him was bright and vivid, as if Nyk didn’t do anything by half—couldn’t, even if he wanted to. When he ran, no matter how tired, he pushed until his legs buckled beneath him. When he talked about phoenixes and Riders and animal magic, his whole face lit up.
And even when he slept, he did so with reckless abandon—his shock of messy black hair standing on end and his mouth slightly open.
With a smirk, Tristan bent down and lifted him, carrying Nyk in his arms back into the stronghold. It was strange, holding him close like that—having Nyk’s face pressed against his chest. It was a relief to unburden himself when he reached Nyk’s bed in the servants’ barracks, but when Tristan stepped away, he felt strangely bereft as the cold air rushed into the places where Nyk’s warmth had been.
Tristan knew that he should have told Nyk about the eggs. But he’d feared the information would cause Nyk to leave, and the idea made Tristan miserable. There had to be a way. He would go searching himself if he had to. The last time he’d disobeyed his father’s orders, he’d been assigned extra lessons with Nyk—and the time before that, he’d found Nyk wandering the wilderness. Both instances had worked out far better than he could have imagined.
Maybe if he did it again, something even better would befall him.
Maybe Nyk would be made an apprentice and Tristan a patrol leader. And when it came time to choose his second-in-command, Nyk would be top of the list.
Together we could have been unstoppable.
- CHAPTER 26 -
VERONYKA
VERONYKA AWOKE SUDDENLY, DISORIENTED as she stared up at the wooden ceiling. She blinked into the darkness and saw the familiar rows of hammocks that filled the servants’ barracks. Slowly the night before came back to her: the stone-carved Eyrie, the fire-drenched phoenixes . . . and Tristan.
She must’ve fallen asleep, and—Axura above, did Tristan carry her to her bed?
Heat prickled her cheeks, and she couldn’t tell if she was mortified or pleased. It was kind of Tristan to let her sleep, but she’d begun to fear that kindness. She didn’t want to need it. As unrealistic as it felt, she wanted them to be equals. While he’d called them friends, she felt the imbalance between them: He was older, stronger, more experienced, while she was younger, weaker, and new to this place. He was the commander’s son and would rule one day. She was . . . nobody. Not even an apprentice. It was similar to her equally disproportionate relationship with Val, and Veronyka never wanted to feel like she owed someone her life again.
She reached into her pocket for her braided bracelet, fingering the familiar beads.
The Eyrie was at once better—and worse—than she’d been expecting. All the history and beauty was there, and the feeling of magic was powerful, as if embedded in the stones. But then there’d been that sense of wrongness, that fluttering, agitated tremor in the air.
Breeding cages.
Veronyka had never even considered such a thing. When she’d thought about the Riders trying to get more phoenix eggs, she’d always assumed that meant searching, not trying to produce them. Guilt gnawed at her belly, as if she were somehow complicit in their imprisonment. All this time she’d been here, there were females locked away in cages somewhere out of sight. How did people like Morra stand for it?
Val had told her that phoenix mating rituals were highly mysterious, that even the ancient Riders didn’t know much about them. They often bred and laid their eggs in secrecy, which was why caches of eggs could still be found all over the mountain, untouched for centuries, waiting to be hatched. It was only during the last fifty years of the empire that phoenix eggs were deliberately hidden to keep them safe. There was trouble brewing long before the Blood War, the divide between animages and nonmagical people growing more pronounced with each passing year.
The Phoenix Riders had always been a symbol of the empire’s power, the force used to unify the lesser kingdoms and to keep the peace and protect the people ever since. But where their loyalties lay was always somewhat elusive. In the beginning a Phoenix Rider always sat on the throne. First it was Elysia Ashfire, the Peacemaker, and then her daughter, Ellody. Many more followed, both sons and daughters, because when the Pyraeans took control of the valley, they vowed to respect and adopt the customs of all its people. Now