Val’s voice was oddly hushed as she replied. “Maybe she is afraid. Maybe the world has changed too much.” Seeing Veronyka’s confused expression, she cleared her throat and shrugged. “Or perhaps she’s not here at all. It’s the principle. One does not cage or breed a phoenix, any more than one would cage or breed a queen.”
Distantly the bell rang for the feast, evening slowly descending around them like an ink stain on paper.
Crowds of people headed in their direction from outside the village, laughing and singing as they made their way through the growing twilight toward the dining hall.
“Why do you stay here, xe Nyka?” Val asked, when the last villagers disappeared around the corner. She was fighting to keep the disgust and disappointment from her voice—and failing. “You’ve seen for yourself how they treat females. You will get breasts eventually,” she said unkindly, eyeing Veronyka’s bound chest, which was relatively flat with or without the extra fabric. “You can’t be Nyk forever, and then what? You think they will accept you and release the phoenixes from their cages? You think they will give you—a girl and a liar—one of their precious eggs? Even you can’t be so foolish as that.”
Veronyka didn’t answer, but her eyes flicked back to the stronghold, where Tristan was no doubt seated with everyone else, enjoying food, drink, and entertainment.
Val understood at once. “You think he will save you? He’s just an apprentice.”
“He’s the commander’s son and practically a patrol leader already. He’ll be the one running this place one day, and he said he’ll do whatever he can to help me be a Rider.”
“But he’s promised to help Nyk, the poor, helpless stableboy, not Veronyka—the girl who has lied to him from the start.”
Veronyka’s chest felt tight. “I’m not lying about who I am,” she said, even as she knew it wasn’t technically true. She wasn’t faking her personality, but then again, she also wasn’t showing Tristan her whole self—gender aside. He didn’t know she was a shadowmage, after all, or that she’d already had—and lost—a bondmate. “Besides, he’s not like the commander. He hates the breeding cages and the fact that they don’t let girls and poor kids become Riders. He’s different.”
“Are you so blinded by your feelings for him that you can’t see how ridiculous this is? He’ll inherit from the commander in ten or fifteen years—if you’re lucky. Are you willing to wait that long? And just because he dislikes a thing doesn’t mean he can change it. He’ll still have to answer to the other Riders—who will have loyalties and agendas of their own. These aren’t our people.”
“Nobody is, according to you,” Veronyka snapped. “You hate the empire, and now you hate Riders, too. . . . Who are our people, Val?”
“You’re my people, Veronyka, and I am yours.”
The words echoed between them. Veronyka didn’t know what to say. Val was all she had, her only family. And before she’d come here, Val was the only person in the world who would have cared—or noticed—if she’d lived or died.
Veronyka hoped that now there might be at least one more.
“I have a gift for you,” Val said.
Veronyka quailed at the thought. The last gift Val had given her had been a phoenix egg.
“I don’t want it,” Veronyka said, taking a step back from her. Whatever it was, Veronyka would not, could not take it. Even if Val had found another pair of eggs, did she really want a repeat of what had happened last time? She didn’t think she could survive it.
“Just come with me, Veronyka,” Val said confidently, cajolingly, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. All she had to do was follow—but Veronyka was done being led around by her sister.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m happy here. I want to stay.”
“I’m asking you—please,” Val said, lips pursed, as if the word were bitter on her tongue. Then her tone changed, becoming breathless, almost panicky. “It must be now, Veronyka—we don’t have time to waste.”
“No,” Veronyka said, frowning at the urgency in her sister’s voice.
The sound of music burst suddenly from the stronghold, rising above the din and floating into the air to mix with the muffled conversations and laughter that filled the night.
“You would stay here, putting your faith in these men who would see you humbled and subjugated, rather than leave with me? Why?”
“You know why,” Veronyka said, her voice shaking with barely controlled fury. How dare Val act sad and hurt when Veronyka was the victim here? “I did have faith in you—and you betrayed it.”
“But we could become Riders on our own terms—not theirs,” Val said, her eyes bright and glittering. “No rules, no waiting. Just you and me.”
“There would be rules, Val—your rules. And even if we succeeded, then what? Live on the outskirts forever? Shun other Riders because they aren’t us? We’ve been doing that all our lives, and I hate it. I want to be a part of something, Val. . . . I want to be a part of the Riders, not a Rider all on my own.”
“You wouldn’t be alone,” Val said quietly. “You’d have me.” Her hard features had gone soft, her fiery voice hesitant. Vulnerable.
Her pretense at frailty, at weakness, only made Veronyka angrier. “We tried that, remember?” Veronyka asked in a strangled voice. “We tried to go it alone, and look what happened! You gave me what I wanted only to tear it away from me again just to prove that you could. Just to be in control. So tell me again, why did you come here? Are you going to kill Tristan or the commander? Are you here to take it all away again?”
“I came here to give you—”
“I don’t want it—I don’t want anything from you!”
Veronyka turned away and ran for the stronghold. She couldn’t stand being around her sister any longer. Her mind was racing, and her heart was a skittering, lurching thing inside her chest. She needed to get away from Val, away from everything.
When she stepped through the stronghold gates, Veronyka was shocked to see Tristan standing there, just outside the double doors to the entrance hall, as if he was waiting for her.
“Nyk,” he began, unhitching himself from the wall and stepping toward her. Then, seeing the look on her face, he paused. “What’s wrong?”
Before Veronyka could answer, scraping footsteps sounded behind her, and she knew that Val had followed. Tristan’s eyes narrowed at her sister, and there was something hard and protective in his expression. Veronyka longed to give in to it, to trust in someone else’s care and not fear it, as she had to with Val.
“Are you coming to the feast?” Tristan asked, looking between them as he came to stand next to Veronyka.
Val started talking, but Veronyka didn’t hear it. The world around her went silent as she was hit with a powerful wave of emotion—emotion that was not her own. She staggered, trying to sort through her own feelings and those assaulting her.