“When it looked like they weren’t going to make it,” Sev continued, clearing his tight throat, “I delivered them instead. I never thought to ask where they came from, but if I had, Ilithya probably wouldn’t have told me. She loved her secrets.”
Veronyka huffed. “Secrets,” she muttered. She’d had enough of them to last a lifetime. Val, Ilithya, even Veronyka’s own identity was a tangled mess that felt impossible to unravel.
A full, wide grin split Sev’s face. It changed him, turned him from a beat-down soldier back into a boy. “That’s the thing with secrets,” he said, the words sounding like a bit of repeated wisdom and not something he’d come up with on his own. “They never really die. Just when one bursts into flames, another rises up to take its place.”
“Unless you break the cycle,” Veronyka whispered.
Sev tilted his head, considering her. “Or you ride them to the bitter end.”
Day 2, Eighth Moon, 170 AE
My dearest Avalkyra,
They say you plan to fly in force on the capital. Please, sweet sister, do not turn our home into a battleground.
We must speak again before this war makes corpses of us all.
I know I am no longer welcome in Pyra, and make no mistake, your army is not welcome here.
But you could come,? Avalkyra.? Alone.
I will wait atop Genya’s Tower every day after nightfall. Please come.
I have so much to say.
All my love, Pheronia
I was frightened at first, but I knew I must not fear the flames. I am the flames.
- CHAPTER 43 -
SEV
VERONYKA’S VISIT LEFT SEV in a dark mood. Darker mood. It hadn’t been sunshine and rainbows inside the infirmary, fighting through pain, ebbing in and out of consciousness, and listening to the wails of the dying and the unhappily living.
Sure, it had been nice to see her again, and it was good to know that she had survived this mess. It had also been good to talk about Trix, but with thoughts of her came thoughts of Kade. And no matter how he tried to see the positive, the fact of the matter was, he’d lost them both far too soon.
In the first few hours after Sev had arrived inside the infirmary, the terrible truth of all that had happened closing in, a bleak part of him hoped that Veronyka’s sister was here as well—the one who’d stolen his knife—and that she would make good on the promise she’d made outside her cabin. There was a moment, as he lay on his pallet half asleep, that he swore he did see her, but Sev had been tired and heavily drugged. There’d been no sign of her since, so it looked like Sev would just have to go on living.
The healer woman had said he was lucky the quarrel didn’t strike bone, and that chronic pain and limited movement were better than a shattered, useless limb.
The guard being treated next to him said he was lucky it was only his arm and not his chest, for surely a wound to the lungs or heart would have ended his life.
Lucky.
Sev couldn’t help but think Teyke was playing a cruel joke on him. So much luck, and yet he didn’t feel lucky at all.
They didn’t understand. It wasn’t the wound that made Sev slump on his pillows and stare absently into space. If anything, he saw it as a badge of honor. He had earned the pain and the scars; they were a part of him now and marked him as a survivor. No, it was the people he’d lost that left him feeling broken and hollow inside.
Trix was dead. Kade was surely dead as well. Sev had no idea what had happened to Junior, who was far too young to die, and the sheepherders Tilla and Corem. He hadn’t let himself think much about them until he’d arrived here, his message delivered and his task complete. Now, with every breath, a vast space of unfeeling emptiness opened wider and wider in his chest. Or was it so much feeling that Sev didn’t know what to do with it, or how to identify the sensation? He had gone from nothing to everything to nothing again, but things were different now. He was different.
He couldn’t go back to not caring and not seeing, back to the way his life had been before.
Sev wanted, needed, to keep fighting.
The question was, how?
He could take one of the eggs he’d carried, join the Riders, and leave all the deceptions behind. Become a heroic warrior, like his parents. But something about that didn’t quite sit right. In truth, he couldn’t picture it. He wasn’t a hero, much as he’d wanted to be. He wasn’t much of a warrior, either. Kade was those things, and it had cost him his life. Sev wasn’t even a strong animage.
He was something else. Trix had said Sev was just like her, and Trix was a spy.
Could Sev pick up where Trix had left off? Kade had called him her worthy successor, and Sev had scoffed at the idea. Maybe, years from now, he might be skilled and accomplished enough to agree. But they hadn’t had years, and now Trix was gone.
And yet even Sev’s small lies had been useful, hadn’t they? He thought of his exchange with Veronyka: Yes, he could deny the secrets and deceptions that had made up his life and break the cycle, or he could see them to the end—whatever end that might be.
His position as a soldier had been key in Trix’s plans, and Trix had spent much of her own life within the enemy’s walls. If Sev claimed that false identity, if he made the choice to pretend for a reason—not out of fear or cowardice—well, then it became something else entirely. Something powerful. A real choice, not some misfortune thrust upon him. A weapon to be wielded.
The war wasn’t over. The Riders had survived this attack, but he knew there would be other battles to fight. Their survival meant more to Sev now than just the continued existence of the order his parents had served, some scrap of his past he could cling to. No, their survival was intertwined now with his present, with Trix and Kade, and their very recent sacrifices. If the Riders fell, then everyone Sev had ever cared about would have died in vain. He couldn’t let that happen.
Instead of running from his past, Sev could finish what he’d started—what he, Trix, and Kade had failed to complete.
He could pick up the threads of the life he’d never wanted and continue playing Trix’s little game.
That afternoon Sev was escorted to the commander’s chambers. He had asked for the meeting, but he was nervous all the same.
He carried the satchel of phoenix eggs with him, grimacing as the weight pulled against his injured shoulder, but he refused to let anyone else touch his valuable burden. He felt possessive over it, especially considering all he’d lost to get it here and knowing how much it had meant to Kade. Also, judging by the stares and reactions it got, Sev had a feeling the eggs were his one and only bargaining chip, should he need it. He couldn’t imagine why the commander might turn down his offer, but it was better to be prepared.