A Legacy of Storms and Starlight (A Legacy of Storms and Starlight, #1)

by Victoria J. Price

“I think we need to establish some ground rules,” Zylah said, eyeing the canna cake as her stomach unceremoniously broke the silence and hoping her face wasn’t as red as it felt. Holt threw her a cake, and Zylah shoved her clothes under her arm just in time to catch it. “Fine. Rule number one, no more touching Zylah’s undergarments,” Holt said, biting into a cake to hide his smirk.

“Rule number two,” Holt continued, wiping his hands together. “No elbowing each other in the face.” His eyes moved to her hand, already tight around the hilt. “No hurting each other at all.” His mouth twitched, and she wondered if he ever actually truly smiled.

“And you won’t tell me what you did?” Holt asked, meeting her eyes. “I stabbed someone for asking too many questions,” Zylah said, holding his gaze over the edge of her cup as she took a sip of her tea. That elicited a smile, a real one. Ethereal beauty, Kara’s books had said. They were right.

An expression she couldn’t name danced across his face for a moment, and he tugged gently at her braid. “You’ll be too cold like this, and we need to cover your hair.” He waved a hand and a cloak wrapped around her shoulders.

“You wound me. I do bathe, you know.” “Do you?” “Of course. What do you think I was doing at the springs when I found you?” That smirk was back, and a dangerous glint sparkled in Holt’s eyes.

There was something so familiar about walking beside him. As if they’d done it before.

“You walk like someone who’s had a lot of practice being invisible,” Holt said quietly at her side. She glared up at him. If she stabbed him here in the street, no one would notice, would they? “You’re just full of compliments today, aren’t you?”

Beside him on the dresser was a bottle of erti root and a pair of eyeglasses, and a note scribbled onto a piece of parchment in beautiful, slanted writing. You talk in your sleep, was all the note said.

“I’m sorry it’s late, I knocked earlier, but there was no answer,” an old woman said. “My wife is a deep sleeper,” she heard Holt say. Wife! In Pallia’s name…

She suddenly found herself fascinated with her breakfast, unwilling to meet the intensity of his gaze. If he was going to ask what happened to get her into all this, she still wasn’t ready to tell him. He reached into his pocket and placed a small vial on the table. “Naptha oil. To remove the dye from your hands.” He leant across the table and brushed a feather-light thumb across her temple. “And from here,” he said, with a smirk.

“What’s Kopi got planned for the day?” Holt called out from the next room. Zylah smiled as she dabbed oil at the dark stain on her face. “Napping.” “Tsk. Lazy. Some of us have to work, you know, Kopi,” Holt said quietly.

“Do I get to know your full name?” he asked over his shoulder. “Do I get to know yours, husband?” she muttered. “Point taken.”

The banter came easy. It smoothed over the cracks, helped her shove down her feelings. Her fear. Everything with Holt had an ease to it she’d rarely experienced. And for a moment, she could almost pretend she hadn’t just left her life behind.

“Arnir’s men are being slaughtered. Every single one he sends out for the girl, they all end up dead,” one said quietly to the other.

Holt rested against the door frame, watching her in the mirror, hands sliding into his pockets. “Do you repay all your friends in coin?” “I… I only had one friend.” The fire fell away from her words when she thought of Kara’s dainty face. “Well now you have two,” Holt said, holding out the money for her.

“What about your life? Surely you don’t intend to keep this up forever. Soon enough Arran will realise we’re not married.” She straightened her bedsheets, trying to hide her frustration. “Has it ever occurred to you that I like the company? That I like seeing that little pile of feathers on the dresser when I come back at the end of the day, or hearing you clatter around in the bathroom, or knowing someone else is here when I wake in the middle of the night, is—” he took a step closer. “I do not clatter,” she said, heat flushing her cheeks. He put the money back on the dresser, slid his hands back in his pockets again. “You do clatter. And you get water everywhere.”

Holt was beside her at once, an expression she’d never seen painted across his face. He was on his knees beside the tub, knuckles white as his hands gripped the edge, the metal groaning beneath his touch. His eyes searched her face as her fingers tightened around her dagger. “They didn’t hurt me,” she said quietly. “This tells me otherwise,” he said, his eyes darkening as he raised a hand to the gash above her eye.

She woke once in the night. A dream, or a memory, startled her awake. She was warm. One leg wrapped over one of Holt’s, her head on his chest. His arm wrapped tight around her. Gods above. She’d missed touch a whole lot more than she’d realised. She breathed in his scent and listened to his heartbeat until the memory of the assailant faded. She played over his words from a few hours before. I’ve lost a lot of friends over the years. I’m not ready to lose another. Neither was she.

“What if he comes back, Holt? What if he was one of Arnir’s men?” Zylah asked, resting her eyeglasses on a lip of brick and looking up at him once more. She could find somewhere else to stay, now that she had a job. But she didn’t want to. “He won’t. He was dealt with. No one will disturb you here again.” He watched her the way he always did, as though a caged animal sat just beneath his skin.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as Zylah pulled a face. “There’s no canna—” A brown paper bag appeared in Holt’s hand. Zylah sniffed at the air. “Did you just steal that?” “Zylah, how little you think of me still. I always pay. The baker will find the correct amount in his till.” He held a hand over his heart in mock offence and winked. Ass.

“I’ll withhold that information for a future lesson, I think.” His fingers brushed against her wrist for a moment, and then he straightened the sword in its stand. “Why?” Zylah asked, taking a step back to put space between them. He clearly had no sense of boundaries. “Because I like the way your eyes light up when you think you’ve finally figured everything out,” he said with polished charm, tugging at the end of her braid. He’d closed the distance between them again, his gaze playful as he looked down at her. She gave a firm shove against his chest, and he didn’t budge an inch. “You’re kind of insufferable, you know that?” “Most women find it charming.” A corner of his mouth twitched as he said it, his blue eyes bright and playful.

“That’s three times you’ve stared at my mouth today,” he said with a smirk. “Asshole.” Zylah reached up on her toes, hands curling into his hair and pressed her mouth to his. She’d made her decision. And it was her choice, this kiss. Not his. But Raif didn’t hesitate; he pulled her to him, the hard muscle of his body pressed against hers as he kissed her back. His hand wrapped around the back of her neck, eliciting a gasp from Zylah as his tongue swept in and their kiss quickened. Somehow, she’d backed up against the wall, not an inch of space between her body and Raif’s. Gods above.

“You’re learning from the best, Liss,” Raif said when she didn’t reply. “Holt’s a force to be reckoned with.”

The door to the kitchen swung open, and Raif strode in laughing beside—Holt. Seven gods. Of course he was part of the uprising. And for the first time, she saw what he truly looked like. His pointed ears, the brightness of his eyes, his preternatural movements even more fluid than before. He was more than a god. It was as if he was from another world, raw power rolling from him like it had the first time they’d met.

They made their way through the crowd towards her, and although Zylah was vaguely aware of Raif’s gaze on her, it was Holt she watched. The way he shook hands, the way he greeted everyone by name, the way the crowd parted for him. As if they stepped back in sheer reverence of that power.

A hooded figure, just like the one that had broken into her room, and the two that had attacked her and Raif, jumped down into the passage before her—just as Kopi let out a cry in warning. Zylah skidded to a stop. She didn’t have a chance to draw in a breath before Holt appeared and swung a right hook so hard the assailant staggered back into a flaking wall.

“We never did finish what we started in the forest the other day,” he said as if he’d read her thoughts. Zylah spun around to face him, tilting her head up to meet his eyes. The part of her that was Fae had always allowed her to see better in the dark than others, although she’d never known it was that before. “I’ve been busy.” Raif shrugged as if they weren’t in the middle of their crazy pursuit. “That’s fair enough. I like to take my time with these things.” “Oh, so now you’re patient?” His grin was feral. “No. Not patient. But time spent waiting for you is a very different matter to how I intend to spend my time with you.”

“Do you have any regard for your own life?” she asked, hoping the uneasiness in her voice wouldn’t show. He eased himself to his elbows and held her gaze. “No.”

She cleared her throat. Looked up at Kopi, comfortably nestled on his dresser, anything to avoid the intensity of Holt’s gaze. “Do you want me to get you something? Help you onto the bed?” She made to move away, but Holt grabbed her hand. “Just stay. Just sit with me for a while.”

And Zylah saw it then, in the tightness of his jaw and his empty stare. How he felt just as responsible as she did for Mala’s death. “It isn’t your fault she’s dead,” Zylah whispered. His eyes slid to hers. “It isn’t yours either.”

her words about missed chances and a love that got away chasing them to the other side of the bridge.

She caught Raif watching her as she turned back to face him. “What?” she asked quietly. “I was just thinking something insufferable,” he said with a smile, eyes roving over her as he took her in.

He’d saved her life twice, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. Because he was good and kind. And he was her only godsdamned friend in this new life of hers, and she wasn’t going to let anything happen to him.

Zylah brought them to their room at the tavern, pressing a hand over his heart. “Rule number seven,” she said as tears pressed at the corners of her eyes. “No dying on each other.” Holt’s smile was weak, but it was there.

“Stay still.” She hoped the tremble in her voice didn’t show. “Yes, boss,” Holt said weakly, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“Zylah?” “Yeah?” “I like rule number seven.” No dying on each other. Zylah sighed. “Me too, Holt. Me too.”

“I can distract you again, if you’d like.” Raif brushed his lips over hers. “I can be whatever you need.” Gods above. She wanted to. But those memories of Jesper were lingering behind her eyes. “And if I just want to sleep?” she asked quietly, her gaze fixed on his mouth. “I make an excellent pillow.”

“Liss?” Raif whispered a short while later when the haziness of sleep was already pulling her under. “Mhmm?” “Holt isn’t your only friend in Virian.” He couldn’t have known what it meant, to let her know she wasn’t alone in the world. But Zylah couldn’t bring herself to admit that to him. Not yet. That ache, that longing for home, eased a little as she settled into Raif’s arms and let sleep take her.

But something was different about the room. The hairs on her arms raised, her senses on alert. A familiar scent lingered in the air: acani berries mixed with a musky, earthy smell. Holt. But he wasn’t there. Zylah looked at the table by the window, where a brown paper bag sat. She didn’t have to open it to know it was a canna cake inside. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she made her way into the bathroom to freshen up. Some of the heaviness she’d felt in the last few weeks dissipated knowing he was safe; a weight she hadn’t even realised she’d been carrying.

“Who you take to your bed is no concern of mine.” The words were cold, emotionless.

Holt lifted the lid as she spoke. Inside sat coils of black braided leather with a bell, just a small silver sphere nestled amongst the braids. She didn’t expect he’d wear it, but he took it right out of the box and wrapped it around his wrist. Zylah’s fingers twitched with the urge to fasten it for him, but she watched as he did it himself, positioning it exactly how he wanted, the bell at the centre of his wrist when his palm faced up.

Zylah carefully unrolled the fabric, revealing the polished metal beneath. She looked up at Holt, barely able to contain the smile that stretched across her face, and he smiled back. It was a short sword; vines and leaves carved into the blade and continuing around the gilded hilt, set with a single violet stone in the centre. Her very own sword. Zylah could barely contain her excitement.

She threw one arm around him and gave him a hug, his comforting scent washing over her as she willed herself not to cry. “Thank you,” she whispered. Holt hesitated for a moment before unfolding his arms to hug her back, and it felt like another goodbye as he leaned his head against hers. Everything she had now was because of him. Everything.

“It was Zack who first taught me about the gods. How they were born of storms and starlight.

“It isn’t right, you know,” Rose said quietly beside her. “To be with one of them when you want the other.”

“Your work has not gone unnoticed. Don’t underestimate how much your actions have contributed to mending what’s broken.”

“May I?” Holt was behind her, waving a hand at her hair. “You know how to do it?” Holt nodded once. Perhaps he was worried about Arnir’s arrival; she knew she was. Zylah’s brow pinched. “Go ahead.” He separated her hair and braided it slowly with sure, steady movements, his fingers incredibly nimble for someone so big. Kara used to braid her hair. But this… this felt different. She could feel the heat from him, the avenberry liquor and venti lilies from the night before long faded, leaving only his familiar scent. He was careful not to brush his fingers against her neck as he gathered more hair, but each movement was considered… gentle.

She wiped at her tears, just as an owl call broke the silence. Kopi. “I’m here,” Zylah rasped through her tears, her voice broken and scratched. “I’m here.” She stumbled, pushing herself up again as she ran between the trees, every bone in her body begging her to stop, to lie down, until a voice cut through the quiet. “Zylah!” It was Holt, and all Zylah could do was let out a pathetic whimper in response.

When she glanced up again, Holt was right in front of her. “Zylah,” he breathed, as she fell into his arms. “What have they done to you?” Zylah couldn’t speak. All she could do was lean into Holt, breathing in his reassuring scent and willing herself not to fall apart. She felt his hands pass over her back; he was trying to heal her. “Cuffs,” she murmured. Holt held her closer. “How long?” he asked, his breath hot in her hair. “Three days.” “Shit.” He lifted her just as she was, wrapping her legs around his waist so her front pressed against his, careful not to touch her back.

“How did this happen?” She knew he meant her back. “One of the bounty hunters. I killed him.” “Good.” “How did you find me?” she asked quietly. His grip tensed for a moment. “Kopi.”