Veronyka swallowed, her throat thick. Xephyra was large for her age—she always had been, even in her first life. She might have lived for over three months cumulatively, but this life, this body was closer to two months.
“Female phoenixes are extremely defensive creatures, Tristan,” the commander continued. “The sooner we engage in breeding exercises, the better the chances she will not yet claim this place as her own. Xolanthe and Xatara have both exhibited territorial behaviors in their mating attempts. This is our chance to counteract that.”
Tristan’s expression was hard. He set his feet and crossed his arms, bracing himself. “I won’t do it. I—this—it’s not right. It’s not the best way. I can’t stop you from doing it, but I can stop Rex and myself from being a part of it.”
“Excuse me?” the commander said, taking a step closer to his son. Ersken looked between them, eyes wide. “Are you refusing a direct order?”
Veronyka could see Tristan’s throat work, even from a distance, but he didn’t lower his head or avert his glance. “Yes, I am.”
“This could cost you your patrol, Tristan,” the commander said, lowering his voice to a deathly whisper. “I want you to think carefully right now.”
“I am—and I have,” Tristan said, speaking at full volume. “You told me the best leaders do so by example. I don’t believe in this, so I can’t in good conscience participate in it. If it loses me the patrol leader position, so be it.”
The two stood nose to nose, staring at each other. Veronyka noticed for the first time that Tristan was actually a hair taller than his father. Maybe he had always been, but something about challenging the man was making Tristan stand straighter.
Pride in him radiated from her lungs, filling her up with each breath she took.
Commander Cassian’s lips were pursed, but rather than explode in anger, he merely shrugged. “So be it. If you don’t want to do what needs to be done, then I’ll find someone who will. Run and notify Elliot that he and his bondmate will be required at the breeding enclosure immediately.”
Renewed terror spiked inside Veronyka’s veins, and Xephyra screeched in response.
Tristan looked her way, face frustrated and apologetic, but the instant their gazes locked, something happened. Veronyka’s mental walls felt weakened by her sudden, visceral fear, and now her magic spilled blindly outward.
And it found Tristan.
Veronyka tried to pull back, but their connection was fast and strong.
It wasn’t like when she’d glimpsed his mind before, accessing him through the animals he was connected to, or in small, momentary flashes. She was linked directly to Tristan.
It had happened almost effortlessly, as if there was a place in her wall that led directly to him. Before, when she’d heard him at the obstacle course as he communicated with the animals, it had been like listening through a keyhole. Now she stood before an open window.
Of course, just like a real window, the opening she’d made wasn’t simply a way to see out, but a way to see in, too—a vulnerability that she had unknowingly cultivated, a weakness built from familiarity. Just as it did when she opened herself to the same animal over and over, it seemed all the times she’d skirted around Tristan’s mind made connecting with him now much easier than it should be. This was something she needed to examine more closely, but as Tristan’s thoughts came through the window in a deluge, it was all Veronyka could do to keep herself standing.
The high-stress situation was causing a rush of worries and fears to flood the surface of his mind. There was a shadow where the commander stood—watching, judging. Everything was a test in his father’s eyes, and this was no exception. But she sensed that part of his anxiety had to do with her. . . . He didn’t know Xephyra was her bondmate, but he’d known how much she hated the breeding cages. If it was challenging to understand a phoenix’s mind, trying to untangle a person’s felt near impossible. Tristan’s thoughts were like guttering candles, bursting to life only to flicker out a second later, one after another, impossible to string together or follow along.
Veronyka tried to disengage herself, to separate his feelings from hers, to regain her balance. It was like being underwater, drowning in him. . . .
Then there was a spark, a ripple of sunshine in the corner of his mind—not a guttering candle but a blazing torch.
It was her.
Veronyka focused on that light, extending herself toward it—only she reached too far. She lost the tether to her own mind—the solid ground upon which she always stood. She felt weightless, disembodied, and another wave of dizziness washed over her.
She was wrenched from her place of safety. Veronyka’s vision doubled, then split, and she was looking at the scene before her through Tristan’s eyes. There she was, a small figure in the darkness of the gallery, crouched near a pillar.
The sight of herself sent a jarring spasm of alarm through her.
Somehow, rather than just sensing Tristan’s mind, she’d slipped into it—mirroring, it was called. It was something Riders did with their phoenixes, and it allowed them to make use of their mount’s incredible vision and to essentially be two places at once if they happened to be apart. It was the skill Tristan and the other apprentices were practicing during the obstacle course, and apparently a gift that took many years for fully qualified Riders to master perfectly.
And Veronyka was mirroring with a person. With Tristan. Could he feel her there? Could he hear her thoughts at this very moment?
She reeled, blackness closing in. Tristan’s mind swirled around her in a whirlpool, swift and rushing and fathoms deep.
Distantly she heard a shrill squawk—it came from Xephyra—but before Veronyka could reach for her bondmate, the current pulled her under.
But I never had the chance. I made my decision; I chose my path, and there was no going back.
- CHAPTER 34 -
VERONYKA
VERONYKA AWOKE WITH A start. She’d been dreaming of fire and ash, and she couldn’t figure out what had jolted her awake.
Then it came again: a horn blast, shortly followed by another.
She scrunched up her face, trying to understand what it meant, when the events in the Eyrie came rushing back to her, and she lurched into a sitting position.
Veronyka wasn’t in the servant barracks, but rather, was laid out on a pallet in a darkened chamber. She looked around the scant, empty room, seeing a basin of water, a satchel against the far wall—and her sister watching her from the shadows.
Veronyka’s heartbeat hitched, picking up a painful, jagged rhythm. How long had Val been standing there?
“You’re awake,” she said, coming to kneel next to the pallet. Seeing Veronyka’s suspicious look, Val rolled her eyes. “Oh, relax, Nyka, I haven’t stolen you away. You collapsed.”
Veronyka flashed back to the last thing she could remember—the sensation of losing herself in shadow magic as she fell deeper and deeper into her connection with Tristan. She shuddered.
Val’s gaze roved her face, and inside, her magic nudged against Veronyka’s mental barriers. Veronyka had the feeling Val knew—or at least suspected—how she’d managed to lose consciousness, but she made no comment.
“What happened? How did I get here?”
“They wanted the healer to have a look at you,” Val began, and Veronyka’s stomach clenched at the thought of them poking and prodding her unconscious body and discovering her secret. “But,” Val continued, smirking at Veronyka’s look of horror, “I told them there was no need. I said you sometimes collapse when you’re overtired. I offered my room so you could have some peace and quiet. Don’t fret. They haven’t figured you out yet, and they suspect nothing of your magic or your bond. You’re welcome.”
Veronyka scowled. She’d rather swallow soaptree leaves than give Val such an undeserved thank-you. “You were following me,” she said instead, her tone accusatory. How else could Val have gotten in the middle of things if she hadn’t been lurking som
ewhere nearby?
Val’s expression flickered slightly, the tiniest chink her in self-assured armor. “I went looking for you,” she corrected. “And figured you’d be with your bondmate. I arrived just in time to see you hit the ground.”
Veronyka felt like there was more to the story than that. Had Val been in the Eyrie for other reasons?
“Your phoenix was so worked up, they decided to abandon the exercise after you were carried away. Your mistake has earned you a victory, if only a temporary one.”
Veronyka’s mouth twisted. Her mistake. Without another word, she reached across the floor for her boots.
Val watched her every movement. “Do you have any idea what you did down there?” she blurted, and Veronyka was shocked to hear her voice shake slightly.
“No, I don’t. How could I, Val?” Veronyka demanded, getting to her feet. “You never taught me anything about shadow magic, did you? Nothing worth knowing, anyway. You wanted me to be unskilled and untrained so you could use it against me however you liked.”
“I was saving you from yourself!” Val snarled, standing as well. “Your control has always been wild and erratic. You think I didn’t see you in the courtyard the night your bondmate returned, commanding dozens of people by accident?”
Veronyka’s stomach dropped. Though she’d noticed Val’s attention at the time, she’d secretly hoped her sister didn’t fully understand what she’d done. But of course she had. Veronyka had completely lost control of herself and her magic, and somehow she’d managed to force her will on a whole crowd of unsuspecting people.
“So yes, Veronyka, I’ve withheld information from you. To protect you. I was trying to stop you from doing something even more reckless, something like what you did last night,” she said, gesturing vaguely in the direction Veronyka assumed was the Eyrie.
“And what exactly was that, Val?” Veronyka asked. Her feelings of guilt ebbed away in the face of Val’s arrogance and superiority. Veronyka failed to see how what had happened with Tristan—one person—was any worse than what had happened in the courtyard. “What is it you think I’ve done?”
Val hesitated, and before she even opened her mouth, Veronyka knew she wasn’t getting the whole truth. “You almost gave yourself away. You were neck-deep inside that apprentice’s mind, and if your own body hadn’t dragged you out, you might have drowned in him.”
The thought sent a shiver down Veronyka’s back. Could a shadowmage actually delve so deep into another’s mind that they lost track of their own?
She considered her sister’s words. Whenever Val disliked someone, she refused to use their proper name. Xephyra became “your phoenix” or “your bondmate,” and Tristan became “that apprentice.” Even their grandmother was often treated with scorn and called “old woman.” Veronyka had always assumed Val’s hostility toward the people in Veronyka’s life came from a false sense of superiority, but what if it was something else? What if it was fear? Not of danger or darkness or any of the usual things that scared people, but fear of being replaced?
Their maiora might be gone, but Xephyra and Tristan were both occupying important places in Veronyka’s life, places that, for sixteen years, had belonged to Val. But now Val had to share that space, and sharing had never been one of her strengths.
Exhaustion seeped into Veronyka’s bones. She didn’t know how to go on from here. There was so much she still needed from her sister, things that only family could give. But Val refused to fill that role.
Voices and the clank and jangle of weapons filtered in from the courtyard, and Veronyka remembered the horn calls that had awoken her. “I have to go,” she said. She hesitated—why, she wasn’t sure—but Val made no move to stop her.
Outside, mist clung to the ground in the early dawn light, distorting shapes and muffling sound as she made her way through the stronghold.
The commander’s booming voice soon distinguished itself, and Veronyka followed it to find him atop the ramparts. He was conversing with one of the guards, and Beryk and his phoenix were perched on the wall next to them.
As Veronyka approached the commotion, Tristan fell into step beside her.
“You’re up,” he said, his face lit with relief. Veronyka wondered if he’d had a hand in getting her to bed again and quickly banished the embarrassing thought.
“Yeah,” Veronyka said, avoiding the still-concerned furrow of his brow. “I’m fine. Sorry about all that. It’s been a crazy couple of days, and . . . I guess I was just tired.”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “I was so nervous standing up to the commander, I was feeling a bit light-headed myself.”
Veronyka’s stomach twisted. So he had felt her in his mind, even if he didn’t understand what he’d experienced. It was some measure of relief to know he hadn’t glimpsed her thoughts the way she’d seen his, but she still felt immensely guilty. Based on Val’s reaction, Veronyka suspected at least some of her concern over what Veronyka had done was genuine—that what had happened wasn’t common or particularly safe. She had to be more careful.
The commander descended the nearby stairs, joining the handful of Riders who were congregating in the courtyard, hastily strapping on armor and weapons. Apprentices were there too, helping with buckles or carrying quivers of arrows. Elliot kept fumbling with Fallon’s wrist guard, his face pale and drawn, while Latham handed out waterskins with trembling hands.
“What’s happening?” Veronyka asked.
“Apparently there was smoke coming from one of the riverside villages,” Tristan answered, following his father as he made his way through the crowd. “Beryk was on patrol and saw it, so he raised the alarm—three blasts of the horn.”
“What does it mean? Did some buildings catch fire?”
“No. This isn’t regular wood smoke. They lit a pyre of long grasses and leaves used to create black smoke. A signal. It means they’re calling for help.”
“From the Riders?” Veronyka asked, perplexed. She thought their existence was supposed to be a carefully guarded secret.
“No. The signals are meant to notify nearby villages of raiders. When attacks happen on the lower rim, we usually can’t respond. Not only would we probably not get there in time, but they’re too close to the empire—we can’t risk being seen. But this signal is coming from one of the closer villages. . . .”
“Are the Riders going to respond this time?” Veronyka asked.
Tristan didn’t answer. Instead they both leaned in to hear what the commander was saying.
“. . . should be able to assess the situation without exposing your patrol. Keep a safe distance and do not engage unless absolutely necessary.”
“It’s probably just a regular raiding party,” Fallon replied, while his fellow Riders nodded. “No doubt it’ll be over by the time we arrive. We’ll approach on foot and help with the cleanup if we can.”
“There’s never been a raid this far up the mountain,” Tristan said, speaking from the back of the group. The Riders turned to face him. “Didn’t you say it looked like it was coming from Rushlea? There hasn’t been a raid higher than Runnet since we’ve been here.”
The commander’s eyes flashed in his son’s direction, before returning to their usual calm. Veronyka wondered if he was still angry about Tristan’s defiance the previous night.
“There’s a first time for everything,” he said dismissively. “Ride out at once, and send a pigeon as soon as you can.”
The patrol hurried to the Eyrie to mount their phoenixes and depart. The commander’s attention shifted to Tristan, and Veronyka backed away slightly. He definitely still looked angry.
“I don’t want to cause a panic,” the commander said under his breath, so quietly that Veronyka had to strain to hear it—but strain she did. “So keep your observations to yourself, Apprentice.”
The throne was mine, and I would seize it with both hands.
- CHAPTER 35 -
TRISTAN
SO KEEP YOUR OBSERVATIONS to yo
urself, Apprentice.
Tristan should have known his father wouldn’t invite his opinions, especially after their conversation in front of the breeding enclosure. Commander Cassian did not like to be questioned or debated—least of all in front of others. It had been only Ersken and Nyk last night, but that had been enough. Tristan was ashamed to admit that Nyk’s collapse had been very well timed—dealing with his friend had provided the perfect escape from his father’s wrath.
Until now. Tristan feared his small act of defiance would keep him on the sidelines forever, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret what he’d done. It had been exhilarating to stand up to him, and letting the idea of the promotion go was surprisingly freeing. Without that dangling over him, Tristan could do and say what he wanted, and his father could do nothing to stop him.
Except exclude him, of course. Tristan sighed.
Luckily, all the commotion meant that any talk of the breeding cages was forgotten for the time being.
The fog remained for most of the morning, clinging to the Eyrie and the stronghold like an ominous cloud. Rather than the five or so guards who usually manned the walls, there were close to twenty prowling the ramparts, and even more stationed in the village and at the way station down the mountain. All lessons for the apprentices were canceled, as half of the Riders—some of them instructors—were gone, and it was too dangerous to have the phoenixes flying when there was an unknown threat nearby.
The entire Azurec’s Eyrie complex was on lockdown—which meant that any local villagers who still remained after the solstice festival weren’t allowed to leave for safety reasons. Rushlea was more than halfway up the mountain, uncomfortably close for a raider party to attack.
Tristan fumed at the idea that they could have prevented this, that if they’d had more patrols, they could have stopped such an assault from happening. He understood his father’s concerns, that they’d stretch themselves too thin, but the longer they left Pyra unguarded, the greater the chances that the empire would gain a foothold here.
Crown of Feathers Page 36
