Wings of Shadow

by Nicki Pau Preto

  “Stay with me,” Veronyka found herself saying—knowing it was no use, knowing that if she did, everything would be the same. That there was no other end for them than this.

  It was why Val had wanted to keep fighting.… Even she had known what the end would bring. Them, apart from each other forever.

  “Please,” Val said, her voice softer, gentler than it had ever been before. “Let me go, Onia.…” Veronyka’s heart bled, cut open by the realization that maybe she had only ever been a stand-in, an echo, a shadow of the sister Val had lost a lifetime ago. That it had never been about the two of them at all. But then she realized where Val was looking… not at her, but up at the stars. “Let me go.”

  “It’s okay,” Veronyka said, and Val’s gaze shifted, latching on to her with sudden, fierce clarity.

  “Xe Nyka…,” she murmured, sighing in something that sounded like relief. “Do you think she will forgive me?”

  Veronyka nodded, her throat too tight to speak.

  “And you?”

  She nodded again, over and over, her vision swimming. Val watched her for this reaction, needing it.

  Then she smiled and closed her eyes. A look of peace spread over her face, a look that Veronyka had never seen on her sister in life. The expression tore the last shreds of Veronyka’s composure, and she sobbed as Val’s hand went limp, dropping from her cheek, and the world was darker for it. Veronyka’s world was darker. There were people all around her, people she loved, and yet… And yet.

  She had never felt so alone.

  I will die in a bed of ash and flame.

  - CHAPTER 68 - VERONYKA

  COME, CHILD—THERE ISN’T much time.

  Veronyka looked up to find Ignix’s great head before her, eyes so dark she saw her face reflected in them.

  “Time for what?” Veronyka asked, dazed. She realized Ignix was speaking to her now with shadow magic… because Veronyka no longer had magic of her own.

  Her heart wrenched in pain, and her hand clenched—her fingers still clutching Val’s limp, dead ones. Ignix’s wings were curled around them, closing them in on all sides, providing momentary sanctuary from the world beyond.

  Bravery.

  Veronyka straightened, understanding dawning. “But… I’m afraid.”

  There is no bravery without fear.

  They were strong words. Nefyra’s words, spoken right before she’d walked into Axura’s flames.

  Though Veronyka no longer had her magic, she saw the truth when she stared into those ancient eyes. What Ignix was offering.

  Heartfire is a powerful weapon. It can destroy, create, and unmake. It is Axura’s own flame.

  If Veronyka could unmake and remake the strixes, if she could pour magic into them, could Ignix pour magic into her?

  “You’re apex again,” she said, and Ignix nodded. Without her magic, Veronyka could not wield the apex power, and their flock had bowed to her and Xephyra together. They did not recognize Xephyra’s status without her. “But what about the price?”

  I will pay it, Ignix said calmly. She took a deep, fortifying breath, her chest expanding between them. It is time for a new beginning.

  Veronyka’s throat tightened. “Will it hurt?” she asked.

  Ignix tilted her head before leaning back and craning her neck toward the sky. Whenever I asked Nefyra about her trial by fire, she said only this: It was worth it. Always, it was worth it.

  Veronyka looked down at Val again, bolstered by the words. She had lost Val. She had lost her bonds. Her magic. Nothing could hurt more than that.

  “Will I be reborn? Like Val?”

  Ignix shook her head. You will get only what you have given—your magic. Hold on to your life, your reasons to remain, and I will handle the rest.

  Veronyka’s mind worked slowly through all Ignix had said. Her reasons to remain flitted through her mind. She looked down at Val’s body, then around, between the gaps in Ignix’s feathers. She had Xephyra, her precious bondmate. She had Tristan and Rex, Alexiya and Theryn and Agneta, Sparrow and Elliot and Sev and Kade. She had the Phoenix Riders.

  Veronyka was on her feet now, though she didn’t remember standing. Ignix shook out her wings, breaking the temporary bubble that had enclosed them, and the world outside rushed in.

  “Veronyka?” She turned to see Tristan there, expression grave.

  She released Val’s hand, reaching for his. It was warm and strong, and she pressed it to her cheek, over the dried blood print Val’s hand had left there. She breathed deeply, memorizing his scent, and the feel of his skin against hers.

  Then she let go.

  There was heat behind her, building in steady waves against her back. It was comforting, like a warm embrace. She longed for it.

  “Wait, what are you—” Tristan began, and behind him were Alexiya and Theryn, both looking wild-eyed and confused.

  “Hold him, will you?” Veronyka asked Alexiya. She opened her mouth as if to argue, then closed it and nodded.

  “Hold who?” demanded Theryn, moving closer, but Alexiya gripped his shoulder, halting him.

  Ronyn and Latham were nearby, and when she looked at them, they rushed forward. Even without shadow magic, they sensed her summons and obeyed it. She smiled, then nodded at Tristan.

  “Veronyka, what are you doing?” Tristan cried, reaching for her, but then Ronyn was there with a firm hold on one arm and Latham on the other.

  Veronyka wanted to go to him, to give him comfort—but what she longed for most of all was the connection they’d shared that went beyond the physical realm. She ached with its absence, their bond a gaping wound inside her.

  She didn’t know what would happen now, but she knew she had to try.

  “I love you,” she said to him. His eyes were wide and brown and rimmed with tears.

  She turned to Theryn and Alexiya. “I love you. Both of you.”

  A low, keening sound had begun to fill the silence, and Veronyka found Xephyra—so strange to have to look for her, to not sense where she was at every moment—pushing to the front of the group, Rex on her heels.

  Veronyka reached for them both, ran her hands over their smooth beaks and satiny feathers.

  “Sweet Flame,” Veronyka murmured, taking Xephyra’s head in hers. “Flame Sister.” She kissed her on the beak. It was hard to find words, when their entire lives together, they hadn’t needed any.

  Xephyra crooned softly, nudging her chest.

  Rex edged closer, and Veronyka kissed his beak as well. “If this goes wrong… take care of him, won’t you?” she whispered. “Take care of each other.”

  Veronyka turned. Ignix was burning hotter and hotter, flames rippling across her body in carefully controlled waves. Someone was shouting, crying out and struggling—it was Sparrow, being held by Elliot—and Veronyka was glad there was someone to look out for her, too. Next to them were Sev and Kade, watching her with sad, solemn eyes.

  But they were together—together and safe. All her people had someone to look after them.

  Her gaze fell to the body on the ground. There had been no one to look after Val. That had been Veronyka’s job, and she had failed. She had been unable to hold Val back from the flames of her own destruction, and the grief of it was like strix talons tearing her open and flaying her alive.

  “Can she come with me?” she asked Ignix, whose chest was glowing now, pulsing a steady, thrumming beat. Heartfire.

  It is a worthy pyre for a queen.

  It was difficult, but Veronyka managed to lift her sister into her arms—she was thinner than Veronyka remembered, as if life were a tangible thing, a weight that could be stolen away—and stood.

  Ignix spread her wings wide, fire roaring and snapping across her feathers, and it didn’t scare Veronyka. It looked welcoming, like the arms of a loved one.

  Xephyra shrieked, Tristan struggled and fought, calling her name, and Alexiya and Theryn held on to each other.

  Veronyka’s heart was full, despite it all. Her heart
was full.

  She stepped forward, into the flames, and Ignix wrapped her wings around them both in an explosion of light and life and love.

  The world disappeared. There was nothing but fire.

  Val became ashes in her hands—a star in the sky.

  And she wasn’t the only one.

  * * *

  It did hurt, at first. The flames were hungry and they tore at her—not her flesh and bones, but her heart and soul. They wanted to consume the very essence of her, to pull her apart, and it was all Veronyka could do to keep herself together. If her will was less, her desire weaker, she might not have made it through.

  But she did.

  She fought them; she clung to her life and her reasons to remain, and she fought them.

  Eventually the pain lessened, and the fires withdrew. Even Ignix faded away, becoming one with the distantly swirling flames. The blaze stretched and expanded, transforming into a cyclone, a tornado—a hurricane—and Veronyka was at its center. She was in the eye of the storm… but she was not alone.

  Darkness descended, but only so that she could see the stars.

  They were suspended around her, as beautiful and glittering as gemstones upon velvet. Achingly near, close enough to touch, but ethereal as smoke.

  Veronyka understood that they were with her. All of them were with her.

  Ilithya Shadowheart, her maiora.

  Pheronia Ashfire, her mother.

  And Avalkyra Ashfire—Val, her sister.

  There were others, too. Morra and Beryk and Ashfires stretching back to the dawn of time.

  They weren’t just stars; they were constellations—tied to one another, to her, to the sun and moon and the sky above.

  They smiled down on her, soft as starlight, fierce as the blazing sun.

  She breathed deeply, feeling hope and love and magic ignite in her chest.

  She would join them, one day.

  But not today.

  So it began, so too shall it end.

  - CHAPTER 69 - TRISTAN

  TRISTAN’S THROAT WAS RAW from screaming, his arms locked tight and aching from being held fast.

  His brain couldn’t seem to catch up with all that had happened. He’d just watched Maximian go up in flames and had thought that was truly awful—and it was, but Max had been a phoenix. Fire was his nature, his life and his death. There was no escaping it.

  Veronyka was not a phoenix. And yet she’d walked willingly, gratefully, into that sweltering heat, the waves so hot that Tristan’s skin felt scorched, and he was so beyond fear that his mind felt fractured, disassociated from his body.

  The fire continued to blaze, high and strong, crackling and pulsing like some flaming heart. It was alive in a way that made Tristan want to rear back. He’d hated fire for most of his life, but he hated this fire most of all… because it had taken Veronyka.

  Was life without magic truly worse than death?

  Because that’s what had happened, wasn’t it? Veronyka had given the fight against Val and the strixes everything she had, including her magic. That was why Rex and Xephyra were inconsolable, why Tristan sensed something missing inside, some empty room in his mind that had once been full of… something. He’d called out for her, he’d begged and pleaded and received nothing in response. He’d never seen her look so hopeless—and that was when he knew.

  She had given up everything.

  She had given up him. She had given up Xephyra.

  And however much that hurt him, it hurt Veronyka more.

  Tristan stopped fighting.

  Maybe this was a mercy. Maybe this was easier than living without the magic that had defined her life—for better or worse.

  She had even lost Val… her life’s most enduring and complicated relationship.

  Maybe this was what she wanted.

  Ronyn and Latham still held his arms, but their grip had slackened now that Tristan was no longer struggling against it. Ronyn’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, and Latham’s face was pale under the smears of ash and blood.

  All around, people stood and watched the conflagration.

  Watched Veronyka burn alive.

  Tristan’s throat hitched.

  But there was something happening within the flames. They were shrinking—no, not shrinking, but changing, jumping, and warping around a shape that was becoming visible in the center.

  Tristan’s heart stopped. Was it—could it be?

  Veronyka.

  The fire blazed around her, on her—through her, her chest glowing with incandescent light. Flames licked across her arms, her clothing, and her hair—but nothing burned. When she lifted her gaze, her eyes shone molten, like embers in a hearth.

  She was unearthly. Terrifying and magnificent.

  All was silent as her image solidified, as the fire receded and she stepped, wholly unharmed, out of the flames.

  Xephyra let out a triumphant shriek, and something inside Tristan blazed back into life. Rex took up Xephyra’s call, and so did the other phoenixes, their song reverberating in Tristan’s bones.

  She was back. All of her.

  She was back.

  And in her arms where Val had been, there was a feather crown instead. Val’s crown, surely, except the night-black feathers had gone sunlight shades of red and gold and brilliant purple. Veronyka stepped clear of the dying fire, nothing but a bed of burning coals behind her, yet the crown was alive with the same flames that had been crawling across her skin.

  She looked down at it, then up at the gathered assembly. Then she lifted the crown and placed it on her head.

  Again, the fire didn’t touch her. It seemed as if it couldn’t, as if they were one and the same.

  Tristan lurched forward, the hands that had held him slack now against his skin.

  Then he was on his knees, staring up at her. It seemed the right thing—the only thing—to do.

  Her gaze settled on him, warm and loving and brown-eyed once again. But her chest… it still glowed, flickering slow and steady. Like a pulse.

  Like a heart.

  Veronyka Flameheart, he found himself thinking—stupid, dim-witted words, especially since he didn’t know if she could even hear them—but she lit up like the rising sun, her smile brilliant and beautiful.

  It has a nice ring to it, she said into his mind, and a wash of relief and happiness welled up inside him. He pressed a hand to his chest, recalling their vows of loyalty from what felt like ages ago, and Veronyka mirrored him, lowering onto one knee.

  Tristan sensed more than saw the people around him following suit—one by one they dropped to their knees and pressed their hands to their chests, gazing at her.

  At Veronyka Flameheart, the Fire-Crowned Queen.

  I will die in a bed of ash and flame… then I will be reborn again in just the same.

  - CHAPTER 70 - VERONYKA

  WITH LIFE CAME DEATH—Val had taught her that. For every new phoenix, for every life saved, was one lost.

  In Veronyka’s case, there were two.

  The pyre from which Veronyka had emerged had claimed two lives—Ignix, the world’s first phoenix, and Avalkyra Ashfire, the Feather-Crowned Queen.

  Veronyka stood vigil beside the ashes, wondering if the past ever really died, or if it lived on because she lived on. In her blood lived the legacy of all the Ashfire queens, and even the not-quite-queens like her mother and her sister-aunt.

  When she’d stepped out of the flames and put on her crown, the people around her had taken to their knees and bowed their heads. Queen and apex once again. They had given her their loyalty, and she had given it back.

  After they stood, friends and family had approached her with wary disbelief.

  Tristan was there first, taking her hand in his and lifting it to his lips. His cheeks were damp, tear tracks streaking through the dirt, and he was almost reverent as he pressed her palm to his mouth, eyes closed, his breath shaky—like he feared she might disappear at any moment.

  You scared m
e, he said through the bond.

  I’m sorry, Veronyka said, but he shook his head, refusing the apology because there was no need, really. He knew her down to her bones, including the fact that she’d needed to do this. He was only grateful she’d returned.

  Just don’t do it again, he added, smiling against her skin.

  Xephyra was next, and not nearly as gentle. She barreled through the crowd, all pointy wings and sharp beak, and butted Veronyka in the chest, hard—half admonishment, half panic. Like Tristan, it seemed she needed to touch Veronyka and remain touching, as proof that she was really here and not some figment of their imaginations. Rex remained close by Xephyra, though he ran his beak briefly through Veronyka’s hair and nudged her once or twice before stepping aside.

  Theryn approached next, openly sobbing. Then he drew her into the kind of hug that reached across time and space. He hugged her mother in that moment. She felt it, and for once she did not resent being the placeholder. Alexiya hovered nearby until Theryn yanked her arm and pulled her in as well.

  As more people crowded forward—Riders and soldiers—Tristan released her hand. Not because he wanted to go, but because he was commander now and had things to do. Veronyka remembered that not everyone had been able to step out of their flames.

  I’ll take care of it, Tristan promised, just as he had with Morra. And he did.

  It wasn’t long until pyres dotted the countryside, just as phoenixes had dotted the battlefield—just as stars dotted the sky.

  Clusters of people moved about, adding bodies to the blazes, or staring desolately as bone became ash, as life became death, as present became past.

  Veronyka stayed by Val’s pyre, clutching the phoenix-feather crown in her hands. Like the fire before her, it no longer burned. It was still and lifeless in her hands.

  Her grip tightened as she clutched her last tether to Val, to the sister she had lost. Then she placed the crown onto the ashes and watched until it burned away.