her grandmother. She refused to believe their lives together were entirely a lie.
Reading the papers as Veronyka Ashfire was an entirely new experience, and every mention of Pheronia or Avalkyra or other Ashfire queens set a bell reverberating inside her chest. These were her ancestors, her family—her people.
There was a bundle of letters written between Pheronia and Avalkyra during the Blood War, and Veronyka trailed her fingertips over the words written in her mother’s hand, imagining she could feel her presence through the faded ink. The letters must have been collected and bound together by Ilithya, though Veronyka wondered at how she’d managed it. The letters from Pheronia must have been found by Ilithya in one of Val’s hidden bases, left behind after her death, though Veronyka had to admit she was surprised that Val had bothered to save them in the first place. Veronyka knew Val loved Pheronia, but it still seemed uncharacteristically sentimental. On the other hand, for Ilithya to have gathered the letters from Val to Pheronia, she must have taken them from the Nest after Pheronia’s death.
The letters painted a fascinating, though not entirely surprising, picture of the sisters’ lives. Veronyka read them hungrily as they documented the reason the sisters parted ways—Avalkyra had killed Queen Regent Lania, Pheronia’s mother and Avalkyra’s chosen suspect in the murder of their father King Aryk—the months when Pheronia’s anger prevented her from answering Avalkyra’s increasingly dark and demanding letters, and finally, when Pheronia replied to Avalkyra, begging for peace between them, though it was too late. Veronyka couldn’t help trying to put the letters in order and fit the shadow magic dreams she’d had from Val into the gaps, filling out the timeline and helping her understand the schism.
She was unnerved by how familiar Avalkyra’s words sounded, how she refused to apologize or take any of the blame for what was happening between her and Pheronia, and her constant insistence that they belonged together.
Veronyka put the letters down, her heart pounding against her rib cage. It felt as if Val were with her—as if at any moment she’d speak into Veronyka’s mind.
She shook her head—she refused to allow herself to reach for Val like she had the last time she’d opened this box. Part of her reluctance to revisit it for the past weeks was fear that she’d somehow make herself vulnerable again. As if the box itself were some tether binding Veronyka and Val together.
Veronyka was surprised at the surge of guilt that rose inside her. By closing herself off from Val, she’d been closing herself off from her mother, too. It was uncomfortable to realize how much the line blurred between Veronyka and Pheronia, between Val and Avalkyra. Were she and Val doomed to repeat the past? Avalkyra and Pheronia split forever after one violent, remorseless act… and now Veronyka and Val were similarly separated after not only the poisoning of Veronyka’s bondmate, but Val’s attempts to destroy everything and everyone in Veronyka’s life.
But while her mother’s pregnancy—the thing Veronyka assumed was the reason for Pheronia wanting to reconnect with her estranged sister after months of not speaking—became the catalyst for at least one of the sisters wanting to make amends, Veronyka didn’t know what it would take for her and Val to fix what was broken between them. A part of her recoiled at the idea, refusing to absolve someone who wasn’t sorry and didn’t ask for forgiveness, while the rest of her realized that if she didn’t bridge the gap and at least try to bring Val back to her side, there would be no one to rein her in… no one to stop the second coming of Avalkyra Ashfire and the destruction of them all.
In truth, Veronyka had never felt so alone. This was her family—here, in this box—but the reality of it outside of the past was harder to understand.
As her hand moved idly over the papers and documents within, her fingertips slid over the wax seal on her birth certificate. Veronyka hesitated but found herself unable to look at it.
Finding out her true identity had given her more questions than answers—particularly the blank line where her father’s name should have been. Her mother might be dead beyond a doubt, but her father was unaccounted for. He was as unformed and indistinct in her mind as that empty space on her birth certificate. Maybe he was alive somewhere, mourning Pheronia and wishing things had worked out differently.