Wings of Shadow

by Nicki Pau Preto

  “There’s Kade,” she announced happily, her voice moving as she straightened.

  “Is he the one you’re spending your time with when me and Sparrow are flying?” Elliot asked shrewdly. Suspiciously.

  “So what if he is?” Riella retorted, as footsteps approached.

  Kade greeted them while Sparrow turned to Jax. Excitement tightened her stomach as she rested her hands on the phoenix’s flank. She was familiar with the process now, and lifted her bare foot for the stirrup—then froze. She cocked her head, listening hard. The animals all around had stilled, their senses piqued, and Fine Fellow—or Fife, as she’d taken to calling him—croaked.

  “What’s wrong?” Elliot asked, but before he could say more, a desperate, ragged shriek tore through the night.

  A phoenix descended out of the dark sky, bringing with it enough roiling heat and frantic fear to knock Sparrow off her feet. Instead she stumbled into Jax, who squawked and curled himself protectively around her and the others.

  This wasn’t just any phoenix. Sparrow recognized her dark mind and ancient aura at once.

  This was Ignix.

  She is coming, the phoenix boomed into Sparrow’s mind. The way Elliot and Riella gasped, Sparrow guessed she had spoken into their minds too.

  “Who’s coming?” Sparrow asked, attempting to extricate herself from Jax’s bristling feathers while Fife dug his claws into her shoulder. “It’s okay,” she added to Jax, who didn’t yet understand that Ignix wasn’t a threat. “She’s a friend.”

  “This is your friend?” Elliot asked. Jax remained on high alert, continuing to use his body as a barrier. “The solitary phoenix you’ve been waiting for every night?”

  There is no time for this, Ignix snapped. Young one, move aside.

  Sparrow felt Jax quail, his entire body shaking with tension, but he didn’t back down.

  I could force you, Ignix added softly, and the words sent a tremor of unease through Sparrow.

  “It’s okay, Jax,” she said soothingly. “This is Ignix. She’s a friend, and she won’t hurt us. Elliot, tell him.”

  “Ignix…,” Elliot said faintly, incredulity in his voice. He shifted and murmured something; then Jax stood aside.

  “What’s happened?” Sparrow asked, slipping out from Jax’s protection and reaching a hand for Ignix.

  “Sparrow, be careful!” Elliot hissed, but Sparrow knew she was safe. Ignix was emitting powerful heat waves, stomping and rustling her feathers in obvious agitation, but that anger wasn’t for them.

  She is coming, she said again.

  “Who is coming?” Sparrow pressed.

  Avalkyra Ashfire. And she does not come alone.

  “Are we under attack?” Elliot demanded.

  You will be. Where is the other? Where is Veronyka?

  “She’s… she’s not here,” Kade said somewhat breathlessly. “She left with her patrol a couple of days ago. She’s in Rushlea.”

  Then it is worse than I feared. I tried to stop her, to buy time… There was another gust of warmth, as if Ignix were tossing her head, and a hand—Elliot’s?—closed protectively around Sparrow’s arm, pulling her backward. You are too outnumbered. The hatchlings, the young ones… we must get them to safety.

  “Why is she coming?” Sparrow asked, as Kade cursed and Riella muttered something to the animals that were scattered all around. “What does she want?”

  Everything, I think, Ignix answered bleakly, her impatient movements finally going still. But me most of all. I should not have come here. I thought I had more time.…

  “But how is she coming?” Sparrow asked. “Does she have a bondmate?”

  She has many.

  Many bondmates? Before Sparrow could ask, something prickled at the edges of her awareness. She extended her magic, but it was her ears that caught it first.

  Rustling. Distant, but growing louder with every moment. It was the kind of sound that made a chill slip down her spine.

  Whatever was coming, they were winged… but they were not phoenixes.

  “The alarm,” Elliot said, releasing Sparrow and turning away. “The beacon.”

  “I will go,” Kade said, his fading footsteps echoing in the silence.

  “Get onto Jax,” Elliot said.

  Sparrow didn’t know who he meant until Riella spoke.

  “Wait, Elly, what about Sparrow?”

  Second choice. Sparrow had known where she stood, but Riella’s question hit her like a blow to her chest all the same. Elliot had forgotten her.

  “Can’t you take her?” he asked, and it took a second to realize he meant Ignix. The sound of the approaching attack was louder now, and Sparrow wondered if the others could see what was coming. She wanted to prod Ignix again, to understand what they were facing, but there wasn’t time.

  “She doesn’t even have a saddle,” Riella protested, the creak of leather and metal fastenings telling Sparrow she was already on Jax’s back.

  No, Ignix said forcefully. I must stay here and head them off.

  A flash of sensation came from the phoenix then—memory or imagination, Sparrow wasn’t sure, but terror radiated from her, and the feeling of razor talons and sharp beaks scraped over Sparrow’s skin. She shuddered.

  “But we can’t all fit on my saddle,” Elliot argued frantically. “We just need to get Sparrow to—”

  “I don’t need nobody to get me nowhere,” Sparrow snapped. Danger was coming, and all they could do was argue about who was stuck with her. “They need help!” She flung an arm in what she hoped was the direction of the village and stronghold. “And we’re wasting time.”

  Then she turned on her heel and, with Fife’s help, marched toward the village gate. She realized with a pang that she’d left her spear in the grass, but she refused to turn back.

  She thought that Ignix might chase her, or that Elliot might shout after her.

  But neither did.

  Before she could feel too sorry for herself, a tide of cold swept over her, as sudden and shocking as if she’d fallen headlong into the River Aurys.

  Fife squawked uneasily, and Sparrow staggered to a stop, whirling around. The animals that had followed her continued to flee toward the village, but Jax and Ignix remained rooted to the earth.

  Jax crooned softly, but it was Ignix who spoke.

  She is here.

  Life is a cycle, after all. So it began, so too shall it end.

  - CHAPTER 12 - AVALKYRA

  AVALKYRA WATCHED THEM FLEE from her, scattering like leaves in the wind. She was still several minutes away, but Onyx’s vision helped her see far in the darkness.

  Two phoenixes—one of them Ignix herself—made for the supposed protection of the village and the stronghold beyond.

  As if such structures could defend against the likes of her. As if such obstacles could bar her passage.

  Avalkyra was here for blood, and nothing would stop her.

  By the time she’d reached the rocky bluff upon which Azurec’s Eyrie perched, bells were ringing and torches moved to and fro across the stronghold’s walls. She and Onyx had beaten the others here, but it wouldn’t be long until they caught up.

  Just long enough for Avalkyra to make an entrance.

  She soared over the village, the people below running for cover, and landed in the middle of the courtyard just as the beacon flared to life.

  Well, that was one way to get everyone’s attention.

  The flame burned so brightly that she was about to throw up an arm to shield her eyes—but she stopped herself at the last second. She’d rather scorch her eyeballs clean off than show such weakness.

  Everyone in the vicinity had flinched at the sudden snap and hiss of the statue flaring to life, then whirled to see Avalkyra—mounted on Onyx—drop silently from the sky.

  She sat tall in the saddle as, after a breath of hesitation, every guard on the wall scrambled to withdraw their weapons and point them directly at her. It was the middle of the night, but Ignix had gotten
here first and had clearly raised the alarm.

  Everyone halted in their tracks to stare at her, openmouthed with shock, before scurrying out of the line of fire.

  Everyone except Commander Cassian, who remained standing alone before her.

  “Avalkyra,” he said, lifting a hand to the guards that lined the walls and the additional forces that spilled out from their barracks, halting their defense. He swallowed, his throat bobbing as he redirected his attention to her and the creature she sat astride. “Who, and what, is this?”

  Avalkyra smiled. “Oh, I think you know, Cassian,” she said, leaving off his official title just as he had left off hers. “We studied the history together, after all.” He had been a few years older than her, but they’d still come through the same Phoenix Rider training.

  “Living history, it seems,” he said, mostly to himself, but the words carried across the silent courtyard, the only other sound the crackling of the beacon’s flames and the whistling of the wind. “What do you want? She’s not here.”

  He must mean Veronyka. “I know better than you where she is,” she snapped, annoyed that he thought to tell her the whereabouts of her own bondmate. “I know her every breath and heartbeat.”

  Cassian’s eyes flickered, as if Avalkyra had exposed herself in some way. As if her words were revealing.

  “I am here for Ignix,” she said, getting the conversation back on track. “She has taken more than flesh and blood from me.” Her voice quivered as she spoke—not with fear or any softer emotion. It shook with rage. “She has taken my new base of operations, ruined it, and so I will take hers.”

  That seemed to startle him. “This is not—”

  “I hereby challenge you for custody of Azurec’s Eyrie, a place that should by all rights be mine to begin with. And I demand Ignix, the world’s first phoenix, be your champion.”

  “You are in no position to make demands or threats.”

  “Aren’t I?” she asked softly, savoring the words. “Shoot me down and you will unleash them. Even now, they are fighting my control.”

  “What do you mean?” he said flatly, tightly.

  And then the sounds came. They’d probably missed them amid the chaos of their defensive preparations. But now all was quiet, and the music could not be missed.

  Avalkyra smiled, lifting her head to listen as, high above, pulsing wingbeats filled the air like ragged heartbeats. The strixes were nearly impossible to see in the darkness—just shifting, ghostly shapes that blotted out the stars. But they were here at last, ready and waiting.

  Cassian and everyone else within earshot looked up, fear stark in their eyes. The air grew colder, and the beacon guttered as if in a sudden, strong wind.

  “They are dying to make your acquaintance.”

  With a last, wary look at the sky above and then a second, longer look at Onyx, Cassian clenched his hands into fists. He’d no doubt figured out who and what “they” were.

  “I don’t know where Ignix is,” he lied. Was he really trying to save the ancient bird? Or did he think to take up the challenge himself? But he didn’t know—hadn’t yet figured it out.

  She wasn’t simply bonded to a strix—she was bonded to the apex strix. And the wingbeats above didn’t belong to a simple flock; they belonged to the beginnings of a horde.

  She had incubated them, hatched them, then with Onyx’s apex status, forced them to bow to her. That deference created a kind of bond, feeding into Onyx’s magic and, in turn, feeding into Avalkyra’s.

  Her power was twentyfold, each individual strix bonded to her and at her command. A single bondmate had made Avalkyra powerful, but a group bond made her nearly unstoppable—or it would have, if Ignix had not ruined her chances for more. It took a hundred birds to turn a flock into a horde, and Avalkyra would have gotten there if Ignix had not destroyed what she had started to build.

  Cassian glanced behind him, where Riders could be seen perched on buildings and in the archway that led down into the Eyrie. Was the phoenix there? Were these others trying to protect her too?

  There was one way to find out.

  Onyx was fairly trembling with restraint beneath her, and the strixes above? They hummed with violence and possibility. With hunger. And Avalkyra wanted to see what they could do.

  A bubble seemed to pop—a held breath released—and all at once they descended.

  Two dozen black-winged strixes, trailing smoke and shadow, detached themselves from the darkness like scraps of the night brought to life.

  Cries of confusion and panic echoed all around, bouncing off the stone walls and causing her flock to shriek and toss their heads in response. The raw voices, the pounding hearts… Her strixes lived for this, hungered for it, and Avalkyra intended for them to get their fill.

  Ignix did not get to come after her, doling out punishment like a vengeful goddess come down to earth, then fly away without resistance or repercussion.

  Only Avalkyra was allowed to do that. And she would. Ignix would pay for what she had done, for the wounds she had inflicted and the scars she’d left behind. She was one of many who owed Avalkyra recompense—but Avalkyra had to start somewhere.

  The strixes dove this way and that, their flapping wings filling the air with a sound so vast and endless that it felt solid, as if the Eyrie itself had been walled in. They chased anything alive, their claws tearing and beaks snapping, and Avalkyra let them. Everywhere the shadowbirds touched blackened and turned lifeless—stone crumbled, wood turned to charcoal, and living things became dried-out husks. Animals, driven mad by fear, cried out and ran in fruitless circles, her strixes sucking them dry and tossing their bodies aside. The humans were no better, screaming and running and dropping like flies.

  Cassian ducked and ran for cover as several crossbow bolts whizzed past, his guards finally unleashed, and Avalkyra drew her strixes closer to her, wrapping them about her like a cloak. They were precious, valuable to her and to her plans, but nothing was more valuable to Avalkyra than herself. So she used her magic to drag them in front of the line of fire—turning her cloak into a shield—feeling the impact of steel-tipped bolts as they pierced their feathered bodies, but knowing it was a worthy price.

  The carnage would draw out Ignix. The carnage would leave a mark and send a message… to Veronyka, the would-be usurper queen, and the empire beyond.

  Avalkyra Ashfire had returned.

  Phoenix Riders entered the fray now, but while some attempted to attack Avalkyra inside her swirling protections, the majority were focused on getting their unmounted comrades to safety. Animals and civilians streamed around the edges of the courtyard, into buildings and under wagons, seeking shelter.

  Avalkyra quickly grew bored of this not-fight. She wasn’t here for them.

  Where are you? she crooned, reaching beyond her flock for Ignix, but there was no reply.

  Seeking a louder kind of message, Avalkyra turned her attention to the burning beacon atop the temple, the phoenix statue spitting and crackling and hissing down upon them all. So righteous. So false.

  Avalkyra and her flock pounced on it, scraping and clawing and smothering the flame. The light flickered and dimmed, reshaping the scene before her from glowing spectacle to smoky devastation.

  Avalkyra urged her strixes on as their talons peeled back curls of gold leaf to reveal the dull iron beneath. Pyraean statues were often made of solid gold—at least those from the Era of Queens, anyway—but this statue doubled as a brazier, and gold could not withstand such high heat. Like much of the empire in recent years, it was a fallacy, a lie painted over the darker, uglier truth.

  Once the majority of the gold was gone and the statue stood stark and unlit, Onyx sank her talons into the carved phoenix’s outstretched wings and pulled, the statue groaning in protest before it fell off the pedestal with a resounding clang, landing on its side atop the temple’s roof.

  At last Ignix heard their summons.

  Emerging from the depths of the Eyrie and rising ab
ove the chaos in the foreground, she was massive and impressive with her deep red and purple plumage, long tail feathers, and vast wingspan. She shrieked as she rose into the sky, silhouetted against the darkness and covered in rippling, blue-white flames. With one last, echoing pump of her wings, she landed upon the phoenix plinth that extended over the chasm below and stood, waiting.

  Your challenge, she roared, her voice echoing inside the minds of everyone around. I accept it.

  Avalkyra grinned. “For control of the Eyrie,” she said. “And for vengeance.”

  You must honor the traditional terms, Ignix pressed, and cease your assault on those under my care—in victory or defeat, they will remain unharmed henceforth.

  Avalkyra’s lip curled. Her flock had barely gotten a taste, a few scattered bodies and sobbing wounded, but she reminded herself why she was here.

  With victory, they would flee, tails between their legs, carrying stories down the mountainside to Veronyka and the empire. Her legend would grow, her dark shadow stretching before her.

  And, of course, there would be no defeat.

  “Agreed,” she said, and Onyx dove from the temple roof.

  They whipped over the crowd with single-minded intent, bursting through the stone archway just as Avalkyra drew her spear. The pair of them barreled into the phoenix before she could react, and together they went tumbling over the edge, plummeting as strix and phoenix screeched at each other.

  Wind buffeted Avalkyra as they fell, and she focused on staying in the saddle as the world whipped and spun and cartwheeled past.

  Slow down, she ordered Onyx, who snapped one last time at Ignix before flinging her wings wide to halt their rapid descent. Her claws remained sunk deep into Ignix’s chest, forcing the phoenix to land hard on her back, with Avalkyra and Onyx on top of her. The impact was enough to jostle Avalkyra’s bones and send up a shower of sparks that singed Onyx’s feathers.

  Ignix croaked feebly before she began to thrash.

  Her neck, Avalkyra ordered calmly, despite the rapid-fire beat of her heart. As Onyx lifted a clawed foot and pressed it directly onto Ignix’s throat, Avalkyra lifted her spear and leveled it at the phoenix’s large black eye, which was fixed on her.