loose strand of hair. “I’m sorry, Zylah. I know you’d hoped for a different answer. But it’s why they went to such extreme lengths to hide you.”

The vanquicite. All along, her parents had been hiding her from her own grandmother. To keep her safe. Zylah wiped at a stray tear, allowing herself a moment to play out the life she might have had if her parents had lived, Holt’s affection shimmering in her heart at the thought.

“They waited for so long to have you; all they ever wanted was a child.” Sira rested a hand over her belly, and Zylah knew it was the child Pallia had taken from her that she was remembering. “I followed you closely after their deaths, but as you grew older, as the vanquicite became part of you, it became more and more difficult. I couldn’t see you for many years,” the Fae told her. “I suspect Pallia couldn’t either.”

“She’s celebrated by so many… and you… they fear you.” Zylah closed her eyes at the unfairness of it all. Every deception her grandmother had fabricated, every last bit of wickedness she’d bled into the world. “Poison and lies. You said so yourself. They are one and the same.”

Sira made a sound of agreement. “Taking a host was never an easy task.” Remorse wrapped around the words and she lowered her gaze. “I have made mistakes, too, Zylah. Even with those happy to let me in, it was always risky. It’s more complex than a simple illusion, though Pallia had a knack for both.”

“It’s how she made a bargain with me. How she appeared to Aurelia.”

Sira nodded. “I’m sorry for my abrasiveness when we first met. Idallia loved to join in on things.” She raised an eyebrow. “Part of the deal, she’d tell me. I was happy to concede, all things considered.”

Considering she’d been trapped in a piece of rock for centuries. “But how did the three of you end up here?” Sira, Pallia, Imala. All interred within stone, but not dead, not entirely.

“It wasn’t long after Imala gave birth to Aurelia that she saw the truth of Ranon’s ways. Saw how Pallia’s envy turned her into something terrifying. But even Imala loved him, in her own way, even when he encouraged Pallia to create more of her creatures, to build an army for him. It tore us all apart, the nine of us fighting like we never had before.”

The original Fae. Nine of them who had come from another world. Ranon and Sira, and the remaining seven the humans revered as gods. All lies. Every last bit of it.

“Eventually Imala hid Aurelia from him,” Sira went on. “And a centuries-long war began. Ranon and Pallia planted the seeds for a legacy of hatred and fear; fear of the Fae amongst the humans of this world. And all of it Pallia did in my name. To spite me, because it was me Ranon wanted but could never have.” She held out her hands, inspecting her palms as if she could see the weight of the magic that lay beneath her skin. “All he ever saw in me was power. Something to use. To control.”

Just as Zylah’s grandmother had tried to use her.

Sira glanced at her as if she knew where her thoughts had taken her. “We were close to putting an end to their reign many times, but we had a spy among us, and every time, our attempts would fail. Until Pallia began to tire of Ranon’s false promises. Then Anwen, your mother, she came up with a plan. Imala agreed to help us after Pallia… after she murdered my child at Ranon’s request. And when he still didn’t look at her the way she wanted, Pallia knew then that he would never love her, never want her the way he had set his sights on me.”

“So she trapped him in his tomb,” Zylah murmured.

Another dip of Sira’s chin. “My mate never learnt about our child. When Ranon sent me his wings, when I couldn’t find him…” She trailed off, pressed a hand to her chest. “I should have known it was Pallia’s doing after everything else she’d done. Every monster she’d created. The centuries of war. All of it in my name. This was the only way we could stop her.”

Stop her from creating more monsters. From poisoning every priestess with her lies. But it had taken her own daughter to put a stop to the madness. “Anwen.” Zylah breathed her mother’s name, the sound of it filling an empty space in her heart.

“And your father, Gideon.” Sira held out a hand and Zylah’s sword appeared in it, the purple stone almost navy under the light of the blood moon. “This sword was made to honour your mother. Because no one could know what had transpired here. Your parents told only their most trusted friend.”

Zylah sucked in a breath, fingers closing around the sword’s hilt. “Holt’s mother.”

Sira smiled. “They would be so proud of you, Zylah. Of both of you; everything you’ve endured.”

Holt joined them, crouching at Zylah’s side, an arm encircling her waist. He’d heard all of it through their bond, felt everything she had. “Thank you,” he told Sira. Not just for taking out Pallia, but for giving up her life. For preventing Pallia from pulling Astaria into ruin forever.

“Some sacrifices are worthwhile. We defied the odds in the end. Didn’t we?” Sira asked, the corner of her mouth lifting.

Zylah shot her a sad smile. “Be certain you’re prepared to defy the odds,” Sira had told her, back in Morren.

But Sira only paled. Gathered her skirts and rushed to her feet, lips parting. “Arioch.”