With Pyra’s separation from the empire at the start of the Blood War, Prosperity has been lost to the pilgrims and travelers who had been visiting it for decades. Rumor has it that the outpost did come into use again during Avalkyra Ashfire’s rebellion—not by Riders, but by smugglers instead.
—“Pyraean Art and Architecture,” from Sights Along the Pilgrimage Road by the Ministry of Tourism in Pyra, published 56 AE, updated 172 AE
My sister taught me there is more than one
kind of fire. There is the fire that consumes,
and there is the fire that illuminates.
- CHAPTER 11 - ELLIOT
TO ELLIOT’S ANNOYANCE, SPARROW returned every evening after their first meeting, as if it were the most normal thing in the world for a young girl to walk around an empty field alone at night.
Well, not alone. Elliot was there, though he did his best to ignore her. And of course she always had about a dozen animals with her too.
Most of the time she’d wander the grassy plain aimlessly, throwing sticks for dogs to chase or laying out handfuls of seed for flocks of birds to peck at. She even brought treats for Jax sometimes, though she made no direct mention of it. Instead Jax would pause abruptly in his exercise to fly over to her, ferreting his beak around in the grass or poking it into her palms, Sparrow giggling in delight.
Elliot hated the sound, the way she snorted and squealed like a pig, but he couldn’t deny the way Jaxon’s pleasure lightened his own heavy heart. Really, Elliot suspected Sparrow knew exactly what she was doing, getting to him through his bondmate.
It was a low, dirty trick.
Or maybe it was just kindness. Elliot had trouble telling the difference sometimes. The day Beryk turned up at his father’s house, Elliot had thought all his wildest dreams were coming true. He’d even convinced Riella, who loved animals but hated fighting, how much fun it would be to go together. Little did he know he was playing right into the empire’s hands. Little did he know how that kindness would turn to ashes in his mouth.
The strange thing was that no matter how late Elliot stayed with Jax, Sparrow stayed later. He had a sneaking suspicion she was sleeping out there, lying flat on the grass, hemmed in on all sides by whatever animals she’d brought with her—and some, Elliot was certain, who had wandered to her out of the wilds, drawn like a moth to a flame. Literally—he’d seen moths circling her head, avoiding hungry beaks but never veering far.
Despite his best efforts, Elliot had been thinking a lot about what Sparrow had said to him that first night. Show them you still care.
Elliot knew much of what Sparrow had said was born from naive innocence, but her last few words had really struck home. Ever since his lies had been revealed, Elliot had withdrawn from the others. He answered questions, spoke when spoken to, but otherwise kept to himself. He’d thought he was doing them all a favor—they hated him, but he was a bonded Rider. They needed him but couldn’t really use him. Elliot knew that they had no idea what to do with him, so he’d stayed out of their way. But what if his detached, automatic obedience was actually working against him? Was there a chance they all looked at him, with his emotionless expression and bowed head, and saw not a person cowed and paying for his crimes, but someone who had given up?
The idea troubled him to no end. If it were up to Elliot, he’d be in on every Rider Council meeting. He’d be helping them find Riella, devising plans and strategies and working double—triple—patrol shifts. He knew he couldn’t, but were there other ways? Could he somehow show them all that he was not just sorry, but that he had so much more to give?
Beryk had convinced the commander that Elliot could be of use as his assistant, though he helped with only the most basic of tasks, not trusted with anything to do with money or sending letters or even the schedules of the other Riders. Elliot had been doing his duties exactly how Beryk told him to do them—no more, no less. He was afraid that if he stepped a toe out of line, if he did anything he wasn’t specifically instructed to do, he’d be punished.
Elliot tried to imagine an assistant like that—one that had to be told how and when to do everything. Someone who could, but wouldn’t, anticipate tasks, get ahead of schedule, or add helpful input or suggestions. His heart sank. He suspected he was more hindrance than help to Beryk, who had been so good to him even after the truth of his betrayal was revealed. Elliot realized with painful certainty that Beryk had the impression that he no longer cared.
Elliot had to change that.
It was a week after he’d first spoken to Sparrow that Elliot saw his chance.
They were still two days away from his monthly meeting with Beryk, in which they tallied supplies and checked them against the previous year’s numbers, adjusting their amounts as necessary before reordering.
It was something Elliot used to do alone but had now become one of a dozen other things Beryk was forced to take on in the face of Elliot’s betrayal. Elliot hated that Beryk, the person who’d fought for his right to stay here, was the one being punished most of all. They’d never become close, not when Elliot was keeping his guard up and so much about himself a secret, but Beryk was a good, honest man, and he deserved better.
While Elliot was no longer allowed to see the books—they held much of the Eyrie’s financial accounts—he could easily tally their existing supplies on his own. It was the most time-consuming of their tasks, and something he was quite certain they wouldn’t mind him doing. The only danger with Elliot being alone in the cellar was that he might slip out the underground tunnels and escape, but ever since the attack from the empire, the exterior gate had been locked, and only Commander Cassian had the key. And it wasn’t as if he were counting coins or jewels. Elliot would be counting sacks of grain, jars of preserves, and barrels of wine. He certainly couldn’t steal them—how on earth would he sneak around with a fifty-pound sack of grain?—and though the temptation to drink himself into oblivion alone in the cellars wasn’t nonexistent, he’d wake up to far more trouble than it was worth.
And so after his other duties were done the day before his official count with Beryk, Elliot crept down into the storage room and counted through the night.
The next morning he handed a harassed and exhausted-looking Beryk the list of sums, and the man frowned at it for several long, bewildered seconds. Then, for first time in weeks, he smiled—a grateful, slightly baffled smile, one that told Elliot that he’d made things easier for Beryk. That he’d made a difference.
It was then that Elliot realized what he had to do. He couldn’t undo what he’d done or fix much of what he’d broken, but he could be useful. He could try.
He could show them he still cared.
Thanks to Elliot’s eagerness to help Beryk, they finished the reorders with time to spare, and Elliot’s high spirits made him less inclined to wait for the cover of darkness. He felt he’d earned the time with his bondmate, and Jax deserved to fly again in the sun.
Elliot was elated, as light as a phoenix feather as he strolled the village streets and left through the gate, running his hands through the lush, waist-high grasses. He was startled, but not altogether surprised, to see Sparrow leave the village not long after him.