Crown of Feathers

by Nicki Pau Preto

  “Why?” she demanded, swallowing around the lump in her throat.

  The sky was a dark, dusky gray, and the flickering lanterns on the gallery above—along with the reddish glow from the lit phoenix beacon—limned Tristan in a halo of red and gold. His face was shadowed, but when he took another wary step forward, his grim features came into clearer view.

  “Look,” he began hesitantly. “This wasn’t . . . I didn’t—I made a mistake.” Veronyka blinked in surprise. He looked around, as if trying to find words, and then gripped his hair with both hands. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Can’t you see that?” he practically shouted, his composure crumpling. “I don’t how to run this place, and what if the commander—my father—never comes back?”

  The words were strangled, and seeing his anguished expression, Veronyka extended herself to him. It was instinctual, like reaching for a knife that was falling, even though she knew it was dangerous. But for some reason, reopening the channel between them didn’t feel wrong or forbidden in this instance. It felt right, like it did when she connected with Xephyra. It wasn’t about spying or controlling; it was about empathy—about sharing in his pain.

  That was the difference between her and Val, she realized. Val used her knowledge as a weapon, to hurt, always seeking out weaknesses and ways to exploit them. Veronyka used her shadow magic to understand those around her, and it provided her with compassion and insight.

  Maybe shadow magic wasn’t a dark temptation; maybe it could it be both good and bad, just like people.

  Still, Veronyka knew she had to be careful. She had already used her magic against Tristan once before, teasing him about calling Wind “xe xie,” just to prove a point. That had been small and relatively harmless, but that didn’t make it right. Shadow magic could be a slippery slope. First Veronyka only wanted to understand Tristan, and then she went looking for things, and after that? How far a stretch could it really be to go from stealing thoughts and emotions to implanting some of your own? Every time they argued, would she plumb ever deeper, seeking newer and better ways to hurt him?

  Like Val?

  No, Veronyka thought firmly. I am not like her.

  As the link between them opened, Veronyka saw just how tumultuous his emotions truly were. His mind—like any she’d ever connected with, human or animal—had a distinctive texture or feeling to it. Val was smoke and iron. Xephyra was bright, pure sunlight. Tristan was earthy and fresh—like dewy grass and the patter of warm summer rain. Usually. Right now his mind felt more like a thundercloud, swirling and crackling and rolling overhead.

  “I’m not ready for all this,” he continued, breathing heavily. “None of the apprentices have real combat experience, and Elliot . . . I don’t know what to do with him. I can’t bear the thought that all these people are counting on me, looking at me to lead. If I can protect at least one friend, if I can protect you, I should do that. I should want to do that, because it would be the right thing. But I don’t want to—don’t think I can—do this alone. I want you there next to me. I trust you more than anyone, but I promised, and—”

  “Promised?” Veronyka repeated sharply, that one word piercing the bubble of joy that had been swelling inside her chest. “Promised who?”

  Val stepped out of the shadows.

  Though she was nearer to Veronyka than Tristan, all her attention was focused on him. Veronyka was almost bowled over by the wave of shadow magic her sister was emanating, funneling it like a gale that practically blasted Tristan off his feet. He slammed into the wall behind him, his face slack as Val bore down on him, her smoldering shadow magic scent heavy in Veronyka’s nostrils.

  Veronyka, who remained connected to Tristan after opening herself to him moments ago, heard what Val forced into his mind.

  Stop. Don’t speak. Don’t think. You remember nothing. You—

  “Val, enough!” Veronyka shouted, flinging her roughly aside. Val seemed to lose her focus and break the connection, and the air between them lost the crackling energy that had filled it. The terrible sound of her sister’s voice was ripped from her mind, and from Tristan’s as well.

  Veronyka reinforced her barriers, though she could do nothing to protect Tristan.

  He shook his head, blinking several times as he tried to understand what had just happened. While Veronyka understood the voice inside his mind to be Val’s, she wasn’t sure how someone without shadow magic experienced its use. To him, it might have been an incoherent rumble, a sudden, unconscious desire, or maybe the sensation that his own thoughts were spiraling out of control.

  “Tristan, what promise?” Veronyka pressed, afraid of what Val might have done to his mind and his memory.

  “You can’t trust a word he says,” Val began, but Veronyka cut her off.

  “No. I can’t trust you,” she spat. “Tristan, please.”

  He cast a wary look at Val before facing Veronyka. He seemed to have come back to himself, though he plainly struggled to understand everything that was going on. “Don’t be angry, Nyk. Your sister, she was worried about you, that’s all. Didn’t want you involved in the fighting unless you absolutely had to be. So I promised I’d keep you off the wall and out of danger.”

  His voice was pleading, but Veronyka didn’t have an ounce of feeling to spare for him. She whirled on her sister.

  Val didn’t want her safe—she wanted her excluded, and most of all, she wanted her to feel completely, utterly alone.

  Suddenly, everything came together in Veronyka’s mind. This is what I’ve been waiting for. . . .

  Val had known the soldiers were coming.

  It was a horrifying thought, but Veronyka felt its truth immediately. Hadn’t Val arrived at the Eyrie mere days before them? There’s no way a shadowmage as accomplished as Val could fail to notice hundreds of soldiers climbing the mountain nearby. Veronyka always kept her magic close, guarded, and internal, but Val stretched her magic wide like a net. This was why she’d wanted Veronyka to leave right away, why she’d been so insistent. She didn’t warn the Riders so they could prepare; she kept the information to herself, gambling countless lives so she could have Veronyka back under her control.

  Since she’d arrived, Val had worked hard to sow fear and doubt into Veronyka’s heart. She’d insulted the Riders, questioning their motives and their loyalties, and criticized Veronyka for serving them. When Xephyra appeared and was put into the breeding cages, Val was even closer to her goal. Going after Tristan, asking him not to let Veronyka fight, was the final move to strip her sister of everything that made her happy. All this heartache, all this agony, so that when this moment came, Veronyka would have nothing to hold on to.

  “Did you know she had come back?” Veronyka asked her sister. It was the one thing she hadn’t yet figured out, the last question that needed answering. She’d tried to ask before, but had let Val get by with deflections and vague answers. Not this time.

  Val seemed surprised by the change in subject, but she lifted her chin, eyes blazing. “Yes.”

  “And you led her here . . . to me?” Veronyka’s tone was flat, emotionless.

  “Yes.”

  “How?” Veronyka asked, a slow, steady heat climbing up her throat.

  Val shrugged, the gesture so careless, so dismissive, that Veronyka had to clench her jaw to stop from breathing fire.

  “You’re impatient, Nyka, always have been. Resurrections are not for the faint of heart. It was a full week before she made her return. The phoenix sought you out, but I was the one who was there. It was no small thing, to keep her under my control, but I managed it. She followed you, and I followed her. Now here we are.”

  Veronyka’s entire body was burning now, the scorching flames devouring her insides, begging for release. Val had called her “Nyka” right in front of Tristan, but it seemed almost trivial in the face of everything else.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Veronyka demanded.

  “I tried,” Val bit out. “I told you I’d brought you a
gift. But you wanted nothing to do with me, remember? So I called her here instead.”

  Veronyka finished the sentence in her head: to try to get you kicked out, only they stuck Xephyra in a cage instead.

  She shook her head slowly, sifting through Val’s words for the heart of her confusion. “How could you control her—how could you call her here? It shouldn’t be possible. You’re not bonded to her.”

  Tristan latched on to the word “bonded,” his gaze flicking toward the females’ enclosure, but Veronyka was too preoccupied to care.

  Val tilted her head, considering Veronyka for a moment. Then, deep in the back of Veronyka’s mind, a door burst open.

  Instantly she knew what it was—a permanent connection to Val. It was a kind of bond, she thought, but while her connection with Xephyra went both ways, wide-open and easily accessed, this channel was narrow and unstable—open, but still guarded.

  Veronyka understood in a blazing moment of clarity that Val had somehow used this connection to make Xephyra trust her. Veronyka’s presence was a part of Val, a constant fixture in her mind, and Xephyra had sensed it. It reminded Veronyka uncomfortably of the strong connection between her and Tristan—and the way Val had reacted to it. If Veronyka was a part of Val’s mind, then Val was a part of Veronyka’s, and she must have felt Veronyka accidentally opened a similar channel between her and Tristan.

  While Tristan was unaware of their connection, Val had known about her link with Veronyka and exploited it, using Veronyka’s bond to Xephyra to get what she wanted. It filled Veronyka with blinding fury. The things Val had done in her name made her feel contaminated and dirty. And it wasn’t just recently. Veronyka’s life was filled with instances of Val doing shocking, terrible deeds—and always, supposedly, for Veronyka’s sake. Val had kept so much from her, kept her in the dark her whole life. Not just about Val and their grandmother, but about Veronyka and her magic.

  And Veronyka had had enough.

  She bore down on her mental barriers, and the connection between them flickered. The doorway slammed shut, but it wasn’t gone entirely, and its presence changed everything between them. There were no imaginary boundaries and no false sense of security. Val was inside her mind, and nowhere was safe.

  Veronyka couldn’t speak. She couldn’t breathe, either, except for a shallow inhalation that wheezed into her lungs.

  “I hate you,” she said at last. The words were quiet, and Val leaned in, unable to hear them. “I hate you!” Veronyka screamed, and cocked her arm back and slapped her sister across the face.

  Val stiffened, her face alarmingly still, save for the red mark slowly blooming across her cheek. At her sides, her hands curled into fists.

  Veronyka was panting slightly, shocked at what she had done, though she felt no remorse for it.

  A spasm flickered across Val’s features before her gaze dropped. Veronyka thought she looked oddly chastened—until she slowly drew a dagger from her belt. The blade was obsidian set in a bone handle. It looked ancient, but age didn’t make it any less sharp.

  Time shuddered to a stop, and Veronyka was brought back to that fateful moment in their cabin when Val had pulled a knife on Xephyra. Her bondmate let out a soft croon from inside the enclosure beside them, but otherwise, everything was quiet.

  Tristan tensed, as if he meant to take a step forward. While he clearly didn’t fully comprehend their argument, the flash of the blade kicked him into action.

  Val thrust the knife between them, causing him to halt in his tracks, the point inches from his throat. Seeing the weapon leveled at Tristan unfroze Veronyka’s numbness, though she didn’t dare move.

  Val took a careful, measured step toward Veronyka and then moved the knife to rest against her cheek. Val’s closeness filled Veronyka with a strange mix of feelings: the comfort and familiarity of her sister’s scent, combined with the instinctual fear of the cold, sharp edge against her flesh. Veronyka barely breathed, afraid the movement would sink the blade into her skin. Her mind buzzed. Would Val do this? Would this be her last and worst crime?

  Val, please, she whispered internally. But the door was shut, and there was no response.

  “Val, please,” Tristan echoed, his voice soft and desperate. “I don’t understand.”

  “You will.” Val spoke the words slowly, as if relishing this moment. Then, in a lightning-fast move, she angled the blade and plunged it downward.

  Veronyka gasped as the knife slid across her skin—but it was the flat, dull edge that pressed against her body. The razor-sharp blade faced outward, tearing through her tunic and the fabric she used to bind her breasts beneath it. Veronyka’s reactionary inhale of breath forced her chest to expand as her sister dragged the knife to the side, tearing her tunic in half and fully exposing Veronyka for the liar that she was.

  “Let me introduce you to my sister,” Val spat, her voice savage and ugly in her triumph. “Veronyka.”

  Day 18, Fifth Moon, 170AE

  Dear Avalkyra,

  I am sorry that meeting did not go the way you wanted it to, but you know I could not sign that document. To annul our father’s marriage to my mother would indeed lessen your sentence, and you would be charged not with the murder of a queen regent, but with the murder of a lowly consort. You would walk away after paying the funeral fee.

  And yes, annulling my mother’s marriage would also make me illegitimate, and therefore solidify your claim to the throne.

  But things have changed, and I must think of the future.

  These past months of silence have been hard for me, dear sister; I was not ready to give you forgiveness. I was not ready to understand. But we are out of time.

  I must speak to you again, in private. I am sorry that I did not reply to your other letters. . . . I hope I am not too late in replying now.

  Yours, Pheronia

  Sometimes to protect those you love, you have to hurt them.

  - CHAPTER 37 -

  VERONYKA

  VERONYKA FELL TO HER knees, clutching at the shreds of her tunic. The world around her closed in, and everything went black-and-white. There was no sound, no burning beacon or battle preparations. It was just her and Tristan and the girl who used to be her sister.

  It took an eternity to meet his eyes. She wanted to cower, to hide away from him, but something had changed within her. Newfound bravery, coupled with a recent magical awakening, had her seeking out the door that belonged to him—the one she’d somehow created by accident, the one that was there and waiting, making it easy to connect with him.

  Veronyka swung it wide, opening herself to him, inviting his wrath like a sunflower chasing the blazing heat of the sun. She wanted to hurt, wanted the pain that he, surely, must be feeling as well. She wanted to drink it in, to ache with it, to tear the wound wide open.

  Only, it wasn’t there.

  There was nothing there. No anger, no betrayal—just stunned, empty silence.

  While his emotions were oddly numb, his mind buzzed with activity, rehashing every conversation, every strange moment or word out of place.

  Apparently there had been a lot of them. The bathhouse and the breeding cage. The way she’d calmed Xephyra and when Val called her “Nyka.” Tristan was no fool, and while he hadn’t put all the pieces together, he’d been collecting them one by one, stashing them away for later examination. The hardest thing for Veronyka to deal with was the way he looked at her in those memories . . . like she was someone special and interesting and deserving of his attention. Would he feel the same now, with lies tainting every word and special moment?

  Several breaths passed, and the air between them grew thick with anticipation.

  He turned, as if meaning to walk away, but stopped himself. He wavered, then looked back at Veronyka once more. She couldn’t read his expression, and before she could begin to unravel his thoughts, he closed his eyes, bowed his head, and turned resolutely back to the stairs.

  With the sound of his retreating footsteps, the world came
alive once more: the commotion of the courtyard above, the shifting of feathers in the enclosure behind her, the smell of burning fires and oil lamps. Even the colors had returned, drenching the ground beneath her in fire-red and ash-gray.

  It was as if nothing had changed. And everything.

  “Come on,” said Val, resting a hand on Veronyka’s shoulder. Her voice was gentle but firm. “Let’s get out of here, back to my room. You can get changed, and I’ll take care of everything. I’ll free Xephyra, and you’ll never have to worry about the breeding cages again. You’ll never have to hide who and what you are. We’ll get out of here before the fighting starts and make our way to safety. Together.”

  The words washed over Veronyka. They were soothing, the kind of words a mother spoke to a daughter, a leader to their troops: confident assurances that everything would be okay.

  Empty words, really.

  Val would take care of everything. Veronyka knew that, and there was a tiny part of her that was tempted to give in to her sister’s promises. But the relief that decision would bring would be temporary. Val was a warrior, and peace suited her for only so long. She didn’t want to build a shelter from the storm; she wanted to break the very winds that would dare to shake her.

  And Veronyka was tired of fighting a battle she knew she’d never win.

  “No, Val,” she said. She was still on her knees, staring at the ground beneath her, dark hair hanging in her eyes.

  “What?” Val said, dropping her hand from Veronyka’s shoulder.

  Taking a deep breath, Veronyka got to her feet. The scraps of her tunic blew in the evening breeze, but she didn’t cover herself. While exposing her might have revealed to Tristan that she had lied, it didn’t reveal her true self. Veronyka knew that person, and Tristan did too, and nothing about her body changed that.

  “I said no,” Veronyka repeated, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Never again. It will never be you and me, together, ever again.”