crime against her. Avalkyra fights only for herself.
- CHAPTER 37 - AVALKYRA
AVALKYRA WAITED IN THE gathering dark, her heart hammering blood and adrenaline through her veins.
Veronyka would come. She had to.
And if she didn’t…
She would.
Everything had led to this point—she could see it now, the way their paths had separated but remained parallel, moving in the same direction so they might cross again.
Rushlea, it seemed, was a fortuitous meeting place. Avalkyra and Pheronia had had a similar encounter in this very spot, but Avalkyra hadn’t been prepared then.
This time she’d orchestrated the meeting—had forced Doriyan to draw Veronyka’s attention and lead her to the mine—and Avalkyra and Veronyka’s relationship was not yet as far gone as Avalkyra and Pheronia’s had been. There was still a chance. There was still hope.
Veronyka would be hers. Her blood, her redemption.
And this world would be theirs.
The creature beneath her rustled and shifted uneasily, and Avalkyra refocused her attention, tightening the bind. Even when she wasn’t riding the phoenix, she had to exert an extraordinary amount of effort to keep the animal under her control. The problem was, the phoenix still had not invited her in. So while there was indeed a bind in place, it was weak in comparison to her bind to Sidra, who welcomed Avalkyra’s shadow touch. Avalkyra hadn’t even bothered trying shadow magic with Doriyan, especially when it became clear very quickly that he regretted what he’d done in her service all those years ago and had no intention of willingly allowing her into his mind. And so Avalkyra had found other ways to force his obedience.
Even though that decision had conserved her shadow magic, her binds to Sidra and the phoenix were threadbare, fraying ropes in comparison to the steel-chain bond she shared with Veronyka. Maybe someday Avalkyra could explain the power of it, could show Veronyka how to wield instead of fear it. Even within her own mind, Veronyka was afraid, as if Avalkyra’s intrusions were something she had to block at all costs, as if Avalkyra didn’t fear being there herself far more.
It had nearly robbed Avalkyra of her own consciousness to thrust that shadow magic vision upon Veronyka in the mine. She’d thought it would be a good way to put Veronyka on the defensive—as well as give Avalkyra herself the opportunity to take hold of the situation—but she hadn’t expected the memory to be more powerful than Avalkyra’s own hold on it.
It had been Veronyka who broke them both out of it. All three of them, actually, because the commander’s son had taken up residence inside Veronyka’s mind—and heart—as well. It was lucky he did not have shadow magic too, or the web between them would be all the more tangled. As it was, he was a helpless passenger, but Avalkyra would have to deal with him eventually. For now she had to tread very softly, treating Veronyka like a wild horse that might be spooked. But once they started to run together, the wind in their hair and their old lives far behind them, Avalkyra would cut the ties and set them both free.
There was a rustle to her left, and though Avalkyra longed to whip around in her saddle, gaze hungrily roving the trees, she restrained herself. Instead she closed her eyes and let her magical senses broaden. The phoenix tossed her head, and Avalkyra drew her magic back to herself.
“Hello, xe Nyka,” she said, still not turning in the saddle.
Despite pulling her magic inward and focusing it on her phoenix, she sensed Veronyka’s irritation. It flashed between them before Veronyka got herself under control.
“Let me guess,” Veronyka said, her phoenix sidling up next to Avalkyra’s and bringing them into her peripheral vision. Avalkyra turned to face her. “You knew I’d come.”
Avalkyra smiled. “No, Veronyka. But I’d hoped.”
Veronyka snorted. “I thought you said hope was foolish.”
Avalkyra had expressed some version of that sentiment many times in both her lives. A helpless fool hoped for something outside of her control… but a queen made it so.
Even still, Avalkyra had made the moves, willed people and events to force this outcome, but she could not guarantee it. She could not make it so. All she could do was stand in the shadows and hope.
“Consider me a fool, then,” she said.
Veronyka cast an appraising look at her. Avalkyra didn’t much care for the feeling of being assessed and measured, so she urged her mount forward, into the sky.