Wings of Shadow

by Nicki Pau Preto

  “I promised Ilithya I would see you on the throne,” Morra said, shoulders squared. “With Veronyka, or not at all.”

  Then she lunged, striking Sidra’s stomach and dodging her swiping blade. Then she took hold of Sidra’s arm and bent until her wrist gave out, dropping the knife into her outstretched hand.

  The edge flashed silver-bright as it sliced toward Avalkyra, but rather than rear back, Avalkyra leaned forward, causing Morra’s aim to falter. Her knife skittered across the side of Avalkyra’s neck but avoided the fat artery she’d been aiming for. It was a stinging flesh wound—no more.

  Sidra snarled, leaping into action, but Avalkyra already had it under control.

  With one hand she gripped Morra by the throat, while the other scrabbled over Morra’s flailing arm until she reached the wrist and squeezed, hard enough to snap the delicate bones. The knife fell to the roof of the temple with a clatter.

  Morra gasped—or tried, but it came out as more of a gurgle. Avalkyra’s fingers dug into her neck with bruising, choking force, and when the woman’s bulging eyes stared up at her, Avalkyra stared back into them dispassionately.

  With barely any effort at all, thanks to the pain Morra was in, Avalkyra broke into her mind, and saw it. Desperation and anger—and love. Love and loyalty and respect for Veronyka Ashfire, the would-be queen. And for Avalkyra? There was old love—stale love—and it had long since turned sour. That’s all that remained: leftovers. Dregs.

  It reminded her of Ignix. You are the ashes, the dregs.… You’re what’s left.

  She also saw Ilithya’s truth, the promise she had demanded from Morra. Avalkyra was fit to rule with Veronyka by her side—a calming, steadying force—or it would be the Blood War all over again. Avalkyra was fit to rule with Veronyka, or not at all.

  Avalkyra was surprised at the tight, squeezing sensation in her chest. Ilithya meant nothing to her. She was a spy and a servant and a stand-in adult when Avalkyra was too young to operate in the world alone. Nothing more.

  But Ilithya had been loyal, she’d thought, and had believed in her queen.

  Apparently, the queen she believed in wasn’t Avalkyra.

  “Rest easy,” she said, squeezing Morra’s throat until panic flickered across her features. “Your promise does not matter. Your words and your life—meaningless. Ilithya is dead, and you are about to join her.”

  Then she shoved her off the edge of the temple.

  To her credit, Morra didn’t cry out or scream, but that was probably because of the damage to her throat. There was a sickening thump as she landed, sprawled in breathless pain, but she didn’t die on impact.

  The strixes were ready and waiting to pounce, frenzied at the smell of blood.

  No, Avalkyra said, using her apex control on the full flock. They all snapped to a halt. Leave her. Let her die… slowly.

  Sidra watched, her eyes wide. Then she dropped to her knees. “Forgive me, my queen.”

  “You were bested by a one-legged wing widow,” Avalkyra said, smearing a hand across the stinging wound on her neck. “Forgive yourself.”

  “I will try, my queen,” Sidra murmured, remaining on her knees.

  Avalkyra wiped the blood on her pants and reclaimed her seat. Below, revolting crunching and tearing sounds filled the night, interspersed with moans and whimpers from the shadowmage. Next to her, Sidra reeked of self-recrimination.

  Avalkyra blocked it all out and watched as her horde continued to grow, her mind working. Once again, the world conspired to keep Avalkyra from her goal—to doubt her ability to achieve it in the first place.

  And so once again, she would prove them wrong.

  Though none of the noble First Rider families can claim complete imperviousness to scandal, one of the lesser-known—but still socially detrimental—stories involves Cordelia Lightbringer, last scion of famed warrior and second-in-command Callysta Lightbringer.

  With an older brother who died in his infancy from phoenix fever, Cordelia was the only surviving child of Arlo and Parthenia Lightbringer, of the non-royal* Lightbringer branch. Her parents intended her to marry into another noble family with good standing, perhaps a Strongwing or a Flamesong, but Cordelia had other ideas.

  By all accounts an intelligent girl and a gifted animage, she allegedly spent more time in the stables than among polite company. She was known to go about dirty and barefooted, and there were even rumors she used to sleep outside, in the hayloft, like a common peasant.

  It is perhaps not so shocking, then, that before her parents could make an official betrothal, she ran off with the stable boy. The next day, her favorite horse, cat, and dog—and a hundred gold pieces—also disappeared, never to be seen again.

  —A History of the First Riders, the Morian Archives, 147 AE,

  updated 171 AE

  *The Lightbringers married into the royal Ashfire line through the union of the children of Nefyra and Callysta, and tracked their descendants all the way to the founding of the Golden Empire, despite taking the Ashfire name.

  I could not leave such a power in her hands, unchallenged. Unchecked.

  - CHAPTER 36 - SPARROW

  SPARROW, IGNIX, AND FIFE stayed in the storage closet for a while.

  Sparrow ate and drank and recovered her strength. She slept some more. She even washed. It seemed pointless, really, when they were just going to climb through the rubble all over again, but Ignix insisted.

  After ensuring Sparrow was in good health, Ignix decided it was time to be off again.

  As wonderful as this discovery had been, they were still trapped, still in danger. The water and apples wouldn’t last forever, and Sparrow was eager to press on.

  Unfortunately, Ignix had other plans in mind.

  You will stay here, and I will go. Once free, I will send help.

  “But that could take days!” Sparrow protested.

  There is plenty here to sustain you. Do not fear.

  Sparrow’s lip curled. There was nothing wrong with fear, and the fact that Ignix warned against such an emotion was so very human. A dog would never tell Sparrow not to be afraid—fear was normal, natural. A defense mechanism. Fear had driven Sparrow out of that temple, away from those old priestesses who were cold and cruel and shrieked at her mice friends and chastised her for the bird droppings on her windowsill.

  Fear was a good thing. It meant a person had something to lose. Something worth fighting for. But that wasn’t the point.

  “I ain’t afraid,” Sparrow argued. “You’re treating me like deadweight, and I ain’t that, either. I found the right passage. I could help you.”

  I do not need help.

  “Everyone needs help! Didn’t Veronyka break your mind free when Avalkyra put that curse on you?”

  It was not a curse—

  “And surely Nefyra, the First Rider Queen, helped you out once or twice? What about Callysta and Cirix? What about the millions of other people and animals you’ve met in the hundreds of years you’ve been alive? Huh?”

  I’ve hardly met millions—

  “What about Axura herself, your own mother, who made you first among phoenixes? Oldest and most powerful?”

  Cease this incessant chatter. To be first is to be alone. That is the way of the apex.

  Sparrow knew that was a Pyraean word, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it meant. “If you say so,” she said doubtfully. “Maybe your memory’s getting bad in your old age.”

  Ignix huffed. Watch your tongue, she chided, but the words held no real anger. My memory reaches farther back than you can fathom, young one. I have had companions, yes, and some who have shared my burden… but it was always my burden to share. Do you understand?

  Sparrow considered. “Is that why you fought her alone? Avalkyra?”

  She challenged me. That is how challenges are fought.

  “You could have refused her. Could have let the others fight with you instead.”

  Only an apex can defeat another apex.

  “Okay
, so you could have fought Avalkyra. What about the rest of the strixes? You didn’t win during the Dark Days by fighting alone, did you? It was all of us against all of them.”

  Us? Ignix repeated, her tone grudgingly amused.

  “Yup,” Sparrow said, arms crossed. “Us. So, if you think you’re fighting this war alone now, it’s only because you choose to.”

  Ignix shifted her wings in a moment of seeming agitation, though her voice was calm when she spoke. You are wiser than your years. And you know more about history than most.

  “I know more about everything than most,” Sparrow said smugly. “I could recite The Pyraean Epics if I wanted. Volumes one and two.”

  As entertaining as that might be… A long-suffering sigh. Do you promise to skip all that, if I allow you to come?

  “You drive a hard bargain,” Sparrow said. Truthfully, she didn’t know The Pyraean Epics by heart—but she did know a few stories. The priestesses had been fond of reading them aloud in the temple, but Sparrow hadn’t been there long enough to memorize them all. “Agreed.”

  Come along, then.

  Before they departed, Sparrow emptied a large jar of something pickled and slimy and filled it with water. She poured out a sack of grain and tied it across her shoulders like a satchel, filling it with the jar, handfuls of apples, plus anything else she could find that was edible. Fife perched on her shoulder, digging his claws into the rough burlap, ready for the next stage of their adventure.

  “So, you don’t like poetry?” Sparrow asked as they made their way down the corridor. “I’d’ve thought any phoenix would like The Pyraean Epics.”

  The poetry is tolerable. The inaccuracies less so.

  “What’s inaccurate about them?”

  Hours passed like that as they wandered through the oppressive silence, Ignix telling her how Xatara and Xolanthe weren’t actually sisters—though their Riders were—and that Fire Blossom trees had grown on Pyrmont long before their infamous journey. She complained that many of the stories glossed over phoenix names in favor of their Rider counterparts, and insisted that the popular proverb “Fear is a luxury” originated from Roza Heartlight, one of the First Riders, not the dishonest bard who’d claimed it as his own.

  Although the human scribes got that one wrong, Ignix insisted Nefyra’s most famous words were remembered correctly.

  “There is no bravery without fear,” Sparrow recited. Everyone knew the phrase.

  Indeed.

  Despite finding the conversation fascinating, Sparrow grew weary of their adventure as time wore on. She was sick of the cold stone walls, sick of the way they reminded her sharply, painfully, of her months in the temple.

  At least here she had some company—and company of the best sort, the animal sort.

  Fife preened.

  Not that she’d say no to having some people company, and that was a first in her life. She quite liked Ersken. He was good with the phoenixes and had been nice to Sparrow and Chirp. Veronyka had been her first human friend—she had said so herself—and Riella was her friend now too, Sparrow was pretty sure, even if Riella hadn’t said it. And then there was Elliot.… Sparrow’s eyes prickled. So much of her life spent alone and friendless, and now she had a whole flock of friends all at once. It was overwhelming.

  And it was sad, too, because she was trapped here, and she missed them. Did they miss her?

  They were all busy and important and off fighting wars. Veronyka was a princess. Ersken had to take care of the phoenixes, and Elliot had to protect Riella. No one was thinking about her.

  That, at least, she was used to.

  Despite Sparrow’s superior sniffer leading the way, they came up against several cave-ins and blockages. Ignix used her fire to break through when she could, but some obstructions were too large to safely destroy—or in danger of causing larger structural damage—meaning they lost hours doubling back around to find a different way.

  Sparrow had to take cover behind whatever protection she could find when Ignix used her flame, but the heat was intense, and her skin felt cooked and her throat raw.

  Even still, she knew Ignix held back, and using such careful control was slow.

  The water dwindled, the food disappeared, and Sparrow’s hope faltered.

  Ignix insisted they were on the right track when the passage started to lead lower, but it was a hard thing for Sparrow to force herself to go toward the deepest, dampest parts of the tunnel. To trust the phoenix’s words when everything inside Sparrow told her to go higher, to seek air and the sounds of the world—but there were none to be found this deep underground, and Sparrow had no choice but to trust the ancient firebird.

  Fife remained perched on her shoulder constantly now, and it was the only thing that helped Sparrow’s trembling. She thought it was the cold at first, and while her feet ached with it and her fingertips felt clumsy and numb, it was that sense of being cut off from everything that made Sparrow shake. She hadn’t thought there could be a real difference between one dank tunnel and another, but there was—she felt it in her weary bones and muffled senses, the stone around her pressing in on all sides.

  The three of them slept huddled together, and though the shivers never stopped, Ignix’s heat and Fife’s steady heartbeat were a comfort all the same. When they pressed on again, Sparrow left her empty satchel and water jar behind.

  Just when she thought she couldn’t take another step, the muscles in her legs began to ache in a new, different way—the tunnel was sloping up, not down.

  The journey became harder now, but Sparrow refused to give up. She slipped and skidded across dampened stone and dug her way through mud and muck—ever higher, ever nearer their goal.

  The next cave-in they encountered, however, was large enough for Ignix to wilt beside her, and for Fife to croak morosely.

  “What—what is it?” Sparrow gasped, straightening up.

  It is a substantial cave-in. I may compromise the passage if I blast through it.

  No… they couldn’t have come all this way only to find the exit barred. They couldn’t. Tears threatened, tightening her throat and making her eyes sting.

  “Will you try?” Sparrow choked out.

  A pause. Take cover, Ignix warned, and Sparrow’s knees buckled in desperate relief.

  She hid behind a slight bend in the passage, but she felt the heat before she heard the shattering snap of surface fissures, followed by the lower crunch that vibrated through her feet. The tunnel shook, and bits of stone scattered across the ground.

  “Ignix!” Sparrow shouted once the dust had settled. “Are you all right?”

  Sparrow edged around the wall—and stopped short. Blissful, moving air brushed against her skin. It felt like the sun’s rays on a warm day, like the misty spray from a waterfall. Soft as a whisper, but unmistakable.

  The sounds had changed too, the echoes expanding, and there, distantly, were other sounds, sounds from the world outside.

  “You did it,” Sparrow said breathlessly, stumbling forward.

  We did it, Ignix corrected gently.

  Sparrow wrapped her arms around the phoenix’s neck, hugging tightly, while Fife cawed in triumph, his cries bouncing around them like a chorus.

  Abruptly, the sound changed.

  “Watch out!” Sparrow shouted, trying to shove Ignix aside—but too late. There was a great, low rumble, followed by horrid scraping, renting sounds. Cracks. Booms.

  Then pain.

  Sharp, lancing pain through her arm, then nothing. Utter silence.

  “Fife?” she choked out, trying to move, but she was buried in rubble and her arm was pinned down, stuck beneath a heavy chunk of rock. “Fife! Ignix?”

  Here, child, came a low, groggy response, and Sparrow thought the phoenix might have been hit worst of all.

  “Are you hurt? Fine Fellow, where is he?”

  I am trapped. Your raven is fine indeed. Just shaken.

  Sparrow’s breath of relief turned into a sob. She was trapped.
Ignix was trapped—and they were so close to freedom. Ignix’s explosion must have damaged the tunnel, just as she’d thought it might.

  You tried to save me, Ignix observed, an odd tenor to her voice.

  “It’s my fault,” Sparrow moaned. “I asked. I pushed…”

  Fife stirred then, claws scratching over stone as he righted himself and shook out his wings. He was a bit disoriented, but then he sidled over to Sparrow, running his beak through her hair, hopping lightly around her head, concerned.

  “Is there a way through?” she asked him, forgetting the conversation with Ignix. Fife said there was a small gap that light was spilling through.

  Light. Light meant air. Light meant outside.

  “Go, Fife. Find help. Can you do that?” she rasped, her voice ragged with dust and raw with pain. “What do you think, Fine Fellow? Can you get us some help?”

  She put as much magic into it as she could, but Sparrow understood animal limitations. What she was asking… Fife was loyal to her, but he was a wild thing, and the world beckoned. He could get lost or distracted, and she might never see him again.

  Even he seemed to sense it. His horny little feet dug into her skin as he shuffled his weight, wings fluttering and anxious.

  “Yes, you can,” she encouraged him. “You can do it. Go now, quick, while you still have the light. Go on.”

  He nipped at her hair again, fluttered his wings… then left.

  That was selfless of you. And kind.

  “He’ll be back,” Sparrow said stubbornly, but Ignix did not respond.

  * * *

  Time passed in a haze of fear and pain, eventually so pervasive that Sparrow seemed to have left her body—left her mind—existing in a state of lifeless disconnect. She knew it was more than mere hours, though. Maybe more than days.

  I could end it, you know.

  Ignix hadn’t spoken in a while. Sparrow had almost forgotten she was there.

  End what? Sparrow replied, too exhausted to realize she was speaking inside her mind—but Ignix was open before her, and the magic thrummed between them.