“Not like yours,” Tristan said forcefully.
A pleased smile spread across Veronyka’s face, despite her having a hard time actually believing his words. Val’s praise had always been scant, and usually bracketed on both sides with snide jabs and insults. Her maiora was kind and patient, but their time together had been so limited. Val had been the one to teach her the most about magic.
Veronyka’s first recollection of having magic involved Val. She and her grandmother had been inside their home when a girl kicked in the front door. It was strange, and Veronyka must have been very young, because in her memory, the girl had been a wild and terrifying stranger. It had been Val, of course, her dark eyes peeking through the strands of her matted, so-dirty-it-looked-brown hair. In one hand she’d held a bit of scrap metal, sharp and wicked-looking. In the other, a slithering, writhing snake.
Her maiora had lurched to her feet when Val burst in, but then she stood frozen, face white as plaster as she stared at the girl. Next thing Veronyka remembered, Val was bending down and releasing the snake. Veronyka wasn’t afraid, exactly—but she had definitely been uneasy. When the snake drew close, though, something shifted, and Veronyka felt calm, as if the serpent were an old friend. She bent down, running her fingers along its strange, slippery hide, and after the two became acquainted with each other, it was a simple thing to wrap her small hands around its undulating body and hold it up for closer inspection. It lunged once for her face—she could remember her maiora making a fearful sound—but Veronyka chastised the snake for its bad manners, and that was the end of it. The entire thing had seemed like some sort of test. . . . Maybe Val didn’t know if Veronyka had any magic at all and wanted to be sure. She didn’t like to think what would have happened if she hadn’t. Val always acted as if Veronyka were a burden, even though she had the same magical powers as Val. If she’d been nonmagical, Veronyka knew Val would have made her feel completely and utterly worthless.
She stared off into the distance, wondering where Val was at that moment. Had she left the hunter’s cabin? Or had she remained stubbornly behind? The thought that Val might have moved on, that Veronyka would have no idea where to look for her, left a hollow ache in her stomach, even as her brain told her that she shouldn’t care.
“You’re the strongest animage I’ve ever seen,” Tristan continued, drawing Veronyka to the present again. He rubbed the back of his neck, oddly shamefaced. “What you did with Wind that day . . . I was already connected to him, and you just took over. I would have been impressed if I weren’t so embarrassed.”
Veronyka grinned. “Yeah, but look at what you did during the commander’s inspection today. That was far more difficult.”
“But you’re the one who set that up and taught me how to properly control the animals in the first place. If you hadn’t explained about trust and guiding rather than controlling, I couldn’t have done it.”
Veronyka beamed. His respect meant so much to her. It meant everything.
“And that other thing you taught me,” he continued, furrowing his brow and pointing up at his head, “about the mental walls? It, well . . . I’ve never been able to face Rex’s fire without seizing up in panic. But when I do the mental safe house . . . it’s like the fear is happening to a different part of my brain, like it’s nothing but a memory. It’s amazing.”
Maybe she was staring at him with too much feeling, too much intensity, because Tristan ran a hand through his hair and looked away. “So, what I’m trying to say is: Trust your magic, all right?”
“Okay,” Veronyka said, accepting his advice. “I’ll still need to learn this though,” she added.
“And you will. This is your first try, and you’re tired,” Tristan said bracingly. “It’s also hard in the failing light. I wish you could have a go in the training yard. This target’s a bit high—it’s meant for archers on horseback—and the markings are worn out. . . .” He trailed off, staring at the target with a frown.
“What?” she asked after a silent moment.
“Got any plans tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” Veronyka asked blankly. “I’ll be in the stables.”
“No you won’t. Tomorrow is Azurec’s Day,” he said.
Veronyka blinked. She’d lost track of time since she’d been at the Eyrie. Azurec’s Day—also known as the summer solstice, the day with the most sunlight of the year—was always a big festival day in the empire. It was the one time a year when Val would let them walk the streets together, watching the street performers and maybe even buying sweet cakes from a vendor. The largest celebrations were always in Aura Nova. Before the Blood War, the king and queen would attend, tossing handfuls of coins onto the streets, and at night their phoenixes would put on a fiery display in the sky.
“Oh, right,” she said, remembering that there was traditionally no work on festival days. “What are you suggesting?”
“The training yard will be empty. We can spend the whole day there.”
Veronyka’s heart leapt at the prospect, but it felt suspiciously like charity. “You don’t want to spend the day with your friends . . . the other apprentices?” she asked.
He gave her a half shrug. “We see enough of each other, and we still have the feast.”
Veronyka nodded, and they packed up their things.
“And you’re a friend, Nyk,” he added, leading the way back up to the village.
“I am?” she asked, a strange bubble expanding in her throat. Friendship had always been a loaded term for Veronyka, a thing just out of reach. She’d tried once or twice in her life, running the cobblestones with the other barefooted kids on their winding Narrows’ street, or sharing whatever meager food she had with some of the beggar kids in the Forgotten District, the neighborhood that housed the city’s orphanages. No matter who it was, Val would shut it down at once, chasing the other children away or swatting the food from the cowering street rats’ outstretched fingers.
“They’re nothing but filthy mongrels,” she’d say. Or, “Feed them once, and they’ll be following you forever.”
Veronyka would look down at her own tattered rags and wonder how they were any different. She’d wonder what was so wrong with feeding them more than once.
Veronyka had known she and Tristan were more than just training partners, but they had gone from fighting to laughing to awkward moments so quickly that she could hardly keep up. Was that friendship? All she’d ever had was her sister, but now that Xephyra—and Tristan—had come into her life, Veronyka realized that Val had never really been enough. There was a difference between friendship and family, between the people you chose to surround yourself with and the people you were stuck with, good or bad.