63. Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Three

T he weeks that passed were not easy, but none of them had expected they would be. There had been almost as many wounded as dead, and a few that had succumbed to their injuries in the days after the blood moon.

Caring for the wounded had become Zylah’s priority, her friends each taking on different responsibilities in the aftermath of so much bloodshed. She thought of her brother often. Of how much he’d have loved every moment of rebuilding, of seeing everything they’d worked for coming together. But she let herself be sad that he would never get to see it. Let herself miss him; feel angry that he was gone. And though sadness often overtook the anger, Zylah let herself feel all of it, even on the days she hated every moment of feeling anything at all. But she didn’t shut it out. Not anymore.

“Three drops of ointment daily,” she told the patient seated before her, handing over a corked vial and a bundle of dried besa leaves tied in cloth. “Chew one when you feel that heavy weight on your chest.” The human nodded her thanks, and as the woman hobbled away down the row of cots, Zylah washed her hands in a bowl of warm water, her day at the hospital coming to a close.

It was one of four they’d set up across Virian as citizens had slowly started returning, word of how the army made up of both humans and Fae had defeated the monsters together spreading wide. All vampires and thralls in the city, at least. Some still remained across Astaria, Kej and Daizin taking up the mantle of leading soldiers to hunt them down. Holt and Zylah had wanted to join them, but after several fraught conversations with Nye and Arlan about the condition they’d both been left in after the blood moon, they’d finally given in.

Holt had focused his efforts on setting up the new council with Okwata’s and Ahrek’s help; the rest of his time was spent on coordinating the Black Veil posts Zack had begun to set up across Astaria. Zylah had elected to help establish the hospitals. The shadows in her eyes had remained, and though she still had her other sight, it wasn’t what it had once been. She was fortunate to still have the luxury of her threads, and between both versions of her vision and her magic, she got by just fine, considered herself lucky. Others had lost limbs. Their lives.

Some days, the echo of Pallia’s magic shuddered through her, the taste of ash bitter on her tongue. Zylah would hide herself in the hospital store cupboards under the guise of taking inventory, have to clench her teeth at the shadow of pain, at the agonising sensation of it burning through her. Holt’s soothing caress would whisper over her skin, no matter what he was in the middle of or where.

And he had not been so fortunate.

I made a choice that I have zero regrets over , he told her as she said her goodbyes to a few of the nurses and made her way out into the city, the evening air biting her skin. The same words she’d told him when she’d brought him back, after everything that had transpired at the Aquaris Court.

He was making his way across the city just as she was, both of them heading towards the botanical gardens to meet with Jilah and the children for the first time since their return to the city. Only Holt was making his way there from the palace, from another day of long discussions over council elections.

Zylah could feel the way his attention was divided as she made her way through the streets. I’ll be fine , she assured him. Though they no longer wore their deceits, their Fae features on full display, Zylah never went anywhere without daggers in her bracers and one in her boot. Only a few days before, three young Fae males had been brought into one of the hospitals for getting into a fight with a group of young men.

Though everyone knew the army that had taken down the vampires and thralls had been mostly Fae, the prejudice the humans possessed was something that would take generations to smooth over. But the Fae understood that for the most part; so far a few hot-headed young had been the only exception.

Kopi flew overhead as Zylah stepped onto one of the bridges crossing the river, dropping a copper coin into a basket at the feet of a young musician. He smiled his thanks as he began a new tune, and Zylah paused to listen, leaning against the wall and looking out across the water, repair carts lining the banks on either side.

A familiar melody set the hairs on the back of her neck on edge. She’d heard it before. Walking across the same bridge with Raif. It had been a song about forgetting, about missed chances and a love that got away, and even that first time, it had sent a chill down her spine. Even then it had made her think of Holt, and now the lyrics felt even more pertinent than before. The familiar old guilt tried to shove its way to the surface, but Zylah took a steadying breath and focused on the thread that pulled tight between her and her mate. Everything Holt had done for her. Everything he’d endured.

All of it led me to you.

Zylah smiled at his words. But then she thought of the repercussions of using his magic. How he’d been dealing with the aftermath in the last few weeks, the lengths he’d had to go to, to hide his addiction from the others. This is the first place I saw Raif turn someone to ash, she told him. Not long after, Raif had confessed what using his magic had cost him.

Arnir was sending men after you all the time. I stopped as many as I could, but some slipped through. Too many. All to serve Aurelia’s purpose of releasing her father. Because Pallia had orchestrated everything. Zylah would kill them all over again if she could, for all the good it would do. She didn’t draw attention to the way Holt had gently sidestepped the topic of his magic by giving her a snippet of information she hadn’t known before.

But their healing was tied to each other’s, and every day she felt his frustration at that. They’d been working together every evening, Zylah teaching him how to unpick the magic, how to manipulate it so that he could stave off the cravings, to find some release from it all without the other negative effects of its addictive nature taking hold. It did little to sate him, his desire for a more physical kind of release just as strong as hers, their nights spent tangled up in each other until sleep claimed them.

Zylah had once seen a room for rent in a beautiful building near the gardens, had told him she’d considered renting a room there. Some citizens had opted to move away after the violence, and since neither of them had wanted to return to the tavern, Holt had negotiated with the owner to buy the residence that spanned the entirety of the upper level. The lower levels had remained empty in the weeks that had passed, which, given the nature of their nighttime activities, was a blessing.

She passed a house, a human girl and a little Fae male helping a woman paint a newly replaced front door, the three of them smiling at Zylah as she continued along her route. It was still an unusual sight, but that little Fae male would get to grow up without hiding. Without fear of being discovered. But Zylah’s smile faltered a little when her attention skipped to the small statue of Pallia beside the door, her stomach twisting at the sight.

Though many priestesses had died during Ranon’s ritual, they suspected a few remained, that the humans they’d been recruiting might still pose a threat, but mercifully, nothing had come of the priestesses’ recruiting so far. Holt had been working with many of his old human contacts to keep abreast of any whispers of revolt.

Zylah turned the final corner to the gardens, her proximity to Holt settling something in her just as it did at the end of every day. But it was Jilah she saw first, the old Fae waiting for her at the entrance with a bunch of yellow daylilies.

He handed them over with a smile. “He’s in there being terrorised by the children.”

Zylah smiled, but it quickly faded. “How bad was it?” The damage caused by the vampires and thralls after the citizens had fled.

“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” her friend told her, curling his hand around her elbow to lead her through the gardens. He moved slower than the last time she’d seen him, and that was partly the reason she was there: to pull apart whatever bargain he had once made that would see him taken from the children far sooner than he should be.

Zylah’s threads had already found the edges of it, prepared and waiting for her command. For Jilah’s consent. “Do you want to sit down for this?” she asked him.

Jilah merely winked. “Do your worst.”

The threads pulled gently, the bargain unravelling at her silent command. It wasn’t weak magic, but it was nothing against the strength of the power she and Holt had faced, the power they shared.

The old Fae pressed a hand to his chest, his eyes watering as they met hers. “Remarkable,” he breathed.

“She is,” Holt agreed as he stepped out from amongst the weeping eye trees, the children blazing past him.

Jilah’s smile grew wide as Holt came to her side, pressed a kiss into her hair. “Look at the two of you,” the old Fae said, his other hand joining the first over his heart. “But I mustn’t keep you. Holt tells me you have somewhere to be.”

“We do?” Zylah asked, looking up at Holt. “Are we bringing Kopi?”

“He’ll be fine here with Jilah.”

“Got some fresh worms in this afternoon, he’ll be too fat to fly by the time you’re back,” Jilah called out from wherever he’d wandered off to. “Come back soon, I’ll show you where I’m going to plant the new marantas.”

Holt’s hand wrapped around Zylah’s, the feel of the aether pressing against her skin as they passed through it. There was no need to evanesce in turns now, no one to hide from. Zylah still clutched the flowers Jilah had given her, turning to take in their surroundings. Thick trees, mostly, as far as Zylah could see in the conventional sense, but her threads were already reaching beyond the boughs that circled them, beyond fallen tree stumps, over rock and moss and dirt.

“Since today was about bargains,” Holt began, a flurry of sprites darting out from amongst the trees, some with soft, fuzzy bodies, others like tiny stars, nothing but miniature balls of light. “I promised to help you find your family.”

Zylah stilled. “Live, and I’ll help you find your real family,” he’d said to her, the day he’d found her running from the bounty hunter. No matter that she could pull apart any bargain now. No matter that her parents were gone. He’d kept his promise, anyway. They’re here? she asked him through their bond, because she didn’t think she could speak.

Holt took her hand and led her amongst the trees. “I had Sira’s help.”

But it had still been his idea, that much Zylah knew without having to ask. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she wiped them away with the back of her hand, still clutching the daylilies Jilah had given her.

Moss covered a circle of stones, some taller than Holt, and at the centre were a pair of weatherworn statues in the likeness of two Fae, hands joined, warm smiles on their faces as they gazed at each other.

Zylah’s hand slipped from Holt’s. Her parents. She held her breath as she moved around the statues, greedily taking in the details in the stone: the set of her father’s jaw, the shape of her mother’s mouth. But then it occurred to her— “Is this their true likeness?”

“Sira had a host bury them here, gave a stonemason their descriptions. She told me it’s very close.”

A host. Zylah still understood very little of what that entailed, whether it would have been to Sira as if she could feel each stab of the shovel into the dirt. Beneath the rock, her threads sank below the earth until they reached the ageing bones of Anwen and Gideon, curled together in an embrace.

Sira had told her how her parents had gone into hiding after trapping Pallia, how they remained hidden as long as they could, forever fearful of Pallia’s watchful gaze, of her power even from her tomb. How they’d waited to start a family for as long as they could, using the vanquicite when Zylah’s birth had coincided with the uprising, only for Pallia to use a host and murder them when they were trying to protect the child they’d coveted for so long.

She knelt before her parents, the statues casting her in shadow, sprites dancing around the stone. “Thank you,” she whispered, placing a few daylilies at the feet of each of her parents. “For everything. For keeping me safe. For everything you gave up.” She wished she could have known them. Could have asked them how they met, about their friendship with Holt’s mother. Wished she could have introduced them to the human father who’d raised her, to Zack.

Fabric wrapped around her shoulders, and Zylah realised Holt must have summoned her cloak when she’d begun to shiver. She sat there until her legs ached. Until she was too tired to move, nothing but the rustle of trees and the sprites breaking the stillness, exhaustion weighing heavily in her bones.

Holt swept her up in his arms at the thought. Ready? he asked her gently. We can come back whenever you want.

Wait.

He stepped closer to the stones, close enough for her to reach out a hand and touch them. Zylah let a kernel of her power pour into the statues of her parents, her threads following the path of it through the stone, through the moss and dirt and worms until it reached their bones. A little piece of her to remain with a little piece of them.

She rested her head against Holt’s chest, her attention fixed on the faded likeness of her parents. I’m ready.

Holt evanesced them back to Virian, but not before he quietly thanked her parents, too.