of blood or check Kade’s pulse. His own hands were shaking, his fingers icy with fear and adrenaline, and he couldn’t see for the tears in his eyes.
I should have told him how I feel.
Sev did the only thing he could do: He crouched, tugged on Kade’s unresponsive arm, and hoisted him bodily over his back. White-hot pain lanced through Sev’s shoulder, but that was nothing, nothing to the pain inside his heart.
With Kade’s weight against his shoulders and Kade’s blood dripping down his back, Sev stood on shaky legs and ran.
Were Avalkyra and I always meant
to go down in flames?
- CHAPTER 34 - VERONYKA
“VAL—WHEN, HOW—” VERONYKA SAID, mind reeling and heart thumping wildly. Seeing Val here, now, almost the exact same age she was then—in the vision—was causing Veronyka’s head to spin. And her mother… she had been just feet away—Veronyka could still see her in her mind’s eye. She had thought often of her mother in recent weeks, wondering what she might have been like, but nothing had prepared her for the scene she’d just witnessed. Pheronia Ashfire had been strong, and brave, and perhaps most surprising of all… she hadn’t feared her sister. She hadn’t backed down.
Veronyka kept staring at the room before her, as if expecting the past and the present to realign themselves or to blur entirely together. Would she look left and see her mother standing there? Something like hysteria lurched up inside her, and she wrenched her mind to the present.
Her eyes landed on the man who had a knife pressed to Tristan’s throat. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Let go of him!”
The man looked at Val, and after a moment spent surveying Veronyka, she nodded, and Tristan was shoved to his feet. He staggered over to Veronyka’s side, obviously a bit disoriented, his brain trying to play catch-up with his body.
Veronyka understood the feeling.
“Val,” she said again, this time more slowly, her heartbeat steadying somewhat now that Tristan was no longer in immediate danger. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”
“I flew.”
“That… that means you’ve got a phoenix? A bondmate?” Veronyka tried but failed to keep the surprise from her voice. She hadn’t thought that Val would ever be able to bond again.
“I certainly didn’t sprout wings of my own, if that’s what you’re asking,” Val drawled, smirking slightly. Veronyka couldn’t tell if she meant to be teasing or mocking—or if there was any difference, when it came to her.
“So it’s been you?” Veronyka murmured. “The Iron Road? The sighting in Ferro?” There had been an attack in Arboria North, too, according to the commander…. Could Val have been involved in that as well?
Val lifted her chin. “I’ve been fighting the empire, like I told you I would—like I thought you wanted to do.”
Veronyka scowled. “We are fighting the empire. Just days ago I—”
“Is this what you call fighting? Hiding away in the north and babysitting refugees?”
“Not all fighting is about fire and blood,” Veronyka argued. “We’re protectors, Val; we’re trying to save people’s lives.”
“This is work fit for any untrained local who can carry a spear—not Phoenix Riders. I thought you wanted to do something real.”
“Like what? Attacking merchant caravans and country houses, making us look like criminals and thieves?”
Val smiled again, then turned her attention to the man. “Leave us, Doriyan, and keep watch at the entrance. Take him with you,” she added, nodding to Tristan.
So he was Doriyan, as Veronyka had thought. Did that mean Val had allied with Sidra as well? Could she have been the one to attack Arboria while Val flew here?
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tristan said, yanking his arm from Doriyan’s reach.
Val rolled her eyes, then nodded her assent at Doriyan, who stepped back from Tristan and made for the exit alone. He looked once over his shoulder—not at Val or even Veronyka and Tristan, but past them into the darkness near the back of the room. Veronyka followed his gaze, seeing a shadowy archway that must lead into other parts of the mine. Were there others lurking in the darkness, or was he trying to figure out which exit to guard?
“Is he the one you’ve been flying with?” Veronyka asked when the three of them were alone. “He was part of your patrol once, wasn’t he?”
“Very good, Veronyka. You’ve been reading my documents.”
“Ilithya’s documents,” Veronyka corrected.
Val shrugged again. “My associates, nonetheless.”
“Reluctant associates, from what I hear.”
Val’s nostrils flared. “And where have you heard this, Veronyka? His father, the disgraced ex-governor?