hers before he remembered himself and they darted away. He seemed to see or sense that this was about something important, though, and turned back to his cousin. “You can finish this, Lys?” he asked, and Lysandro nodded. He looked quite happy to be deputized and took the sheaf of papers while Tristan stood.
“What’s up?” he asked, falling into step beside Veronyka as she walked to the edge of the clearing, past the phoenixes, who were clustered together around fresh fruit the Riders had scattered for their evening meal.
Like usual lately, Veronyka was anxious being alone with Tristan, as if every second together was illicit—never mind that what she was about to propose meant spending even more time in each other’s company.
Veronyka waited until they reached a thick, gnarled tree, pausing in its shadow. “I’ve been thinking… about those Phoenix Riders.”
“The ones spotted in the south?”
“Yes… You remember how I found that birth certificate in the lockbox?”
“Vaguely,” Tristan said dryly, leaning against the rough bark and crossing his arms over his chest.
Veronyka smirked before continuing. “And how I found other stuff too?”
Tristan stilled, his relaxed posture turning rigid. “Yes…”
Veronyka reached into her pocket. “One of the things I found was a list of Phoenix Riders that survived the war.”
She passed it to him, her hands trembling slightly. Fear, excitement, she didn’t know which, had sent her nerves to jangling, but whatever it was, she knew she had to act on it. Their skin touched, and she flashed back to the moment Tristan had fallen, limp, from his saddle. A wave of dizzying fear washed over her, and she snatched her hand back. Tristan remained still—perfectly, unnaturally still, and kept his focus on the paper.
“Veronyka,” he said on a breath, unfolding the page, his eyes bugging. “This is…” He trailed off, and Veronyka understood. They’d thought they were alone in Pyra—in the empire—but apparently they were wrong.
“That hand,” Veronyka said, pointing to the smaller, simpler script, “is Ilithya Shadowheart’s. That,” she said, pointing to the swooping, elegant—yet somehow wilder, less controlled—handwriting, “belongs to Val. Avalkyra.”
Tristan frowned at the page, and Veronyka studied him. She was surprised at how easy it had been to convince Tristan that Val was indeed Avalkyra. After she’d told him everything she knew about herself and her sister—the memories and the dream visions included—in addition to what Morra had said about resurrections, Tristan had just nodded, slightly stunned. Apparently his Pyraean nursemaid had told him plenty of folktales and local superstitions.
“She and Ilithya must have made this list hoping to find allies,” Veronyka continued. “I don’t know how many Val went to herself. I think…” She trailed off, staring unseeing into the distance. “I think she was ashamed to show herself as she was—young, poor, and without a phoenix. So my maiora—Ilithya,” she clarified, though she’d already told him about the spy’s role in her upbringing, “did it instead. Obviously it didn’t work, or Val would have an army of her own by now.”
“We should send this to my father,” Tristan said, somewhat reluctantly. They weren’t on the greatest of terms after Cassian’s most recent attempts to keep Tristan out of the loop.
“You heard him,” Veronyka said reasonably. “He didn’t want to discuss it. And I understand—he’s got too much to manage and can’t send people flying all over the empire looking for them. But maybe there’s another way—a way we could help. Maybe we could do it for him.”
“It would be dangerous, Veronyka. They could be the Riders that were spotted in the south. They could be working with the empire.”
Veronyka tipped her head in acknowledgment. She knew there was a chance they weren’t friendly, but there was also a chance they were.
“They could be,” she conceded. “Or, if we play this right… they could be working with us instead.”
Do you see the error of my ways yet, my daughter?
You cannot douse a fire by throwing water
at its flames. You have to go to the embers,
the kindling—the beating heart.
- CHAPTER 22 - AVALKYRA
AVALKYRA SAT ASTRIDE HER phoenix, perched on a rolling hilltop and surveying the distant, winding strip of the Iron Road. It branched west off the Pilgrimage Road, which twisted south toward Aura Nova and north toward Pyra. The Iron Road was named after the ore that gained Ferro its fame and fortune and for the route that had been traveled for centuries, sending Ferronese steel weapons from the forges of Ferro into Aura Nova, then onto riverboats setting out for the rest of the