“Xe Nyka—” Val said, but Veronyka cut her off.
“Don’t call me that—don’t you dare call me that. I’ve had enough, Val,” she said, her throat tight with a lifetime of pent-up emotions. “I’ve tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’ve tried over and over to see you as a good person, to believe that you believed you were doing the right thing. That you wanted to protect me, that you cared about me.”
“But I do,” Val said. Veronyka looked into her eyes and knew that Val believed her own words—or maybe she’d gotten so good at lying, she didn’t know when she lied to herself.
“If you cared about me, you wouldn’t have killed my bondmate. You couldn’t possibly understand the pain it caused me, but if you had even considered it, you’d never have done it.”
“You’re wrong,” Val said, but Veronyka spoke over her.
“You came here with one goal in mind: to ruin my happiness. This is the only place I’ve ever felt like I belonged, like I was safe.”
“You were safe with me,” Val said, eyes blazing.
“But who would keep me safe from you?”
“You think he will?” she spat, pointing to the stairwell where Tristan had disappeared. “You think he can protect you and care for you the way I have? This so-called safety and belonging you felt? It was based on a lie. He doesn’t even know you. He doesn’t know who you are or what you’re capable of.”
“He knows me better than you,” Veronyka said, and Val laughed disdainfully. Veronyka shrugged, refusing to let her sister get under her skin. “And what he doesn’t know, he’ll learn—they all will. I know things aren’t perfect here, but I want to help them change. I want to make a difference, to be a part of something greater than myself. Avalkyra Ashfire wasn’t great on her own. . . . She was great because our people rallied behind her. She was great because she brought us all together.”
“Avalkyra Ashfire was great because she set the world on fire, because she let nothing and no one stand in the way of what she wanted.” Val’s voice was raw and ragged, dripping with emotion.
“There was one person who stood in her way,” Veronyka said, her voice soft as she considered her words. “Her sister.”
Val’s face was almost unrecognizable when she spoke, her mouth a dark slash and her eyes empty, hollow pools. “No, Veronyka. Not even death could stand in her way.”
“Maybe not,” Veronyka said with a tired sigh, “but this is where I want to be. This is my home.”
“No,” Val said, shaking her head forcefully, causing her tangled auburn braids to whip from side to side. “Your home always was, and always will be, with me.”
“Not anymore.”
“And if they kick you out for your lies?” Her eyes were overly bright, glistening in the darkness, but no tears fell.
“If they do, then at least I will have tried. I used to think you were the bravest person I knew, Val, but what you’re doing isn’t bravery. It’s cowardice. It’s time for me to stand and fight.”
Val’s face contorted at the word “cowardice,” but otherwise she remained perfectly, deathly still. Veronyka thought that maybe, finally, her words had penetrated Val’s stubborn mind. She braced herself. Would Val lash out in anger? Would she strike Veronyka down and drag her away whether she liked it or not?
“You want to fight, do you?” she said, tone as blank as a starless sky. “Then I hope for your sake, Veronyka, that you’ve chosen the right side.”
She turned on her heel and disappeared into the stairwell.
Gone.
Veronyka sagged against the bars behind her. The last time she’d really argued with Val, the night she’d run away, she’d been acting on pure rage and adrenaline. And a part of her knew—or maybe even hoped—that they’d cross paths again. But this was different. There was emotion, but Veronyka had made this decision with her head as well as her heart. Her lips trembled, and her breath turned uneven. Why did it have to be this way? Why did Val, her sister, her only family in the world, have to be the one person who hurt her the most?
Sudden footsteps sounded, and Tristan appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Veronyka lurched to her feet. Once he saw that Veronyka was alone, he flushed, dropping his gaze. Remembering that her breasts were exposed, Veronyka crossed her arms over her chest.
“Tristan, I—”
“We don’t have time for that,” he said shortly, eyes on the ground between them. He held a fresh tunic in his hand and tossed it in her direction.
She caught it and hastened to tug it over her head, turning away from him as she scrambled to poke her arms through the sleeves. The fabric was softer than what she was used to, smooth against her skin, and it was much too big—it must belong to him. She ran her hands over the expensive cotton, the smell of Tristan clinging to her fingertips.
She turned back around, adjusting the tunic before taking a step toward him.
Seeing her movement, he glanced up to make sure she was clothed before pulling his other arm from around his back. It held a bow.
“Do you still want to fight for us?” he asked. His gaze kept darting around her face, skipping from nose to lips to eyes and back again, as if trying to relearn her features.
Veronyka stared down at the bow, her heart soaring. He was giving her the chance she so desperately wanted, the opportunity to truly become a part of this world. After what had just happened, she needed it more than ever.
She took the bow from his outstretched hand, hugging it close. There was so much she needed to say, but on the brink of an attack, now was not the time.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. When he opened his mouth to say more, a bell clanged from high above. A rush of footsteps and the jangle of weapons answered the call.
The soldiers had arrived.
Sometimes to achieve what you know is right, you must do what others say is wrong.
- CHAPTER 38 -
TRISTAN
TRISTAN BARRELED UP THE steps two at a time, while Nyk—Veronyka—trailed close behind. There was too much happening for Tristan to dwell on the situation, and yet every moment his mind was idle, it screamed, Veronyka, Veronyka, Veronyka. Something had been lost to Tristan, some sense of balance or rightness torn away. In the moment, it felt a bit like grief.
Nyk had been . . . what? Somebody special to Tristan, for certain. An ally, a confidant—someone he could trust. Someone he thought he could trust. But who was this girl? Was she still Nyk, or was everything that Tristan knew about her a lie? What if she was like her sister, Val? Something strange had happened down there. One minute he was talking to Nyk—Veronyka—and the next he felt confused and disoriented, while the two of them argued about things he didn’t understand.
When Val drew her knife, Tristan had feared she was about to do something horrible, but the reality of what had happened had shocked him, if possible, even more. And why had she done it? There had to be more to the story, but for now it was enough to know that he had another fighter by his side.
Night had fallen, and the cloud cover hid the light of the moon. The flaming beacon and the lanterns that lined the wall provided the stronghold with illumination, but it soon became clear to Tristan that their glow turned all else to darkness. He ordered the lights along the wall extinguished and hoped that the burning phoenix atop the temple didn’t turn them all into easy targets for any archers that might be lurking in the tree cover below. He didn’t dare douse the beacon’s flames, in case the messenger pigeons he’d sent to his father were shot down or went astray. Though the Eyrie was well- hidden, the beacon’s glow was designed to be seen at a distance, and the Riders would know to look for it as soon as they took to the sky once again.
As the lights across the mountaintop were snuffed out, the world shrank around him. Tristan blinked, willing his vision to adjust. He thought of Rex, who could lend him superior eyesight in this darkness, and a far greater vantage point. What he wanted more than anything was to saddl
e his bondmate and fly out, raining arrows down upon those who would dare to threaten them. But he knew better. These soldiers came to destroy the Riders, but what they wanted to destroy most of all was their phoenixes. Without them, Riders were just animages, good with messenger pigeons and pack animals and not much else. Without them, they were ordinary people, easy to dominate and control. He had to protect the phoenixes, their future, at all costs.
Even, he thought darkly, at the cost of human lives.
Tristan took a deep breath, the night breeze rippling his tunic and causing Veronyka’s black hair to fly into her face. He looked away, back out into the night. There were some lives he couldn’t bear to lose.
The most recent scouting reports had the attackers approaching the way station from the road, which meant that at any second, the soldiers would be upon them. Bringing the fight to their enemies while they climbed the precarious steps would have been ideal, but they couldn’t risk leaving the stronghold—and the phoenixes who dwelt inside—vulnerable.
After questioning Elliot, Morra reported that he knew nothing of value about the coming attack, only that he was supposed to give them the location of the underground service entrance—and open it from the inside—but thankfully he’d never actually sent the letter. It pained Tristan to know that Elliot had been working with the empire all this time, but he also understood how hard it must have been to be put in that situation. Even now, Elliot’s failure to deliver the location of the Eyrie’s hidden entrance might very well cost his sister her life. They would have to try to help him when all this was over. No matter his betrayal, he was still a Rider.
Despite the soldiers’ plan falling through, Tristan had decided to post a contingent of guards inside the stronghold’s cellars, just in case. It was a poor attack point—their superior numbers would be forced to bottleneck and pour out of a small doorway, where Tristan’s soldiers could pick them off with ease—but he didn’t want to risk leaving it undefended. Elliot might be lying, after all. Morra could sniff out the truth better than anyone he knew, but Veronyka had tricked her, hadn’t she? Clearly the woman’s gifts weren’t infallible.
A light in the distance drew his attention. Veronyka followed his gaze, then several of the guards noticed it, and soon every head upon the wall swiveled toward the open field between the village and the steps to the way station.
Soldiers crested the lip of the plateau. It looked like a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty, their lanterns bobbing and weapons glinting with reflected firelight. It was a smaller number than he’d expected, a manageable number . . . but Tristan’s insides clenched all the same.
The first assault would come to the village gate, as he had expected.
Tristan closed his eyes, picturing his father’s map of the Eyrie and surrounding lands. Despite being a religious site for decades, the Eyrie had good natural defenses, thanks to its origins as a training outpost, including its position on high ground and the sheer slopes that rose all around it. It was perched on a jagged outcrop, concealed by other spears of stone and rock and hidden from wider view. To the west the mountain dropped off, leading to a massive gorge situated miles below, and to the north the mountain soared high into the clouds and the upper reaches of Pyrmont. South of the Eyrie was a kind of ravine or ditch, sloping steeply down to the edges of the Field of Feathers and the thick trees that surrounded it. The way station and switchback stairs were to the east—the only way to approach the Eyrie on foot.
Since their attackers were coming from the east, up the stairs and through the village was their only plausible point of attack.
The wide double doors at the gate had been reinforced with wood beams and stacked barrels of grain, and Tristan’s best soldiers remained behind them in case the attackers broke through. Archers were stationed along the village wall, but it was lower and narrower than the wall that enclosed the stronghold, putting them in vulnerable positions. Still, if they could hold the soldiers at the gate, the inexperienced apprentices, villagers, and servants that manned the stronghold might never see any action at all.
Tristan watched closely as the soldiers split their forces: Half approached the gate with ax and fire, and the rest shot arrows into the sky to clear the wall’s defenders. Tristan redid his count. There were closer to two hundred soldiers that he could see in the open, plus maybe two dozen more crouched in the darkness at the edge of the field. They were still well short of what Sev had claimed, and even what the most recent scout had reported.
The soldiers at the edge of the field were busy unhooking large, round objects from their backs, lining them up in a row. Were they weapons, or supplies? As another round object landed on the ground, Tristan’s mouth went dry.
It was a battering ram.
It would be impossible to carry a heavy assault weapon like that up the narrow steps from the way station, but they had found a way to create one that broke down for easy transportation. They must have been planning this attack from the moment they made contact with Elliot almost a year ago.
A barrage of arrows flew from the village walls, and several of the attackers dropped. Since the stronghold doors were already locked tight, Tristan sent a runner through the concealed postern gate behind the stables, relaying the information about the ram in case Captain Flynn hadn’t seen it. If they could eliminate that threat, their defense would hold.
Or so Tristan thought.
His confidence shattered when the first grappling hook soared through the sky and landed with a clatter onto the stone walkway not five feet away from him.
The villagers nearby jumped at the sudden appearance of the three-pronged metal object attached to a thick coil of rope. It scraped along the ground and then flew up against the wall with a sudden, violent jerk, taking the weight of the climber on the other end.
Two more hooks flew over the wall, their resounding clanks driving fear deep into Tristan’s heart. They were coming from the south, from the steep ravine between the thrust of stone on which the Eyrie and the stronghold perched and the surrounding rocky landscape.
Surely these were the remaining soldiers from Sev’s count.
The battle outside the village was yet another diversion, an attempt to draw soldiers and resources away from the stronghold, where the inexperienced Riders and their phoenixes would be together, relatively unprotected. They’d managed to divide the Phoenix Riders’ already limited numbers into three smaller, less threatening groups—the patrols that had already flown out, the guards at the village gate, and their remaining forces at the stronghold.
Swallowing a sour lump in his throat, Tristan lurched toward the nearest hook and withdrew his belt knife. He hacked savagely at the rope, but it was treated with some kind of wax or resin, the woven thread almost impossible to get through, even with Ferronese steel.
“A serrated knife,” Veronyka said, coming to stand next to him.
Tristan continued to hack and gouge, ruining his blade as he hit metal and stone, the words taking several seconds to penetrate his frustration.
He took a deep, steadying breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Calm as the mountain.
When he opened them, he nodded at Veronyka and thrust his knife back into his belt. He turned to the nearest runner crouched at the bottom of the stairs, a small girl with wide eyes and—unless he was seeing things—a sparrow in her hair.
“Go to the kitchens and ask Morra for every serrated knife she has.”
The girl ran off as several more hooks flew over the wall. Tristan wanted to thank Veronyka for keeping a cool head when he could not, but to admit that weakness would be his undoing. Instead he shoved the moment of panic out of his mind and tried to regroup. Climbing onto a crate, Tristan looked over the edge of the wall.
It was a sheer drop, disappearing into darkness that Tristan knew was filled with shifting gravel, gnarled trees, and tangling vines. No one would dare attempt to climb these steep slopes unless they knew exactly what lay hidden within the labyrinthine walls of rock. And
these soldiers did, thanks to Elliot.
The climbers were courageous to attempt to scale such a high wall with so many jagged stones below them, but Tristan didn’t have time to admire their bravery. Five hooks had made contact now, their climbers emerging from the trees at least a hundred feet below. They’d soon reach the top of the walls, and the angle was too steep and awkward for their archers to hit.
Rocks, Tristan thought. He sent another runner to ask for any kind of heavy objects they could throw down on the climbers, just as the first runner returned. She was helped by several kitchen hands, and serrated knives of all shapes and sizes were handed out along the wall. Tristan shouted instructions, his mind clearing as adrenaline kicked in. While some of their number worked hard to saw at the ropes, others moved to strategic points along the wall that gave them better angles to shoot the climbers with arrows or to drop the newly delivered stones, pottery, and scrap metal onto their unsuspecting heads.
Veronyka was one of those working the knives, sawing with all her might into the rope Tristan had first tried to cut, while he backed up several paces, standing on the same crate as before and pointing his bow down, flush against the wall. It was a difficult angle, but it was the danger that Veronyka faced that made his muscles tense and his palms sweat. If she didn’t cut the rope, or if he missed his shot, she would be the first thing the soldier saw when he mounted the wall. She would be his first victim.
Veronyka seemed oblivious to the danger, slashing relentlessly at the rope, which had begun to fray from her efforts. Her forehead was damp with sweat, and she’d rolled up the sleeves of his oversized tunic.
Scuffs and grunts reached his ears, and he looked down again to see the climber rising steadily. The man was armed with a battle-ax strapped across his back and several daggers on his belt. Pausing for a moment to gather his breath, he looked up, and their eyes met.
Next to Tristan, a triumphant “Aha” was followed by a loud snap. The metal hook hit the ground with a heavy clang, and the severed threads of the rope disappeared over the edge of the battlements. Tristan looked back over the wall as the climber dropped soundlessly into the chasm of darkness below.
Crown of Feathers Page 40