Wings of Shadow

by Nicki Pau Preto

  She’d had enough. Avalkyra sought more strixes—as many as she could reach—and drew them to her. All of them.

  It was time to finish this. She’d start with the world’s first phoenix, and then she’d destroy the rest.

  They have taught me how to give and give and give, until there is nothing left.

  - CHAPTER 64 - VERONYKA

  VERONYKA WAS ALIVE WITH their success, happiness reverberating through her magic and tingling in her veins.

  With Val busy battling Ignix, Veronyka and Xephyra had to act quickly. The problem was, even with Val distracted, the strixes were wily, unruly creatures, and it was difficult getting them alone. Xephyra’s strike needed to be exact. Otherwise the heartfire would simply burn them up like it had before.

  But what remained of Veronyka’s flock was scattered, busy working with the empire to reestablish a back line and chase down the strays that had made it south.

  Veronyka knew she could rake them all back in with the apex bond, but she was hesitant to undo their hard work. What she needed was more Phoenix Riders, but she’d been wishing for that ever since this business with the empire started, and to no avail.

  Then, as if in answer to her thoughts, a rise of awareness sent her attention south, where a swell of soldiers surged northward into the heart of the battle. Tristan’s efforts to repair the bridge must have worked, freeing the reinforcements that had been trapped beyond the river.

  And… there were Phoenix Riders with them. Glowing balls of fire near the bridge, and more of them soaring through the air toward Veronyka and the center of the fighting.

  Her heart skipped a beat. It was the Haven Riders! Most she recognized—Rosalind and Ivan, Sarra and Erend—but there were others she’d never seen before. More Phoenix Riders soaring toward her than she could have ever imagined.

  Jonny was also there, flying at the front, and he was not alone.…

  Veronyka’s eyes pricked with tears. Her father. Theryn sat behind Jonny in the saddle, here and ready to fight with her.

  “You came,” Veronyka said as soon as Jonny and Theryn were within earshot. Her father looked terrified but determined, his knuckles white where he clung desperately to Jonny’s back.

  “We’re with you, no matter what,” Theryn said gravely. “I’m with you.”

  Veronyka nodded, unable to speak.

  “Tell us how to help,” Jonny prompted, Rosalind and Ivan and the others waiting for orders.

  Veronyka blew out a breath. “I need you to help me trap them—the strixes.”

  “Trap them…,” repeated Jonny uncertainly. “Shouldn’t we be killing them instead?”

  Veronyka couldn’t help but smile. “Trust me. We need to separate them from the group so I can face them one at a time.”

  “Should be easy enough for Xip and me to bait them,” said Rosalind.

  “And we’ll chase off the strays,” said Jonny, indicating himself and the others.

  “Theryn,” Veronyka said, turning to her father. “Can you take control on the ground? The general abandoned his troops, and the commanders are doing the best they can, but we’ve got wounded phoenixes and their Riders, plus reinforcements rushing into the fight, and they won’t know how to handle what’s coming next.” He looked confused. He wouldn’t be for long.

  “I need somewhere safe for the new phoenixes.”

  “New phoenixes…,” Theryn repeated blankly. Then he shrugged. “Okay.”

  * * *

  Jonny dropped Theryn below, where he wasted no time getting in touch with the nearest soldiers and coordinating their efforts. There were already some healer tents being set up, but Theryn was directing them toward some rocky ground that would be more easily defensible. Groups of prisoners could also be seen, tied together under heavy guard as the reinforcements to the south tipped the ground battle in their favor.

  The focus now was on containment, on using catapults and crossbows to turn the strixes away and back, while the phoenixes helped hold a wider perimeter.

  With Jonny, Rosalind, and the rest of the Haven Riders at their side, Veronyka and Xephyra seized their chance.

  Together they tracked and trapped the strixes, and one by one she liberated them, setting fire to their lifeless prisons, then reaching with mind and heart and magic to welcome them into the fold.

  The Haven Riders stared in awe the first time, then redoubled their efforts, finally understanding what Veronyka was trying to do.

  The new phoenixes emerged exultant—but also disoriented, flapping their wings and fluttering in erratic, confused circles. Veronyka tried to steer them away from the battle, down to the ground, where her father was waiting. He might not be an animage, but he’d been saving and protecting phoenixes for Veronyka’s entire life. She trusted him to get the job done and knew the rest of the Phoenix Riders would help do the same.

  As the strixes’ numbers dwindled, she could feel them straining against Val, trying to buck her control. They yearned for Xephyra’s heartfire, for the freedom they saw in the strixes that Veronyka and her bondmate lit up in heavenly light.

  Despite Val’s immense will, Veronyka’s efforts were destabilizing Val’s position as apex, and her hold was waning. Not only was Val’s horde shrinking, minimizing her power, but the newly converted phoenixes were now part of Veronyka’s flock, strengthening her instead.

  Veronyka was certain Val had noticed, but she was still fighting Ignix across the battlefield, joined now by Latham and Ronyn and some of the others. Whether by Veronyka’s unconscious will or their own observations, they’d seen what was at stake and had rushed to give Veronyka the time she needed.

  Even with her increased power, the work was exhausting. But it was exhilarating too, banishing the tiredness, the fatigue, into the farthest reaches of Veronyka’s mind.

  She thought of Ignix’s warning that heartfire was limited, that they only had so much to give—but what was that threat compared to this feeling? Every time she and Xephyra turned a strix, the Riders cheered, their phoenixes shrieked, and even the soldiers below clapped and stared, mesmerized by the sight before them.

  The air was alight with shifting shadows and glowing firebirds, but Xephyra’s heartfire was the brightest, most remarkable thing to grace the sky since Axura herself. It glowed like molten lava, shone like burnished gold—it was the sun itself brought down to earth.

  Ignix and the rest of her Riders were fighting bravely, but Val would not be put off her purpose forever.

  Veronyka had managed to transform most of the surviving strixes, but Val drew any that remained to her side, surrounding herself with what little barrier she could form as she struggled to break free.

  It wouldn’t be long until they faced each other.

  Veronyka couldn’t help the hope kindling inside her chest, mixing with the heartfire to create a palpable, almost painful ache.

  If the strixes could be saved… why not Val?

  It was a dangerous thought, powerful in its intensity. Veronyka would have to take Val out one way or another, so why not this way? Avalkyra Ashfire had been through worse, had survived worse, so maybe she could survive this.

  Dangerous, foolish hope—but Veronyka held it close all the same.

  As Val once again shook Ignix and wheeled around in search of Veronyka, she changed her strategy. Instead of bringing her few remaining strixes with her, Val sent her last protectors surging outward in an explosive burst, directly into the nearby Riders. They ducked and dispersed in surprise, buying her the space she needed to go straight for Veronyka.

  Leave her, Veronyka ordered as her scattered flock attempted to gather themselves to chase her down once more.

  Leave her to me.

  In order for this to work, Xephyra needed to get a clear shot at Onyx’s chest, but to do that, she’d have to let Val get close… very close.

  And so they did.

  Val gained on them quickly, flying tight on Xephyra’s tail, gaining with every pump of Onyx’s wings. There
was no room for error now, no quarter given. The instant Xephyra let up, Onyx would be upon her. That could work, in theory, but if the heartfire didn’t hit Onyx in the exact right spot, it would all be for nothing.

  After maintaining their chase across half the battlefield, Val grew impatient and drew her bow. A second later she had an arrow nocked, and Veronyka was in her sights.

  Veronyka did the only thing she could think of, which was to raise her own bow. She turned backward in the saddle, and Val’s eyes widened to find Veronyka facing her, arrow ready.

  But Veronyka didn’t release it, and Val’s shock faded.

  “Always a bleeding heart,” she called, the wind whipping through her hair and almost taking the words away with it, but Veronyka read them on her lips and sensed them through their bond.

  Val’s gaze slipped away, skipping over the growing ranks of phoenixes soaring erratically through the sky before settling back on Veronyka. “It should have been me.”

  Veronyka shook her head. Maybe before.

  Val’s face contorted. Before what?

  Before you lost your way.

  Val snorted dismissively, but Veronyka wasn’t done.

  You’re nothing but a shadow now, a ghost of what you were.

  You are the shadow! Val snapped, her disdainful mask fracturing for a moment, splintering to reveal the raw emotion underneath. You were made for this, to serve as my benex! You were born in my shadow, have lived in my shadow, and will die in my shadow too.

  Val straightened her bow, and they remained like that, their mounts tearing through the sky, weapons trained on each other. Veronyka’s arms trembled with the tension of holding the bow drawn, her focus switching between the black of Val’s eyes and the black of the obsidian arrow aimed straight at her head.

  Even if I die in shadow, Veronyka said solemnly, at least I have lived in the light.

  Val’s haunted expression pained Veronyka—she didn’t know why. Maybe it was because for two lives Val had lied, cheated, and killed to reclaim what she’d lost—to become the person she had once been—but every step she’d taken had led her farther from her goal. Life had robbed Val of her humanity, and despite everything, Veronyka knew that Val missed it. That whatever she said to the contrary, Val ached with the loss of it.

  “All this time,” Veronyka said, voice choked, “you’ve wanted to rewrite the past. You can’t. But you also don’t have to relive it.”

  Val shook her head fiercely, teeth gritted and jaw set, but her eyes were wild. Unguarded. You know nothing of light and shadow, she said. Or of life and death.

  Then her gaze narrowed, piercing Veronyka down to the bone. Her knuckles turned white, her bowstring drawn taut, and the arrow loosed.

  It had been useless, Veronyka knew, her efforts to try to save Val. Maybe she’d been trying to save herself from the pain of this decision.

  But it was already made.

  If she loosed her arrow, she would be the same as Val, her own legacy marked by killing her sister, and she would become the thing she’d fought against.

  No. Instead she would love and try to save Val until the very end. It wasn’t that she could not kill Val. It was that she would not.

  But that didn’t mean Val could not—would not—kill her.

  Veronyka released. Not the arrow, but the tension holding the bowstring taut. Time stuttered to a halt as Val’s arrow shot toward her, steady and true. A death stroke. A clean shot.

  She should not be surprised.

  She should not be hurt.

  But then the death shot wasn’t a death shot at all, because Xephyra was dropping, wings clutched tight to her sides, so that the arrow zipped over Veronyka’s head, missing her by a mere hair’s breadth. And then Xephyra was spinning, and Veronyka was upside down, disoriented as Xephyra came to a halt—not in front of Onyx, but beneath.

  And then she opened her beak and shrieked with all her might, hitting Onyx’s exposed underside in a torrent of heartfire that made Veronyka’s breath rattle in her lungs.

  The heartfire was wrenched from her body, her mind, her soul, pouring forth in an exploding rush, surging into Onyx’s chest. The strix shrieked, the sound ringing in Veronyka’s ears, and then she was nearly jostled from the saddle as Onyx crashed into Xephyra, the pair of them careening to the ground, and taking Veronyka and Val with them.

  Veronyka felt Onyx’s talons digging into Xephyra’s flesh, sensed Val’s rage and fury as she clung to the saddle. She would not go down easy.

  More! Veronyka cried, terror seizing her as Xephyra struggled, weakened by the use of the heartfire and the razor-sharp pain of Onyx’s claws. More! she said again, the drag and pull like water sucked down a drain. All of it. Everything.

  Give her everything.

  We are all the same—I see that now.

  Sun and moon and stars, we are all the same.

  - CHAPTER 65 - AVALKYRA

  WHEN AVALKYRA FIRST MET Veronyka—truly met her, not touched a bloody hand to her heartbeat as it thumped within her mother’s womb—it had been inside that dirt-floored apartment in the Narrows. Ilithya had wanted to name her something plain and common, but Avalkyra had insisted she be named for her mother. The Pyraean version of the name, not the absurd Stellan one.

  And so had begun Avalkyra’s foolish attachment to the girl.

  She thought she’d learned a lesson. Surely someone who passes through fire and death should come back changed for the better? Like steel in a forge, beaten and hammered—like pottery in a kiln, baked and hardened. Avalkyra should have come out stronger.

  But every time she looked at that girl, she thought she was looking at Pheronia before her, trusting and earnest, and whatever resolve she’d felt to guard herself, to pull back, would crack and crumble.

  And so in willful ignorance—the very same thing she criticized Veronyka for—she had let the bond between them grow. She stood aside as it dug deep roots and stretched strong boughs, reaching, reaching for the sun. For life.

  Had Avalkyra inadvertently fed and watered the very vines that would choke the life from her? Was this self-sabotage?

  Or was it love?

  That arrow… it was good that it had missed. Good that the battle should not be won so easily.

  Pheronia’s words, from a lifetime ago, sounded in her ears. What will you do, where will you turn, when there is nothing left to take?

  The memory grated, for she still did not have an answer.

  Even now, with her army falling apart around her, the wind slicing through her hair, her skin, and her fingers raw from the bowstring and the arrow that did not land… she didn’t have an answer.

  Onyx shrieked as their quarry dropped out of sight. Then they were locked together, and that blazing, blistering heat—that life-giving, war-ending flame—was coming for them.

  Avalkyra felt the moment it made contact with Onyx’s flesh—through her bondmate beneath her, but also through Veronyka. It was like being strung together, beads on a braid.

  But there was violence there, for all the love that Veronyka poured into it.

  Aching, aggressive love. Like being speared through the heart. Avalkyra was cut wide open, bleeding out.

  Onyx shuddered, and distantly, Avalkyra realized they were falling, crashing into Veronyka and her phoenix and plummeting through the sky.

  Another shudder, and then a screech, pulling deep within Avalkyra. Pulling on their bond. Asking, begging… for something.

  Was this death? She thought she knew the feeling.

  Was this life? Apparently she’d forgotten.

  The warmth, the pain… Was it working? Was Veronyka saving her, bringing her back to life, just as she had done on the battlefield over seventeen years ago?

  If she was… If she was, that would make this the end, wouldn’t it? Nothing left to take, no more battles left to fight. The end of the road and the start of something new.

  What would that world look like? And where would Avalkyra fit in it?

&n
bsp; How could she fit in it, after everything she’d done?

  The simple answer was that she couldn’t. Veronyka would love her, fight for her instead of against her, but it wouldn’t matter.

  Avalkyra was a war criminal. She had killed queens and sisters and daughters and mothers.

  She had torn the empire apart, had brought Pyra to its knees, had laughed and spat in the face of any who would dare to check or challenge her.

  And she had lost. If this was the end, she had lost.

  They would not let her walk free or fly through the sky. They would tear her down and lock her up. She would be powerless. She would be nothing. Not an apex, not a queen.

  Once this was done—once the fighting was done… it would be all over. This life, this freedom… these moments between them.

  All over.

  Avalkyra screamed, Onyx shrieked, and the fire flickered and died.

  And there was nothing but darkness, and disappointment… and silence.

  But I am old now. So very old.

  And I think this is the end.

  - CHAPTER 66 - TRISTAN

  WITH THE BRIDGE HOLDING and the extra Phoenix Riders available to keep the strixes from harassing the troops, reinforcements crossed into Pyra in droves. It was satisfying to see the battle change in the distance, to see the chaos settle and the tide shift. These soldiers were fresh and inspired, not caught off guard by their supernatural foe, and they seemed bolstered by the presence of the additional Phoenix Riders too—something Tristan still struggled to believe.

  Despite her side’s obvious defeat, Sidra continued to fight Doriyan. The two were trading arrows and insults in the air over the river, and Doriyan had even waved off the reinforcements—determined, it seemed, to take her down on his own.

  Maximian landed before Tristan, who had dismounted to allow Rex a chance to rest. After an awkward beat, Tristan stepped forward to press his hand to the great bird’s shining beak. He was brought back to the last time he’d done so, his hand smeared with his father’s blood, and was struck by how much had changed. Maximian’s presence here felt like approval, like recognition from his father, and Tristan had a hard time putting into words what that meant.