the mend, while the opposite hall housed people who were dying or who hovered on the edge of life and death.
She was immensely relieved to know he was going to be okay and happier still to find him awake as she approached, propped up against a stack of pillows.
She crouched down on the floor next to him, feeling awkward and unsure what to do with her hands. “Hi, uh . . . do you remember me?”
He didn’t seem surprised to see her. “Of course,” he said, turning stiffly to face her. “You saved my life.”
Her tension loosened somewhat. She smiled. “Only after you saved mine.”
His lips twisted into something that resembled a smile but lacked the happiness.
“How’s your shoulder?” she pressed on, nodding down at the heavy bandages. Veronyka had some bruises and scrapes along her face and neck but was otherwise unharmed from the attack.
He shrugged—then grimaced, the movement no doubt causing a spear of agony to rip through his wound. “I’ll live.”
“Good. That’s good,” she said, nodding. Glancing over her shoulder, Veronyka settled more comfortably next to him. “I was hoping I could ask you about Ilithya.”
He was clearly surprised by the question, but his frown quickly shifted from confusion to regret. “I . . . I didn’t know her for very long,” he admitted, a slight waver in his voice. “And I don’t know much about who she was before all this.”
Veronyka shook her head, feeling her heart reaching, grasping at every word like a thirsty plant in newly watered soil. “That’s okay. Tell me what you did know. What was she like?”
He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck, considering. “She was bossy. Brutal at times. She had a sharp tongue and a quick wit. She told the best stories. And she was kind, too, though I think she tried hard not to show it.”
Veronyka found herself smiling. Most of this she already knew, and it erased any lingering doubt she might have had as to whether they were talking about the same Ilithya. It felt good to know that the woman from her memories wasn’t some fiction, like Val had been. She was real.
“How did you know her?” Sev asked, drawing Veronyka back to the present.
“She, well . . . she was my grandmother.”
Sev sat up straighter. “You’re Veronyka, aren’t you?”
Veronyka darted a terrified look around. Luckily, Sev was fairly isolated, and most of the people who were awake were the healers and helpers tending the more gravely wounded in the other hall. Nobody had heard him.
“Did she talk about me?” Veronyka whispered.
“No,” he said, somewhat apologetically, “but she said your name in her sleep. Always yours . . . no one else’s.”
Veronyka wasn’t sure what to make of that information. On the one hand, it was validating, proof that her grandmother hadn’t forgotten about her, that the love they’d shared was real and lasting. On the other, it reminded her of all the lost time they could have spent together.
Veronyka forced herself to smile. She was grateful to him and glad that, for whatever reason, their lives had intersected in so many ways.
“Where did you find them?” she asked, nodding toward the satchel on the floor next to him. The sight of the eggs would have sent her heart bursting from her chest a few days ago, and though Xephyra had returned and so much had changed, they were still desperately important. In the face of the recent attack, the growth and development of new Riders seemed paramount.
“I didn’t. It was Kade who—one of the other bondservants,” he said, practically choking the words out. “He and Ilithya found them and kept them concealed throughout the journey.”
They must have come from somewhere in the empire. Could there be more? Could the empire hold the key to the Phoenix Riders’ survival, right in front of them but still out of reach?
“When it looked like they weren’t going to make it,” Sev continued, clearing his tight throat, “I delivered them instead. I never thought to ask where they came from, but if I had, Ilithya probably wouldn’t have told me. She loved her secrets.”
Veronyka huffed. “Secrets,” she muttered. She’d had enough of them to last a lifetime. Val, Ilithya, even Veronyka’s own identity was a tangled mess that felt impossible to unravel.
A full, wide grin split Sev’s face. It changed him, turned him from a beat-down soldier back into a boy. “That’s the thing with secrets,” he said, the words sounding like a bit of