Heart of Flames Read online

  “He did?” Rolan repeated, glancing at Kade. “How?”

  Sev couldn’t tell him the truth—but as any good liar will tell you, it’s best to stick as close to the truth as possible.

  “One of the bondservants was trying to escape and came up behind me with a knife drawn. This one hit the attacker over the head with a piece of wood.”

  “He attacked one of his own?” Rolan asked, sounding almost impressed.

  Kade’s expression turned dark—or rather, darker. Sev doubted anyone but him would notice the subtle shift at the suggestion that he would turn against his fellows.

  “He did,” Sev said, trying to shoot Kade an apologetic look while Rolan’s attention was on his papers. “But then we got separated in the chaos, and I didn’t know what had become of him.”

  “How do you know he didn’t kill that bondservant to cover his own actions?”

  Sev considered his words. “I don’t,” he said at last, shrugging. He had to be careful how he played this, else Rolan would know that there was more between them than Sev was letting on. That Sev was keenly invested in the outcome of this particular interrogation. “I just know he was nowhere near the food that night.”

  “Indeed,” said Rolan, leaning back in his chair to consider Kade. He nodded, and the guard moved to escort Kade from the room.

  Sev stared at the man. Was that it—was Kade off the hook?

  As Kade was pulled to his feet, they shared a look—a bare instant in which so much needed to be said but couldn’t be—and then he was gone again, the heavy door swinging shut behind him.

  We were not meant to orbit one another, or to pass in and

  out of each other’s skies. We were always destined to collide,

  leaving heartbreak and desolation in our wake.

  - CHAPTER 8 - VERONYKA

  SOMEHOW—POSSIBLY THANKS TO HIS new position as patrol leader, but more probably because of his guilt over their last combat match—Tristan managed to get Veronyka on his patrol for a visit to Vayle.

  It was a temporary assignment. She wasn’t actually a part of their patrol or a Master Rider. She wasn’t approved for active duty, but she was apparently more than welcome to help with menial labor.

  They were being sent to check in with the Vayle villagers and to survey damages. While Rushlea and Petratec had been the main targets during the empire’s diversionary attacks, when the soldiers had fled, they’d burned and pillaged on their way back down the mountain. A patrol of Riders had returned the next day to chase them off and force their retreat, but by that time most of the damage was done—not to mention the new damages inflicted by their pursuit.

  Fallon’s patrol had been stationed in Rushlea for two weeks to oversee repairs, and even the commander’s patrol had spent several days in Petratec. Because Vayle was farthest—and had suffered the least damage—they’d been put last on the list.

  “I know why he’s sending me,” Tristan said, smiling and shaking his head as he stuffed a few extra tunics inside his travel bag. They were in his Master Rider chambers, early-morning sunlight spilling in from the open door. The rest of his patrol would be meeting them atop the phoenix plinth in several moments, and Veronyka was already packed. “The people of Vayle aren’t happy. They’ve sent two messengers plus I don’t know how many pigeons requesting some face time. He doesn’t want to deal with it.”

  He was obviously talking about his father, the commander. But while such a situation would have made Tristan angry just a few short weeks ago, now he seemed more… amused. He and his father were definitely on better terms than they had been when Veronyka arrived at the Eyrie, and she was glad for him. He had proved something to his father and to himself, and he deserved this newfound confidence. Now he could laugh at being made to do grunt work and not feel insulted or belittled by it.

  “We’ll be there for two days tops, helping with cleanup and meeting with their leaders.” He closed his satchel and swung it over his shoulder, peering down at her. He looked a bit uneasy. “I know it’s not a real patrol,” he said, “but it’s something.”

  “And I’m grateful,” Veronyka said. She was still disappointed in her current situation, but Tristan was right—this was real work out there in the real world. Maybe she’d be able to prove her worth outside the combat ring.

  Veronyka had been working hard on what Morra had told her about shadow and animal magic, separating the two “rivers” in her mind and tightening the stones on the shadow magic side of her mental tower. It was difficult without actually using shadow magic to sense vulnerabilities, but Veronyka did the best she could. She hadn’t slipped into Tristan’s mind or sensed Val since she’d started doing it, but she knew her mind was far from airtight. Guarding herself constantly was exhausting, but she thought—or maybe hoped—that she was beginning to get the hang of it.

  As they made their way to the phoenix plinth to saddle their bondmates and head out, Veronyka remembered how close Vayle was to the cabin she’d shared with Val. Was there any chance Val was still living there…? She wrenched her mind away from thoughts of her once-sister. The temptation to think about Val was like the flickering, dancing allure of an open flame: enticing, mesmerizing—and likely to leave her burned.

  Maybe Veronyka needed a concrete way of releasing Val…. She glanced down at her braided bracelet, thinking. How was she supposed to forget Val entirely when she wore a reminder—the red lock of hair and golden signet ring—on her wrist every single day? A visit to the cabin might be the perfect way to say goodbye. To leave Val and the objects that represented her behind. Maybe then she’d be able to let go of thoughts of her own mysterious identity and the sister who wasn’t a sister at all. She’d get some closure, and then she’d be able to move forward.

  As Veronyka and Tristan saddled their mounts, the other Riders in Tristan’s patrol slowly turned up, greeting them with exhausted stretches and wide yawns.

  Besides Tristan there was Ronyn, a no-nonsense local with a heavy brow and thick, muscled arms; Anders, a joker from Arboria with curling brown hair and large ears; Latham, the gossip who was often by Anders’s side, his pale golden hair shining in the morning sun; and finally Lysandro, who was Ferronese and a distant cousin of Tristan’s. Apparently Tristan and his father had been living with Lysandro’s family in the Foothills for years before making the Eyrie their home and base of operations. While Anders beamed and Ronyn nodded politely at her, the others seemed surprised by her presence. Latham scowled.

  “Since we are a Rider short of a full patrol, Commander Cassian allowed me to bring along an apprentice, so I chose my underwing, Veronyka,” Tristan said, speaking in his authoritative voice. No one made any comment or objection, so he continued. “We’re going to fly a southeastern route, staying clear of the river and the road, and land in the tree cover just north of Malka’s ruined outpost. We’ll make camp there and come at Vayle on foot. They’re expecting us, but we don’t want to announce our presence armed and on phoenix-back. We might be their allies, but I doubt we’ll receive the warmest welcome.”

  “It’s gotta be better than at Petratec,” Anders muttered, shaking his head. “I flew extra supplies out, and I thought they were gonna shoot me down from the sky.”

  “They’re trying to protect themselves,” said Ronyn, whose family was from Petratec. “I cannot blame them.”

  “I can,” Anders said indignantly, adjusting a wrist guard. “Or I would have, if they’d filled me full of holes.”

  Ronyn rolled his eyes and cuffed Anders across the back of his head. Anders grinned.

  “Harder next time,” Latham said through a yawn, and Anders shoved him.

  Tristan let them get their jokes in before bringing the conversation back to the issue at hand. “We’ll fly in a standard trivol—a three-Rider arrowhead pattern,” he added to Veronyka, who hadn’t yet learned all the flight combinations. “I’ll take first lead with Veronyka and Lysandro.”

  Veronyka was pleased to be flying with Tristan
, and Lysandro too seemed excited to fly next to the patrol leader. Lysandro was a year younger than Veronyka, and though Tristan didn’t seem to notice, it was clear he idolized his older cousin. He constantly looked to Tristan for cues on how to act or behave, and he took heart from Tristan’s smallest gestures of approval and affection. Flying next to Tristan in a trivol meant he was flying in a position usually held by a second-in-command.

  It meant Veronyka was as well.

  “Ronyn,” Tristan continued, “you’ll run point with Anders and Latham.”

  Everyone nodded, returning to their phoenixes for a last check of fastenings and straps. The sky was a pearly shade of pink toward the east, the stars and shadows chased away by Axura’s coming dawn. There was a feeling in the air, a crackle of energy and anticipation.

  Veronyka hopped into the saddle, Tristan on Rex in front of her and Lysandro just beside.

  Once everyone was mounted up, Tristan leapt, disappearing over the edge of the plinth before soaring back up into the sky. Lysandro followed, and then Veronyka. Her stomach swooped with the drop, only to tingle with adrenaline as they shot back up into the sky. She took a deep, chest-filling breath, the misty morning air cool and refreshing against her skin. The sky was wide and welcoming, the view endless and unobstructed all around.

  Inside her mind, Xephyra’s sleepy thoughts filtered through the bond. More lessons? she asked, getting better and better with her vocabulary and communication skills.

  No, Veronyka said, grinning. This is the real thing.

  * * *

  It was the longest journey Veronyka had taken on phoenix-back.

  Xephyra seemed to enjoy the extended flight—they’d flown long hours before, but usually in circuits while training in the gullies and peaks around the Eyrie. Here, the landscape changed beneath them, the entirety of Pyra unfolding far below. Rock and river and tree, all of it familiar and yet different observed from above. Everything seemed minuscule, almost like toys dotting the ground below, and yet the sky… the sky seemed to grow and expand, endless blue in all directions.

  Veronyka marveled that she had done the same journey on foot. It seemed so painfully slow, plodding on step after step, when, with one powerful pump of her wings, Xephyra could traverse hours’ worth of foot travel.

  Of course, the wind currents often set them slightly off course—they didn’t fly straight and true like an arrow—and they couldn’t pump their wings and fight against the updrafts the entire time or they’d quickly grow exhausted. Still, a journey that had taken Veronyka almost a full week took Xephyra and the rest of the phoenixes about seven hours, not including their midday stop for food and rest.

  By the time they reached Malka’s ruined outpost outside Vayle, the afternoon sun was turning the landscape into a haze of citrus hues—warm orange and golden lemon. Even the trees and grass were rich in the summer sunlight, as green as a fresh-sliced lime.

  As the Riders dismounted and began to make camp, a strange, uneasy feeling settled over Veronyka. It seemed it had been a lifetime since she’d stood in this spot, thinking her dreams dashed for good. Then Sparrow had found her, and when Beryk turned up, a new path presented itself. She was closer to the cabin, to her old life with Val, than she had been in months. Yet it seemed longer given all the ways things had changed, not only in her life, but in her heart and mind as well.

  But there was so much that remained unanswered, so much that only Val could tell her. A familiar stirring tickled the edges of her awareness, like a brush of wingbeats. Val’s doorway. A part of her was always there in Veronyka’s mind; Veronyka simply had to reach for it.

  She clenched her jaw and forced thoughts of Val from her mind before shoring up the stones inside her mental walls. But no matter how sturdy she made them, she didn’t know how to board up a doorway. She’d tried stacking stones around it. She’d tried imagining mud and planks of sturdy wood…. But whatever she did, Veronyka knew the door was there, that there was no way of erasing it entirely. This was doubly hard when trying to block someone who had the gift themselves, someone who was always seeking any crack or sliver of vulnerability. Someone who had a door in her walls made just for them.

  “Veronyka?” Tristan said, cutting into her thoughts. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped.

  “Oh—hi,” she said, so focused on closing off her magic that she hadn’t heard his approach. But just like with Val, Tristan’s door was always there. When she gave him her full attention, uncertainty radiated out from him, an anxious humming through their bond—no matter how hard Veronyka tried to block it. He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck, ruffling his soft brown curls. Behind him the others had begun to make camp within the ruins of the outpost.

  “We usually sleep together, two per tent,” he began, and Veronyka nodded, having seen the camping supplies before. “Since we’re only five, I usually take the last tent by myself….” He faltered, and Veronyka understood at once. She was now their sixth member, and there was only one available tent to sleep in—his.

  Tristan leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. “I brought an extra tent,” he said, his brow furrowed, “but I know that looks like I’m giving you special treatment. But if we sleep in the tent together”—he cleared his throat—“that looks like special treatment too. I…” He trailed off, looking totally at a loss. It was almost funny—or it would have been, if they hadn’t so recently been discussing this very issue. She was their first female trainee, and she hated how it made her stand out. Even here, on a simple overnight mission, there were issues. Complications. Problems.

  Sometimes Veronyka wished she’d just kept up the Nyk facade. At least then she could have fit in with the others in some way, even if it was a lie. Now she was new, a girl, and she was Tristan’s favorite. The idea would have thrilled her endlessly once—and it still did, down deep in her stomach—but it also made her feel isolated.

  And the worst part was, proper or not, part of her wanted to sleep in Tristan’s tent. He was her best friend, the person she felt closest to. The idea of sleeping side by side…

  Veronyka shook her head. “Thanks, Tristan, but I’ll sleep outside with Xephyra,” she said, nodding at her bondmate, who was currently snuffling her beak along the ground at the edges of the clearing, Rex close by.

  “No—I’ll do that,” Tristan said hastily, guilt flickering across his face and through their connection, as if he regretted that he hadn’t thought of it first. Veronyka closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples, pushing his feelings from her mind. She didn’t know if Morra’s advice was truly helping her, but she had to trust it, and to be content with the fact that even if her control over their connection wasn’t getting better, it wasn’t getting worse, either.

  She looked up to find Tristan frowning at her, as if confused by her gestures.

  Veronyka forced a smile, her chest tight. “Just a bit of a headache,” she murmured, glancing away. “You can’t sleep outside and give me the tent—that’s special treatment, remember? If you usually sleep in a tent, then that’s what you’ll do. Honestly, I don’t mind. It’s summer, and if it gets a bit cold, Xephyra will keep me warm.”

  His jaw worked at that comment, and her stomach clenched at the thought that maybe he’d liked the idea of sleeping side by side too—that he wanted to be the one to keep her warm.

  “Come on,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “Let’s help set up.”

  * * *

  They walked into the village first thing the following morning, taking in the empire’s destruction for the first time. Their feet scraped against the gravel as they traversed the quiet streets, so different from the bustling village Veronyka remembered. Villagers huddled in corners or watched them from inside darkened windows, the entire place strangely cold and lifeless.

  Veronyka’s insides felt hollow. There were scorch marks everywhere—on the finely painted shutters and the smooth stone walls, on the surrounding trees, and even on the fishing boats moored near the
bridge.

  And the bridge. It was gone.

  It had been a massive wooden archway, stretching across the wide bend of the Aurys, its planks worn smooth after decades of feet and wagon wheels.

  Now it was a blackened skeleton, the barest framework remaining on both sides, like hunched old folks reaching in vain across the river’s dark depths.

  There was more. All along the riverbank and in seemingly random places across the village were bunches of flowers.

  Veronyka understood the meaning at once.

  The delicate, pale-white Star Flowers, or stellaflora, were here to commemorate the dead, whose souls would rise into the sky to live among the stars.

  Then there were the spiky black Shadow Blooms, more commonly called deathmaidens after the servants of the goddess Nox, who took lost souls to the dark realms. These flowers were meant to protect, to lure the deathmaidens and distract them, allowing the missing loved ones a chance to make it home.

  Veronyka swallowed. So many flowers… so many dead and lost.

  Next to her, Tristan had gone ashen, the warm olive of his skin almost gray in the early-morning light. All of them wore similar expressions of shock and grief. They hadn’t known it was this bad…. And how could they? Commander Cassian hadn’t sent anyone. Even the numbers that had been reported didn’t match—or maybe they just didn’t convey—what they saw here.

  A spark of anger blistered Veronyka’s chest, even as she tried to reason with herself. Rushlea and Petratec had suffered worse damage. They couldn’t be everywhere at once. But they could be more places if they had more Riders. Veronyka might not be perfect, but she was capable, and she shouldn’t be held back just to pass some arbitrary tests. If she’d known it was this bad, she would have asked to fly back and help out herself.

  Still, the frustration was there, along with the guilt, a fiery cocktail licking up her throat. Low croons echoed down from the outpost clearing, where the phoenixes remained out of sight but always connected to their bondmates’ emotions.