Tristan dropped from the saddle, panting as he gathered himself. He nodded at his phoenix, and the flames went out.
Everyone stared, including the commander, but it was Tristan who spoke first.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he spat at Veronyka, his voice shaking. “How dare you interfere with an apprentice exercise?”
Veronyka was stunned. She hadn’t thought beyond calming Wind and keeping him—and Tristan—safe. But if she had, she might’ve hoped for some recognition or praise. Not a scolding.
The commander stepped forward. “It’s clear that all of you need more practice with this exercise. Some,” he said, staring at Tristan, “more than others. This course will replace your morning map lessons and teach you the importance of focus and control. You, Tristan,” he added as the apprentices moved to pack up, “will come in the evenings as well. Every night. Nyk here can help. It was lucky you found him. . . . Perhaps he can teach you a few things.”
Tristan glowered at Veronyka. She didn’t understand—she was to teach an apprentice?
“But, Commander,” Tristan began incredulously. He spoke more quietly when he continued, not wanting to draw the continued attention of his fellow apprentices. “Father, he’s—he’s just a stableboy. What could he possibly teach me?”
Father? Immediately she saw it; he had the commander’s light-brown eyes and widow’s-peak hairline, as well as some of his natural confidence and physical presence. Veronyka reconsidered every interaction she had seen between them, filtered through the lens of family. Suddenly Tristan’s bad mood made sense.
The commander’s lips twisted as if in amusement. “What could he teach you? Humility, for a start,” he said, mounting his horse and trotting back up to the village.
Tristan glared down at Veronyka, cold hatred in his expression, before storming off after the commander.
Veronyka helped the rest of the stablehands bring in the animals, avoiding their stares. She knew Tristan didn’t like her much after his discovery of her had backfired and made a fool out of him—not to mention the way they had argued at her interrogation. But after today . . .
Angering a random apprentice was one thing, but making an enemy of the commander’s son was something else entirely.
But fire forges weapons. Obsidian, steel . . . even phoenixes. All are tempered, fortified, and made stronger after passing through the flames. The same can be true of people.
- CHAPTER 17 -
SEV
SEV SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN a knife.
He’d yet to get a replacement for the dagger the girl had stolen—and threatened him with—weeks ago, and the empty sheath on his hip made him feel more and more foolish with every step he took, struggling through dense undergrowth and heavy, hanging branches. It had been a Ferronese blade, pilfered from an officer’s untended pack during a training exercise back in the capital. It had been plainly made—probably deliberately, in order to avoid theft—but Sev had recognized the stamp near the hilt that marked it for what it was: valuable. He’d hoped to sell it someday, but as he got caught in another snagging vine, Sev admitted that he’d happily take a butter knife at this point. He thought of the axes and short swords, the spears and scythes and numerous other weapons that were within his grasp mere moments ago and were now beyond his reach. Perspiration beaded his forehead, and he kept swiping at the phantom hair that had been hacked off when he’d been made a soldier. Without the thick strands to catch it, sweat trickled down his temples and dripped down the back of his neck.
The cursed llama was no help either. As luck would have it, Sev had grabbed a biter, and every time his back was turned, trying to clear a path for them, he sensed the beast’s snuffling nose and open jaws, ready to snap at any exposed flesh.
Sev hadn’t made it far when a distant crunching sound drew his attention. The biter’s ears twitched, and Sev froze, scanning the forest until his pursuer stepped through the trees.
Kade.
Shock rooted Sev to the ground, and he quickly turned away to hide his reaction. He gripped the animal’s lead reins in case the creature tried to bolt, but it was clear that Kade’s calming presence was already at work on him. By the time Kade stepped into Sev’s peripheral vision, the llama was butting its head against his outstretched hand. Traitorous beast.
“They do a head count,” Kade said offhandedly, as if their meeting were happenstance and the information were of no real importance. As if he hadn’t just caught Sev trying to run away.
“I know that,” Sev said, heat rising up his already hot face. “But I’m on pack animal duty, so that means I’m the one who’s supposed to do the count. Alec is too lazy, and Grier is too drunk,” he said, mentioning the other soldiers assigned with him that day. “That’s pack animal duty, by the way, not pack animal bondservant duty. I don’t report on you.”
Kade forced a slow breath out through his nose. “And when they don’t get a count on the pack animals . . . you think they will just forget it?”
His voice was calm, reasonable—nothing like the angry, scowling boy from barely an hour before. For some reason, this soothing tone made Sev angrier. He was treating Sev like one of the llamas, like a simpleminded, temperamental pet.
He faced Kade at last, dropping the reins and clenching his hands into fists. “They’ll march on long enough for me to get a head start. I don’t care about the rest.”
“They’ll hunt you down.” Again his voice was almost indifferent—but his eyes betrayed some hidden feeling, something that invested him in this conversation, despite what he was trying to project.
Sev frowned, trying to puzzle it out, before realizing the gravity of what was happening for the first time. Sev had run away, but by following him here . . . Kade had done the same.
“That’s my problem, not yours. If you leave now, they’ll think you were just lagging behind.”
“I can’t.”
“What—why not?” Sev demanded. A flicker of hope stirred in his chest.
Kade placed a gentle hand on the llama’s long neck. “Do you know what happens when a bondservant loses track of his charge?”
Sev swallowed, the warm glimmer inside quickly snuffed out. He . . . he hadn’t thought this through.
And why should you? asked a harsher, more instinctual part of himself. Kade disliked Sev—he had made that very clear—so Sev should dislike him back. Kade was nothing to him.
Nothing.
It was selfish, Sev knew, but he’d had to be selfish in order to survive. Look what had happened to his parents. They’d been selfless, and it had gotten them killed. They’d left him all alone to fend for himself in a world that hated him for what he was. So he’d had to become something else. There were no more heroes soaring through the sky, protecting their people. There was the empire, and those that got caught under its boot. Sure, the Riders had supposedly regrouped, but they’d soon be killed as well. Trix and Kade were stupid for believing otherwise.
And yet somewhere in the back of his mind, Sev wanted to believe too. He wanted to believe in something, and whatever his mixed feelings about Kade and his cause, Sev couldn’t let him take the fall for this.
Kade had been watching him, staring intently at his face. They were the same height, their faces on a level, but Sev was much narrower, thinner—like the sinewy string to Kade’s carved bow, the supple branch to Kade’s sturdy tree.
A dull pain shot up from Sev’s hands, and he looked down, unclenching his fists. His joints ached with the release of tension, and his knuckles had gone white with the lack of blood flow.
Kade’s hands still rested on the llama, and they were shaking. He was afraid. Did he fear being alone out here with Sev—or did he fear being caught alone with Sev?
Something dark and desperate unfurled in Sev’s stomach. He was afraid too—but not for the same reasons.
“Come on,” he said, turning around. “We’re going back.”
As the end of the convoy came into view, Sev realized
it was no longer moving.
He looked at Kade, who had also noticed the halted progress.
“Just—let me,” Sev said. He shoved the llama’s reins into Kade’s hands, then lengthened his strides.
As the three of them rejoined the party, Captain Belden—who had long since returned from his meeting with the informant—was standing at the back of the line. Sev’s insides turned to liquid. This was not good.
Officer Yara, who was next to Captain Belden, noted Sev’s approach and marched over.
“How dare you remove an animal from the convoy, mageslave?” she barked, speaking directly to Kade and ignoring Sev entirely.
A hot spasm of anger lanced through Sev’s stomach, and a protective urge reared up inside him. He hated the way the soldiers treated the bondservants, and he hated the reminder that this was the very reason Kade disliked him in the first place. But they were in a dangerous position right now, and Sev had to be careful.
“It was me, Officer Yara,” Sev said loudly, stepping forward. “I took both the llama and the bondservant with me,” he explained, putting extra emphasis on the proper term for Kade’s position. Though Sev didn’t dare glance in his direction, he thought he sensed Kade’s reaction to his words. Soldiers never stood up for bondservants.
Officer Yara, too, seemed surprised by them, raising her eyebrows and causing her burn scars to stretch and turn white against her brown skin. “And who gave you permission to abandon your post, soldier?” She jerked her chin at Kade and the llama. “They are the property of Rolan, governor of Ferro, and by proxy, Captain Belden. They are not yours to do with what you wish.”
Property. Sev took a deep breath, composing himself. Lowering his voice to the slow, dim register the others were used to, he answered.
“The llama was limping, Officer Yara. The bondservant reckoned he had a muscle cramp and needed a quick rubdown, so we stepped aside to treat the animal. We didn’t want to delay the convoy.”
“Is this the lame beast?” Captain Belden asked, cutting in before Officer Yara could respond. He had been standing just behind them, consulting a map that his attendant held out for him. Waving the map impatiently aside, he stepped forward.
The captain was a weasel of a man with a pale, pointed face and thinning straw-like hair. He was battle-hardened, though, and had a reputation for cruelty, despite his taste for fine wine and embroidered silk.
“Yes, Captain. He’s walking fine now, sir, and—”
“Stand aside,” he commanded, and with a quiet snick and a flash of steel, he drew his dagger. The elegant weapon put Sev’s stolen dagger to shame, with its embossed leather grip and swirling, knotted embellishments, not to mention the gleaming Ferronese steel blade. He snatched the llama’s leads from Kade, who resisted for a breath before releasing them. Without a moment’s thought or hesitation, Captain Belden drew the knife across the animal’s throat.
Sev barely had time to register what was happening before the llama let out a strangled snort of pain, then collapsed, a shower of blood spattering across the ground as the warm flicker of his life was snuffed out.
Next to him, Kade staggered, and Sev fought to hide his own visceral reaction. Only an animage would truly feel the animal’s death the way Kade did, and Sev couldn’t give himself away—not while the captain stood there, bloody blade in hand.
There were plenty of misconceptions about animages in the empire. Many thought they were half-animal, wild and incapable of proper human emotion and intelligence. Others saw them as weak and overly sensitive, weeping at the death of every rat and cockroach and wanting to make even the lowliest creatures their pets and playmates.
Sev supposed that last part was true. On the farm, he’d had all manner of animal companions, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of understanding that some animals had to be killed so that he could eat, that some beasts plowed fields and pulled carts, that they worked just the same as humans did.
Regardless, one truth universally acknowledged was that animages could feel the emotions of the animals around them. They felt their pain and their panic, sometimes connecting with them more deeply than they did with humans. It made them vulnerable, and Captain Belden had just exploited that fact.
As Kade and Sev stared down at the dead animal, Belden carefully cleaned his blade with a handkerchief his attendant gave him, the fine fabric stitched with his golden monogram. He did it slowly, almost reverently, and the care was in stark contrast to his rash, thoughtless treatment of the llama.
“You will now report to Officer Lyle and assist our hunting unit,” he said to Kade, who visibly forced himself to straighten and face the man. “If you are caught anywhere near the pack animals, you will face strict discipline. Do you understand me, mageslave?”
Kade’s nostrils flared, and his jaw clenched as he nodded. “Yes, sir,” he grit out.
“We cannot afford to be delayed,” Belden continued idly, examining the knife closely before removing one last speck of blood. “By anything.”
He stared fixedly at Kade when he spoke the last two words. Sev understood the threat plainly. This time it was the llama; next time it will be you. Belden returned his weapon to its sheath and the blood-soaked rag to the attendant, then strode back to the front of the convoy.
“I’ll deal with you later, soldier,” Officer Yara said, following the captain up the line.
Sev looked at Kade, expecting to see anger or disappointment on his face. The hunting party was the worst duty available to an animage, who had to use their magic to lure in unsuspecting animals to be slaughtered. When Kade met his eye, however, he didn’t look upset—he looked panicked, his gaze darting around the clearing, face leeched of color. That’s when realization dawned on Sev for the first time.
Trix’s mission.
He had no idea what Kade’s task was—or for that matter, what his own was—but Kade had obviously been assigned to the pack animals for a reason.
And Sev had just screwed everything up.
Two soldiers dragged the llama carcass off to the side of the path, out of the way, while a handful of bondservants reclaimed the supplies that were strapped to its back. Objects, not life, were valuable here, and Sev was struck by the senselessness of it all. The creature had died in vain, for his selfish decisions, and worse, he’d somehow managed to drag Kade and Trix into it.
As the line started moving, Sev saw the old woman up ahead, staring at him.
He looked away.
Long have the Ashfires bled— and burned—for our right to rule.
- CHAPTER 18 -
TRISTAN
TRISTAN SKIPPED LUNCH.
The rest of the apprentices were probably talking about what had just happened, and he didn’t want to deprive them of the opportunity to gossip. The commander and his son, at odds again.
Rather than turning right toward the dining hall, he turned left, around the side of the temple and back to the apprentice barracks.
Inside, he paced.
Quiet as the mountain. Still as the mountain. Calm as the—
A surge of frustration reared up, and Tristan whirled, throwing a punch clean through the wall.
As quickly as his anger came, it leaked away. He sighed loudly, forcing the air from his lungs. He examined the hole in the wall, then his banged-up knuckles. Luckily, the wall was more of a screen, made from wooden slats woven together and not the heavy planks they used in the valley.
If the wall had been board or stone, like the exterior walls of the barracks, he’d have broken his hand. He laughed darkly, imagining how he’d explain that kind of injury to the commander. His knuckles bled, the skin scraped clean off, and the wall had obvious damage. He’d have to get the servants to fix it and hope his father never found out.
Tristan sank onto his hammock, swaying idly back and forth. The barracks was a long, narrow building, filled with fabric slings instead of wooden bed frames or pallets on the floor. The hammocks allowed them to fit as many sleepers as possible,
sometimes stacked double with stools to help climb onto the higher beds, like in the servant barracks. Since they had only ten apprentices, though, many of the slings were empty, and Tristan had chosen one low to the ground and near the back door, where there was a fleeting sense of privacy.
Most thought the commander of the Riders would show favoritism to his only son and heir, but Tristan had found the exact opposite to be true.
He’d been itching to train with horse and phoenix for months, the last major hurdle to conquer as an apprentice before becoming a Master Rider. But his father had insisted on holding him back and waiting for the other apprentices, who were nowhere near as good as Tristan.
Then that nagging feeling had surfaced in Tristan’s mind, the fear that his father knew his weakness. That his reasons for holding his son back were a lie. It wouldn’t be the first—or the last—lie his father told him, and Tristan loathed having to second-guess every conversation and interaction between them.
Tristan guarded his secret closely; did his best to hide it, to recover when he made a mistake—like the exercise out on the bluffs—and come back twice as strong. But there was always that moment of paralyzing doubt, a flash of uncertainty or hesitation that he was certain his father would see, if he knew to look for it. And what if he did? What if he learned that his son was afraid of fire, the very thing that made the Phoenix Riders who and what they were?
But no matter how it jangled his nerves and set his teeth on edge, Tristan wanted this life. He refused to lose his dream over something that was, ultimately, within his own control.
After his father demonstrated the obstacle course today, Tristan had seen it as an opportunity, a chance to show that he was stronger than any flaws his father might think he had—that there was absolutely nothing that would hold him back. He’d thought he might even be able to convince his father to give him his own patrol—Tristan’s ultimate goal.
Instead he’d made a fool of himself.
Crown of Feathers Page 18
