through the archway, where crates of bandages, food, and water had been laid out for the returning phoenixes and their bondmates.
Ersken awaited them there, Sparrow by his side.
She was weeping.
In her cupped hands she held Chirp, blood staining his soft brown feathers. He was utterly still, his small feet curled up against his stiff, round body. The sight reminded Veronyka of Xephyra’s death, and the throb of devastation Sparrow projected mingled painfully with the memory of her own.
Ersken turned his wide, gentle eyes on the girl, but her face was bowed toward her sparrow. She couldn’t actually see her fallen friend, but her pose and expression said it all.
Sparrow’s grief was a quiet storm, but when Ersken tried to take the dead bird from her, she practically snarled.
Veronyka stepped in. Patting Ersken’s arm reassuringly, she took Sparrow by the shoulder and guided her toward a crate to sit on.
“Sparrow, it’s me,” she whispered. “Do you remember? It’s—”
“Veronyka?” Sparrow said, her head snapping up.
“Yes,” Veronyka said, keeping her voice low, though nobody was in earshot. “Yes, it’s me.”
Sparrow tilted her head, sniffing loudly. “Didn’t hear you, without those bits and beads making a racket.” Veronyka’s hand ran through her bedraggled, apparently quiet, hair. “And no Chirp to . . . to . . .” Her voice wobbled, and her face crumpled as fresh tears made tracks down her dirty cheeks.
Veronyka’s own vision went blurry, but she quickly blinked the tears away and put her arm around Sparrow, holding her tight. “I know,” she said softly. “And I’m so, so sorry.”
Veronyka couldn’t shake the clinging guilt that gripped her heart. It was her idea to involve the animals of the stronghold. . . . It was her fault Chirp had died.
She was reminded of the first time she’d seen a dead animal, a mouse that had followed her as she’d crossed a busy Aura Nova street and gotten trampled. She’d wept and blamed herself, but her maiora would have none of it.
“You take something from them when you do that,” she’d said, all stern affection and wisdom. “As if the poor creature didn’t have a mind of its own. Did you command it to follow you? Did you rob it of its free will?”
Veronyka had stopped crying long enough to shake her head.
“No. Then that fellow made his own choice, and we should honor him for it.”
And then they’d wrapped his body in Veronyka’s finest scarf and placed him into the flames of their hearth, burning him in a “true warrior’s pyre,” as her maiora called it. Val had walked in, asked what they were doing, then scoffed and walked back out again, but Veronyka and her grandmother had remained until the last log burned low.
Veronyka had thought about how she would feel if she had commanded the mouse to follow, as her sister did to animals all the time. She never wanted that kind of power over another living thing, and she’d vowed never to steal another creature’s free will.
Now, among the death and devastation that surrounded her, Veronyka took a steadying breath. Chirp had fought because he loved Sparrow, just as the rest of the animals had loved the humans that fed and cared for them. She would not take credit for their bravery but instead honor their memory.
Their sacrifice had kept her, Sparrow, and everyone else alive.
“It’s just,” Sparrow said, hiccupping and wiping the back of her hand across her nose. “Chirp is—was—my only friend in the whole world.”
Silent sobs shook her small frame, and Veronyka squeezed her shoulders harder. “Chirp was a special friend, and brave as a phoenix, but he wasn’t your only friend. What about me?”
Sparrow lifted her head, her wide eyes wet with tears. “Are we friends?”
“Of course,” Veronyka said easily, as if she were an expert on friendship and hadn’t made her first very recently. It was nice to think that she now had a second. She smiled, though she knew Sparrow couldn’t see it. Hopefully she could feel it.
Sparrow beamed. “Chirp did like you . . . ,” she said matter-of-factly, as if his approval was all she needed.
“Good. I liked him, too.”
When she spotted Ersken squinting through the crowd of phoenixes, as if looking for someone, Veronyka told Sparrow she had some work to do, and extricated herself. Sparrow seemed calmer, lying down on her side with Chirp against her chest and closing her eyes as if for sleep.
Pulling Ersken aside, Veronyka relayed the news about Xoe and Xatara.