Sev scowled. “They won’t listen to me,” he said, gesturing toward Ott and Jotham. “And I hate to break it to you, but they’ll do a lot worse before we leave this mountain.” The empire hadn’t disguised a two-hundred-person regiment and snuck them into the Freelands to undergo treaty negotiations. Sev didn’t know exactly what they were here for, but whatever it was, it wasn’t about peace.
The bondservant gave him a look of open disgust. “And you’re okay with that, are you?”
Sev stared at him, at the challenge on the bondservant’s face. It wasn’t that Sev was unused to being challenged, but since he’d been a soldier, no bondservant had dared to even speak to him. Yet this one did so without hesitation or fear.
“It doesn’t matter what I’m okay with,” Sev said. “I have no choice.”
The bondservant’s lip curled, as if Sev were lower than the dung on his boots and not his superior. “There is always a choice.”
Lies.
Sev hadn’t chosen to be abandoned by his parents at age four or to live in the overcrowded war orphanages, where sickness and hunger were rampant and hiding his animage ability was the difference between freedom and bondage. When Sev had accidentally killed a soldier, he hadn’t chosen to take the soldier’s place, joining the very people he’d hidden from all his life. Choice was an illusion, a fork in the road in an adventure story. Choice wasn’t real life—at least, not without desperate consequences.
If Sev was going to make one choice in his life, it would be to run away from death and the people who dealt it, not toward it.
If the forest was silent before, now not even the wind rustled the leaves.
Then, like thunder out of a clear blue sky, Jotham kicked down the door.
The death of our father marked the end of a dynasty a thousand years in the making. But it was not the end of us.
- CHAPTER 4 -
VERONYKA
VERONYKA’S FINGERS WERE GRITTY with soil, the knees of her trousers damp as she knelt in the cool grass. With a sharp tug, she gripped the onion’s base and unearthed it by the roots. She tossed it into her basket, and as she reached for another, a bristle of awareness tickled the back of her neck.
She heard something—no, she sensed it, the sound reverberating through her magic, not her ears.
Unease tightening her chest, Veronyka whirled—and came face-to-face with Xephyra. Veronyka smiled, her heart soaring at the sight of her bondmate, despite the fact that Xephyra wasn’t supposed to be out in the open.
“I told you to stay in the cabin,” Veronyka chided, though the words were unnecessary given their bond. You could have been seen. Xephyra blinked at her, all innocence and curiosity, before snapping at a moth that flitted by.
Veronyka sighed. Even though they were in Pyra, supposedly out of the empire’s reach, it was still dangerous for an animage to be seen. And for a phoenix, it was life or death. They weren’t too far from the Foothills, where it was common for raiders to strike nearby settlements. If they were caught, Veronyka would be forced into bondage, and Xephyra would be executed.
At least Val wasn’t with them. She’d left first thing in the morning to “barter” at the Runnet market and replenish their stores, which for Val meant using shadow magic to convince unsuspecting sellers to give her their wares for free. Wanting to be useful, Veronyka had left soon after to gather bulbs of wild onion, garlic, and edible roots, and Xephyra was supposed to remain safely behind.
Since the moment Xephyra had taken her first flight two weeks ago, Val had forbidden her from ever leaving the cabin unless Val herself was present to keep a lookout, and even those opportunities were rare. Just as she’d turned her nose up at Veronyka’s other animal friends, Val’s distaste for Veronyka’s bondmate grew more obvious every day. Veronyka knew it was jealousy, that Val felt hurt and left out, but the more Veronyka tried to bridge the gap that had grown between them, the surlier Val became. For every affectionate croon or indulgent praise Veronyka gave the young phoenix, Val spat out a dozen rules and warnings about their dangerous magical relationship.
Veronyka mustn’t coddle Xephyra, or the bird would grow pathetic and complacent.
She mustn’t let Xephyra misbehave, for that showed weakness and Veronyka would lose control over her.
She must maintain the power dynamic: Veronyka was the master, Xephyra the servant. They were not family—not like her and Val—and Veronyka’s insistence upon treating Xephyra as a friend and an equal would be their undoing.
Veronyka tried to listen to Val, but she had been close with animals all her life, and she’d always gotten what she wanted or needed with a request—not a demand. Sometimes Val’s words seemed like the highest wisdom; at other times they sounded like convenient trumped-up excuses to put a wedge between Veronyka and her bondmate.
Whenever Veronyka openly disagreed with Val, she’d lash out. It had always been that way.
“It’s just your sister’s nature,” her grandmother used to say whenever Val would be cruel or controlling. “She’s like fire—she devours.”
“What am I like, Maiora?” Veronyka would ask.
“You’re like fire too—you light the way.”
Thinking of her grandmother made Veronyka smile, no matter how desperately she missed her—especially since Xephyra had been born. Veronyka was certain that her maiora’s advice would counterbalance Val’s and help make peace between them again. To Val, their differences were something to fix—a problem that required a solution. And of course, Veronyka was the one who should change, never Val. But their grandmother had a way of highlighting their similarities—like the fire analogy—helping them see that they were simply two sides of the same coin; opposites, but ever connected.
It was okay to be different from Val, and the sooner her sister accepted it, the better off they’d both be.
But Veronyka’s determination to stand up for herself wavered the closer she got to the cabin. Things had been so tense between them lately, and she didn’t want to have another unnecessary fight. Her patience with Val’s surliness was wearing thin. If Veronyka and Xephyra beat her sister back to the cabin, they could avoid a confrontation altogether.