Wings of Shadow

by Nicki Pau Preto

  “Thank you,” he said—to Max or his father, he wasn’t sure. Maximian didn’t speak or even open his mind to Tristan, but he nodded in recognition of the words.

  The ranks of soldiers were thinning out on the southern shore, and Tristan thought it might be time to rejoin the main battle to the north and leave the military to handle the crossing alone. He was about to call Rex over to get into the air when his bondmate let out an anguished shriek.

  Danger!

  Tristan’s head whipped around; the general stood on the muddy shore not twenty paces away. He was soaked and covered in mud, but in his hand was a dry and perfectly functional crossbow, loaded and pointed at Tristan.

  Oh, Tristan thought dumbly. His hands were empty, and even if they weren’t, it was too late.

  The general’s finger clamped down, the bowstring twanged, and the air was sliced through with violent, deadly precision as the bolt rushed toward him.

  But then there was a massive, feathered body between Tristan and the arrow—between him and death—and the air shuddered with the impact as Maximian took the shot meant for him.

  The phoenix shrieked his pain, then stumbled, revealing the arrow protruding directly from his chest. Tristan lurched forward—to do what, he wasn’t sure—but then the bolt began to catch fire and burn, and the flames didn’t stop there. They tore across Maximian’s chest and neck, spreading fast, pulsing, but Max wasn’t about to explode in anger and rage.… He was about to burn up.

  “No,” Tristan whispered, eyes stinging. “No!”

  The general was reloading his crossbow, but Tristan spared the man a single, vitriolic look before the recently arrived Phoenix Riders took charge. They had whirled in midair at the sound of Max’s screech, and now that they saw their foe—the very man that had ruined their lives—they exploded into action.

  General Rast fumbled to reload the weapon, seeing the others barreling down upon him, then dropped it and threw out his hands. “I saved you—I saved you all! You would be dead if it weren’t for me.”

  Tristan watched as the phoenixes landed and their Riders leapt from their saddles, weapons drawn. They forced Rast to his knees, while their phoenixes crowded close, feathers bristling and crackling with flames.

  Rast looked around wildly, tense and waiting for a blow that didn’t come. “Just kill me already!” he barked.

  “They don’t take orders from you anymore,” said Theo, stepping to the front of the group, her expression glacial.

  With a wave of her hand, the others moved forward to bind their prisoner’s hands and feet. General Rast would not have the easy way out. He would stand trial and be made to face—and pay for—his crimes.

  Tristan, sick with anger and despair, turned back to Maximian, who was croaking feebly. After staggering and flapping his wings several times but unable to take to the air, he settled on his haunches. He stilled, patient and dignified as he’d always been, even as flames licked up his sides.

  Rex arrived then, fluttering anxiously next to Tristan—trying to help, to support, but Tristan had eyes only for his father’s dying bondmate.

  “No, Max—no. It’ll be okay.… It’s going to be okay.…” But Maximian fixed him with his somber gaze, and they both knew Tristan lied.

  The phoenix lifted his head to the sky as the last of the flames engulfed him. Tristan staggered back, but despite the terrifying wildness of it, he didn’t shy away. He stayed there, kept his vigil, no matter how his eyes watered and his throat stung.

  Maximian’s shape was visible as a dark silhouette within the flames, blurry and indistinct, before it slowly disappeared, and there was nothing but fire.

  Tristan knew that somewhere in Arboria, his father’s heart was breaking—as it hadn’t done since Tristan’s mother was executed. You’re not alone, Tristan thought, but he feared it would not be enough—that he had never been enough. You’re not alone.

  When he came back to himself, he was on his knees before a smoldering pile of ashes. It was like Maximian was never there at all, but he had been—or else Tristan wouldn’t be.

  “I’ll stay with him,” came a voice by his side, and Tristan looked into the eyes of Sarra, one of the older Riders from Haven. “I knew some of the Mercies, before. I know what to do.”

  In case he resurrects, Tristan reminded himself, getting painfully to his feet. His hands were streaked with soot, his knees burned through from how close he’d been to the flames. His face felt cold suddenly, in contrast to the heat of Max’s dying inferno.

  Then he became aware of Rex nudging him through the bond.

  Tristan looked up, following Rex’s urgent prodding, and mirrored in time to see Veronyka and Val come together in a violent clash of fire and shadow before plummeting to the ground.

  Tristan felt the impact—not in his body, but somehow in his magic. He felt scraped out and raw, empty in a way that didn’t make sense.

  Sidra and Doriyan, who had been tussling nearby, also turned to stare at the commotion, but Doriyan was first to recover.

  He lunged from his phoenix while Sidra was still distracted and knocked her out of her saddle, tackling her to the ground. They weren’t very high up, but it was a far enough fall to knock the wind out of her upon impact. Daxos leapt onto Sidra’s phoenix, not hurting but holding her, trying to keep her from rushing to her bondmate’s side.

  Doriyan, meanwhile, was restraining Sidra—who was gasping for air and cursing his name—and begging her to listen to him.

  “Give it up!” he was shouting, rearing back as Sidra got an arm loose and threw a vicious elbow. He dodged it neatly before catching her wrist and pinning it to the ground. “The fight is over. You’re one of us. Be one of us.”

  Sidra spat in his face, but he didn’t relent.

  “She doesn’t care about you, Sidra! She’s using you. It’s just as before: She loves only the Ashfires. She loves their dusty names and their ancient legacy more than any living thing.”

  Sidra struggled once more—half-heartedly, it seemed to Tristan—before finally relenting. She slumped against the ground, her heaving chest the only movement.

  Doriyan remained still, poised above her, before relaxing slightly.

  Then Sidra’s other arm broke free, and this time she held a knife. There was a flash of steel, then a spurt of blood as she slashed across Doriyan’s exposed throat.

  Tristan’s muscles locked up in shock, but he was too far away to do anything but stare. The instant that metal met flesh, Daxos released Sidra’s phoenix, and she scooped up her Rider before racing toward the battlefield without a backward glance.

  Tristan lurched forward on shaky legs. Daxos crooned, low and warbling, and Rex bumped him out of the way, giving Tristan room to work.

  There was so much blood, but Doriyan was wide-eyed and alert, scrabbling at his throat. Tristan tore a strip of cotton from his shirt to stanch the flow, and then someone was there. A soldier with a white sash across his chest—a healer.

  Tristan had never been so happy to see an empire soldier. He allowed himself to be pushed aside, hands drenched in blood, while the healer reached into his medic bag and shouted for his assistants. They got Doriyan onto a stretcher and carried him to a distant tent marked with a white banner.

  “Go with him,” Tristan said to Daxos, hastily wiping at his trembling hands with the scrap of his shirt he still held. Rex stepped away, giving the phoenix room to shake out his wings. “Keep up his strength. Help him fight.” Help him live.

  Tristan had seen too much of death this night, and Veronyka and her sister had just fallen out of the sky.

  Fast, Rex, Tristan thought desperately, leaping into his saddle. Faster than you’ve ever flown before.

  I thought I’d be ready to say goodbye, to join the ranks of warrior queens and festoon the evening sky.

  - CHAPTER 67 - VERONYKA

  GIVE HER EVERYTHING.

  The request echoed in Veronyka’s mind, even as the world around her seemed to disappear.
<
br />   The sense of spinning vertigo, the scent of fire, the wind and stars… all of it gone.

  Next thing she knew, she was sprawled on the ground. She lurched to her feet, her surroundings muffled—distant, as if her ears needed to pop. As if she were underwater… cut off from everything and everyone.

  No. The word lodged itself in her throat, unspoken.

  Veronyka blinked, reached outside herself, beyond the darkness.

  No.

  She fell to her knees.

  Ignix’s words resurfaced in her mind. I fear it will come at a terrible price.

  And Veronyka had paid—not with her life, but with something else.

  There are worse things than death.

  She had lost her magic. She had given everything. Everything. And she had lost.

  Xephyra was gone.

  Tristan was gone.

  Val was gone.

  The horde was gone, and Veronyka blinked dazedly, drunkenly at the phoenixes soaring overhead, at the soldiers crowding around.

  But then there was a face swimming in front of her vision—a familiar, once-dear face. Now it was the face of her enemy. Veronyka got unsteadily to her feet once more, trying to muster fear—the will to fight, to live—but instead she just stared. The face was speaking, shouting as she staggered toward her.

  Val.

  She gestured behind her, where Onyx had turned into nothing more than a pile of ashes and scattered feathers, blowing away on the wind. They must have missed, Veronyka thought distractedly. They must have missed Onyx’s heart. It was a miracle Val was mostly unhurt, though she moved with a limp and her body was smeared with blood and ash.

  She was still yelling, and had taken hold of Veronyka’s shoulders, shaking her roughly. Then, abruptly, she stopped. Her gaze bored into Veronyka, and Veronyka knew she came up with nothing. White noise.

  “What have you done?” Val whispered, jerking away.

  Veronyka’s face crumpled.

  Despair welled up so quickly and fiercely that she thought she might choke on it.

  Death seemed sweeter, easier, than this living nightmare.

  She thought she finally understood a fraction of the horror Val had woken up to seventeen years ago. She had still been a mage, of course, but she had lost her bondmate. Lost her sister. Lost her very life.

  Veronyka pitied Avalkyra Ashfire.

  But in this moment, she pitied herself more.

  Next to them, Xephyra crooned low, shaking her head—lost, confused, alone.

  Veronyka’s heart ached—but it was just her heart. Xephyra wasn’t there any longer… at least not in the way she had been. She was a separate entity now, almost a stranger as their eyes met and there was no spark of magic, no sensation like looking in a mirror at another part of her soul.

  There was a commotion nearby heralding the arrival of a Phoenix Rider.

  Tristan. Veronyka thought she might break at the sight of him, a sight that was somehow flat and two-dimensional. How foolish she had been, trying to block their bond, spitting in the face of such a precious gift.

  He dismounted, ready to rush forward—but he stumbled to a halt, confused, as Rex let out an anguished cry. Tristan’s face was screwed up as his eyes flickered from Rex to Xephyra and back to Veronyka. He held her gaze for several halting breaths, and then his mouth trembled. He understood, even if he didn’t. He felt it, somehow, some way. He reached for Rex, gripping his feathers with painful force, but his bondmate didn’t seem hurt by it. He only leaned into the touch.

  Veronyka lifted her face to the sky, to the stars, to the phoenixes glowing like fiery lanterns strung across the heavens. The fighting had stopped, the last strixes had been shot down, and the soldiers were allies.

  It was worth it, wasn’t it? She’d said she would pay the price, and now she had.

  There was peace, finally, peace for the others—even if there would be no peace for herself.

  And that would be enough, she told herself. It would have to be enough.

  But when she lowered her face, her cheeks were wet with tears, her vision crystalline and shimmering.

  Out of nowhere, two hands landed on Veronyka’s chest and shoved. She stumbled, blinking in surprise as she refocused on Val standing before her. All around, bodies tensed, but Veronyka’s did not. She just stared at Val, flat-eyed and hollow.

  “Don’t you dare,” Val ground out, shoving Veronyka again and again, forcing her to stagger backward. She looked angry, desolate—and were those tears on her face too?

  Veronyka tried to drudge up some kind of resistance, but she couldn’t. “I’m tired, Val.”

  “You’re tired?” Val demanded, her voice shrill. She glared at Veronyka for several weighted moments, then reached into her belt. She withdrew a knife. The people watching raised their weapons, but before they could react, Val had thrown the blade down at Veronyka’s feet.

  From any other person, Veronyka might have thought it was surrender.

  “This isn’t over,” Val said, before drawing another knife from her boot and crouching into a loose combat stance.

  Veronyka didn’t reach for the weapon.

  “Don’t just stand there,” Val snarled. “Fight back! Fight me!”

  “I won’t,” Veronyka said, and Val’s grip on her knife turned her knuckles bone-white.

  Veronyka had often thought that Val might hate her, but it was clear now that she hated this weakened, defeated Veronyka most of all.

  “This isn’t over. This isn’t the end. Don’t be like her! Be better!” Val actually sobbed, her voice closing up around the words. “You were always better.”

  Veronyka’s heart clenched. “This is me being better, Val. I won’t fight you. I won’t kill you.”

  Val hesitated, a twitch of her face. “What if I don’t give you a choice?”

  Veronyka held her arms wide in invitation—and Val lunged. She tackled Veronyka, knocking her clean off her feet.

  Her back hit the ground hard, Val on top of her.

  “Don’t,” Veronyka gasped, the wind knocked from her lungs. Val was poised above, blade flashing, but she did not bring it down. “Don’t,” Veronyka repeated, daring to take her eyes off Val to scan the soldiers and Riders who had encircled them, ready to intervene.

  Tristan was there, and Alexiya and Theryn. Her father’s eyes were dark and his grip sure as he leveled a crossbow at Val, the woman who had stolen his love, his daughter, his whole world from him. Veronyka shook her head, pleading, and with a look that seared her skin, he resisted.

  Val shoved Veronyka to regain her attention, baring her teeth, her chest heaving. There was no sound but their panting silence. “We’re not finished here,” she gritted out. “This isn’t over.”

  “It is for me,” Veronyka said. “I won’t fight you anymore. I can’t.” Her voice cracked on the word, and fresh tears streaked down the side of her face, into the dirt. “You’re my sister, and I love you.”

  Val’s grip on the knife shook. “Stop it,” she hissed, closing her eyes. “Just stop it.”

  There was a rustle of movement and a gust of wind. The nearby soldiers and Riders shifted their attention—and their weapons—at the newcomer.

  It was Sidra, leaping from her saddle with her bow already drawn, an arrow nocked and pointing at Veronyka.

  “Just say the word, my queen, and I will do it.”

  Val cursed, getting to her feet and whirling around. “You think I need you to do my dirty work, Sidra of Stel? You are my dirty work,” she snarled, unleashing all her anger and frustration. “I need nothing from you.”

  Sidra’s weapon remained pointed at Veronyka, who got slowly, carefully to her feet, while Sidra’s eyes were fixed on Val. “All I’ve ever done is serve you willingly.”

  Val laughed cruelly, viciously. “You served me because I bade you to, and you were too weak-willed to refuse me.”

  Sidra’s stony expression faltered. She looked utterly lost. “I only want to stand by your side. To fi
ll the place that she doesn’t deserve to occupy,” she said angrily. Desperately. The tension between them quivered, ready to break, but no one dared move to cause the snap. “Why do you choose her, when she disrespects you at every turn? Why her?”

  “We are Ashfires. You are nothing.”

  Sidra’s face hardened, and her gaze shifted onto Veronyka. Pure hatred burned there.

  Val must have lost her hold on Sidra at some point during the battle, for her face flashed a single look of total disbelief when she realized what the woman was about to do.

  Sidra released her bowstring, and the arrow flew, her aim true… and it would have landed home, right in Veronyka’s heart—

  If Val had not flung herself in between.

  The arrow thumped into Val’s chest, sending her body jolting backward into Veronyka, who tried to catch her as she fell.

  Her sister.

  Her aunt.

  Her enemy.

  Veronyka lowered her to the ground, dropping to her knees to survey the damage. Her strix-feather crown was askew, her clothing torn, and the shaft of the arrow—fletched in phoenix feathers—protruded from her chest.

  Sidra gasped aloud, the only sound in the echoing silence, and didn’t resist as soldiers apprehended her and took her weapon. She only stared unblinking at Val, her face a white mask of shock as she was dragged away.

  Veronyka noted all this absently in her peripheral vision, her attention wholly on Val. She took Val’s bloody hand in hers and squeezed.

  Val’s eyes were hazy as they settled on Veronyka.

  “Val,” Veronyka whispered, pressing Val’s hand against her face, her fingers icy. Was that because of the arrow wound, or had she always been this cold?

  Val closed her eyes slowly, agonizingly, and Veronyka stared hard, willing them to open again. They did, and a single tear slid a track down her face.