Crown of Feathers

by Nicki Pau Preto

  She sat in a sunny room decorated with plush carpets, fine wooden furniture, and carved stone niches filled with scrolls. A library. Veronyka had never been in a library, or seen any room so fine, but in the dream she knew where she was; it felt like home.

  Across from her was a girl. Veronyka didn’t know her, but she was familiar—she’d seen her in dreams before. Her dark hair was braided with finely made beads and sparkling jewels, and she frowned down at the table between them, her lips twisted in concentration as she stumbled through a scroll.

  Dream-Veronyka loved her—affection swelled in her chest, amusement and fondness bubbling up from somewhere deep inside her, some well of emotion that wasn’t her own.This was someone else’s life she was seeing, someone else’s body she was inhabiting.

  “What is ‘phoenovo’?” the girl asked exasperatedly. “It almost looks like ‘phoenix,’ but it has different letters on the end.”

  “Remember your root words,” Veronyka found herself saying, her voice only slightly chiding—and definitely female. “If half the word looks like ‘phoenix,’ what does the other half look like?”

  The girl paused for a moment, biting her bottom lip. “Ovo . . . ovo—egg!” she whispered, face alight with triumph. “So it’s a . . . phoenix egg?”

  Veronyka nodded, her dream-self pleased with the girl. “They’re extremely rare and difficult to hatch. They symbolize life, but also death—it’s a cycle. That’s how they’re able to be reborn. . . . Death gives them life. If not carefully incubated in the ashes of the dead, they will draw life from elsewhere, including their own brothers or sisters, if necessary.”

  “They kill one another?” the girl asked. “Their own siblings?” Her triumphant expression turned darker, warier, and the room around them grew colder.

  Veronyka shrugged, but she had the sense that they were talking about more than just phoenixes. “They cancel each other out. A death for a life. It’s called balance, xe xie,” Veronyka said.

  “Xe xie” was a Pyraean term of endearment translating to “sweet” or “precious one.” Its use made Veronyka think that these girls were probably family. Sisters, maybe.

  Footsteps echoed in the dream hallway, and both girls looked toward the door. Their afternoon together was coming to a close. . . .

  The dream faded away, and Veronyka woke up in the dark, cold cabin, dread pitted in her stomach.

  Visions had plagued her all her life. It was a symptom of shadow magic, Val said, which was why she must constantly guard her mind, even while sleeping. People’s thoughts and emotions floated through the air like dandelion spores, waiting to stick to unwary minds like hers—or be snatched up by sharper ones like Val’s. For Veronyka, who had a hard time keeping her mind locked at night, these stray thoughts and emotions twisted themselves into strange dreams.

  It had been worse in Aura Nova, when there were so many people nearby. Things had been quieter in the mountains, with only Val for company—but her sister explained that minds were cavernous places and that thoughts and memories could linger there for years, only to surface later. Veronyka supposed that was why she’d sometimes see the same people over and over again in her dreams, as if they’d wormed their way into her consciousness and refused to leave.

  But this dream, wherever it had come from, chilled her to her core.

  Val had often spoken to her about balance. A phoenix couldn’t be born from nothing—it either died, turning its own body into ash from which it could be reborn, or as an egg, it had to be incubated in the ashes of another. In the wild, mothers had to die in order to give life to their young, and only birthed a single egg at a time. It was the early animages atop Pyrmont who learned how to burn the bones of dead people and animals to achieve the same effect, allowing the phoenixes to live longer and thrive in larger numbers than they ever had before.

  When Veronyka had asked what would happen if she and her sister tried to incubate a phoenix egg in a regular fire, with no bones to feed it, Val had given a single answer: “Death.”

  And suddenly Veronyka knew why the second egg hadn’t hatched yet. What’s worse, Val knew it too. They hadn’t gathered enough bones for both phoenixes, which meant that Veronyka’s bondmate had had to draw life from elsewhere . . . from the other phoenix egg.

  Heart tight with worry, Veronyka moved to get up—and noticed Val standing over her, an ax dangling from her left hand.

  The sight of it brought Veronyka back to their first night traveling outside of the empire, concealed within a wagon. They’d stopped at a border inn for the night, and Veronyka and Val had had to sleep in the woodshed. When a drunken villager lurched into the building, leering over them, Val had hoisted up an ax in their defense.

  The man had staggered back, fleeing out the open door, but Val had followed him.

  When she’d returned, it had been dark, but Veronyka had seen her wipe the ax on an apron hanging from a peg. The next morning the apron and the ax were gone, and Veronyka had wondered if she’d imagined it all—except that Val had a shiny new pocketknife and a handful of coins they’d not had the day before. Val had purchased them a hot breakfast from the inn, and then they had used her new knife to carve wooden beads from real Pyraean trees.

  Looking back, Veronyka had to wonder what those beads were truly commemorating.

  The ax Val held now was closer to a hatchet, but its edge was no less sharp, gleaming in the darkness. The fire had gone out inside the cabin, leaving the room as cold and gray as the second egg, still among the ashes. Veronyka searched for something to say, but Val had already turned away from her. Before Veronyka realized what was happening, Val brought the ax down upon the egg, cracking it in two.

  Veronyka’s sharp inhalation of breath was lost in the crunch and splinter, and her bondmate’s head popped up in surprise.

  Veronyka couldn’t help but peer around Val’s legs with icy trepidation. She didn’t know what she expected to see—perhaps the charred remains of a bird?—but what she saw instead was as dense and unremarkable as the inside of a cracked rock. Had it ever been anything more than stone?

  Val stood in front of her once more. She nodded her chin at the phoenix next to Veronyka, though she refused to look directly at it.

  “You must name it,” she said.

  “She’s female,” Veronyka said. She didn’t know how she suddenly knew, but her instincts told her it was the truth.

  The phoenix chirruped softly next to her, and a deluge of ideas and pictures flooded their connection. It seemed that overnight the phoenix’s mind had grown and developed tenfold, thanks to the bond magic. The phoenix’s thoughts weren’t yet the fully structured concepts of a human mind, but they weren’t the moment-to-moment impressions typical of most animals either. Though animages could only bond with phoenixes, they tended to have an impact on the minds of regular animals they frequently communicated with too. Horses or working animals that were managed by animages often became smarter in the human sense and much easier to train.

  “Unsurprising,” Val said. “Female phoenixes are generally drawn to the female spirit, and the other way around. They usually adopt their gender during the incubation process, based on their chosen bondmate.”

  Veronyka nodded, her thumb stroking the phoenix’s soft head. “I think I’ll name her Xephyra.”

  Val’s eyes narrowed. She stared at Veronyka for a long time, before crossing her arms and looking up thoughtfully. “ ‘Pyr’ means ‘fire’ or ‘flame’ in Pyraean. Coupled with ‘xe’ . . .”

  “Sweet Flame,” Veronyka said, still running her fingers along her drowsy bondmate’s silky feathers.

  “Or Flame Sister,” Val corrected, given that the prefix could also mean “brother” or “sister,” based on the gender of the name. Val had taught her all about language, how to read and write, and about the stars and the seasons and history.

  Everything Veronyka was, she owed to Val.

  She held her breath a moment, afraid that the suggestion that this n
ew intruder was as close to her as a sister would make Val angry.

  Finally Val spoke. “That is a name worthy of a Pyraean queen.” Her eyes glittered as if the words were the highest praise.

  Veronyka felt a surge of pride at having pleased her sister, and yet she feared what Val said might be true, that she and her bondmate could meet the same fate as the Pyraean queens: fire, glory—and death.

  After all, while animages across the valley and beyond might rejoice to see flaming phoenix tracks across the sky once more, not everyone wanted the Phoenix Riders to return.

  In Pyra, death was celebrated as much as life. Only through endings could there be beginnings. That was the lesson of the phoenix, and it was the lesson of my life as well.

  - CHAPTER 3 -

  SEV

  SEV KEPT HIS EYES on his feet.

  It was a survival tactic, a defense mechanism—and a way to avoid stepping in another steaming pile of llama crap.

  For the past six months, Sev had adjusted rather poorly to his new life as a Golden Empire soldier. He’d not chosen this path, after all, and resented being lined up alongside a ragtag mix of petty thieves, murderers, and poor children with no other options.

  They reminded him of exactly what he was: a poor, thieving murderer.

  If possible, he enjoyed his proximity to the empire bondservants even less. They reminded him not of his worst self, but of his best—the part he’d sworn to leave behind. The part he’d had to stifle and suffocate until only the smoking wick remained. Sev might be an animage, the same as them, but that didn’t mean he had to live like one—an unpaid servant for the rest of his life.

  And he didn’t have to die like one either, leaving people who needed him behind. Like his parents had done to him.

  Of course, no one needed Sev. He’d made sure of that. It had seemed like a good idea as a child, when his world had collapsed around him. Love no one, and let no one love you. Less pain that way. Sev could die tomorrow, and not a soul would miss him.

  Sometimes it was hard to remember why he’d thought that was a good thing.

  Sev continued to trudge on, but when the feet in front of him slowed, he risked a glance up. He and the rest of his unit—ten soldiers in total, not including nearly a dozen bondservants—were escorting thirty llamas they’d purchased from a breeder in the backwoods of the lower rim of Pyrmont, the mountain that held the majority of Pyra’s settlements.

  It was painful to be here again, so close and yet so far from home. He’d longed for a chance to return, to leave the empire behind, but he’d never imagined he’d return like this—as a soldier serving the very empire he hated.

  It was thanks to the empire that Pyra was now a cursed land with cursed people. Their fight for independence had ended in thousands of deaths—the deaths of the Phoenix Riders, in all their fiery glory. The deaths of Avalkyra Ashfire, their would-be queen, and the sister who challenged her.

  The deaths of Sev’s mother and father.

  Now Pyra was the home of exiles and people who’d fought against the empire in the Blood War, or animages who wanted to avoid the registry and use their magic in peace. There were no governors stationed here, no laws or taxes or even soldiers to defend this place. Raids were common near the border, which was why Sev and his fellow soldiers were dressed in rags and mismatched gear. They wanted to blend in.

  They were part of a much larger force, which was camped well away from the Pilgrimage Road, the main thoroughfare through Pyra. Sev and this small splinter unit had been tasked with exchanging their wagons—useless on the steep off-road paths they intended to take—for the sure-footed llamas, who were docile and mild-mannered beasts of burden, excess excrement aside. Their unit was meant to return to the rest of their regiment before nightfall, and they were cutting it close as it was.

  So why were they stopping?

  Sev craned his neck and took a step forward, but before he could figure out what was happening, his heel sank into a warm, slippery heap.

  “Teyke,” he muttered. Only the god of tricksters could manage to constantly put piles of feces underfoot.

  Unearthing his boot with a squelch, Sev caught sight of the bondservant next to him, watching Sev’s struggle with a frown on his face. The bondservant was familiar. Not because Sev knew him, but because he always seemed to be watching Sev—especially when Sev did something stupid. This happened often, and so the bondservant watched him often. He was about Sev’s age, tall and broad-shouldered, with golden-brown skin and black hair cropped close to the scalp. He had a chain around his neck—a requirement for all bondservants—from which dangled a plain pendant, stamped with his name, crime, and the duration of his sentence.

  The bondservant seemed curious rather than hostile, as if Sev were a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out, but whenever Sev met his gaze, his expression would turn wary.

  Hatred for animages was rife in the military, carried over from the Blood War. It began with the higher-ups, who’d spent years fighting against Phoenix Riders—with all the gruesome wounds and burn scars to prove it—and then trickled down to the lower ranks. Many of the younger soldiers had been orphaned by the war or had grown up hearing their parents disparage the rebel animages and the Pyraean separatists. The two were often lumped together: Not all animages were Pyraean, and likewise, not all Pyraeans were animages. But after the war, when animages found their magic outlawed and their lives in danger, many fled the empire altogether into the relative safety of Pyra.

  Most soldiers were spiteful toward the animage bondservants, lording what status they had over them and treating them like lesser servants. Like criminals. After all, they were criminals, and whether their crime was serving Avalkyra Ashfire in the Blood War, avoiding the register, or using their magic in secret, the animages in the empire had been rounded up and either taxed into poverty or, if they couldn’t pay, forced to serve their debt to the empire as a bondservant. Half of the soldiers were criminals too, but their crimes were forgiven upon enlisting. Like Sev’s had been.

  Of course, the hatred went both ways. Animages had been treated like traitors—even if they’d had nothing to do with Avalkyra Ashfire’s rebellion—and had suffered at the hands of the empire.

  Sev was stuck somewhere in the middle, having as much in common with the bondservants as he did with the soldiers.

  On the one hand, his parents had been Phoenix Riders, and he carried that same animal magic in his veins. The threat of the empire had forced him to keep it hidden for most of his life, and the fear of soldiers discovering his secret had often haunted his dreams. They didn’t know he was an animage in hiding, just trying to make it through another day.

  No one did. And they couldn’t.

  If anyone found out Sev was an animage, he’d have a chain on his neck too, and given his criminal past, a life sentence to go with it.

  Of course, on the other hand, Sev was a soldier, despite hating and fearing soldiers for as long as he could remember. The Phoenix Riders had stolen his parents, ruined his life, and left him orphaned on the streets of Aura Nova. He couldn’t help but dislike them, too.

  Sev belonged nowhere, a sheep without a flock.

  Staring down at his boot, he gave the bondservant a rueful smile before trying to scrape the mess off on a nearby patch of grass. The bondservant shook his head, looking away. Sev continued to struggle, and the bondservant finally looked back and tapped his belt exasperatedly—as if trying to show Sev something. Sev frowned in confusion, staring somewhat awkwardly at the bondservant’s empty belt, before realizing he meant for Sev to look at his own. There hung a waterskin, perfect for removing animal dung. Face heating, Sev nodded his thanks before pulling out the stopper and making quick work of the cleanup.

  Once finished, Sev squinted through a gap in the trees. The soldiers had come up to a sun-drenched clearing, and visible in the middle of it was a small cabin with a blue door.

  The cabin was round in shape with a domed roof, a popular style in Pyra, a
nd was probably a single-room hunting cottage or the dwelling of some old hermit, tucked away here in the middle of nowhere.

  They’d had two orders from Captain Belden when they’d left camp that morning. Return before sundown, and don’t be seen. As empire soldiers, they were unwelcome in Pyra, and Sev didn’t think their raider costumes would hold up under close inspection. And besides, it wasn’t like the locals would welcome raiders, either.

  There was a commotion somewhere up the line, and it seemed they were moving out once more. Sev expected they were diverting around the clearing in case anybody was inside the cabin. It looked empty, but not abandoned. Firewood was stacked against the back wall, the pathway was cleared of overgrown grass and weeds, and ghostly wisps of smoke slipped from its chimney.

  “Boy!” came a sharp voice, drawing Sev back to his immediate surroundings. Up ahead, Ott was making his way down the convoy. Short and round and puffing from exertion, he reminded Sev of the Fool from one of the Arborian Comedies. Even his patchwork tunic added to the effect; all he needed was a pointed hat and bells on his shoes. Ott’s usually sallow skin was ruddy with splotchy sunburns, and sweat trickled down his temples from his thinning hair.

  “Sir,” Sev said, straightening his spine when Ott reached him and standing at attention. He made sure he moved slowly—never too quick of mind or foot. That kind of thing will get you noticed, after all, and that was the last thing Sev wanted. Most of the other soldiers thought Sev was as dull as an unsharpened blade, and Sev did his best to encourage that assessment. He was just good enough at his work to go unnoticed and just bad enough that they didn’t ask too much of him.

  “Stay here,” Ott said, actually pointing to the ground, as if Sev could possibly misunderstand the instructions. “The animals will move on, but you’re gonna be our eyes,” he added, pointing to his own with two fat fingers. “Make sure no one sneaks up on us. Me and Jotham are checkin’ things out.”