The high-stress situation was causing a rush of worries and fears to flood the surface of his mind. There was a shadow where the commander stood—watching, judging. Everything was a test in his father’s eyes, and this was no exception. But she sensed that part of his anxiety had to do with her. . . . He didn’t know Xephyra was her bondmate, but he’d known how much she hated the breeding cages. If it was challenging to understand a phoenix’s mind, trying to untangle a person’s felt near impossible. Tristan’s thoughts were like guttering candles, bursting to life only to flicker out a second later, one after another, impossible to string together or follow along.
Veronyka tried to disengage herself, to separate his feelings from hers, to regain her balance. It was like being underwater, drowning in him. . . .
Then there was a spark, a ripple of sunshine in the corner of his mind—not a guttering candle but a blazing torch.
It was her.
Veronyka focused on that light, extending herself toward it—only she reached too far. She lost the tether to her own mind—the solid ground upon which she always stood. She felt weightless, disembodied, and another wave of dizziness washed over her.
She was wrenched from her place of safety. Veronyka’s vision doubled, then split, and she was looking at the scene before her through Tristan’s eyes. There she was, a small figure in the darkness of the gallery, crouched near a pillar.
The sight of herself sent a jarring spasm of alarm through her.
Somehow, rather than just sensing Tristan’s mind, she’d slipped into it—mirroring, it was called. It was something Riders did with their phoenixes, and it allowed them to make use of their mount’s incredible vision and to essentially be two places at once if they happened to be apart. It was the skill Tristan and the other apprentices were practicing during the obstacle course, and apparently a gift that took many years for fully qualified Riders to master perfectly.
And Veronyka was mirroring with a person. With Tristan. Could he feel her there? Could he hear her thoughts at this very moment?
She reeled, blackness closing in. Tristan’s mind swirled around her in a whirlpool, swift and rushing and fathoms deep.
Distantly she heard a shrill squawk—it came from Xephyra—but before Veronyka could reach for her bondmate, the current pulled her under.
But I never had the chance. I made my decision; I chose my path, and there was no going back.
- CHAPTER 34 -
VERONYKA
VERONYKA AWOKE WITH A start. She’d been dreaming of fire and ash, and she couldn’t figure out what had jolted her awake.
Then it came again: a horn blast, shortly followed by another.
She scrunched up her face, trying to understand what it meant, when the events in the Eyrie came rushing back to her, and she lurched into a sitting position.
Veronyka wasn’t in the servant barracks, but rather, was laid out on a pallet in a darkened chamber. She looked around the scant, empty room, seeing a basin of water, a satchel against the far wall—and her sister watching her from the shadows.
Veronyka’s heartbeat hitched, picking up a painful, jagged rhythm. How long had Val been standing there?
“You’re awake,” she said, coming to kneel next to the pallet. Seeing Veronyka’s suspicious look, Val rolled her eyes. “Oh, relax, Nyka, I haven’t stolen you away. You collapsed.”
Veronyka flashed back to the last thing she could remember—the sensation of losing herself in shadow magic as she fell deeper and deeper into her connection with Tristan. She shuddered.
Val’s gaze roved her face, and inside, her magic nudged against Veronyka’s mental barriers. Veronyka had the feeling Val knew—or at least suspected—how she’d managed to lose consciousness, but she made no comment.
“What happened? How did I get here?”
“They wanted the healer to have a look at you,” Val began, and Veronyka’s stomach clenched at the thought of them poking and prodding her unconscious body and discovering her secret. “But,” Val continued, smirking at Veronyka’s look of horror, “I told them there was no need. I said you sometimes collapse when you’re overtired. I offered my room so you could have some peace and quiet. Don’t fret. They haven’t figured you out yet, and they suspect nothing of your magic or your bond. You’re welcome.”
Veronyka scowled. She’d rather swallow soaptree leaves than give Val such an undeserved thank-you. “You were following me,” she said instead, her tone accusatory. How else could Val have gotten in the middle of things if she hadn’t been lurking somewhere nearby?
Val’s expression flickered slightly, the tiniest chink her in self-assured armor. “I went looking for you,” she corrected. “And figured you’d be with your bondmate. I arrived just in time to see you hit the ground.”
Veronyka felt like there was more to the story than that. Had Val been in the Eyrie for other reasons?
“Your phoenix was so worked up, they decided to abandon the exercise after you were carried away. Your mistake has earned you a victory, if only a temporary one.”
Veronyka’s mouth twisted. Her mistake. Without another word, she reached across the floor for her boots.
Val watched her every movement. “Do you have any idea what you did down there?” she blurted, and Veronyka was shocked to hear her voice shake slightly.
“No, I don’t. How could I, Val?” Veronyka demanded, getting to her feet. “You never taught me anything about shadow magic, did you? Nothing worth knowing, anyway. You wanted me to be unskilled and untrained so you could use it against me however you liked.”
“I was saving you from yourself!” Val snarled, standing as well. “Your control has always been wild and erratic. You think I didn’t see you in the courtyard the night your bondmate returned, commanding dozens of people by accident?”
Veronyka’s stomach dropped. Though she’d noticed Val’s attention at the time, she’d secretly hoped her sister didn’t fully understand what she’d done. But of course she had. Veronyka had completely lost control of herself and her magic, and somehow she’d managed to force her will on a whole crowd of unsuspecting people.
“So yes, Veronyka, I’ve withheld information from you. To protect you. I was trying to stop you from doing something even more reckless, something like what you did last night,” she said, gesturing vaguely in the direction Veronyka assumed was the Eyrie.
“And what exactly was that, Val?” Veronyka asked. Her feelings of guilt ebbed away in the face of Val’s arrogance and superiority. Veronyka failed to see how what had happened with Tristan—one person—was any worse than what had happened in the courtyard. “What is it you think I’ve done?”
Val hesitated, and before she even opened her mouth, Veronyka knew she wasn’t getting the whole truth. “You almost gave yourself away. You were neck-deep inside that apprentice’s mind, and if your own body hadn’t dragged you out, you might have drowned in him.”
The thought sent a shiver down Veronyka’s back. Could a shadowmage actually delve so deep into another’s mind that they lost track of their own?
She considered her sister’s words. Whenever Val disliked someone, she refused to use their proper name. Xephyra became “your phoenix” or “your bondmate,” and Tristan became “that apprentice.” Even their grandmother was often treated with scorn and called “old woman.” Veronyka had always assumed Val’s hostility toward the people in Veronyka’s life came from a false sense of superiority, but what if it was something else? What if it was fear? Not of danger or darkness or any of the usual things that scared people, but fear of being replaced?