Even the Stellan Uprising, the largest military conflict before the Blood War, couldn’t defeat Avalkyra. She won the battle with half the recommended soldiers, ensuring Aura Nova was not left vulnerable to her stepmother’s machinations in her absence, and even brought Pheronia to the battlefield, ensuring the queen couldn’t use her as leverage or turn her sister against her.
And when evidence came to light that the king had been poisoned by his own wife—the current queen regent—Avalkyra ensured that justice was served.
“What kind of justice, Maiora?” Veronyka had asked late one night as her grandmother told the story. They were in their usual positions in front of the fire—Veronyka curled up on the pile of mats and cushions that acted as her and Val’s bed and her maiora seated on a rickety old stool next to her.
“The only kind that matters, xe Nyka,” Val had said, slipping under the covers next to her. “Was Avalkyra to put her treacherous stepmother in a finely furnished cell, where she could continue to cause strife? Was she to rely on a trial run by cowardly politicians with agendas of their own? Death was the only punishment worth doling out: an eye for an eye.”
“But what about Pheronia? I thought Avalkyra loved her sister. If she did, how could she kill her mother?” Veronyka had looked up, surprised to see Val and her maiora share a look over her head, an exchange that she wasn’t meant to see.
“It’s not as simple as all that,” her grandmother had said. “Love and politics are like oil and water—they don’t mix. What was best for the empire, and for Avalkyra’s own claim to the throne, wasn’t necessarily the best for her sister.”
“So she chose politics over love?”
Val made an impatient noise in the back of her throat. “Avalkyra couldn’t let the regicide of her own father go unpunished. People respond to strength, Veronyka. She was heir to the throne and had a duty to her king to see justice served.”
But that decision had been the schism, the moment when the two sisters—always struggling together to combat the will of the council and the machinations of the governors—finally separated.
Later her maiora explained that Avalkyra thought the move would gain her support in her bid for the throne, but the opposite happened. People saw her as cruel and ruthless, and Pheronia gained public favor and sympathy. The sisters stopped speaking, and Avalkyra refused to attend the dead queen’s funeral.
While Avalkyra never admitted to the murder of her stepmother, she was the prime suspect. She fled into Pyra, avoiding her own trial, and began the process of separating the province from the empire. Treaties were signed, boundaries redrawn, and Pyra became its own country again. Pheronia had not been crowned in her absence, as she was still underage, but the council ruled the empire in her stead, earning her the nickname the Council’s Queen.
Hearing Morra recount hers and Olanna’s stories made Veronyka reconsider what she thought she knew about the Blood War. She’d always imagined Avalkyra Ashfire as a hero, going down in a blaze of glory, the war ending with her last breath. But war wasn’t one or two big moments; it was dozens of smaller ones, enacted by people like Morra and Olanna who continued to fight even after their cause had lost. Suddenly Avalkyra Ashfire’s shining flashes of greatness looked rash and foolish. Avalkyra hadn’t just fled persecution when she’d set up in Pyra. She’d turned her back on the people of the empire, leaving thousands of her supporters, as well as innocent animages, behind. Thanks to her actions, many were condemned to bondage, imprisonment, even death, and it was left to people like Morra and Olanna to make things right.
There’s more than one way to fight a war. There were fiery battles and court intrigues, but there were also daring rescues and selfless sacrifices.
Veronyka thought of the bondservant she’d seen outside her cabin all those weeks ago, the way his face had lit when he’d seen Xephyra, when he’d seen her—a fellow animage, living in freedom. She remembered what Commander Cassian had said about a new purpose for the Phoenix Riders, about creating a safe place for their people.
Before, Veronyka’s visions of being a Phoenix Rider involved soaring through the air and raining arrows down on some fiery battlefield. Now that picture changed, shifted. She saw herself protecting wagons of animages, children, old folks, and everyone in between—people like her,