street since, how he’d learned to be ruthless and selfish and cunning. Which was the true Sev? His childhood instincts or his learned behaviors?
“Maybe you’re right,” Kade continued as they separated from the animage prisoners and picked their way toward the outpost tower. “You were never meant to be a spy. You were meant to be a hero instead.”
If I am to become naught but ruin,
may it be so that you can build anew
upon the ashes.
- CHAPTER 42 - VERONYKA
VERONYKA DRAGGED HERSELF INTO wakefulness, her body heavy and her mind sluggish.
Images from the battle flashed before her eyes—blood, smoke, ashen faces, and bodies pierced with phoenix-feather-fletched arrows. Val with a knife.
Veronyka lurched up, blinking away the last dregs of sleep and staring around, her heart racing.
She was in a wide, round room, its walls made of stone, while several windows—and a walkout to a balcony—offered patches of darkened sky, sliced through with wrought-iron grates in swirling feather motifs. Veronyka had the sense she was high up… no trees or other buildings interrupted the view.
She was on a pallet on the ground but had no memory of coming here. She thought back and recalled the stinging sensation of her skin being pierced. She looked down to see a rough bandage tied over her forearm.
Val had cut her.
No, Val had drugged her. Veronyka had blacked out soon after that, and now she was here.
When she looked up again, Val was standing in the open doorway that led to a shadowy landing. Veronyka must be in a tower room, probably part of an old outpost. Circular buildings weren’t typical in most valley architecture, and stone towers—especially ones embellished with phoenix-related designs—were a Rider convention.
“Look who’s finally awake,” Val said, and Veronyka stumbled to her feet. Her head spun, and she wondered with blind terror how long she’d been unconscious.
“Xephyra,” she croaked. The last thing she remembered was the clang of heavy metal and the feeling of being trapped.
“Relax, she is safe. As are you. It’s only been a couple of hours.”
“Where am I?”
Val didn’t answer that question. She simply strode into the room and paused next to the balcony, gazing through the metal grate with her arms crossed over her chest.
Veronyka clung to the wall next to her pallet, feeling like she should probably lie down again but unwilling to do so in Val’s presence.
“You kidnapped me,” she said. Her mouth was dry, and the words felt like they stuck to her tongue.
Val glanced over her shoulder; then, with a roll of her eyes, she strode to a table underneath the nearest window and poured a cup of water from a pitcher. She handed it to Veronyka, who stared at it warily—Val had just drugged her, after all.
Another eye roll, and Val took a drink before holding it out to Veronyka once more. She longed to refuse it but reminded herself that if she was going to get out of this, she needed her strength back.
She gulped greedily, and Val watched her with mild distaste.
Gasping, Veronyka lowered the cup. “Tell me where I am and what I’m doing here,” she said, her voice stronger this time.
“You’re in Ferro. And you’re here because you refused my offer to work together. And so I’ll treat you as I’ve always treated you—like a child who should know better but doesn’t.”
Veronyka’s chest began to heave with her suppressed anger, the sudden burst of emotion making her light-headed again.
“You’re here because it is my will that you should be, and a queen gets what she wants.”
“Not from me,” Veronyka said, jaw set.
Val laughed. “Oh, xe Nyka, from you most of all. I willed you to come with me—and you left everyone and everything you love behind. I willed you to help me destroy my enemies—and you slaughtered dozens of soldiers in cold blood. I willed you here, into a cage—and both you and your phoenix were only too happy to accommodate me and too stupid to see the trap until it was too late.”
Veronyka’s hands clenched into fists, heat rising in her face, but Val didn’t stop there.
“You believed that I wanted you next to me, like your poor dead mother, when in fact, all I’ve ever wanted was to have you beneath me, where you belong.”
Veronyka lunged at her. She forgot her weakened body and groggy mind—she forgot everything but Val’s smug face and the lies spewing from her mouth.
Val was too shocked to react as Veronyka collided with her. Forgetting all her training, Veronyka was fighting