Crown of Feathers

by Nicki Pau Preto

  Veronyka looked at Tristan closely for the first time since they’d rejoined the fight. He had a split lip and bruising along the side of his face; his tunic was bloodied and torn. He shook his head slightly, pushing back his sweat-soaked hair, and cast his gaze about as if searching for another solution.

  Above, Xephyra tugged on their bond, more insistently than before, and a second later Veronyka saw the world through her phoenix’s eyes. They were mirroring.

  Fire. Blood. She lost herself in her bondmate’s complex mind and supernatural senses, but Xephyra steered her consciousness toward the village gate.

  The last burning piece of the wooden doors gave way under the fierce blow of a soldier’s ax, while both attackers and defenders tripped over the abandoned weapons and bodies strewn across the ground. Smoke and arrows were heavy in the air, filling the wide-open space where the gate had once been.

  Now, Xephyra said in her mind.

  “Now!” Veronyka said with a gasp, returning to her own mind and body.

  Tristan shook his head again. “I told you, I’m not going to sacrifice your life. You and Xephyra have never flown together. It’ll have to be one of the other apprentices. I’ll get—”

  “The gate has fallen; we don’t have time,” Veronyka said desperately, calling Xephyra down to land on the ground next to them. Rex let out a melancholy croon, and Xephyra answered with a bolstering wail of support. The rest of the phoenixes were engaged in the fighting, swooping and soaring above, their bondmates busy and distracted. “You’re right, I don’t have experience—but you do. We can go together.”

  “Veronyka . . . ,” Tristan said, desperation clinging to his voice as he eyed Xephyra. In the back of his mind, his fear of fire kindled, wanting to be let lose, but Veronyka sensed him clamp down on it.

  “We go together, or I go alone,” Veronyka said, steel in her voice. The empire had already taken her parents and her grandmother. She wouldn’t allow them to take anything else. “We can’t let them into the village.”

  “We don’t even have a saddle,” Tristan complained, but his words were cut off by a loud thud. Sparrow, panting slightly, had just dropped a strange-looking saddle onto the ground next to them. This was no horse’s saddle, but a phoenix saddle, with extra straps and buckles. Both Veronyka and Tristan stared in surprise, but it was Ersken who first spoke.

  “There’s no time for you to debate it. Make your choice, and get on with it,” he said, patting Sparrow on the shoulder before returning to Rex’s injury. The girl beamed, proud of herself, before hurrying to hand Ersken bandages from his pack. The saddles must be stored somewhere close by, and he’d ordered Sparrow to retrieve it while Tristan and Veronyka argued.

  Tristan hesitated another fraction of a second, then—

  “Fine,” he said, and picked up the saddle.

  He glanced at Veronyka as he approached Xephyra, and she hastened to tell the phoenix what was happening and to allow Tristan to saddle her. The prospect of being ridden by her Rider caused a surge of joy to ripple through Xephyra’s body, though she was wary of Tristan.

  He has to come, Veronyka told her soothingly. I need his help—we both do.

  Once saddled, Xephyra seemed to act upon some ancient, ingrained instincts—or perhaps she’d seen the other phoenixes do it—tucking her legs underneath her body and lowering herself to the ground. Tristan mounted up, while Rex watched in mournful silence. Veronyka handed him her bow and arrows, which he slung over his back before hoisting her up in front of him.

  “You’ll have to steer,” he murmured into her ear. They were squeezed tightly together on a saddle that was only made for one, and the touch of his breath on her skin sent goose bumps trailing down her back. He quickly showed her where to put her feet and where to hold on, but she was flustered by the way his chest and thighs pressed against her. Luckily, most of her guidance would come to Xephyra through the bond. “She won’t be able to hold us both for long, but if we can get there, we can try to shore up the defenses while Xephyra distracts them with her fire.”

  “Will you be okay?” Veronyka asked as Xephyra stood from her crouch and shook out her wings. Xephyra’s wasn’t the only fire they were about to endure—every bit of the village gate was burning. They were flying an inferno into an inferno.

  “I’ll have to be.”

  Xephyra leapt into the air, and one flap of her wings was enough to almost unseat Veronyka. She clung to the front of the saddle, using the stirrups as Tristan taught her, while he squeezed hard around her midsection.

  Several more pumps of Xephyra’s wings, and they were soaring above the temple and back into the fray.

  The world shrank beneath them, while the sky became a vast, black expanse that threatened to swallow them whole. The night was alive with the cold bite of wind and the gentle kiss of starlight.

  Veronyka gasped; it was like being mirrored with Xephyra again, only far more visceral. Her heart pounded, her stomached clenched, and every inch of her body tingled. She had been dreaming of this day since she was a child, but never had she imagined that her first flight on phoenix-back would come amid a fiery battle for her life.

  Xephyra flew above the phoenixes swooping back and forth in the sky, the sounds of the battle below almost lost in the whistle of the wind and the pump of her wings.

  As they neared the wreckage of the village gate, Veronyka’s bondmate grew hot beneath them. Tristan squirmed slightly against her, sweat sticking them together, and Veronyka knew he wouldn’t last long on Xephyra’s smoldering back.

  The gate was already worse than Veronyka had seen it just a few moments ago. A blackened frame was all that remained of the double doors, and only a handful of guards still defended the opening, while soldiers tried to scrabble over barrels and debris.

  Tristan asked Veronyka to have Xephyra steady her flight, and then a soft twang slipped past her face. An arrow flew down to pierce the heart of a soldier as he tried to make a path through the rubble.

  Tristan was able to loose two more before the soldiers found the source of the attack and turned their bows skyward. Veronyka didn’t need Tristan’s prompt to tell Xephyra to fly higher, out of their range.

  They were a good distraction, drawing the attention of the soldiers so that the remaining defenders could regroup. When the attackers did the same, drawing back to the far side of the field, Veronyka hoped they were considering a retreat.

  But as Xephyra swooped by for another pass, a swell of reinforcements spilled onto the mountainside, like a rush of ants from a kicked colony. Veronyka’s insides became a yawning void of despair.

  “Axura save us,” Tristan whispered.

  Veronyka directed Xephyra toward the village. She dipped low over the rising tide of soldiers, causing them to duck and scatter, before landing in front of the ruined gate. They didn’t have long before the attackers would gather for a renewed assault.

  Tristan leapt from Xephyra’s back, and Veronyka slipped down after him. She patted her bondmate gratefully but didn’t bother with instructions—Xephyra knew what to do. It seemed that, in battle, their connection honed and sharpened like the powerful weapon that it was.

  Tristan made to hand Veronyka the bow and quiver again, but she shook her head. He was the trained archer, not her.

  As the last defenders emerged from the shadows, reloading their weapons and taking up new positions, Veronyka went in search of arrows. Captain Flynn was slumped against a wagon wheel, pressing a blood-soaked wad of fabric against a wound, and many more bodies—dead or alive, Veronyka didn’t know—were scattered all around them. She avoided looking at faces or wounds and focused on plucking ammunition from the ground and the surrounding wreckage. Grass, buildings, and bodies burned, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the air, tightening Veronyka’s throat and making her eyes water.

  With a heavy heart she came to stand next to Tristan, sliding the additional arrows into his quiver. She supposed that dying on her feet fighting wasn’t the worst w
ay to go. She’d finally been a Rider, for however brief a time, and it was a comfort to know that Xephyra would either escape or die free—both better options than being executed inside a cage. Maybe Val had gotten away through the underground tunnels she spoke of and would become a Rider on her own. Veronyka thought about trying to contact her with shadow magic, but she didn’t know where to begin . . . or how to say goodbye.

  Xephyra let out a bloodcurdling cry of defiance and ripped a path through the soldiers. Veronyka and the last dregs of their defenses raised their weapons and faced the chaos the phoenix left in her wake.

  The village walls hadn’t been built with proper defense in mind, so there were few positions that gave Tristan and the others a good angle from which to hit the attackers. Looking around, Veronyka spotted the ruins of a cart and wrenched up a massive board of wood.

  She carried it toward Tristan, showing him he could use it for protection. It wasn’t large enough to shield his whole body, but with Veronyka holding it, she could adjust the height or slant, giving him the cover he needed to get off cleaner shots.

  It jarred her arm muscles right to their joints when the first arrow slammed into the slab of wood, and the point of the steel-tipped arrowhead protruded through from the other side.

  Tristan’s expression was wide, frantic, before relief washed over him when he saw the arrow hadn’t made it completely through. They shared a glance, and Veronyka nodded—she could do this.

  He loosed more arrows, and Veronyka caught more attacking shots in return.

  Though her limbs shook with effort and her ears rang from impact after impact, Veronyka found herself settling into a rhythm. They were like one person, anticipating each other’s every thought and movement.

  Tristan would spot a target, Veronyka would move into place to shield him, and he’d loose his arrow.

  Target. Shield. Loose.

  Target. Shield. Loose.

  It was a while before Veronyka realized that the reason they were so completely in sync with each other was because the channel between them was wide open again, their minds and bodies moving as one. They both spotted the target. They both stepped into position—and they both loosed the arrow.

  Rather than jarring her out of the moment or sending her into another faint, Veronyka embraced their unity. She was seeing the battle through Tristan’s eyes, despite being hunched over behind their makeshift shield, and was able to anticipate what he needed even before he knew it himself.

  And that was why, when he moved to line up a shot at a distant attacker—noticing too late that, nearer at hand, a soldier had broken through and was barreling down on them—it was Veronyka who changed his shot. In the space of a breath, Veronyka leaned her body into Tristan’s, guiding his arms to the side just as the arrow loosed from his fingertips.

  It landed true, directly in the middle of the oncoming soldier’s chest.

  Tristan blinked at her, stunned, and Veronyka had the surreal feeling of experiencing his emotions through their connection at the same moment she saw them on his face. Shock, confusion, and then a blazing surge of gratitude. His chest swelled, and he laughed in bemused delight.

  Their connection broke at last, but he didn’t sense it. To Tristan the entire thing had been an act of serendipity, Anyanke’s hand or Teyke’s blind luck. But to her it was so much more. It was possibility.

  While he fired off more arrows, Veronyka marveled at the uses for shadow magic that she’d never considered before.

  Despite how hard they fought, the only reason the soldiers hadn’t broken through their ragtag defense was Xephyra and her constant fiery dives across the mud-churned and body-riddled field. Every time she whipped past, Veronyka held her breath, wondering if this would be the time she took an arrow, if this would be the time she died.

  As the gray light of predawn filtered through the smoke, the world became oddly dreamlike, sounds muffled and colors muted.

  Over time Xephyra’s blistering charges became more infrequent as exhaustion settled in, and the soldiers saw their opportunity. They rushed forward immediately after she flew past, taking advantage of the time she took to arc back up to the sky.

  The shadowy horde barreled down on them, just visible through the mottled haze. Veronyka and the other defenders stood their ground, but she knew that this time the soldiers would break through. Their number was too great, their timing just right.

  Veronyka tossed aside the piece of wood and crouched down, grabbing an abandoned spear—dinged and bloodied, but still intact. Tristan did the same, ditching his bow for an enemy ax. As they took up their new weapons, their eyes met.

  The connection opened between them again, and his feelings pulsed like a heartbeat. She was his friend; she was his comrade—she was his equal. Her wish had come true, her impossible fantasy realized.

  And he didn’t want to see her die.

  So he ran—away from her, into the smoke, toward the oncoming soldiers. Toward death.

  Veronyka opened her mouth, reaching for him with both mind and body—but the instincts that had moments before saved Tristan’s life had become sluggish with fear. She moved too slowly, and her hand swiped at empty air, her mind at the trailing wisps of him as he passed. In an instant he was gone, and she was stuck staring at his retreating back.

  Veronyka made to lurch after him when something collided with her shoulder. She was shunted aside, struggling to regain her footing as Wind leapt through the gate and thundered after Tristan. Someone, perhaps Jana or one of the other stablehands, had put him in his full battle armor, the gleaming bits of metal and leather dully reflecting the misty light. The soldiers faltered, and Tristan turned, confused by their apparent fear, just in time to see Wind mow down half a dozen of them. The horse swept around Tristan in a tight arc, protecting him on all sides, while Tristan could do nothing but stare, his ax held loosely in his grasp.

  Wind circled, charging down a handful more attackers before slowing his pace, giving Tristan a chance to leap onto his saddle.

  As Wind carried him back toward the gate, a horn sounded.

  It was so quiet that Veronyka wasn’t sure she’d heard it. Everyone around them slowed, then paused—even the soldiers stopped in their tracks to listen. Then second, third, and fourth blasts echoed across the mountaintop.

  Veronyka found Xephyra in the sky above, and the phoenix let out a long, clear note—a call.

  A heartbeat of silence, and then a faint, distant reply. It wasn’t a sound of alarm or defense. . . . It was a greeting.

  The rest of the phoenixes in the stronghold repeated the sound, and soon the music of phoenix song filled the air.

  Tristan twisted atop Wind’s back, trying to get a better view. Clouds stained pink and purple streaked across the sky in the distance, making way for the coming dawn. But closer at hand, a dozen small, wavering dots approached, trailing glittering threads of fire. Tristan let out a loud, joyful whoop.

  The Riders had returned.

  Of the fierce and formidable First Riders, none are so beloved as Nefyra and Callysta.

  The heroics! The splendor! They flew together like the wings of the same bird and fought like the arms of the same warrior.

  So flawless, so complete was their union, that they became one being, one person, connected for all eternity.

  —“Wings of the Same Bird,” as sung by Mellark the Minstrel, circa 116 AE

  There was so much blood. . . . My arrow, why did it have to be my arrow? The agony of regret, the sorrow of loneliness; I let the pain of it consume me.

  - CHAPTER 41 -

  VERONYKA

  BY THE TIME THE Riders reached the stronghold, the soldiers had begun to scatter. Those who didn’t were attacked with renewed vigor from the defenders, encouraged by the sight of their shining warriors come home.

  Tristan’s face shone when he saw his father among them, dirty and bloodied but alive, leading his troops with expert precision. It seemed that most had returned, though Veronyka had trou
ble getting a clear count. Their patrols were divided: One secured the stronghold, and the other gave pursuit to the soldiers fleeing back down the mountainside.

  By the time the sun had crested the distant peaks, the last rope was severed and the final enemy soldier was cut down. Veronyka looked around, stunned to realize that the battle was won.

  Her ears were ringing slightly, the shouts and screams and clashing metal of the fight now replaced with low voices and heavy footsteps. The guards and villagers took stock of their surroundings, while the apprentices called their mounts away from the stronghold, back to the Eyrie. It took only a shared glance for Veronyka to know that Tristan had to stay behind and speak with his father.

  “I’ll check on Rex,” she said before he could ask, a blur of scarlet feathers—including Xephyra’s violet-tinged ones—streaking through the sky above them.

  Tristan gave her a strange look, and before Veronyka realized what was happening, he drew her into a bone-crunching hug. It was different from the last time he’d hugged her, buoyed up by adrenaline and excitement after the success of his obstacle-course performance. This time his limbs trembled, and he clung to her like he might collapse right then and there.

  If their first hug was like a drink of cool water on a hot day, this hug was like the life-saving rainstorm after a wildfire.

  He smelled of sweat and smoke, but he was unharmed. He was alive. They’d somehow made it through. He took a shaky breath as he held her, his chest expanding against hers, and then released her. He stepped backward, nodding his thanks before disappearing into the crowd.

  She watched him go, a riot of emotions swirling in the pit of her stomach. With the fighting over, Veronyka would have to deal with the repercussions of Val’s betrayal and the possible changes to her place here. To her relationship with Tristan. Would he tell his father, or could she count on him to keep her secret? Would it even matter? She’d just ridden a female phoenix in front of the entire stronghold. . . . Surely some would begin to question who she truly was.