into the sky. She took a deep, chest-filling breath, the misty morning air cool and refreshing against her skin. The sky was wide and welcoming, the view endless and unobstructed all around.
Inside her mind, Xephyra’s sleepy thoughts filtered through the bond. More lessons? she asked, getting better and better with her vocabulary and communication skills.
No, Veronyka said, grinning. This is the real thing.
* * *
It was the longest journey Veronyka had taken on phoenix-back.
Xephyra seemed to enjoy the extended flight—they’d flown long hours before, but usually in circuits while training in the gullies and peaks around the Eyrie. Here, the landscape changed beneath them, the entirety of Pyra unfolding far below. Rock and river and tree, all of it familiar and yet different observed from above. Everything seemed minuscule, almost like toys dotting the ground below, and yet the sky… the sky seemed to grow and expand, endless blue in all directions.
Veronyka marveled that she had done the same journey on foot. It seemed so painfully slow, plodding on step after step, when, with one powerful pump of her wings, Xephyra could traverse hours’ worth of foot travel.
Of course, the wind currents often set them slightly off course—they didn’t fly straight and true like an arrow—and they couldn’t pump their wings and fight against the updrafts the entire time or they’d quickly grow exhausted. Still, a journey that had taken Veronyka almost a full week took Xephyra and the rest of the phoenixes about seven hours, not including their midday stop for food and rest.
By the time they reached Malka’s ruined outpost outside Vayle, the afternoon sun was turning the landscape into a haze of citrus hues—warm orange and golden lemon. Even the trees and grass were rich in the summer sunlight, as green as a fresh-sliced lime.
As the Riders dismounted and began to make camp, a strange, uneasy feeling settled over Veronyka. It seemed it had been a lifetime since she’d stood in this spot, thinking her dreams dashed for good. Then Sparrow had found her, and when Beryk turned up, a new path presented itself. She was closer to the cabin, to her old life with Val, than she had been in months. Yet it seemed longer given all the ways things had changed, not only in her life, but in her heart and mind as well.
But there was so much that remained unanswered, so much that only Val could tell her. A familiar stirring tickled the edges of her awareness, like a brush of wingbeats. Val’s doorway. A part of her was always there in Veronyka’s mind; Veronyka simply had to reach for it.
She clenched her jaw and forced thoughts of Val from her mind before shoring up the stones inside her mental walls. But no matter how sturdy she made them, she didn’t know how to board up a doorway. She’d tried stacking stones around it. She’d tried imagining mud and planks of sturdy wood…. But whatever she did, Veronyka knew the door was there, that there was no way of erasing it entirely. This was doubly hard when trying to block someone who had the gift themselves, someone who was always seeking any crack or sliver of vulnerability. Someone who had a door in her walls made just for them.
“Veronyka?” Tristan said, cutting into her thoughts. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped.
“Oh—hi,” she said, so focused on closing off her magic that she hadn’t heard his approach. But just like with Val, Tristan’s door was always there. When she gave him her full attention, uncertainty radiated out from him, an anxious humming through their bond—no matter how hard Veronyka tried to block it. He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck, ruffling his soft brown curls. Behind him the others had begun to make camp within the ruins of the outpost.
“We usually sleep together, two per tent,” he began, and Veronyka nodded, having seen the camping supplies before. “Since we’re only five, I usually take the last tent by myself….” He faltered, and Veronyka understood at once. She was now their sixth member, and there was only one available tent to sleep in—his.
Tristan leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. “I brought an extra tent,” he said, his brow furrowed, “but I know that looks like I’m giving you special treatment. But if we sleep in the tent together”—he cleared his throat—“that looks like special treatment too. I…” He trailed off, looking totally at a loss. It was almost funny—or