Heart of Flames Read online

  And Veronyka was.

  Her favorite part of the course was a stretch of targets that alternated between those she could hit on phoenix-back and those she could only hit on foot—partially obscured by rocky outcrops or tilted at an impossible angle. To get them all, the Rider must leap from their phoenix’s back, run across uneven rocky ground to strike the target, then leap back onto their bondmate to grab their bow and continue on to the next target. It was nearly impossible, and required pinpoint precision and top-notch communication.

  Veronyka gripped her reins as they barreled through the narrow opening. They weren’t true reins—they didn’t lead to a bridle and bit in Xephyra’s mouth like a horse’s reins did—but were meant to act as handholds and restraints, allowing inexperienced Riders to remain safely attached to their mounts during flight, and for more advanced flyers, they allowed a Rider to stand or reposition themselves. Veronyka had seen Fallon, the second patrol leader, fly upside down, using his reins to hold his body tight to his phoenix, defying gravity.

  Veronyka was usually a no-nonsense flyer during lessons and drills, but after her failure in the ring today, she was determined to push herself and try her hand at some theatrical acrobatics of her own.

  They moved swiftly into the labyrinthine caves, the stony walls closing in on them. They were smooth and high, like columns of dripping wax, while spiky stalagmites rose from the ground, some so large they had to be dodged as they whipped past. The shadows grew thick and cool around them, while trickles of water could be heard in the distance, remnants of some long-ago river rush.

  Veronyka withdrew her bow, and through the bond she told Xephyra which targets she wanted and in what order, loosing arrow after arrow into the metallic bull’s-eyes. Since it was pitch-black in the caverns, Xephyra emitted a faint glow to light the way.

  Soth’s Fury was divided into three courses in varying levels of difficulty, and though she knew it was foolish, Veronyka followed the most challenging route, each target marked by a circle of vivid purple paint around its edge like the tips of Xephyra’s plumage.

  While the start was easy enough, the course became more difficult with every target they passed. Up ahead, the stretch of concealed targets loomed, and Veronyka braced herself.

  Telling Xephyra to slow her pace ever so slightly, Veronyka tightened her handhold and carefully pulled her feet from the stirrups until she was squatting on Xephyra’s back. Her phoenix flapped her wings as little as possible, keeping her flight steady, but still Veronyka wobbled and struggled for balance.

  The first concealed target appeared, tucked into a crevice above a narrow ledge and hidden behind a stalagmite that jutted from the ground. Veronyka braced herself, waiting.

  Now, she said to Xephyra, leaping to the right as her phoenix flew left, just missing the stalagmite by inches. Veronyka slipped and stumbled as she tried to regain her footing, but she couldn’t slow down—momentum was all that was keeping her on such a scant foothold. She careened forward, whipping out a dagger and hitting the target with a resounding thud, before hurtling past it and leaping out into the empty air of the cavern.

  But then Xephyra was there, as Veronyka had known she would be. She slammed hard into the saddle, but even the pain couldn’t dim the feeling of triumph coursing through her veins.

  Xephyra swung her neck around to look at Veronyka, and her dark eyes danced with fiery pleasure.

  Good? she asked, turning back around and soaring gracefully between rocky spires.

  Aeti, Veronyka replied, and Xephyra crooned.

  Afterward, they sat on their favorite slab of stone and watched as the sun began to rise in the distance.

  Veronyka leaned against Xephyra, her body exhausted and her thoughts still, finally finding the peace she failed to get alone at night. After a while something stirred in the back of her mind, and Veronyka knew that Tristan was awake.

  Just like that, her peace was shattered.

  Everything about her bond to Xephyra made Veronyka feel better, stronger, and more alive. Her bond to Tristan did too. But she couldn’t let it. Being bonded to another human was dangerous…. Veronyka had learned that lesson the hard way. She kept trying to forget about it, kept hoping that it would resolve itself or fade into the background. Tristan deserved to know that a magical link existed between them that gave her insight into his thoughts and feelings, but it was hard to face telling him that without any words of comfort or reassurance.

  Why, yes, Tristan, I can hear your thoughts and sense your feelings—and no, I have no idea how to stop it. You’re scared? Me too.

  Veronyka knew nothing of shadow magic and only the barest fragments of how to strengthen or weaken its power. The only person who had the answers she sought was Val, and reaching out to her was a risk Veronyka couldn’t take.

  She glanced down at her wrist, where a braided bracelet sat. It was her own hair she’d cut off weeks ago, black and shining with a heavy coat of pyraflora resin, along with a single braid of Val’s vibrant red. There among the strands were beads and trinkets Veronyka had collected throughout her childhood, as well as a single, heavy golden ring.

  It belonged to Val—or rather, Avalkyra Ashfire, the fierce warrior queen who had died almost two decades before and had been resurrected into the girl Veronyka had until recently thought was her sister.

  The ring was tied into the braids so that only the simple golden band was visible, while the front, with Avalkyra Ashfire’s seal, was hidden from view.

  The revelation that her sister, Val, wasn’t her sister at all had left Veronyka feeling utterly lost and adrift. Family had always been a fraught concept for her—how could it not be, with someone like Val as a sibling?—but at least she’d known where she belonged and who she was, however unimportant. Now that she’d discovered her maiora who’d raised her was actually Ilithya Shadowheart, Avalkyra Ashfire’s spymaster, and that Val was actually the Feather-Crowned Queen herself, Veronyka had to question everything she’d ever been told about her life. And the most pressing question of all? If Val was Avalkyra Ashfire, then who was Veronyka?

  Only Val knew for sure, and she was not only elusive and self-serving—she was dangerous. Veronyka had seen firsthand what Val could do with shadow magic, and she feared opening herself up to her once-sister. What if Val just fed her more lies? What if Val sent more jarring dreams and memories? What if she didn’t, and Veronyka never, ever learned the whole truth?

  And what if Val tried to take hold of Xephyra again? Veronyka knew it was possible, and she was more aware than ever of the complicated web that shadow and bond magic wove between her and the ones she cared about.

  Like Xephyra. And Tristan.

  Veronyka knew she had to protect herself, but she had to protect them most of all.

  And the best way to do that—the only way she knew how to do that—was to block Val out completely. To block shadow magic completely.

  To pretend neither existed.

  But as Veronyka mounted up and headed back to the Eyrie—Tristan’s presence a warm glow in her mind and heart and Val’s a cold shadow that followed her everywhere she went—she knew that to block shadow magic was to block animal magic, to block Xephyra, and that was something Veronyka simply couldn’t do.

  Soth’s Fury is a series of caverns named by the ancient Pyraean people who that believed the south wind—called Soth—was wicked and vengeful, blowing storms and chaos up into the mountains from the valley below. Only Soth could carve such deep, destructive paths through the mountain, creating shadowy places in the world where Axura’s light could not touch.

  Soth was more superstition than true god, at least to the people of Pyra, and a product of lower rim communities who mingled more with the valley civilizations and their diverse, wide-reaching pantheon.

  The word itself has similarly unknown origins, and most historians believe that the god may have been adopted from the mysterious Lowland civilization that was later wiped out by Lyra the Defender and her Red Horde afte
r the Lowlanders tried to invade Pyra.

  The tradition of naming nature gods is a popular custom of the Arborian people, possibly suggesting a unified ancestry with the Lowland civilization. For example, the people of Arboria pray to Nors, the fair north wind, for good weather and safe travel to this day.

  —“Weather and Nature Deities,” from Obscure Gods and Goddesses of the Golden Empire, by Nala, Priestess of Mori, published 84 AE

  There once was a girl born from a legacy of ash and fire.

  Except she had none of it. How cruel to have such ancestors,

  to have such a name, and yet possess no claim to any of it.

  - CHAPTER 2 - AVALKYRA

  AVALKYRA STARED AT THE remains of her fire.

  She should have used it to cook her dinner or warm her hands. Something useful. Instead she’d used it to incubate another phoenix egg… and that phoenix egg had failed to hatch. Yet again. Now it was nothing but a cold, dead stone amid the ashes, like so many others before it.

  It was the same egg she’d taken from the Eyrie, right out of that soldier’s satchel. Avalkyra had saved it for this place, for the ruins of Aura. Hoping, maybe, that it would make a difference. That something, or maybe even someone, would help her. But no. Avalkyra had to do everything herself. It had always been this way.

  Avalkyra stood inside a vast, echoing chamber of some crumbling temple. There were pillars of carved marble standing like trees in an Arborian forest, their tall, wide trunks disappearing high above her, the ceiling canopy untouched by the light of her small fire. It might have been a holy place once, but now, like everything in Aura, it felt more like a tomb. There was no escaping that feeling, no matter if she stood in a bakery or a bathhouse—every building held that haunted, hollowed-out feeling.

  If possible, outside was worse.

  Though Avalkyra didn’t hold with superstition, the wind did howl through the buildings, lifting the hair on the back of her neck and causing strange echoes and moans. Dried leaves scattered, whispering across the ground, while the air still held the scent of ash and smoke and ruin.

  Avalkyra took a deep, lung-filling breath. Then she kicked out, connecting with the egg and sending it flying into the shadows, where it ricocheted off the nearest pillar before tumbling down a short flight of stairs.

  It sent up a delicious racket, piercing the endless, eerie silence, but Avalkyra didn’t feel satisfied. All she felt was the ache in her foot.

  She pursed her lips, staring down at the remains of the fire again. Then she kicked the ashes and bones and smoking embers, too, covering herself in soot and fully dispersing the last evidence of her hours of hard work—and her failure.

  Avalkyra straightened. Now she felt better.

  Leaving that hallowed place, Avalkyra stepped out into the dark, ghostly ruins. An archway rose above her, one of hundreds sparkling with veins of silver and gold and standing at least twice her height and ten times as wide. They marked the footpaths in and out of the city’s main square, which featured columned entryways and ornately carved facades excavated from the rock of the mountain, appearing like gemstones from the raw, jagged surroundings.

  Contrary to popular belief, Aura could be reached on foot. Not everyone in ancient Pyra had a phoenix, and the early settlers had lived here long before they had flaming firebirds. The landscape was steep and dangerous, and that was why the ancient Pyraeans had built roads inside the mountain. There were endless tunnels all over Pyrmont, from the highest peaks down to the Foothills. They didn’t all connect—at least not anymore, after centuries of neglect and cave-ins—but Avalkyra had found them during the Blood War. Some could be accessed by caves or mines, others through fallen arches and crumbling doors like those that dotted the Sekveia. The empire had searched for her secret lairs for years, necks craned to the sky, and never thought to look below their feet. Her bases were never found; her defenses never breached.

  Well, not by soldiers. There was one person who had managed to find her there… but she was no warrior.

  The paths inside the mountain had been dark and treacherous, but Avalkyra had had old maps to guide her and rope to climb with. It had taken weeks, but then she was here, standing among these fabled ruins.

  Everywhere she looked there were monuments to phoenixes and feathers and fire, and everything was shot through with gold. The grandeur put even Marble Row and the gods’ plaza in Aura Nova to shame, and yet… there was sadness among the grandeur. Despair.

  Everything was still, and empty, and quiet. Nothing soft and permeable remained. No rippling banners with the Ashfire sigil or tallow candles burning low in open windows. There were no shouts or laughter, no crackle of a cook fire. Even the scent of life was missing—baking bread or fresh Fire Blossoms. Nothing grew in this rocky landscape, and all the window boxes and public gardens were barren.

  It was an empty city, a mausoleum.

  It was a graveyard.

  Avalkyra had searched everywhere for the storied Ashfire crowns—said to grace the dead queens’ memorial stones—but they refused to reveal themselves to her. Somehow, it felt personal, as if her ancestors were hiding not only their earthly relics but their secrets as well. Surely in a millennium, one of them had struggled with her animal magic and her place in the world?

  At the center of the ruins was the Everlasting Flame—or rather, the cold, empty pit that was all that remained of it—the truest monument to death Avalkyra had ever seen. She walked there now, drawn to it in a way she could not explain. Perhaps it was the devastation of it, the sense of something dead and destroyed but still there, despite everything. Something that refused to fade away completely.

  It, too, was surrounded by archways, larger and grander than the others.

  At first she’d thought they were all the same, replicated over and over again from some ancient mold. But now that she’d walked the ruins for several weeks, she was beginning to note distinct, deliberate differences. The phoenix above her now had a vast wingspan, while she’d seen others that were smaller in size. The height of the crests, the length of their feathers… insignificant details, maybe, but Avalkyra began to suspect these archways were dedicated to specific phoenixes who had come and gone. Her theory was proven correct when she found an archway outside the temple with its inscription intact:

  Here flew Xauriel, bondmate of Friya. May her eternal flame burn bright.

  There were thirteen archways that surrounded the Everlasting Flame, and Avalkyra was certain they were meant to commemorate the First Riders and their mounts. Ignix. Cirix. Roxana. There should have been fourteen, but there was an open space that told her one had likely collapsed. Their inscriptions were gone, smoothed away from years of wind and sun and rain. It even snowed sometimes, up here at Pyrmont’s summit. And these pillars were a thousand years old.

  Avalkyra hated them. She hated the ancient Riders and their loyal mounts, hated the phoenixes carved on every available surface. Aura was a wasteland of crumbling temples, towering sculptures, and wide, soaring walkways—and all of it was marred with a constant reminder of what she did not have. What she could never have again, it seemed.

  She’d had a phoenix, once: Nyx. Fierce and reliable. Avalkyra didn’t romanticize the bond like Veronyka did—Nyx had been a useful ally. A means to an end. But she’d been strong and steadfast. And yes, loyal. Until the end.

  But the end hadn’t been the end, had it? And while Avalkyra had clung desperately to life, Nyx had left her all alone.

  At times like these, Avalkyra missed Veronyka and her endless hope. Or was it Pheronia’s company she craved? Sometimes it was hard to tell. The two were so similar.

  And yet… she had lost Pheronia, even before she’d died. Avalkyra had pushed her sister too far when she murdered Pheronia’s scheming mother, and Pheronia had finally severed contact. Letters unanswered. Treaties unsigned. She’d tried to backtrack, to mend their fractured relationship—because of Veronyka, Avalkyra now knew, though she hadn’t at the time—but it had
been too late. In some ways, Veronyka was the peacemaker. The thread that bound Pheronia and Avalkyra together even still. If Pheronia hadn’t been pregnant… if there hadn’t been a baby… they both would have died in that war, and there would be no Ashfires left in the world.

  Veronyka the Peacemaker, like Queen Elysia herself.

  Avalkyra snorted.

  She hadn’t lost Veronyka yet. Avalkyra had given the girl her space, but with shadow magic between them, separation was an illusion. No distance was too great. Avalkyra would make Veronyka hers again.

  Avalkyra had had time to think about it—too much time—and decided that she’d finally figured out the mistake she’d made. She had always assumed Pheronia understood what needed to be done, that she was a vital part of the future Avalkyra saw for herself—for them both. Yet Avalkyra had never come out and asked her sister. She’d never said the words, assuming the words didn’t need to be said. But maybe they did.

  You and I are meant to rule together. Join me, sister. The world is ours.

  After years of strife and separation, when they’d come face-to-face again, it had been too late. Those dreams had been dashed.

  But this time… Veronyka was different. Things were different.

  She was a shadowmage, after all, and a Phoenix Rider. She was more than Pheronia could have ever been, and together they would be truly unstoppable.

  But that same magic that made Veronyka strong had also convinced Avalkyra that the words didn’t need to be spoken—that they understood each other because of their bond. And so she’d made the same mistake she’d made with Pheronia. Despite all the ways Veronyka was superior to Pheronia, she hadn’t been raised with the knowledge of who and what she was. She didn’t understand that they were chosen, destined to rule.