“Because of the eggs?”
Tristan nodded. “So, basically, we’re right back where we started.”
Veronyka shook her head firmly. “No, we’re not. You did something amazing today, Tristan, and your father promised you the position you worked hard for. This is a good day.”
He smiled more earnestly now and nodded his agreement.
The movement showed Veronyka the bow and quiver he was wearing over his shoulder.
“Do you want to get in more practice?” she asked hopefully, indicating the weapon.
“Nah,” he said, swinging it off his shoulder. Veronyka’s heart sank, until . . . “I think it’s time we gave you a try.”
“At the obstacle course?” she squeaked, then cleared her throat.
He chuckled. “No. That’s a bit advanced for you. Let’s try your hand at the bow and arrow first.”
The bow he held out was smaller than what a standing soldier would use, made from dark, polished wood and curled at both ends.
“It’s recurved,” he explained, tracing the reverse bends at top and bottom, “which gives maximum draw with minimal effort. Riders usually shoot while mounted, so they need smaller, more agile weapons. This works in your favor, compensating for your, uh, limited strength.”
Veronyka had to give him credit for trying to be tactful, though he’d failed.
Tristan showed her how to string and unstring the bow, but she couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. The strength and coordination it required to bend the wood and hold the string taut was more than she would have assumed, and soon her muscles began to tremble.
After watching her struggle, Tristan finally took pity on her and helped. “It’ll get easier,” he said, reaching around her to add his strength to hers, pushing the bow down so Veronyka could fasten the loop.
His sudden proximity filled her senses, the scent of cool green grass and woodsmoke mingling with the cotton of his tunic and the smell of his skin, salty with sweat and still warm from the day’s sun. When he released the bow and stepped back from her, Veronyka took a deep breath of the Tristan-free air and collected herself. Her nerves were on high alert because of the new challenge archery presented, she was sure, and not because of the way the commander’s son smelled.
Taking the bow from her, he demonstrated proper technique, drawing the string effortlessly. He pointed out the position of his feet, spread and evenly balanced, along with the angle of his elbow, and how far he drew the string, anchored to his chin. The position displayed his lean, muscular body to its best effect, and Veronyka took as long as was acceptable to stare at him.
To help my technique, she told herself, looking away at last. Yes, he was attractive—strong and smart and talented. And yes, she loved being with him. But he was also her training partner, the commander’s son, and with any luck, her sponsor someday. She couldn’t afford to get distracted.
He handed her the bow, and she tried to mimic him, drawing the arrowless string back and doing her best to remember his square, balanced posture.
He walked around her, nudging her elbow up, kicking her feet farther apart, and squinting at her grip.
Then he rested a hand, idly, against her chest.
His palm splayed against the fabric, his smallest finger mere millimeters away from the gentle swell of her flattened breasts. Immediately her chest constricted and her breath hitched.
“No, no,” Tristan said softly, the other hand resting on the elbow that drew back the string. “Deep breaths—that’s where your strength and posture come from. In and out, come on,” he encouraged, tapping her chest lightly.
Veronyka thought she might faint right then and there. Bad enough that she was a girl pretending to be a boy, her secret a fingertip away from being discovered, but Tristan’s very proximity was enough to make her lungs tighten and her body shake.
Veronyka, you fool.
Focusing on the bow in her hands, she relaxed and did as he ordered. Deep breath in, slow breath out. On the next breath in, she tightened her grip and drew back the string, feeling her muscles bunch and expand and her posture straighten.
“There it is,” he said softly, his breath tickling the back of her neck.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. He was so close, Veronyka could see the barest shadow of stubble along his jawline and the way his throat bobbed when he swallowed. Once. Twice.
His hand lingered for a moment longer. Then it dropped, and she released the string, her body’s tension collapsing in on itself in a grateful moment of release.
Tristan cleared his throat and reached for the quiver. He was brusque when he took the bow again, avoiding her eye as he showed her how to hold the arrow, curling his fingers to pull it taut against the string and angling the shaft against the bow, with a finger below to guide it.
He was an excellent teacher, patient and thorough, and when it was Veronyka’s turn, she did her best to follow his instructions. Her form seemed accurate enough, but when it came time to actually shoot the weapon, the arrow flopped to the ground scant feet in front of her.
Tristan covered his mouth in a gesture that she knew was hiding laughter, and he collected the stray arrow before waving for her to try again. She got the hang of it eventually, firing weak shots in the general direction of the target. Before long the muscles in her shoulders, arms, and back began to ache, and her fingertips were rubbed raw.
“There are gloves and armguards to make you more comfortable,” Tristan offered, seeing her shake out her aching fingers after another unimpressive shot, “but it’s better to toughen the skin and develop calluses.”
“It’s fine,” Veronyka said in frustration. She’d managed to embed only a single arrow, on the outermost edge of the target, but nothing more.
“You have other strengths, you know,” Tristan said quietly.
Veronyka knew she sucked at this, but his words confirmed it. How was she going to be a mounted warrior when she could barely draw a bow? If Avalkyra Ashfire could be the best markswoman in the summer solstice games at age eleven, beating out hundreds of older, more experienced archers, Veronyka could learn too. She had to.
“If you want to be a Rider, you have to be an archer,” she gritted out. She’d just have to practice more, find ways to shoot late at night or early in the morning. . . .
“Yes, archery is important,” Tristan conceded, coming to stand in front of her, arms crossed. “But every Rider has their talents. Anders is an amazing flyer, fast and unpredictable. Fallon has incredible balance—he can ride standing, sitting, or even on his phoenix’s tail. Ronyn is by far the strongest of any of us; he can throw a spear almost as far as I can shoot an arrow.”
As Tristan continued to list off each Rider’s remarkable skills, Veronyka felt smaller and smaller. How could she think she belonged among them, when she had no such astounding abilities?
It seemed Tristan could read her mind. “But your strength, Nyk, is your magic.”
Veronyka gave him a disbelieving look. “We all have magic,” she said, unable to keep the embarrassing sulkiness out of her voice. Of course, Veronyka did have a magical skill that most of them did not—her shadow magic—but it had no bearing on how she’d fare as a Rider. In most cases it was a terrible inconvenience and a liability.
“Not like yours,” Tristan said forcefully.
A pleased smile spread across Veronyka’s face, despite her having a hard time actually believing his words. Val’s praise had always been scant, and usually bracketed on both sides with snide jabs and insults. Her maiora was kind and patient, but their time together had been so limited. Val had been the one to teach her the most about magic.
Veronyka’s first recollection of having magic involved Val. She and her grandmother had been inside their home when a girl kicked in the front door. It was strange, and Veronyka must have been very young, because in her memory, the girl had been a wild and terrifying stranger. It had been Val, of course, her dark eyes peeking through the strands of her mat
ted, so-dirty-it-looked-brown hair. In one hand she’d held a bit of scrap metal, sharp and wicked-looking. In the other, a slithering, writhing snake.
Her maiora had lurched to her feet when Val burst in, but then she stood frozen, face white as plaster as she stared at the girl. Next thing Veronyka remembered, Val was bending down and releasing the snake. Veronyka wasn’t afraid, exactly—but she had definitely been uneasy. When the snake drew close, though, something shifted, and Veronyka felt calm, as if the serpent were an old friend. She bent down, running her fingers along its strange, slippery hide, and after the two became acquainted with each other, it was a simple thing to wrap her small hands around its undulating body and hold it up for closer inspection. It lunged once for her face—she could remember her maiora making a fearful sound—but Veronyka chastised the snake for its bad manners, and that was the end of it. The entire thing had seemed like some sort of test. . . . Maybe Val didn’t know if Veronyka had any magic at all and wanted to be sure. She didn’t like to think what would have happened if she hadn’t. Val always acted as if Veronyka were a burden, even though she had the same magical powers as Val. If she’d been nonmagical, Veronyka knew Val would have made her feel completely and utterly worthless.
She stared off into the distance, wondering where Val was at that moment. Had she left the hunter’s cabin? Or had she remained stubbornly behind? The thought that Val might have moved on, that Veronyka would have no idea where to look for her, left a hollow ache in her stomach, even as her brain told her that she shouldn’t care.
“You’re the strongest animage I’ve ever seen,” Tristan continued, drawing Veronyka to the present again. He rubbed the back of his neck, oddly shamefaced. “What you did with Wind that day . . . I was already connected to him, and you just took over. I would have been impressed if I weren’t so embarrassed.”
Veronyka grinned. “Yeah, but look at what you did during the commander’s inspection today. That was far more difficult.”
“But you’re the one who set that up and taught me how to properly control the animals in the first place. If you hadn’t explained about trust and guiding rather than controlling, I couldn’t have done it.”
Veronyka beamed. His respect meant so much to her. It meant everything.
“And that other thing you taught me,” he continued, furrowing his brow and pointing up at his head, “about the mental walls? It, well . . . I’ve never been able to face Rex’s fire without seizing up in panic. But when I do the mental safe house . . . it’s like the fear is happening to a different part of my brain, like it’s nothing but a memory. It’s amazing.”
Maybe she was staring at him with too much feeling, too much intensity, because Tristan ran a hand through his hair and looked away. “So, what I’m trying to say is: Trust your magic, all right?”
“Okay,” Veronyka said, accepting his advice. “I’ll still need to learn this though,” she added.
“And you will. This is your first try, and you’re tired,” Tristan said bracingly. “It’s also hard in the failing light. I wish you could have a go in the training yard. This target’s a bit high—it’s meant for archers on horseback—and the markings are worn out. . . .” He trailed off, staring at the target with a frown.
“What?” she asked after a silent moment.
“Got any plans tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” Veronyka asked blankly. “I’ll be in the stables.”
“No you won’t. Tomorrow is Azurec’s Day,” he said.
Veronyka blinked. She’d lost track of time since she’d been at the Eyrie. Azurec’s Day—also known as the summer solstice, the day with the most sunlight of the year—was always a big festival day in the empire. It was the one time a year when Val would let them walk the streets together, watching the street performers and maybe even buying sweet cakes from a vendor. The largest celebrations were always in Aura Nova. Before the Blood War, the king and queen would attend, tossing handfuls of coins onto the streets, and at night their phoenixes would put on a fiery display in the sky.
“Oh, right,” she said, remembering that there was traditionally no work on festival days. “What are you suggesting?”
“The training yard will be empty. We can spend the whole day there.”
Veronyka’s heart leapt at the prospect, but it felt suspiciously like charity. “You don’t want to spend the day with your friends . . . the other apprentices?” she asked.
He gave her a half shrug. “We see enough of each other, and we still have the feast.”
Veronyka nodded, and they packed up their things.
“And you’re a friend, Nyk,” he added, leading the way back up to the village.
“I am?” she asked, a strange bubble expanding in her throat. Friendship had always been a loaded term for Veronyka, a thing just out of reach. She’d tried once or twice in her life, running the cobblestones with the other barefooted kids on their winding Narrows’ street, or sharing whatever meager food she had with some of the beggar kids in the Forgotten District, the neighborhood that housed the city’s orphanages. No matter who it was, Val would shut it down at once, chasing the other children away or swatting the food from the cowering street rats’ outstretched fingers.
“They’re nothing but filthy mongrels,” she’d say. Or, “Feed them once, and they’ll be following you forever.”
Veronyka would look down at her own tattered rags and wonder how they were any different. She’d wonder what was so wrong with feeding them more than once.
Veronyka had known she and Tristan were more than just training partners, but they had gone from fighting to laughing to awkward moments so quickly that she could hardly keep up. Was that friendship? All she’d ever had was her sister, but now that Xephyra—and Tristan—had come into her life, Veronyka realized that Val had never really been enough. There was a difference between friendship and family, between the people you chose to surround yourself with and the people you were stuck with, good or bad.
And just as Xephyra had done, Tristan had chosen her.
“Of course,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder. “More than a friend, really—I mean,” he said, laughing nervously as he realized what he’d insinuated, “you’re a close friend. Closer than the apprentices.”
Veronyka smiled at him, heart light as a feather as they walked through the village, Rex flying above. Veronyka stared at the phoenix, watching golden flame rippling across his body in gentle waves.
“I don’t know how you can stand to be parted from him each night,” she mused. While the phoenixes roosted in the Eyrie, the apprentices lived in barracks similar to hers. Her connection to Xephyra had been so primal, so fierce, that the thought of putting piles of rock and buildings between them each night would have been painful. Of course, what had actually happened was much, much worse.
Tristan looked up. “It was hard at first, when our bond was new and more fragile. But now we’re connected no matter how far apart we are.”
Rex cawed his agreement, soaring lazily above them.
Though Xephyra was gone, Veronyka still felt the lingering remnants of their severed bond, like a broken bone begging to be set. The more she ignored it, the more it seemed to ache.
“Still, it’d be nice to move into the Eyrie with the Master Riders—that’s where they sleep. It was carved centuries ago. All this”—he gestured to the village and the wall that surrounded it—“is fairly new. The village was here to serve the pilgrimage route, but it was mostly small shops selling phoenix idols, feather talismans, and other tourist junk. It had been abandoned since the Blood War, so we basically had to rebuild it all when we arrived two years ago. We added the wall, and the stables and everything inside the stronghold is recent. The caverns inside the Eyrie extend underneath the stronghold and deep into the mountain. Some of the passages were caved in, but we were able to excavate most of them.”
“It must be beautiful,” Veronyka said, wishing with all her heart that she might one day be a part of thi
s world, of the history that defined her people.
Tristan looked at her a moment, and Veronyka worried that she’d given herself away somehow. But she needn’t have worried.
“It is,” Tristan agreed quietly. Then he added, “I’ll show you.”
We were night and day, moon and sun—darkness and light. We were nothing without each other.
- CHAPTER 25 -
TRISTAN
AS THEY APPROACHED THE carved archway that led into the Eyrie, Rex soared overhead in a wide circle before diving dramatically into the darkness beyond.
Nyk’s eyes widened, his face glowing with unreserved wonder.
Show-off, Tristan thought to Rex, whose smug self-satisfaction blazed through the bond.
Nyk’s reaction reminded Tristan of a younger version of himself. He thought of the first time he’d seen his father’s phoenix, how small he’d felt before the great Maximian, awed—and of course, terrified—by the crackle and hiss of the fire that burned beneath his brilliant feathers. Admiration had filled his heart at the thought that his own father rode into the sky on such a breathtaking beast. From that day forward, all Tristan had wanted was to be a Rider.
He’d asked constantly, but the commander had never indulged Tristan with personal stories or sentimentality. For his father, being a Rider was just another duty, like running the Eyrie and reclaiming what their family had lost since the war.
Their exile often made Tristan ashamed—but not for their loss of position and wealth. He was ashamed because of his father. Cassian had denied their cause and offered up information, forsaking those who had fought and died in the war, just for a chance to keep his beloved governor position. He’d been willing to side with the very people who’d tried to wipe out the Riders.
The people who had killed Tristan’s mother.
Tristan could barely remember her and had only his father’s words—and the odd fragmented memory of braided hair and fierce laughter—to keep her alive. When he was young, people told him he had her spirit. Now Tristan feared he was becoming increasingly like his father, cold and calculating and more focused on personal pride than on doing what was good and right for their people.
Crown of Feathers Page 26