Xephyra was still a part of her. She always would be.
As her bondmate slowly disappeared from her thoughts, the weight in Veronyka’s chest lifted. Instead of a chasm left behind after a catastrophe, her mind was an empty field. Soothing. Peaceful—no matter the turmoil just below the surface.
Later, when she had her life sorted out, she could take the time to properly grieve for Xephyra.
“You gonna go with them if they let you?” Sparrow asked, several hours after dinner. “Become a famous warrior, like Avalkyra Ashfire?” She was playing with a moth, catching and releasing it over and over again, while murmuring encouragement and cooing words of praise. Insects were nearly impossible to communicate with, their minds too small and foreign for most animages to grasp—usually. It wouldn’t have surprised Veronyka to know Sparrow had managed to make contact with some of them.
Veronyka smiled. “I hope so. What will you do?” She didn’t know anything about the girl, where she came from or where she was going. Maybe Sparrow didn’t know either.
“We haven’t been to Runnet in a while,” she said with a sigh, letting her moth friend fly away. “Maybe we’ll go there next.” Her sparrow cheeped his assent, making it clear who the “we” was in that sentence.
Sparrow was soon snoring, but Veronyka only dozed lightly, afraid to miss the steward’s departure. She saw the fishermen leave for their boats and smelled the baker’s first bread. Elliot returned just before dawn, shoulders hunched against the cold—or maybe it was the idea of leaving his family that dragged him down.
When the wagon rolled out of the stable yard into the golden morning sunshine, Veronyka was waiting by the gate.
“Excuse me,” she said, startling Beryk as he shuffled through some papers. Elliot was just out of earshot, adjusting the wagon’s canvas cover, though he frowned at her in recognition.
“Yes?” the steward asked. While Elliot seemed to remember her, Beryk’s expression was vaguely polite.
Veronyka swallowed. “I heard—I know that you’re . . . phoenixaeres,” she said, keeping her voice low.
Beryk had leaned in to hear her, but he straightened abruptly when she spoke in Pyraean. “I’m sorry, lass,” he said sharply, “but I don’t speak ancient Pyraean.”
“Please,” Veronyka said, stepping in front of him as he moved to walk away. He glanced at her, and she must have truly looked pathetic, because he stopped. “I want to go with you. I’m an animage, and—”
“You must be confused. I manage a country estate, and this here is my assistant.”
“Your underwing?” Veronyka asked stubbornly.
Beryk smiled tightly, and when Elliot wandered over, he waved for the boy to get onto the wagon. “Listen, lass, and listen closely,” he said in a rapid whisper. “Whatever you think you heard, you’d best forget it. For your own sake. Even if I were recruiting—which I’m not—and even if that recruitment were for animages—which it isn’t—I’m afraid you’d not fit our requirements.”
“Because I’m not a boy?” Veronyka asked.
The man wore a heavy, regretful expression, as if this weren’t the first time he’d had to reject a girl and he didn’t enjoy it. “I know it seems unfair, but he has his reasons.”
He, this commander that Beryk had mentioned the previous day. Before Veronyka could argue further, he gave her arm a bracing pat, then hopped onto the wagon.
She watched them go, a riot of emotions inside her chest. She was disappointed, yes, but he’d basically admitted that he was a Rider. The existence of even one Phoenix Rider on Pyrmont was cause for celebration.
“What’d he say?”
Veronyka jumped, surprised to find Sparrow standing right next to her. She’d been lurking in the shadows outside the inn, but once Beryk left, she had sidled up to Veronyka on silent feet.
“It’s like you said; they only want boys,” Veronyka muttered, still trying to understand their exchange and what it meant. Were the Phoenix Riders of the future going to be men alone?
Sparrow shrugged. “Then be a boy.”
Veronyka’s breath caught, and she looked up at Sparrow in surprise.
Be a boy.
It was simple. It was brilliant.
It was exactly what Veronyka would do.
Aura, the original capital of the Queendom of Pyra, sat atop Pyrmont’s highest peak. It was built around the Everlasting Flame, a massive pit filled with the same god-made flames that had tested Nefyra a thousand years ago. It continued to burn long after her trial, constantly fueled by gases leaking from holes in the mountain.
Stone filled with veins of precious metals surrounded the Everlasting Flame, and the Pyraeans slowly excavated temples