Wings of Shadow

by Nicki Pau Preto

  The hallway curved away in both directions, but the captives moved unconsciously to the right.

  As they rushed down the corridor, passing doors that led into various offices and storage rooms, several of the prisoners cried out. Fear gripped Sev’s heart, but he realized the sounds weren’t of terror or despair. They were sounds of painful joy.

  They’d reached a barred door set into the interior wall. The room inside was long, filled with shadowy niches, while on the opposite end of the room was a secondary door, also barred, leading into an expanse of darkness beyond. Sev closed his eyes, picturing Theo’s drawing, and realized this room was more of a passage that led from the main hall, where they now stood, into the inner arena where the Riders would have once done their training.

  A burst of sparks filled the air, followed by the rustling of feathers and scraping of talons. Muffled sounds of delight and desperation came from the group as they pushed forward to cling to the bars.

  “Theo,” Sev said sharply, drawing her tense gaze from the phoenix cells. “You said there might be supplies—saddles, weapons?”

  “Yes,” Theo said, shaking her head as if to clear it. “They destroyed whatever they could find, but there were a few emergency stashes tucked away in case of fire or attack. I doubt they found everything.”

  “Take them and find what you can as quickly as possible; then meet us on the far side of the hearth hall, inside the arena.” He turned to Yara. “Once we get inside, we’ll be vulnerable.”

  “I’ll cover you,” she said shortly. Distant shouts could be heard now, echoing down the curving hallway from the entrance they’d come through. It sounded as though the first set of doors had been breached.

  As the prisoners continued reluctantly down the hall, toward the storage rooms, Yara glanced around. She found a table in a room next to them, old and dusty but made of thick planks of wood. Kade helped her haul it over and lay it on its side for cover, directly in front of the barred door where Sev stood.

  She knelt behind it, facing the direction of the approaching soldiers, crossbow aimed and ready.

  Sev bent to the lock.

  It was too dark to see clearly, but then a soft golden haze fell over the lock—Jinx, sidling up next to him and lighting his work—and for some reason Sev’s throat closed up. Everything was riding on him, and though he couldn’t see the end of the road, thanks to Jinx, he could see the next step.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, and she crooned softly in response. Her dark eyes shone with keen intelligence and curiosity. She was helping him, yes, but she was also fascinated by his lock picks, her gaze fixed on the tools as he worked. Sev couldn’t help it—he smirked. Kade had a type, it seemed.

  The lock was difficult, even with Jinx’s help, and his hands shook. Behind him, the soldiers’ voices grew louder.

  The mechanism clicked just as a loud bang echoed from the direction of the entrance. It sounded like the second set of doors had also been breached.

  Sev released a shaky huff of air and wrenched the barred door to the hearth hall wide, shoving Kade and Jinx ahead of him.

  Yara remained outside in the main hall, loosing crossbow bolts into the dark. Because of the rounded passage, she couldn’t see the soldiers, but her arrows pinged and ricocheted, causing them to take cover and shuffle backward.

  She had a good position, able to see as soon as any of them poked their heads around the bend, but she wouldn’t be able to hold them forever.

  “Come with us!” Sev shouted, but she waved him off and remained outside in the corridor. There would be no defending them from within that room—no way to get a clean shot off. And if the soldiers made it around the corner, they’d all be sitting ducks.

  Turning his back on the danger, Sev took in the room before him with a moment of stunned silence. Each wall had a square niche of stone, charred and blackened from decades of fire and closed in by thick, roughly soldered bars that clearly did not belong. Perched within each of those somber lodgings, crouched among a smattering of crumbs and bits of straw, was a single phoenix. They were mostly full grown and far too large for their tiny cells, but they could all bear their Riders, which was some measure of relief. The cell directly next to him was empty—Sev thought of Aron with a pang—while he couldn’t see into those at the end of the line.

  “Quickly,” Kade said, and Sev crouched in front of the first occupied cell. The phoenix inside retreated in fear, flinching at the noise, but Jinx crooned and soothed as Sev worked. Luckily, they were similar locks to those on the door he’d just opened, so each became progressively easier as he repeated the movements over and over again. The instant a lock clicked, Kade shoved him on to the next one, swinging open the grate to release the prisoner. Jinx was there to welcome and settle the creatures, the glowing light increasing with each phoenix they set loose—as well as the heat.

  Sev slipped into a trancelike state, focusing on the task at hand and blocking everything else out.

  “That one’s empty,” Kade said distractedly, as Sev was just finishing a lock.

  Another one? he thought dazedly, lurching to his feet. He hadn’t even looked inside.… Something made him pause, and he squinted into the shadowy recesses of the apparently unoccupied cell. Something shifted and caught the flickering light from the other phoenixes—excited and agitated and putting off sparks, no matter how much Kade tried to calm them—and then a small creature pecked its way forward, crawling out from under scraps of straw and old feathers.

  It was definitely a phoenix, but a tiny little thing, his red and gold plumage coated in ash as if he were newly hatched.

  Or newly reborn.

  Sev looked at the top of the cell, where plaques with names had been affixed to keep track of which phoenix belonged to which bondmate. And above this pitiful creature was the name “Adam.”

  It was Aron’s dead brother. So while Aron’s despair had caused his own phoenix to give up hope and go to ash, when Adam himself died, his phoenix remained behind? How long had it been since Adam had died… and how many times had this phoenix resurrected himself?

  Sev had finished unlocking the cell without realizing it, and reached inside tentatively. But the phoenix wobbled forward on tiny golden legs, and when Kade shouted for him, Sev scooped him up and tucked him into his front pocket.

  Theo and the others had arrived inside the arena, peering in at them from the barred door on the opposite end of the hearth hall. The phoenixes squawked and fluttered excitedly, and it was growing hot enough that Sev’s clothes clung to his skin and sweat dripped down his temples.

  They were so close he could almost taste it, but Sev still had two more cells to go, and the sounds of Yara’s defense behind them were growing louder. A glance backward told him Yara’s makeshift barricade still held, the table’s flat surface peppered with crossbow bolts, but the battle was drawing nearer.

  Another lock clicked open. More shouting. And then the final cell swung wide.

  Sev pushed through the crush of feathers for the barred door that led into the arena, the last barrier between these freed phoenixes and their bondmates… and his heart plummeted inside his chest.

  The door wasn’t a door at all. There was no handle, no latch—no lock. It was simply a wall of inch-thick metal bars, latticed together in a barrier Sev had no way of breaching.

  His expression must have said it all, because Kade cursed, looking down at every inch of the bars, searching, while Theo did much the same on the other side.

  Hope, like a flickering fire, died inside Sev’s chest.

  “The way we came in,” Kade said, turning, but the words had barely left his mouth when a resounding crash filled the corridor. Yara’s table toppled backward, sending her flying, and partially obstructing the barred door. Sev ran toward it, peering around the pocked and damaged wood.

  Yara was already on her feet, fighting the two soldiers who had charged her. She dispatched them one by one, then glanced around at Sev, panting.

 
“Go,” she gasped with finality.

  “No!” Sev cried, rattling the bars, but the door was blocked by the table. There was no getting in or out that way. “Just drag that out of the way, and—”

  A volley of arrows showered the ground and walls around them, forcing Yara to duck. When she stood again, she was wobbly, hands pressed to her stomach, where an arrow protruded from her side.

  She looked down at it, then up at him. “Go,” she said again, then wrenched the table up with all her might—not out of the way, as Sev had asked, but onto its shortest side, so it was tall enough to completely block the door between them. A last line of defense between them and the soldiers.

  Between them and Yara.

  Sev stared at the slab of wood until a series of thumps reverberated through the table—more arrows slamming into the wood in the exact place Yara had been moments before.

  He swallowed. There was no going back. Only forward.

  He returned to the opposite side of the hall, looking at the bars again, then around him, at the flock of phoenixes bristling and squawking and emitting puffs of sparks.

  “Can they melt it?” he asked, speaking to Theo through the bars. She had been wrenching on the iron lattice with wild desperation, but now she stilled.

  “A single phoenix? No. But all together…”

  “Wait—what?” Kade asked sharply, looking between them. Theo was wearing a searching expression, her eyes raking over Sev with something like respect.

  It was simple, really. Sev and Kade were trapped inside the hearth hall with ten phoenixes, separated from freedom—from their bondmates—by impossibly thick metal bars. There was only one way they were getting through.

  “Tell them to ignite,” Sev said more loudly, speaking to the others, who were crowded behind Theo.

  “No!” Kade shouted, the word ripped from his throat. “You’re not bonded. You won’t be protected!”

  “Do it,” Sev said again, and Theo nodded grimly. She turned away, shouting instructions to the others.

  “What, no, stop—you can’t!” Kade said, screaming through the bars and then back at Sev, his eyes glittering. He followed Sev as he shuffled back, making room for the phoenixes to crowd forward. Kade’s hands landed on Sev’s upper arms, clinging, pulling—begging. “You can’t,” he repeated in barely a whisper.

  The noise behind the wooden barricade was growing louder, the soldiers using whatever weapons they had at their disposal to hack at the table, which Yara must have somehow wedged into place. They would break through soon, and the phoenixes were trapped, and yes, yes, Sev could.

  All his life, he had prioritized survival above all else—a not-uncommon trait, but something he had put particular emphasis on every single day.

  Survival had felt like the only way to repay his parents and make their sacrifice feel a bit less senseless. Then he’d met Trix and Kade and had taken the idea a step further—if he was to live when people like Trix died, then Sev would make his life count. It had been the driving force of his existence ever since. But what if… what if instead of doing everything in his power to survive, to make his life count, he’d found something worth dying for instead?

  With Sev’s death, he could ensure Kade and the rest of these Phoenix Riders were free—truly free—and maybe, just maybe, help Veronyka and the others win this war.

  It seemed an easy trade, when he looked at it that way.

  But tears were streaking down Kade’s face, the room was growing blisteringly hot, and Sev knew his choice would not come without pain.

  “You’re only doing this because you think you don’t matter—that you’re worthless. But you do matter. To me, to us…”

  Sev shook his head. “I believe that now, thanks to you. I know I’m worthy. You chose me, and I can think of no greater gift. But now I’m choosing you. My parents died for me, and I’ll die for you. Gladly.”

  “You promised,” Kade said, agony in his voice as he crowded Sev, tried to push him away from the growing heat and licking flames. The air was already hazy with heat, making it difficult for Sev to draw full breaths, though Kade seemed mostly unaffected, his bond magic at work.

  “I promised we’d be together at the end—and we are. This is my end, and we’re together. It’s okay. I want this,” Sev said, trying to reassure himself as much as Kade. He could smell burning now, and his skin felt tight and itchy with heat. They had foolishly slammed the empty cells closed again in order to make room to move about, and there was no time to unlock them again. But not even one of those stone niches could truly save him. Not from so much fire all at once. Not from temperatures hot enough to melt iron bars. “I want my last moments to be with you.”

  Kade’s face crumpled, and he pressed Sev more firmly against a patch of wall in the farthest corner, caging him in—bringing Sev back to a time beside a waterfall on Pyrmont, when everything had changed between them. The stone behind him was as cool against Sev’s back as it had been then, but the world around him was dry and hot, the nearest metal bars starting to glow.

  The soldiers had cleared out, Sev thought—probably smelling the smoke and seeing the growing flames—because he couldn’t hear crossbow bolts or hacking blows or anything at all, actually.

  Maybe that was the roaring of the flames, drowning everything else out.

  Maybe that was the soundlessness of death. The peace.

  His eyes were fixed on Kade’s, and there was the peace he truly sought, the place he wished he could remain forever. Then a pair of red and purple wings rose up behind Kade, around him, and Sev saw Jinx there, enfolding them both in her embrace. Protecting them, or trying to. But not even Jinx could block the heat and flames from so many other phoenixes. It was like being inside an oven. Oxygen was sparse in Sev’s lungs, and the air rippled with heat.

  “I never hated her,” Sev found himself saying, but he wasn’t sure Kade heard him or if he’d even spoken aloud. I never hated you, he said to Jinx, and she crooned. It filled him up like music, warming him in a way that had nothing to do with the fire rising up all around.

  Or maybe it was something else.

  Sev bowed his head, and there, pressing against his chest inside his pocket was the hatchling phoenix. He felt the creature’s warm body, his heartbeat that skipped and jumped and then slowly matched rhythm with Sev’s own. Their eyes met—and held—and then the fire exploded around him in a sudden, violent burst. Kade crashed into him, Jinx’s wings were buffeted aside, and the world around Sev blinked and wavered and slipped away.

  I have protected them, Nefyra. I have fought and burned as best I could.

  - CHAPTER 59 - VERONYKA

  VERONYKA HAD VAL’S ATTENTION now—and it wasn’t just hers.

  The crowds below pointed and stared, and the Riders in the sky halted their progress, momentarily dumbfounded. They had seen her use heartfire, their expressions awed, and even the strixes had taken note, their black eyes following Veronyka’s and Xephyra’s every movement.

  But it was Val’s focus that cut through Veronyka like a knife.

  Thus far she’d been enjoying the battle, flying left and right, taking down soldiers and targeting Phoenix Riders with reckless, joyful abandon.

  In truth, Veronyka had never seen her look so alive.

  This was what she truly wanted—not the so-called prize at the end of the game, but the game itself. The thrust and parry, the attack and counterattack. She had no patience for pretenders and posturing, but she valued a worthy opponent, and Veronyka had proven herself to be one on multiple occasions.

  This was not the soft, delicate maneuvering of politics, which shifted in slow, steady tides. This was the blunt, powerful immediacy of war. Make a mistake and pay a price—instantly. Make the right move and see it play out in front of you.

  Except this time, Val had made the wrong move.

  She had deliberately targeted Alexiya, wanting to hurt Veronyka—to make her desperate—but clearly had not realized what that desperation would yield
.

  Heartfire. It’s what she’d wanted from Veronyka in the first place, and it was the one thing she could not have without her.

  They stared at each other for several weighted heartbeats; then Val hefted her spear—the same spear that had sliced Veronyka open?—and dove back into the fray. Her rage left Veronyka breathless as she targeted soldiers and Phoenix Riders alike with renewed, vicious vigor, trailing strixes the way the strixes themselves trailed shadows.

  Despite Val’s fury, she didn’t actually go after Veronyka. It seemed she didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, and instead deliberately focused her attention elsewhere, as if to say Veronyka didn’t concern her—no matter what kind of magic she could do.

  It allowed Veronyka to release a shuddering breath and notice for the first time another bondmate who was vying for her attention.

  Veronyka! Are you okay? It was Tristan, frantic on the other side of their bond. He’d been calling her for a while now.

  Yes, she said reassuringly. Then, remembering what had just happened—That was heartfire. Did you feel it?

  I felt it, he said, his emotions a swirl of relief and tension. Like a pull on our bond.

  Does it hurt? Do you feel weak?

  She sensed him slowly shake his head. Never felt stronger.

  For some reason, that answer made Veronyka’s throat ache. Heartfire was right, natural—an extension of apex magic and her benex bond.

  Why, then, did using it make her feel sick?

  What’s happening? she asked, needing a distraction as she and Xephyra continued to soar around the battlefield.

  Doriyan’s working on Sidra, and I’m working on the soldiers.

  Do you think you can repair the bridge? she asked. As it stood, the battle was raging on fairly even footing—the outnumbered Phoenix Riders bolstered by the ground troops and their war machines, but reinforcements would be enough to turn the tide in their favor. Val wouldn’t retreat. If they could make a proper stand here and now, they could finish this.