THE PROMISE OF FINDING another egg was all that sustained Veronyka during the long, dark walk. She tried not to think of Xephyra, but every now and then her body would wilt, folding in on itself, and a gasp of sorrow would work its way out of her throat. There was a hollowness, a gaping chasm inside her, and it seemed only to grow as the night wore on. The place where Xephyra had been felt oddly numb, and Veronyka’s mind was filled with terrible, ringing silence. Her bondmate had become a part of the way she lived and experienced the world, and now she felt blind, cut off, and vulnerable. She knew she should probably call an owl or night creature to help guide her, but she couldn’t muster the strength or the magic.
The idea of starting over, of seeking a new bondmate when her first had only just died, made Veronyka’s stomach churn. But it was all she had, the one thing in her life she could cling to. Without it Veronyka feared she would lie down in a ditch and never get up.
But then she’d think of her maiora’s words and keep on moving.
Where there is will, there is possibility.
Veronyka wanted—needed—to be a Phoenix Rider, but not a Rider on her own, isolated and shut away, as Val would have had her. She would be a Rider in a flock, one of dozens, maybe even hundreds, soaring through the sky on flaming wings. Together they would make right the wrongs that had plagued their people since the war. She couldn’t undo what had happened to her maiora and countless others, but she could be a part of the change that made the world safe for them once more.
Veronyka crossed the bridge into Vayle just before dawn, her legs aching and her throat dry. Villagers were out and about already, fishermen readying nets and boats for a day on the water, while lights glimmered inside the bakery.
Though Veronyka longed for sleep and the sweet oblivion it would provide, she couldn’t waste her head start. Eventually Val would realize where she had gone and come after her. Veronyka kept looking over her shoulder, expecting to see Val burst from the bushes to drag her home or to berate her for her foolishness. The shadows moved, the trees whispered, but there was no sign of her sister.
Vayle grew gradually brighter as Veronyka wandered its quiet streets, individual buildings distinguishing themselves with every step she took. Outposts were always on the highest ground available, and Vayle was a village perched atop stony bluffs and rocky hills, each street stacked above the other. The sound of the river helped Veronyka keep her sense of direction through the winding alleys, and by the time she reached the high street, she could actually see the water below, rushing underneath the arching bridge and disappearing down the mountainside.
Veronyka looked around as she caught her breath after the steady climb. She had a decent view of the surrounding landscape, but of course, most of Pyrmont was rock or tree and not much else. Was she imagining it, or could she see the clearing where the cabin was, just barely out of sight?
Veronyka turned resolutely around. She didn’t need to look back and down. She needed to look forward—and up. Ahead of her was a row of fine houses, larger than most village cottages, their window boxes bursting with flowers and their shutters coated with fresh paint. Everything looked blue-gray in the predawn, but Veronyka knew the houses would glow in bright pastel shades in the daylight. Behind the houses was a copse of trees rising higher than all the land around it. Veronyka squinted, looking for a stone tower, but the forest was dense.
The sun was breaking free of the jagged mountain skyline by the time Veronyka crested the hill, practically dragging her leaden legs. Dusty white beams of light sliced the countryside, and she came to a stop in front of Malka’s outpost.
Or at least what remained of it.
There was nothing left but a circle of crumbling stones marking the base of the once-tower, with tall shoots of grass and skinny saplings poking up between the ruins. Part of a spiral staircase lay on its side, while other bits of wall or broken statuary dotted the ground.
“No,” Veronyka whispered, her voice faint with exhaustion. “No.”
She fell to her knees and squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to think. This wasn’t destruction from war or raiders—no major battles were fought this high up Pyrmont, and no bandits or thieves had the machinery required to bring down stone buildings. This must have been deliberately dismantled for materials or because the crumbling tower was no longer safe. Eggs were usually hidden at the highest point of the structure, preferably somewhere reachable only by phoenix. This meant any eggs that might have been here were long gone.
Veronyka searched anyway.
She rolled heavy stones and dug through dirt. She hacked at mortar and scraped fingernails into every crack and crevice.
Despair welled up inside her, crowding her throat. She didn’t remember when she’d started crying, but soon she was so blinded by tears that she was forced to stop her search and sag against a piece of cold granite wall.
She couldn’t stand it, this gnawing ache. It wasn’t just Xephyra that was missing. It was the part of Veronyka that had bonded with the phoenix, the part she’d willingly given—gone forever.
Veronyka embraced the emptiness, let it surround and consume her. The exhaustion she’d been fighting off since she’d left the cabin washed over her, and she slumped down onto the grass.
She was asleep before her head hit the ground.
When Veronyka woke, the late-afternoon sunlight was hot against her cheeks—and there was a cool obsidian blade pressed against her neck.
She fought the instinct to jerk away and blinked furiously against the blazing sun, her gaze traveling along the rough shaft of a spear and coming to rest on a young girl. Veronyka relaxed slightly—she’d expected it to be Val—until the girl slid the flat edge of the weapon along her jawline, expertly applying pressure that forced Veronyka up off her back and onto her hands and knees.
“What you doin’?” the girl asked. Her voice was surprisingly husky, yet her tone was blunt with the kind of self-assuredness that comes only with youth.
“Sleeping,” Veronyka said, unable to keep her irritation from leaking through.
The girl cocked her head, not looking directly at Veronyka, but instead focused somewhere in the middle distance. “In the toilet?”
Veronyka reared back, horrified. Her gaze flicked around, but there were only indistinct lumps of stone and nothing to suggest that this particular patch of grass was used as a latrine.