Wings of Shadow

by Nicki Pau Preto

  While Veronyka would sit in silence, Xephyra liked to puff out her chest and mimic the golden statue’s stoic manner and wide, outstretched wings, but she could never stand still long enough to give the pose any real weight. Sometimes Rex would do it too, just to prove how much better he was at being quiet and dignified—and Xephyra would nudge and nip at him until he was forced to give it up and snap back at her.

  Rex left her to it tonight and was instead perched off to the side, staring into the distance.

  From up here, they could see the stronghold and the village, the Eyrie and the grassy field beyond the gate. Sometimes Veronyka stretched her eyes—or Xephyra’s through mirroring—ever wider, imagining she could see Tristan down in the valley below, or Val, wherever she was. Sometimes she even sought Alexiya, who had left weeks ago in search of her long-lost brother—Veronyka’s long-lost father—and who had yet to return.

  For all her searching, Veronyka saw nothing. She felt nothing too, and that was worst of all.

  The closest she ever got was late at night, when she assumed Tristan was sleeping. With Rex by her side, Veronyka could manage the feeling of him—his heartbeat in her ears, his breath expanding and contracting in her chest—but nothing more.

  Maybe that would change after today. She’d finally dropped the last barriers she had in place, opening her bonds wide. All of them.

  Maybe tonight would be the night she got through.

  A scrape of footsteps sounded behind Veronyka.

  Kade emerged from the ladder at the back of the building, clambering over the pedestal that held the phoenix statue and crouching to sit down next to Veronyka. He didn’t speak much—he didn’t seem to feel the need to, the way others did—his quiet presence a soothing, undemanding comfort at the end of each day.

  Though Rex remained distant, Xephyra cocked her head at Kade, who smiled and ran a hand down her beak. A second later another, smaller female phoenix fluttered to the roof—Kade’s new bondmate, Jinx. She was a beautiful thing, elegant and long-winged, suggesting much growth still to come—which was good given Kade’s height and weight. She stretched her neck and let out a soft, warbling cry before inching closer to Xephyra, her movements slow and deferential. Xephyra rather enjoyed the display, lifting her beak haughtily—but Veronyka knew what was coming. Jinx waited until she was right next to Xephyra, head still bowed respectfully, before she spread her wings wide in a sudden burst of feathers. Xephyra squawked and fell back, giving Jinx what she really wanted—not the respect of an older phoenix, but the best perch on the temple.

  Xephyra relished the challenge, leaping forward to reclaim her spot at once, and the two were soon sharing the spot—with the occasional playful bite and jostle. Rex tossed them both a bored look. He was the largest of the three and would take the position himself if the two didn’t quit making such a fuss. Xephyra snapped at him, and Jinx chirruped brightly, unfazed. She was clearly a bit of a rascal, bold and daring, and an interesting counterpart to Kade, who always seemed so serious.

  Veronyka glanced at Kade now; he was grinning. She hadn’t understood things at first, baffled that Sev had given him his only precious phoenix egg, the prize he had nearly died to deliver—his reward, his salvation, when all this was through. But then she’d seen the look in Kade’s eyes as he’d described their time together and it had all made sense.

  Veronyka and Kade had both left people they loved behind.

  Thinking of Tristan made Veronyka turn her eyes south, and Kade copied her.

  Tristan and Sev were there, alone in an empire of enemies.

  “Any message for him?” Veronyka asked abruptly, but Kade understood.

  Once she’d realized what Sev meant to him, Veronyka had explained more fully to Kade how she knew where Sev was, as well as the decision he’d come to that night. She hadn’t just seen him with Tristan; she’d felt him there, felt his fear and the bravery and courage buried beneath. Kade was Pyraean and had heard enough rumors about shadow magic to act surprised but not shocked. He’d also worked closely with Ilithya Shadowheart—Veronyka’s adopted grandmother—who had told him that the magic was real.

  “And you believed her?” Veronyka had asked, stunned at his simple explanation.

  He’d shrugged. “After all the impossible things she’d told me that turned out to be true—Phoenix Riders still existed, Avalkyra Ashfire lived—believing in shadow magic was fairly easy.”

  They’d traded more stories after that, tales of Ilithya Shadowheart, of Tristan and Sev.… It was painful, of course, but it also made them feel closer.

  And every night when Veronyka tried to reach Tristan through their bond, she offered to try to send Sev a message too. Every time she failed, but still she tried.

  “The same,” Kade said in response to her question. It was a good message, after all, and not so very different from what she wanted to say to Tristan.

  When all this is over, you and I will be standing together on the other side of it.

  Maybe tonight it would happen. Veronyka’s heart was open: her mind and her magic reaching for a connection.

  Maybe tonight it would work.

  For as long as there have been phoenixes, there has been me.

  - CHAPTER 2 - AVALKYRA

  SHE WAS A CHILD again. Which child? A princess in silks, or a street rat in rags?

  And there was a sister with her.

  Which sister?

  Dirt floor. Dirty fingernails. And a belly aching from hunger.

  She was Val, then, and this child was Veronyka.

  Her magic felt muted, dull—until Veronyka looked at her with wide, adoring eyes, and her sister’s magic surged up to meet her.

  “Guard your mind,” she snapped, and Veronyka’s gaze faltered. The hopeful trust, the wary affection, all of it evaporated in an instant. But something lingered, warm as sunbaked terra-cotta tiles, gentle as a spring breeze. Stupid girl. Foolish girl. As if Avalkyra didn’t have enough to worry about without adding Veronyka’s magical ineptitude to the list.

  It was late. The old woman should have been back by now. They had nothing to eat, no wood for a fire, no oil for the lantern.

  Veronyka’s worry was palpable now, her stomach aching worse than Avalkyra’s.

  You are projecting, Val said, not wanting to use magic—fearing the ease with which she could enter and exit the girl’s mind, sensing it might be the start of something more—but needing to scare Veronyka into submission. There was nothing like words whispered into the mind to strike fear into a person’s heart. To make them question themselves.

  “I’m sorry,” Veronyka mumbled, which only made Avalkyra hiss in impatience.

  “I don’t want your weak apologies. I want your control. I want your strength.”

  “I—” Veronyka began, but footsteps sounded outside the door. Avalkyra slapped her hand over Veronyka’s mouth—they did not technically live here—but then the doorknob turned and Ilithya stood before them.

  “Maiora!” Veronyka cried, pulling away from Avalkyra’s iron grip and flying into Ilithya’s arms. She hadn’t even noticed the tension in the old woman’s face… or the knife in Avalkyra’s other hand.

  Because she didn’t have to.

  Avalkyra stood, watching Veronyka and Ilithya embrace. Such simple, uncomplicated affection. Such willful ignorance.

  Veronyka turned away from her adopted grandmother, but her gaze held none of its previous adoration. Her eyes were narrowed. Thoughtful.

  “I noticed,” she said.

  Avalkyra reared back. The voice coming out of Veronyka’s mouth wasn’t that of a girl of seven or eight, as she was in this memory, but of a young woman. Of Veronyka now.

  “You noticed what?” Avalkyra found herself asking. Her voice, too, had changed—before, she’d been watching the scene play out, but now she was controlling it.

  Veronyka stepped away from Ilithya, and the old woman—as well as the world around them—shifted and blurred like fog, obscuring all but the two
of them.

  Avalkyra blinked, and Veronyka was grown. Avalkyra raised a hand to her own face and felt scars.

  “I noticed the knife—I felt the tension,” Veronyka said, her voice echoing slightly. She looked different, even from the last time Avalkyra had seen her in the real world. Her hair was longer, with several new braids, including one capped with her own signet ring, the other with Pheronia’s pendant.

  “You did?” Avalkyra repeated skeptically.

  “I did. But I trusted you.” She paused, shaking her head slightly and looking around in confusion. “What are we doing here? What’s happening, Val? I thought I was dreaming.… Did you come here for me?”

  Avalkyra’s lip curled at the arrogance. “Not everything is about you. As far as I can tell, you’re the one who came here for me.”

  She also glanced around the strange, misty place they occupied. Their connection had started as a shared dream. The sleeping consciousness tended to drift beyond the boundaries of the mind, allowing shadowmages to pick up on the dreams of those around them—or those they were bonded to. But then it had changed. Now it was a regular shadow magic connection but within that dreaming framework. A conversation between their minds while their bodies slept.

  The connection had been seamless, a startling realization given the physical distance between them.

  They’d not conversed like this before.

  “I wasn’t looking for you,” Veronyka said, crossing her arms. “I was looking for…” She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  Avalkyra found herself smiling. There was nothing more familiar—and more comforting—than Veronyka’s impotent anger. “But why not, Nyka?”

  Veronyka’s hands dropped to her sides. “You tried to kill me.”

  Avalkyra flashed back to Ferro, to the sky and the wind and the cold air that had crept into the place where Veronyka’s hand had been right after Avalkyra had released it.

  She shrugged. “You survived, didn’t you? Clearly, I didn’t try very hard.”

  Veronyka opened her mouth, gaping like a fish, before she released a soft growl and lurched away. “I’m done. I want out of here.” She reached her hands into the mist, seeking walls or doors or some avenue for escape. Avalkyra felt the pull like a hook behind her navel.

  This shared space they occupied was neither her mind nor Veronyka’s, but rather inside the bond itself, and so in order to come and go, they both had to breach the distance or break the contact. Veronyka was pulling back now, but Avalkyra did not do the same.

  “We are bonded,” Avalkyra said. “You cannot simply walk away from me.” Much as Veronyka might want to. Much as Avalkyra herself might sometimes want her to.

  Veronyka whirled back, ready to retort. Then she paused, expression turning thoughtful. “It was happening here, wasn’t it?” she asked, staring at the space between them as if she could still see the scene from their past. “The start of the bond?”

  Avalkyra nodded. “I should have put a stop to it.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  The question felt accusatory, and Avalkyra scowled. If she had known and understood what was happening, of course she would have put a stop to it. A human bond? What could be more perilous? As if loving Pheronia hadn’t been enough to fracture an empire and topple a dynasty, but a magical manifestation of the same weakness?

  Yes, she would have snuffed it out at once if she had known.

  Had she known?

  “I could have helped you,” Veronyka continued, frustration bleeding into her words. “I could have shared the burden—if you’d let me. If you’d trusted me in turn.”

  Avalkyra snorted. “Trusted you? When your every thought and feeling was there for the taking? When your heart was as open and exposed as the rib cage of a corpse on a battlefield?”

  “You made me that way—can’t you see that? You made my magic weak by refusing to teach me. All I learned from you was fear and failure. You never showed me how to succeed.”

  That was definitely an accusation. Avalkyra’s lip curled, and she stepped forward, into Veronyka’s personal space. They were close enough to touch. Or they would have been, if they weren’t miles apart. “I’ll show you what success looks like.”

  Now it was her turn to pull back. Veronyka resisted her for a moment, eyes dark with something like regret, before she closed them and disappeared entirely.

  * * *

  Avalkyra thought she had forgotten how to sleep.

  How to surrender herself to it. How to be free from her body, her mind… if only for a few hours.

  She certainly thought she had forgotten how to dream.

  Leave it to Veronyka to slice her open like a piece of fruit. No, Veronyka was more like an insect, a parasite, worming her way in slowly over time. But Avalkyra would not let her insides turn mushy and sweet, overripe with rot. She would not let Veronyka occupy space inside her mind, tainting her present with thoughts of her past.

  She would not fall into that trap again.

  Loving them is weakness.

  She had spoken the words to Veronyka dozens of times, a warning against the girl’s sentimental attachments. But now the words were a warning for herself. She had loved, and she had lost. Burned and bled because of it.

  Loving them is weakness, and Avalkyra had no room left for weakness.

  She had no room left for anything but the hatred in her heart, pure as poison. No room left for anything but vengeance.

  Veronyka had betrayed Avalkyra, like her mother before her. She had chosen made-up loyalty and petty friendships over family, over blood—over a thousand-year legacy. She had taken everything from Avalkyra and stolen it for herself.

  What, then, could Avalkyra do, other than take it all back?

  Not for herself, of course. She no longer wanted it. All this time she’d yearned to remake the past, to reclaim what was lost. But now?

  She would not seize the throne—she would topple it.

  She would not rule the empire—she would obliterate it.

  And Veronyka would be there; Avalkyra would make sure of it. Not as a sister or a fellow queen, but as an enemy to defeat. A target for her arrows, a symbol and figurehead of the world that had rejected her.

  They would fight this war as it should have been fought seventeen years ago—both of them in the sky, on wings, with all the world watching. There would be no silent arrows in the night, no secret heirs and reborn queens.

  There would be ash, and fire, and death.

  Veronyka was strong, but Avalkyra was stronger.

  The next time they met, things would be different. She would be different. There would be no looking backward. Only forward, into the future. A future of her own making.

  A future where only one of them would be left standing.

  Wingbeats sounded above, distant but discernible. Little else moved here besides the creaking, howling wind.

  It was too dark to see, but Avalkyra knew who and what approached. She knew the darkness better than the light.

  After all, it was in her darkest moment that she had unwittingly given that phoenix egg everything she had—every hatred, every fear, every bloody, blinding ambition—and tossed it into the utter emptiness that was once the Everlasting Flame.

  And it was in her darkest moment that she had been given exactly what she needed. Not a glittering phoenix born of fire, but a strix born of shadows and night. A fitting partner at last.

  After seventeen years, Avalkyra had a bondmate again.

  Not just any bondmate, either. She had hatched a strix, and she would be the first-ever Strix Rider. She was living history. She was legend.

  And with her new bond came power.

  Such power.

  She reveled in it, the way it grew with each passing day. She had forgotten what it was like to be powerful. Not the assumed power of a name or a legacy, and not the internal power of knowledge, or memory, or frothing, foaming rage.

  No, this was t
rue power, magical power, pure and simple.

  Her shadow magic surged with every breath, every moment she and her bondmate spent together. It was overwhelming. Intoxicating.

  Dangerous.

  But not for her.

  No. This power was dangerous for everyone else.

  The wingbeats grew louder, and Avalkyra got to her feet. She had fallen asleep on a bench beside a dried-up old fountain in the central square of the ruins of Aura, the carved phoenix whose beak once spouted cool, clean water now cracked and crumbling.

  The stony basin did collect rain, however, and Avalkyra caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the ink-black puddle.

  She raised a hand to the rough skin of her face, to the tight scar tissue and the strange numbness of scorched nerves. To the eye that she’d nearly lost, which now remained partially closed and sensitive to light.

  Sidra had helped her clean and tend the wounds, to smear them with salves and wrap them with linen. She had flown to villages to beg, borrow, and steal whatever herbs and tinctures she could, forcing them down Avalkyra’s throat when she tried to lash out in pain.

  In truth, Sidra had relished the opportunity to be of real use. She was threatened by Avalkyra’s new bondmate, who had taken Sidra’s place at her queen’s side. Now she was a step farther, a spot lower, but no matter how her value and usefulness had decreased, Sidra was still a vessel for Avalkyra’s will. So even when her own body rebelled, her mind and her magic knew she needed strength. Needed to heal and avoid infection. Needed to survive. And so she used Sidra for all she was worth.

  After weeks of treatment, the scars were as good as they would ever be, mottled and tight, but Avalkyra could still hold a knife and aim a bow, and that was all that mattered. She would wear her wounds as a badge of honor, a symbol of her survival. If the world did not like them, they could look away.

  Nearer, nearer, her bondmate drew—invisible until she wasn’t, dropping out of the night like a scrap of darkness made solid. Like a sky without stars, inky and unfathomable.