With a wave of anticipation, the phoenixes took flight, though they were reminded of their chains soon enough. They tested their range once or twice, snapping and tugging at the metal leashes, before settling into the rhythm of flight. The chains were at least a hundred feet long and set on a rotating tether, which stopped them from getting tied into knots as they circled and banked around one another.
Veronyka and Ersken watched from a balcony next to the enclosure. The sky was pale blue, and the view of the gorge below was breathtaking. Jagged peaks faded into the distance in every direction, while rich greenery, growing brighter daily with the coming summer, coated the landscape.
Veronyka would miss this place. It felt more like a home than any of the houses, apartments, and cabins she and Val had lived in since they’d left their maiora behind. Even when she’d lived with her grandmother, Veronyka had been friendless and powerless on the unsafe Narrows streets. She wanted to belong here, but maybe she didn’t. Couldn’t. Maybe she’d just have to let it go.
Xephyra only flew two or three circles before she looped back around, drawn to Veronyka’s presence. Ersken staggered back as the phoenix approached, but she landed on the rock just below them. Veronyka crouched and reached out a hand, wary of the long drop.
“That one’s taken a likin’ to you, eh?” he said, frowning slightly. Unless bonded, phoenixes never took a liking to anybody. Veronyka grimaced, knowing they were in danger of revealing themselves and yet unable to turn Xephyra away. She allowed herself to pat her bondmate once before mentally encouraging her to enjoy the exercise while she could.
“She’s bonded before, I’d wager,” Ersken said as Xephyra flew off in a gust of warm air. Veronyka glanced at him warily, yet she didn’t sense any suspicion there, only a mild observation from a man who’d spent too much time with captive phoenixes. Ersken had a kindly face, and he wasn’t the nasty jailer she’d imagined. He was past middle age, barrel-chested and brown-skinned, with his graying braids pulled into a horse’s tail behind his head. His wide, owlish eyes lightened with pleasure as he watched the beautiful birds soar in the air above them, and he’d shown them a gentle hand when fastening their chains.
Veronyka hadn’t met a lot of animages—or Riders—in their thirties and forties, and it just occurred to her why that might be: Most of them had probably been killed in the war or put into bondage for their involvement with it afterward. It seemed that Pyrmont was littered with parentless children and grizzled old folks, and hardly anybody in between.
“It’s the bonded ones who’re more trusting of humans,” Ersken continued, rubbing a hand against the stubble of his chin. “Poor thing. Probably lookin’ for her bondmate and then she wound up here. Most of them will go to ash if they don’t find their Riders, though there’s a rare few that’ll search forever.”
“Go to ash?” Veronyka asked.
“Y’know . . . die. It’s a hard life for a phoenix, if they survive their bondmate. It’s a hard life for an animage, as well,” he added, and Veronyka silently agreed. He didn’t have any feathers or obsidian is his hair, so Veronyka didn’t think he’d ever been a Rider—still, he was an animage, and it wasn’t hard to imagine how the death of a bondmate could devastate a person.
“There were plenty of Rider-less phoenixes after the war, but most chose death or rebirth. Maybe some flew home, to Aura.”
Val had always spoken of the Golden City with awe and reverence, as if it were as ancient and mysterious as the stars above. While the rest of Pyrmont remained inhabited, none had lived in Aura since the Riders abandoned it almost two hundred years ago. Most, like their maiora, thought the city was cursed and haunted by ghosts, and even local Pyraeans were afraid to climb to the mountain’s highest peak.
Not Veronyka, though. Her heart thrilled at the idea of flying there herself some day, soaring among the ruins and relics of another age.
“Has the commander ever sent anyone to Aura to check?” she asked. Tristan had mentioned they’d gone looking, but she wondered just how far those searches went. “For phoenixes, or for more eggs?”
Some people believed there were hundreds—maybe even thousands—of eggs in the old capital, laid over centuries and never retrieved. Maybe the Rider-less phoenixes were there right now, hatching their young and living in peaceful seclusion. Veronyka felt guilty for wanting to disrupt them, but if there were truly caches of phoenix eggs there, ready for the taking . . . it could change everything.
Ersken made a disdainful noise in the back of his throat. “Oh, he did—or so he says—but his patrol sure came back in a hurry. Too cloudy, nowhere safe to land, strange sounds, and ‘the phoenixes didn’t like it’—more like they didn’t like it, and the phoenixes acted oddly because it called to them in strange, long-forgotten ways. But he’s valley-born,” he added conspiratorially, as if this explained all the commander’s shortcomings. Maybe it did. Veronyka didn’t want to admit that she was valley-born too, despite her Pyraean looks.
“More often than not, I find myself thinkin’ of the phoenixes below, not above,” Ersken said gravely. When Veronyka frowned at him, he continued. “Down in the valley. After the war, they usually beheaded the Riders’ mounts so they couldn’t be reborn. But other times they’d put the Rider in bondage and keep their phoenix locked up to guarantee good behavior. Some say there’s dozens of phoenixes being held prisoner by the empire, deep underground. Even if they wanted to ignite and go supernova, they’d be reborn inside their cells.”
A wave of cold crept over Veronyka, despite the warm breeze. Separating bondmates sounded like the worst kind of punishment imaginable. Worse than losing your bondmate to death, as Veronyka had already done. At least in death, one of you was at peace, even if the other had to go on living without them.
The thought made her feel desperately lonely, and she was surprised to realize it was a familiar sensation. The truth was, she’d gotten used to that feeling. Even now that Xephyra was back in her life, Veronyka was still trying to solve her problems on her own.
But Veronyka wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
The future she was fretting over would be their future, and Xephyra had a right to weigh in on it too. For better or worse, they’d make this decision together.
Since Queen Nefyra, it has been tradition for the rulers of Pyra—and eventually the Golden Empire—to fashion a new crown for their coronation.