He looked up at her, his face leached of color. He blinked, as if trying to understand her words. The birth certificate named Pheronia Ashfire as her mother, and Veronyka watched as Tristan slowly made the connection. “Your aunt…”
“Yes, my aunt. Avalkyra Ashfire.”
“But—Val, she’s way too young….”
“She was resurrected after the Last Battle. I know it—I’ve seen it,” she hissed, pointing at her temple. “At least shadow magic is good for something.”
“Veronyka,” Tristan said, regret in his tone.
But Veronyka didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want kind words or a hundred questions. “So don’t talk to me about secrets,” she choked out, her throat so tight it hurt.
She turned away from him, stifling a sob as she wrenched open the door.
Xephyra, Veronyka said through the bond, but her phoenix was already waiting outside the door, Rex beside her.
Without another word or backward glance, Veronyka leapt onto Xephyra’s back and they soared into the sky.
Day 9, Sixth Moon, 168 AE
Dear Lexi,
I was happy to receive your last letter…. I know you are eager to prove yourself, but there is little glory to be found in war. If you’d ever actually fought in one, you’d understand. Maybe someday, impyr.
I’ve been lucky; I’m not on the front lines of the uprising. Instead I’m in service to Princess Pheronia as her personal bodyguard. She is fiercer than I expected, though I shouldn’t be surprised, her being an Ashfire and all. She’s not like the others—not like her sister. They say Ashfires are like phoenixes: Get too close, and you’re likely to be burned.
But Pheronia’s fire is warm and her heart is good. You’d like her.
Practice hard, Lex—especially with your spear, which needs work. You never know when you might have to do the real thing.
—Theryn
Always I had been in her shadow, until the day
she left for good and took the light with her.
There were no suns left in my sky.
- CHAPTER 18 - VERONYKA
XEPHYRA WASN’T SADDLED, SO Veronyka clung to her feathers and buried her face into the warmth of her phoenix’s neck. Xephyra nudged her mind just in time for Veronyka to wave to the perimeter guard. Then they were beyond sight of the Eyrie, flying through the endless starry sky.
Before Veronyka realized it, Xephyra landed at their favorite spot, a narrow slab of stone just outside the entrance to Soth’s Fury. It offered a wide vista of the mountainside, with soaring peaks and cascading valleys all around them. They weren’t far from the Eyrie, but being here gave the illusion of solitude.
Even though they’d landed, Veronyka couldn’t seem to make herself dismount. She just lay there, gripping Xephyra’s feathers in a way that was probably uncomfortable for her bondmate, but she made no complaint.
Okay? Xephyra asked again, and though the word was simple, Veronyka felt the complex emotions attached to it. Xephyra knew that Veronyka hadn’t been okay all day—or the previous night. Xephyra didn’t fully understand what the birth certificate meant because Veronyka hadn’t explained it to her, but she could tell something was very wrong.
“M’okay,” Veronyka murmured into her feathers, but they both knew it was a lie. Still, Xephyra’s desperate concern for her was enough to make Veronyka slide from her back onto the cold stone ground. There she sat, knees pressed to her chest, while Xephyra tucked in behind her, a warm wall with a beating heart that Veronyka could lean against no matter what.
No matter what, Xephyra parroted, but Veronyka knew she meant it.
And suddenly, sitting there under the endless expanse of velvet night and jeweled stars, Xephyra at her back, Veronyka’s heart felt a little bit lighter. The loneliness that had engulfed her at Tristan’s reaction eased somewhat. She was never alone, thanks to Xephyra.
Her bondmate practically purred with pride, and Veronyka laughed—until distant wingbeats drew her attention.
Veronyka squinted, quickly mirroring to borrow Xephyra’s superior vision, and straightened at the sight of Rex approaching with a figure on his back.
Xephyra didn’t seem surprised at all, and when Veronyka blinked away their connection and stared up at her, she sensed a distinctly guilty conscience.
“You told him?” Veronyka demanded, meaning Rex. How else could they have found her and Xephyra so easily?
Xephyra tossed a wing in an attempt at innocence, but the human gesture didn’t quite work on her, and she wound up looking twitchy.
“Traitor,” Veronyka muttered, and Xephyra nudged her in a cajoling sort of way.
I know, Veronyka said, nudging back. She needed to face him sooner or later.
Tristan dismounted several feet away. He looked a bit stiff from his day in bed, but he’d at least had the forethought to saddle his mount.
“You shouldn’t be flying,” Veronyka said as soon as he approached. “If the commander knew—”
“What the commander doesn’t know won’t kill him,” he said shortly, putting aside his reins.
“Still,” she pressed stubbornly. “You could have fallen.”
Rex snorted indignantly, as if offended that Veronyka would suggest he’d drop his bondmate twice in the same day.
Sorry, Rex, she said with animal magic. Though phoenix minds were generally closed and well guarded, Rex had opened himself to her many times before—not to mention whatever closeness now bound them thanks to her link to Tristan—and he heard her words. He huffed and relaxed his stance, and when Xephyra fluttered over to him, Tristan edged toward Veronyka.
He was smiling as he glanced back at his bondmate, but when he turned to Veronyka, his expression faltered.
He settled warily onto the ground next to her.
Veronyka held her breath. She wanted to run, to hide, to pretend the last few hours had never happened.
“I…,” Tristan began. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then why are you here?” she said, surprised at the hardness in her words. She leapt to her feet, not wanting him to see the pain in her face. He scrambled after her, and a hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. She prepared to wrench herself free, reminded for a terrible moment of Val, of the way she’d pinch and squeeze and grip Veronyka until she bent to Val’s will, like hot metal under a metalsmith’s hammer.
Instead she shoved him, and he released her.
“Veronyka, please,” he said. He didn’t move to block or touch her again. He just waited, hand still outstretched.
Veronyka expelled a breath through her nostrils and looked at him. There were tears sparkling in his eyes, his expression anguished. His fingers twitched and trembled, as if he wanted to touch her again. Instead he stepped toward her, asking, hopeful, but fearful of rebuke.
Veronyka’s own vision swam. She squeezed her eyes shut and stopped resisting. She fell into his arms, where he held her gently for a heartbeat before sighing and squeezing her tight. She thought of Val again. For all her dragging and pulling and demanding, all the ways their bodies had come into contact—and conflict—with each other over the years, Val had never given herself to Veronyka like this. Never offered herself at all. With Val, everything was take, take, take.