to Callysta’s daughter Calliope, who was the youngest of her children.
Though life went on for the queendom, it did not go on for Nefyra. She stood before the Everlasting Flame day after day, night after night, longing for Callysta. She did not eat. She did not sleep. On the morning of the third day—she was gone. So too was her bondmate, Ignix.
The story ends there, with no further accounts on record. This myth contradicts the widely accepted historical timeline positing that Queen Nefyra ruled for nearly two hundred years after Callysta’s death.
Many scholars believe this myth is meant to indicate Nefyra’s transition into a recluse, who ruled in isolation from within her palace. Others suggest this myth simply truncates the timeline, illustrating Nefyra’s death in conjunction with her lover’s for dramatic effect, proving that Nefyra succumbed to her broken heart and threw herself into the fire. Others argue she would have walked in calmly, purposefully, knowing that a reunion with Callysta waited for her on the other side, among the stars. There are even those who believe she leapt onto her phoenix’s back and flew away, unable to live there among her people any longer.
Like many secrets of the ancient Pyraean queens, the truth is likely lost to us forever.
—“Queen Nefyra’s Divinely Long Reign,” from The Lost History of the Ashfire Queens, by Enzo, High Priest of Mori, 123 AE
The Ashfire legacy comes with us, always.
Everywhere. There is no hiding from it.
No escaping it. It is in our blood.
- CHAPTER 44 - SEV
BY THE TIME THEY reached the tower on foot, night had descended. It had been hard going, but the most direct route was through the rocky Foothills, and Sev didn’t want to risk circling around and running into any soldiers.
As it was, the outskirts of Ferro were surprisingly quiet, with no hint of the battle that had taken place barely a mile away. Or maybe that was the hint—anyone with sense had likely fled the area or locked themselves up somewhere safe. They were technically just inside the border, in an area called Copper Hill. The majority of mining activity in Ferro had moved farther west in the highlands or south in the Spine when bronze weapons gave way to steel. Copper Hill was now something of a ghost town, featuring warehouses and processing facilities but little by way of houses or markets.
Still, the nearer Sev and Kade drew to the prison tower—their pace slow and careful as Kade clutched at his side—the more Sev was convinced that something else was going on. Though he could see light flickering from the highest tower room, spilling out from the balcony and several windows, the rest of the building was dark.
Dark and apparently empty. Near a dozen barred windows lined the ground floor, all black and unlit, and the double doors that faced east were shut but unmanned. What kind of prison tower didn’t have guards? Even if there were no prisoners, it seemed strange that Lord Rolan would leave the structure wholly abandoned. How easy for squatters to take up residence or for thieves to strip the building and leave it broken and unusable.
Despite the deserted look of the tower, Sev was wary of getting closer. The light atop the tower meant that someone was here, even if it was just Veronyka alone and held against her will. But what about those other Riders? What about their phoenixes?
Kade nudged Sev as the light in the topmost room went out, and a minute later, two people exited the building on the ground level. They conversed in low voices as their phoenixes emerged from the top of the tower, where roosts were built into the architecture, and landed in the courtyard before their Riders. The one who’d kidnapped Veronyka leapt into her saddle and flew south, while the other climbed onto her phoenix and circled around the building, coming to land on the tower’s highest peak. There she perched, facing north.
Sev glanced to Kade—this was their chance. The front door to the building faced the east; if they skirted around the side of the building and stuck to the shadows, she’d never see them.
With a finger to his lips, Sev stood from where they’d been squatting behind the remnants of some old stone wall that had once enclosed the area. Kade followed, grimacing all the way.
They hurried across the open space between their hiding place and the prisoner tower, then stuck close to the wall as they edged toward the doors.