Crown of Feathers

by Nicki Pau Preto

  If Val hadn’t been so controlling and cruel, Veronyka could have come to the Eyrie with her own phoenix. She could’ve met Tristan as herself, as Veronyka, and trained with him and the other apprentices. He would have been better than her at first, but she’d have caught up to him. She’d have taught him what she knew about animal magic, and he would have helped her learn horseback riding and archery. Before long they would have soared through the sky as equals: Riders, warriors, and friends.

  Tristan was already there when she arrived in the training yard later that morning, leaning against a barrel of practice weapons and dressed in his fitted training gear.

  He opened his mouth to greet her, but Veronyka interrupted him, unable to bear it a second longer. “Thanks for, uh, getting me back to my bed last night.”

  Tristan appeared startled at first. Then he grinned shyly, the barest hint of his dimples showing. “No problem,” he said, handing her the recurved bow that Veronyka had practiced with before.

  After several shaky attempts, she managed to string it, and they made their way over to the targets. The training area was tucked against a corner of the stronghold’s walls, with a wooden fence on two sides. Targets lined the base of the stone wall, while soft sand combat areas and padded dummies filled the rest of the space. Next to the targets was a small wooden shed, which Tristan disappeared into, emerging several moments later with two quivers and a longbow.

  “Might as well get in some practice,” he said, in response to her unasked question. “Don’t worry. You’ll still have my undivided attention should you need it.”

  She felt moderately better that he was at least getting in some exercise for himself instead of devoting his entire day to her. Again the sense of the imbalance between them nagged at her.

  A group of servants cut through the far corner of the yard, accompanied by Anders, Latham, and some other apprentices. They laughed and chatted excitedly, and Tristan glanced in their direction. They waved and called him over, but he shook his head and indicated his bow.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go with the others?” Veronyka asked, keeping her eyes on the bow in her hands—and not his face. They couldn’t have a proper solstice celebration up here, since the last thing they wanted was to draw attention to themselves, but the commander did allow a small group of villagers from Petratec and Montascent to come and participate. Apparently most of the servants and craftspeople who lived at the Eyrie were from those two villages, along with several of the Riders.

  The visiting villagers brought arts and crafts to sell, fine clothes and jewelry, and participated in the games that were being held in the open field where the obstacle course usually took place. Later there would be music in the dining hall, while everyone enjoyed a large feast. At the very end of the night the phoenixes would take to the skies.

  Tristan’s feet moved into her line of sight, and she looked up to meet his eyes. He was frowning. “I already told you I don’t want to do that. This is about getting you some time with proper targets and equipment.”

  Veronyka nodded, but she didn’t answer.

  “What’s troubling you, Nyk?” he asked, sticking the pointed end of his bow into the ground and leaning against it for support. “Do you not want to train?”

  Veronyka struggled with the words. “No, of course I do! I just—I’ll never be able to repay you for all this help.”

  He considered her for a moment, the morning sun casting his features into a haze of warm brown and gold. “I never said you had to. Besides, it’s thanks to you the commander is even giving me a patrol in the first place.”

  “You’d have gotten that on your own eventually,” Veronyka said. “But what you’re giving me . . . the chance at being a Rider . . . I can’t give it back. I can’t match it.”

  “Nyk—we’re friends now, all right? And that’s not how friendship works. Besides, we’ve both got a long way to go. I’m not patrol leader yet, and you’re not an apprentice. So, enough talk, and show me what you’ve got.”

  He jerked his chin toward the targets. With a reluctant smile, Veronyka did as she was told.

  They shot arrows all morning, moving from the large beginner targets to smaller, more difficult shots. Veronyka thought she was getting the hang of it, even though her muscles were stiff and screaming with pain. Tristan shot from much farther back, his longbow’s range outstripping the small bow she used.

  At lunchtime Tristan disappeared into the dining hall and returned with a flagon of water and a basket of fruit, bread, and cheese.

  They were just talking about calling it quits, the late-afternoon sun stretching their shadows across the ground, when they heard a commotion from outside the training yard. The open gate revealed a swarm of people around the entrance to the stronghold.

  Tristan grinned. “The minstrels are here.”

  Along with artisans and fellow revelers, Petratec and Montascent always sent a troupe of performers, including minstrels and puppeteers. They carried their instruments and dolls in oiled bags or carefully sealed boxes and wore colorful tunics and headscarves. They were welcomed warmly and directed into the dining hall to unload their supplies. One little girl shrieked with glee at the sight of a Princess Pearl puppet dangling from a box, while others begged for their favorite songs and stories.

  As the crowd shifted, one of the headscarf wearers turned, and a wisp of red hair, twisted with braids and beads, slipped out from underneath its cover. Veronyka spotted a shimmering seashell, sparkling in the hazy sunlight.

  Her heart stopped.

  Slowly, as if she could sense Veronyka there, the scarf wearer lifted her head. Dark eyes locked onto Veronyka’s, and the blood drained from her face.

  Val.

  Day 29, Third Moon, 169 AE

  Pheronia,

  You are forcing my hand. The longer you remain silent, the more dangerous our situation becomes. Do you think you are infallible, locked away in your fortress? Do you think you have won already?

  I am coming, xe Onia. Prepare yourself.

  —A

  But apart we were lesser, weaker versions of ourselves. How they rejoiced to see us torn asunder.

  - CHAPTER 27 -

  SEV

  I’LL DO IT.

  The words rang in Sev’s ears from the moment they left his mouth, as if the entire world had shifted in the speaking of them. He heard them over and over during the following days, as he went about his chores, eating and sleeping, a constant refrain in his mind.

  Trix had smiled like a fool when he’d volunteered, and Sev saw in her face that she’d known he’d come around, that the whole thing had been a bluff. For some reason, it didn’t bother him the way it once might have. After constantly suffering at the hands of others, he was at last an active participant in the events around him, finally giving his parents something to be proud of. It made Sev’s every footstep lighter, his thoughts almost carefree.

  But as the details of Trix’s plan unfurled, he knew that his decision would come at a cost. He would be expected to kill, to become a traitor to his fellow soldiers. Sev didn’t relish the thought, but his loyalty didn’t belong to them. For most of his life it had belonged only to himself, but no longer. Being a soldier at all was a betrayal of his parents and all they’d fought for, and if anyone deserved his loyalty, it was them. He would serve the Phoenix Rider cause, whatever the cost.

  When Trix decided it was time, the cooks and bondservants would poison the evening meal. They were using a toxic mountain flower called Fire Blossom, which could be dissolved into food or drink. Captain Belden and the others didn’t know about the flowers, which Trix’s cohorts had to pick as they traveled. Clusters of the Fire Blossom tree dotted the mountainside, their fat red petals dangling like drops of blood from their knotted, twisted boughs.

  “But what are you waiting for?” Sev asked one night, spotting a pyraflora tree and tugging a bright red flower from a hanging branch. “Fire Blossoms are everywhere. Why not poison them now, be
fore we risk getting caught?”

  “This,” Trix said, plucking the flower from his hand, “is about as poisonous as black stew. Which is to say, quite poisonous—but not poisonous enough.”

  Then she popped the blossom into her mouth. Sev gaped at her, and she gave him a wide, wicked grin.

  “Iron stomach,” she promised, before moving on.

  “So you need time to turn the flowers into poison—into something lethal.”

  Trix nodded. “Boiled. Dried. Crushed into a fine powder. All this has to be done after our regular duties and out of sight of the captain. Besides, we must choose our moment carefully. You soldier types aren’t often all in one place . . . what with scouting up ahead, hunting for game, or breaking off to meet informants or purchase llamas. We can’t risk poisoning too few and wind up on the edge of a returning soldier’s blade.”

  Sev hadn’t considered that. Suddenly her task seemed impossible. “So when?”

  “We will have one opportunity when no hunting parties or forward scouts leave camp: the night before the attack. They’ll need to ensure everyone returns to the campsite to nail down assault plans, assign positions, and prepare to strike with force. That’s when we’ll deliver an attack of our own. One blow to the main camp and . . .”

  “Another to the perimeter guards,” Sev said, seeing his role at last. Despite Trix’s confidence that they could poison the majority of their party in a single stroke—including Captain Belden, whom she intended to deal with personally—at any given time at least five guards were on watch duty at the edges of their campsite. Sometimes more, depending on their location.

  With his gift for memorization, easy access to the duty roster, and his position with the llamas, Sev was ideally placed to poison the personal packs of the soldiers assigned to perimeter guard before they left for duty. They didn’t have a lot of the Fire Blossom to spare, and of course, they didn’t want to spoil all the supplies. If they were successful, the other bondservants, cooks, and anyone else loyal to Trix would need them to make their way back down the mountain—or wherever they intended to go. Most would probably seek out refuge somewhere in Pyra, where they could be free from bondage—and the empire—and start their lives anew. Sev would seek out what was left of his family farm in Hillsbridge, but he didn’t know where Trix would go. Or Kade.

  No matter how hard Sev tried, he couldn’t figure the bondservant out. Kade had argued against Trix’s hasty dismissal of Sev the night he volunteered, insisting they needed him, but now Kade seemed unhappy that Sev had to decided to remain. It didn’t make any sense.

  Without their interactions during pack animal duty, the only time Sev saw Kade was at night with Trix. He remained frowning and distant as they discussed plans and strategies, and sometimes he didn’t turn up at all.

  “Were you one of her generals?” Sev asked Trix a few nights after she’d revealed her plans, the pair of them sitting together around a rare fire. It was very late, with everyone but the perimeter guard asleep, and Kade was nowhere to be found.

  They were camped in a deep gorge, with steep stone spears rising above them, completely blocking the sky. Giant boulders were scattered in random heaps and piles, as if tossed there by a god’s careless hand. To the west, the ground fell away steeply, giving Sev the impression that their entire campsite was perched on some precarious ledge and one good gust of wind could blow them clear off.

  Luckily, their fire was tucked up against one of the large stones, far away from the cliff and protected from view of the campsite.

  “No . . . I was never much of warrior. I served my queen in other, less obvious ways.”

  Sev stared at her thoughtfully. “You said it’s been your business to know things for a very long time,” he began, thinking out loud, “and that you advised Avalkyra Ashfire. Before you claimed that being famous ‘would have quite defeated the point’ of whatever you were doing in the war. Now all this stuff with poison . . . You were a spy, weren’t you?”

  It seemed obvious, all of a sudden, with her penchant for scheming and blackmailing and all her talk of information as power. Trix managed Captain Belden’s messenger pigeons, and Sev suspected she spent as much time reading the captain’s messages as she did sending them. She’d already mentioned that Belden was in constant contact with scouts higher up the mountain, and Sev had no doubt that was how she had so much information about his plans.

  “I traded in secrets,” she said, not addressing Sev’s assumption directly but confirming it all the same. “My life began in the Aura Nova slums, and I will have the touch of it on me for the rest of my life, the same as you. Back then, joining the empire’s military was a great honor, not a forced conscription. It was a guarantee of food, shelter, and work—and of course, joining the Phoenix Riders meant being a part of its most prestigious ranks. I almost flunked out of training,” she said, chuckling as she poked at the fire with a stick. “But my aptitude for codes, patterns, and puzzles set me apart from my fellows. I’d learned to write thanks to my time serving Hael, god of health and healing, and was able to put my knowledge of herbs and medicines to use as well. My queen saw something in me and elevated me to serve at her side. War has a way of making regular people into heroes.”

  “Or fools,” Sev said before he could stop himself.

  Trix laughed loudly at that. “One and the same, are they often not? But this is why I need you, Sevro, animage soldier and common thief. Heroes have their uses, but we have ours, too. We’re not popular, people like us,” she said, her shrewd expression soft at the edges. “Too many deceptions, too many whispered secrets and mysterious missions. But we’re useful. That’s what it comes down to at the end of the day. Be useful, boy, and you’ll never want for a position in this world. Find what you’re best at and use it. If you’re sneaky, then sneak. If you’re a liar, then lie. If you’re wicked as the south wind and devious as a deathmaiden, then, well . . .” She shrugged helplessly, arms wide, and Sev snorted.

  Her words had made an impression on him, though. Maybe he wasn’t a lost cause after all.

  “What do you know about the informant?” Sev asked. It had been on his mind ever since Trix first told him about Belden’s meeting. He couldn’t help but wonder who would sell out their own people that way—what they had to lose and what they had to gain.

  “Not much,” Trix conceded, her mood turning dark. “I’ve not been able to intercept a letter since we were in the capital. I have no idea what happened at their meeting outside Vayle or if this traitor is still in play. That is why this battle cannot happen—why we must stop Belden’s plan before it can be carried out. I don’t have the network and resources I once did, and my blind spots nag at me.”

  Her expression was brooding. Sev tried to change the subject.

  “What was she like, Avalkyra Ashfire?”

  Trix seemed startled by the question at first, then considered it for a while. “She was . . . terrifying. Avalkyra Ashfire didn’t need a crown of metal and jewels—she was a born queen, and no piece of gold could change that. People in the empire used to call her the Crownless Queen, trying to dismiss her claim to the throne, but Avalkyra would not be dissuaded. She was a ruthless fighter and a fearless leader—a more natural Rider I never saw. Like poetry on wings, soaring through ash and flame.”

  She held out her hand, dipping and curving it, as if her palm were a phoenix gliding on the wind. She dropped it.

  “Soon our glory will be restored and our people made safe. If I can see them once more before I die, I will consider it a life well lived.”

  “Phoenix Riders?”

  “Yes. There are . . . Well, I’m certain I have friends and loved ones among them. That is what sustains me—that and devotion to my queen’s cause.”

  “How did she lose?” Sev asked, leaning back and stretching out his legs before the warmth of the flames. “She had the Phoenix Riders, the best part of the empire’s military, and the support of Pyra and Ferro.” Stel was rumored to be involved i
n the plot against Avalkyra, putting all their funds and forces behind Pheronia, whose mother was of Stellan descent. The governor of Ferro was a Rider and so supported Avalkyra Ashfire’s claim, while the governors of Arboria North and South remained reluctant to join the fray.

  “She was single-minded to the point of obsession, and vengeance was all she cared about. She made rash decisions and put her warriors in vulnerable positions. She flew her entire force to Aura Nova for the Last Battle, leaving their families and their non-Rider allies vulnerable. It was all or nothing with Avalkyra. There was no middle ground.”

  Taking her stick, Trix drew in the dirt in front of her. With a few hasty lines, she had a rough map of the Golden Empire, with divisions marking the provinces of Ferro, Stel, Pyra, and Arboria North and South. In the middle was an A for “Aura Nova,” the capital city and its own, separate district. Aura Nova was built on neutral territory, so that no one province would have political power over another, and was ruled directly by the council and not a separate governor.

  “They were cornered,” Trix explained, using Xs to mark the Phoenix Rider forces, and Os for the empire’s foot soldiers and horse-mounted cavalry. “When Avalkyra led her troops to the Nest, the empire’s forces circled around, blocking their escape. They could obviously fly out of range, but the empire’s catapults were placed strategically around the city. And besides . . . Avalkyra would never approve a retreat. By taking the battle to the empire, we were forced to fight on their terms—on their turf, so to speak. Avalkyra had been forced to flee the capital and set up residence in Pyra, but everyone knew she wanted the Nest. Pheronia’s generals took advantage of that and waited.

  “Phoenix Riders are best in open fields or high terrain, not in cramped cities. Our attack patterns are usually sweeps—a small unit rips by, loosing arrows and trailing fire, before circling back around. But in such tight quarters, those kinds of assaults were difficult. There were too many hiding spots for the archers below—they just camped out in upper-story windows and picked us off. Most of Aura Nova is stone, but even still, the entire city was on fire. Everything that could burn did . . . buildings, trees, and flesh. Ash fell from the sky and blanketed the streets like a rare winter snowfall. Luckily for the poor folk squatting in wooden tenements and cheap, run-down cookhouses, the majority of the battle took place on the Rock.”