it’s about time, don’t you?”
“I tried to talk, xe Onia.”
“You mean your letters,” Pheronia guessed. “I have since replied.”
“Too late,” Val snarled, and for the first time Pheronia’s face betrayed something like fear, or maybe panic.
“It is not too late. I’m here now. Please, Avalkyra, let us talk in private.”
“No,” Val said, and Veronyka felt the pleasure she took in denying her sister, even if a part of her wanted to talk too. “You may speak here, in my war room, or not at all. It makes no difference to me.”
“I know you want war with me, sister, but I do not want war with you.”
The other people in the room shifted, and Veronyka wondered how many of them longed for an end to the conflict, the same as Pheronia, despite their apparent loyalty to Avalkyra.
“I gave you a chance at peace,” Val said, plucking an arrow from the mess on the table before her. She looked up at her sister. “You tore the treaty in half.” Her words were punctured by a loud snap, the arrow shaft broken cleanly in two.
Veronyka had seen that meeting. Val had shown it to her. She and Pheronia had been in a grand chamber—not some dank, abandoned mine—surrounded by their advisers. Val had slid a heavy document across the table’s surface, but Pheronia had not signed it.
Pheronia’s rigid demeanor softened, and she clasped her hands together, as if to stop them from shaking or reaching out.
Or resting on her stomach. Veronyka wasn’t certain of the exact timeline of these events, but she remembered Pheronia’s pallor during their last meeting—the way she’d rested a hand on her abdomen as if nauseated. Veronyka stared at the loose-fitting tunic she wore under her thick cloak. Was Pheronia pregnant in this moment? Was Veronyka already an idea inside her mother’s belly?
“That was peace on your terms, Avalkyra.”
“Queen Avalkyra,” Val said stonily.
“And your terms would see me removed from my position, and all those who aided me—”
“Pulled your strings, more like.”
“—would be killed. Wouldn’t they, sister?”
“So you fight for a throne you do not want to protect people who care nothing for you? When I have given everything for you? For us?”
“You do not give, Avalkyra Ashfire,” Pheronia snapped, losing her temper for the first time. “You take and take until there is nothing left. You have all of fire’s hunger and none of its warmth.”
Val tilted her head, and Veronyka felt the surge of pleasure that swept Val’s body at her sister’s words. She took the comparison to fire as a compliment.
“You look ill, sister,” Val said suddenly. “I’ve heard things. Whispers. You skip out on meetings, barely speak to anyone, and are living in near seclusion in Genya’s Tower. The stress of the war is clearly taking its toll on your weak constitution….”
Pheronia scowled at that, and some steel returned to her posture.
“You know, some say there was once a third goddess in our skies,” Val said, staring up at the darkened roof of their stony chamber. “A third sister.”
Pheronia frowned, as if confused by the change in subject. With Val’s attention diverted, she cast a wary glance to one of her guards, but he only shrugged.
“Before the sun, before the moon… before the world itself. Axura, Nox—and Xenith. All were beings of the sky, great winged creatures of light and life and fire. As you just pointed out, xe Onia… fire is hungry. Fire takes, fire devours, and Nox always craved more, her desire to consume insatiable.”
Val got to her feet then, strolling a slow circle around the chamber. The guard Pheronia had shared a look with before stepped in front of her protectively, but Val made no move toward her sister. She just continued her story, like a bard before an eager audience.
“To satisfy her sister, Axura gave humankind fire, and in exchange they lit burning tributes before her and her sisters every night. It helped, for a time. But when the primitive humans’ weak offerings ceased to satisfy her, Nox looked for something more. Xenith was weakest of the three, and so when Axura’s back was turned, Nox devoured her and scattered her remains into the ether. Axura, ever sentimental, looked for Xenith all day, but to no avail. Only when the sisters prepared to sleep for the night did she notice the newly made stars—Xenith’s flaming feathers—glowing against the endless black of night. Suspecting what Nox had done, Axura banished her to that cold, empty darkness, where she would be unable to