Maybe shadow magic wasn’t a dark temptation; maybe it could it be both good and bad, just like people.
Still, Veronyka knew she had to be careful. She had already used her magic against Tristan once before, teasing him about calling Wind “xe xie,” just to prove a point. That had been small and relatively harmless, but that didn’t make it right. Shadow magic could be a slippery slope. First Veronyka only wanted to understand Tristan, and then she went looking for things, and after that? How far a stretch could it really be to go from stealing thoughts and emotions to implanting some of your own? Every time they argued, would she plumb ever deeper, seeking newer and better ways to hurt him?
Like Val?
No, Veronyka thought firmly. I am not like her.
As the link between them opened, Veronyka saw just how tumultuous his emotions truly were. His mind—like any she’d ever connected with, human or animal—had a distinctive texture or feeling to it. Val was smoke and iron. Xephyra was bright, pure sunlight. Tristan was earthy and fresh—like dewy grass and the patter of warm summer rain. Usually. Right now his mind felt more like a thundercloud, swirling and crackling and rolling overhead.
“I’m not ready for all this,” he continued, breathing heavily. “None of the apprentices have real combat experience, and Elliot . . . I don’t know what to do with him. I can’t bear the thought that all these people are counting on me, looking at me to lead. If I can protect at least one friend, if I can protect you, I should do that. I should want to do that, because it would be the right thing. But I don’t want to—don’t think I can—do this alone. I want you there next to me. I trust you more than anyone, but I promised, and—”
“Promised?” Veronyka repeated sharply, that one word piercing the bubble of joy that had been swelling inside her chest. “Promised who?”
Val stepped out of the shadows.
Though she was nearer to Veronyka than Tristan, all her attention was focused on him. Veronyka was almost bowled over by the wave of shadow magic her sister was emanating, funneling it like a gale that practically blasted Tristan off his feet. He slammed into the wall behind him, his face slack as Val bore down on him, her smoldering shadow magic scent heavy in Veronyka’s nostrils.
Veronyka, who remained connected to Tristan after opening herself to him moments ago, heard what Val forced into his mind.
Stop. Don’t speak. Don’t think. You remember nothing. You—
“Val, enough!” Veronyka shouted, flinging her roughly aside. Val seemed to lose her focus and break the connection, and the air between them lost the crackling energy that had filled it. The terrible sound of her sister’s voice was ripped from her mind, and from Tristan’s as well.
Veronyka reinforced her barriers, though she could do nothing to protect Tristan.
He shook his head, blinking several times as he tried to understand what had just happened. While Veronyka understood the voice inside his mind to be Val’s, she wasn’t sure how someone without shadow magic experienced its use. To him, it might have been an incoherent rumble, a sudden, unconscious desire, or maybe the sensation that his own thoughts were spiraling out of control.
“Tristan, what promise?” Veronyka pressed, afraid of what Val might have done to his mind and his memory.
“You can’t trust a word he says,” Val began, but Veronyka cut her off.
“No. I can’t trust you,” she spat. “Tristan, please.”
He cast a wary look at Val before facing Veronyka. He seemed to have come back to himself, though he plainly struggled to understand everything that was going on. “Don’t be angry, Nyk. Your sister, she was worried about you, that’s all. Didn’t want you involved in the fighting unless you absolutely had to be. So I promised I’d keep you off the wall and out of danger.”
His voice was pleading, but Veronyka didn’t have an ounce of feeling to spare for him. She whirled on her sister.
Val didn’t want her safe—she wanted her excluded, and most of all, she wanted her to feel completely, utterly alone.
Suddenly, everything came together in Veronyka’s mind. This is what I’ve been waiting for. . . .
Val had known the soldiers were coming.
It was a horrifying thought, but Veronyka felt its truth immediately. Hadn’t Val arrived at the Eyrie mere days before them? There’s no way a shadowmage as accomplished as Val could fail to notice hundreds of soldiers climbing the mountain nearby. Veronyka always kept her magic close, guarded, and internal, but Val stretched her magic wide like a net. This was why she’d wanted Veronyka to leave right away, why she’d been so insistent. She didn’t warn the Riders so they could prepare; she kept the information to herself, gambling countless lives so she could have Veronyka back under her control.
Since she’d arrived, Val had worked hard to sow fear and doubt into Veronyka’s heart. She’d insulted the Riders, questioning their motives and their loyalties, and criticized Veronyka for serving them. When Xephyra appeared and was put into the breeding cages, Val was even closer to her goal. Going after Tristan, asking him not to let Veronyka fight, was the final move to strip her sister of everything that made her happy. All this heartache, all this agony, so that when this moment came, Veronyka would have nothing to hold on to.
“Did you know she had come back?” Veronyka asked her sister. It was the one thing she hadn’t yet figured out, the last question that needed answering. She’d tried to ask before, but had let Val get by with deflections and vague answers. Not this time.
Val seemed surprised by the change in subject, but she lifted her chin, eyes blazing. “Yes.”
“And you led her here . . . to me?” Veronyka’s tone was flat, emotionless.
“Yes.”
“How?” Veronyka asked, a slow, steady heat climbing up her throat.
Val shrugged, the gesture so careless, so dismissive, that Veronyka had to clench her jaw to stop from breathing fire.
“You’re impatient, Nyka, always have been. Resurrections are not for the faint of heart. It was a full week before she made her return. The phoenix sought you out, but I was the one who was there. It was no small thing, to keep her under my control, but I managed it. She followed you, and I followed her. Now here we are.”
Veronyka’s entire body was burning now, the scorching flames devouring her insides, begging for release. Val had called her “Nyka” right in front of Tristan, but it seemed almost trivial in the face of everything else.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Veronyka demanded.
“I tried,” Val bit out. “I told you I’d brought you a gift. But you wanted nothing to do with me, remember? So I called her here instead.”
Veronyka finished the sentence in her head: to try to get you kicked out, only they stuck Xephyra in a cage instead.