“Oh,” Veronyka said, her thoughts still on her next move. The girl’s words were so frank and earnest that a pang pierced Veronyka’s chest. “It was nothing. You’ve been really nice and helpful. Chirp, too,” she added, and Sparrow beamed.
“The steward’s staying at the cookhouse for the night,” she said, clearly determined to continue being helpful. She pointed over Veronyka’s shoulder, where Beryk was delivering the wagon to the hostler at the attached inn. Elliot had already disappeared to visit his sister and the relatives she was staying with. “Want me to get you into his rooms? I know the servant passages.”
“No,” Veronyka said sharply, afraid Sparrow would run off and get them into more trouble. She didn’t need to accost the man while he ate, or barge into his private room, as Sparrow suggested. The steward said he was leaving at dawn, and Veronyka would just have to be there when he did. She wouldn’t let him leave this village without getting some answers. “I’ll just wait out here until morning.”
To Veronyka’s surprise, Sparrow stayed with her.
When the market closed and the sun began to set, Sparrow begged a free dinner for both of them at the cookhouse back door. The endless tendrils of smoke issuing from the domed roof reminded Veronyka unpleasantly of Xephyra’s pyre, and just like that, the memories pressed in on her, sudden and suffocating. The dark, malignant glint in Val’s eyes, the dense smell of boiling vegetables, and the choked sound of Xephyra’s last labored breaths. The stillness of her body and how quickly it had gone up in flames.
Thinking of her bondmate was like being punched in the stomach, and Veronyka took a great shuddering breath. She couldn’t afford to go to pieces every time Xephyra popped into her mind. Val thought Veronyka was incapable of moving forward—incapable of surviving—without her help, and Veronyka refused to prove her sister right.
She knew what she had to do, even if it felt like betrayal to do so. Veronyka swallowed, her throat thick. Mere hours ago, Xephyra had been a source of strength, a part of her very being. Now her bondmate was a source of despair. How could Veronyka move forward if she carried the weight of the dead with her?
Veronyka closed her eyes and steadied her breath. She could never forget Xephyra, not truly, but she could make her memory harder to find. She’d learned the technique from Val, or rather, because of Val. It was hard to keep secrets from a sister like her, but Veronyka had figured out a few tricks.
There was a way of walling things off in her mind—hiding them from conscious thought, so that people like Val, who had shadow magic, couldn’t easily find them. Veronyka had never tried to hide things from herself, but it was worth a shot.
She visualized an empty, dusty corner of her mind—far in the back, out of sight, and easily forgotten. There she would hide Xephyra away.
Just for now, she told herself, hating the cold necessity of it and the way it reminded her of Val. Just for now.
Carefully, like a collector with her most delicate and prized possessions, Veronyka gathered every fond memory and happy feeling she had of her bondmate: Xephyra’s hatching, her first wobbly flight, and the comforting warmth of her feathers. Veronyka experienced each moment of joy one last time, then put them inside that dark corner. She thought of it like a mental safe house, tucked away and concealed, but not truly gone. Xephyra was still a part of her. She always would be.
As her bondmate slowly disappeared from her thoughts, the weight in Veronyka’s chest lifted. Instead of a chasm left behind after a catastrophe, her mind was an empty field. Soothing. Peaceful—no matter the turmoil just below the surface.
Later, when she had her life sorted out, she could take the time to properly grieve for Xephyra.
“You gonna go with them if they let you?” Sparrow asked, several hours after dinner. “Become a famous warrior, like Avalkyra Ashfire?” She was playing with a moth, catching and releasing it over and over again, while murmuring encouragement and cooing words of praise. Insects were nearly impossible to communicate with, their minds too small and foreign for most animages to grasp—usually. It wouldn’t have surprised Veronyka to know Sparrow had managed to make contact with some of them.
Veronyka smiled. “I hope so. What will you do?” She didn’t know anything about the girl, where she came from or where she was going. Maybe Sparrow didn’t know either.
“We haven’t been to Runnet in a while,” she said with a sigh, letting her moth friend fly away. “Maybe we’ll go there next.” Her sparrow cheeped his assent, making it clear who the “we” was in that sentence.
Sparrow was soon snoring, but Veronyka only dozed lightly, afraid to miss the steward’s departure. She saw the fishermen leave for their boats and smelled the baker’s first bread. Elliot returned just before dawn, shoulders hunched against the cold—or maybe it was the idea of leaving his family that dragged him down.
When the wagon rolled out of the stable yard into the golden morning sunshine, Veronyka was waiting by the gate.
“Excuse me,” she said, startling Beryk as he shuffled through some papers. Elliot was just out of earshot, adjusting the wagon’s canvas cover, though he frowned at her in recognition.
“Yes?” the steward asked. While Elliot seemed to remember her, Beryk’s expression was vaguely polite.
Veronyka swallowed. “I heard—I know that you’re . . . phoenixaeres,” she said, keeping her voice low.
Beryk had leaned in to hear her, but he straightened abruptly when she spoke in Pyraean. “I’m sorry, lass,” he said sharply, “but I don’t speak ancient Pyraean.”
“Please,” Veronyka said, stepping in front of him as he moved to walk away. He glanced at her, and she must have truly looked pathetic, because he stopped. “I want to go with you. I’m an animage, and—”
“You must be confused. I manage a country estate, and this here is my assistant.”
“Your underwing?” Veronyka asked stubbornly.
Beryk smiled tightly, and when Elliot wandered over, he waved for the boy to get onto the wagon. “Listen, lass, and listen closely,” he said in a rapid whisper. “Whatever you think you heard, you’d best forget it. For your own sake. Even if I were recruiting—which I’m not—and even if that recruitment were for animages—which it isn’t—I’m afraid you’d not fit our requirements.”
“Because I’m not a boy?” Veronyka asked.
The man wore a heavy, regretful expression, as if this weren’t the first time he’d had to reject a girl and he didn’t enjoy it. “I know it seems unfair, but he has his reasons.”
He, this commander that Beryk had mentioned the previous day. Before Veronyka could argue further, he gave her arm a bracing pat, then hopped onto the wagon.
She watched them go, a riot of emotions inside her chest. She was disappointed, yes, but he’d basically admitted that he was a Rider. The existence of even one Phoenix Rider on Pyrmont was cause for celebration.
“What’d he say?”
Veronyka jumped, surprised to find Sparrow standing right next to her. She’d been lurking in the shadows outside the inn, but once Beryk left, she had sidled up to Veronyka on silent feet.
“It’s like you said; they only want boys,” Veronyka muttered, still trying to understand their exchange and what it meant. Were the Phoenix Riders of the future going to be men alone?
Sparrow shrugged. “Then be a boy.”
Veronyka’s breath caught, and she looked up at Sparrow in surprise.
Be a boy.
It was simple. It was brilliant.
It was exactly what Veronyka would do.
Aura, the original capital of the Queendom of Pyra, sat atop Pyrmont’s highest peak. It was built around the Everlasting Flame, a massive pit filled with the same god-made flames that had tested Nefyra a thousand years ago. It continued to burn long after her trial, constantly fueled by gases leaking from holes in the mountain.
Stone filled with veins of precious metals surrounded the Everlasting Flame, and the Pyraeans slowly excavated temples a
nd statues from the living rock. Fissures of gold reflected the firelight, gilding every surface, leading to the name “Aura,” the Golden City.
The Pyraeans slowly spread over the highest peaks of the mountain, able to live and build in places where only those with phoenixes could ever reach. It wasn’t until the Everlasting Flame went out that the Riders went in search of new lands and new prosperity. Many saw the extinction of the Everlasting Flame as a sign that Axura was displeased with them and that they had fallen out of favor. Every phoenix ever hatched until that time had been incubated in the Everlasting Flame, and it was an integral part of everyday life for the ancient Phoenix Riders. In that divine fire, lives were birthed and dead bodies burned; festivals and celebrations, weddings and ceremonies, all were done in the light of the Everlasting Flame.
Newly crowned Queen Elysia knew her people needed more than a new home. . . . They needed a new start. After years of maintaining and defending Pyra’s borders—which had grown to encompass all of Pyrmont and the surrounding Foothills—Elysia set her sights on expansion and exploration. She maintained that was their true purpose—to spread Axura’s light into all corners of the world.
There were battles and alliances, treaties and new boundaries, and soon Pyraean queens married valley kings and established the Auran—more commonly called Golden—Empire, never returning to the highest reaches of their mountain home.
—Myths and Legends of the Golden Empire and Beyond, a compilation of stories and accounts, the Morian Archives, 101 AE
She called it betrayal. I called it justice. A poisoned cup for a poisoned cup, a death for a death. A queen for a king.
- CHAPTER 11 -
SEV
SEV SOON CAME TO regret his deal with Trix—if it could even be called a deal. Blackmail, more like. He thought often of reporting her, but he didn’t doubt she’d make good on her threats. He hadn’t built up any amount of clout or goodwill with the other soldiers, and he knew from experience that Trix could be very persuasive.
The fact of the matter was, the woman was smarter than him, and he couldn’t afford to cross her. Trix knew about his little escape attempt and would probably keep an eye on him at night to ensure he didn’t make another run for it. If Sev refused to help her, well, she’d reveal his secret—and frame him for any number of other things as well—and he’d find himself in bondage, or worse. Being an animage in hiding was one thing, but being an animage hiding among the empire’s precious ranks of soldiers was something else. Most bondservants were forced to serve until they’d “paid back their debt to the empire,” which really just meant paying back lost taxes. That usually resulted in a term of at least ten years, depending on how old the animage was and what exactly they’d been caught doing. If they were running a booming business thanks to their magic—breeding Stellan horses or training expensive hunting falcons—without paying the magetax, the empire would have lost out on piles of gold, so their term as a bondservant would be much longer. Children and poor folk tended to serve shorter terms, but their families usually suffered without them. And once they were released from their bondage, they were taxed twice as heavily for the rest of their lives.
Traitors who were captured after the Blood War—animages who supported Avalkyra Ashfire—served for life or were deemed too dangerous to live and were executed. Sev expected to be lumped in with the traitors if he were discovered, but he wasn’t sure if his crime would be considered bad enough to get him killed. The empire took its military seriously, and Captain Belden was not an understanding man. Plus, Sev had been a convicted murderer before he enlisted—in the face of his treachery, they might decide to unforgive that crime, take his head, and be done with it.
He was stuck; Sev knew it, and Trix knew it too. For better or worse, he was a part of her scheme. Since her plans would get him out of his life as a soldier, their goals aligned for the time being.
Still, joining her, trying to “bring these filthy empire assassins down from the inside,” went against everything Sev had learned about survival. Heroics were for fools, and what was more heroic—or more foolish—than a handful of servants trying to bring down two hundred soldiers?
She’d already been at the task for weeks, and Sev was just one of many moving pieces. Trix’s role as a bondservant was to manage the messenger pigeons, and Sev had no doubt she read the captain’s letters. She had the cooks and the craftsmen, the young runners and the old washerwomen—people from every facet of camp life—reporting to her, including Captain Belden’s personal attendant. They gave Trix every scrap of information they had, and she weaved them all together like Anyanke, goddess of fate, spinning her tangled webs. Everyone in the camp was caught up in it, including Sev.
“What makes you think you can even pull this off?” he asked her several days after Trix had first recruited him.
The only time Sev could really talk to the woman was late at night, when everyone’s duties were done and most of the soldiers were either passed out or so deep into their cups that they didn’t notice a soldier fraternizing with a bondservant.
Fires were still forbidden, but the bondservants had set up an area to sit and work, with logs ranged in a rough circle in the barest scraps of moonlight filtering through the trees. Trix was seated there, humming to herself, and Kade was next to her, mending a bit of broken harness. Though his hands were large, they were graceful, too, and capable of delicate work. His head was bent over the strap, a tool held between his teeth as he carefully took the buckle apart.
Despite Kade’s apparent focus, he snorted at Sev’s question.
“What makes you think I can’t?” Trix asked, grinning slightly. Sev gave her a sidelong look, taking in every inch of her bent, gray, and less-than-intimidating form. Sure, she was a good gossip, but gathering information was one thing, and acting on that information was something else.
Trix was calm as she patted the log next to her, inviting Sev to take a seat. “Not all battles are fought with ax and arrow. Some say the war ended sixteen years ago, when the sister queens died. Not me. I’ve been fighting this war every day since. This,” she said, pressing a hand against the metal chain dangling from her throat, “is my armor, and this”—she swept an arm over the quiet campsite—“is my battlefield.”
A shiver ran down Sev’s spine. He cast his gaze over the prone soldiers, imagining them not as sleepers, but as corpses.
“You’ve been a bondservant all this time?” Sev asked. “For sixteen years?”
“Six,” she said. An icy chill emanated from her, so Sev decided not to ask her what she’d been doing before that. Living life on the run? Blackmailing other careless empire soldiers? He supposed it didn’t matter. Whatever Trix had done, no one deserved bondage. No one.
“Did you fight in the war?” he asked. “As a warrior? A Phoenix Rider?” He couldn’t help the way his words sped up at talk of the Riders, the way they tumbled from his mouth in excitement or fear—he couldn’t be sure which one.
“Does that surprise you? Not all of us were fit to grace palace frescoes and temple mosaics like Avalkyra Ashfire, with her crown of feathers. Some of us were best suited for the shadows.”
“Did you know her, Avalkyra Ashfire?”
“We were acquainted,” she said offhandedly.
Sev’s eyes widened, and he stared at her with newfound respect. To actually have met the queen meant that Trix was no lowly conscript like his parents had been. “Does that mean . . . were you a part of her patrol? Were you a famous Phoenix Rider too?”
“If I were, that would have quite defeated the point,” she said dryly.
Sev frowned. “The point of what?”
“No more questions, soldier,” Kade interrupted, but Trix quieted him with a hand on his shoulder.
“I was an adviser, of sorts.”
“An adviser to Avalkyra Ashfire?” Sev asked incredulously. It was one thing to fight alongside her as a soldier, and quite another to give her council. He lowered his voice. “How did o
ne of the Feather-Crowned Queen’s own advisers wind up here, in service to Captain Belden, who’s been charged with the destruction of whatever is left of the Phoenix Riders?”
“That’s none of your—” Kade began, but Trix cut him off.
“They have no idea what I did or didn’t do in the war,” she said disdainfully, jerking her chin in the direction of the captain’s tent. “To them I am an old animage woman past my prime, meek, slightly mad—and nothing more.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you wound up on this mission. Dumb luck? A happy coincidence?” asked Sev.
“You’re nosy, boy,” Trix said, her tone thoughtful, and Kade nodded, clearly anticipating a reprimand, until— “Which is exactly why I need you.”
“For what?” he asked, latching on to the change in subject.
Whatever it was she needed from him, Sev wanted to know. He had no intention of getting roped into rebellions and stupid heroics. That was how people wound up dead. “Please, just tell me what you need, so I can do it and be free of this arrangement.”
Kade stared at him, a frown creasing his brow. It almost looked like disappointment, but Sev shook the odd sinking feeling it gave him.
He wasn’t joining their little revolt because he wanted to. . . . He was doing it because Trix was forcing him. What he really wanted was to escape, and the sooner he did whatever she needed, the sooner that would happen.
“I need you to sign up for pack animal duty,” she announced.
“I . . . What?” Sev asked, his gaze flicking to Kade. He was one of a dozen bondservants who were responsible for the newly purchased llamas’ care, and if Sev signed up for pack animal duty, they’d be stationed together.
“Why?” Kade demanded, getting to his feet. “I don’t need him.”
“I never said you did.”
Crown of Feathers Page 11
