Everywhere she looked there were monuments to phoenixes and feathers and fire, and everything was shot through with gold. The grandeur put even Marble Row and the gods’ plaza in Aura Nova to shame, and yet… there was sadness among the grandeur. Despair.
Everything was still, and empty, and quiet. Nothing soft and permeable remained. No rippling banners with the Ashfire sigil or tallow candles burning low in open windows. There were no shouts or laughter, no crackle of a cook fire. Even the scent of life was missing—baking bread or fresh Fire Blossoms. Nothing grew in this rocky landscape, and all the window boxes and public gardens were barren.
It was an empty city, a mausoleum.
It was a graveyard.
Avalkyra had searched everywhere for the storied Ashfire crowns—said to grace the dead queens’ memorial stones—but they refused to reveal themselves to her. Somehow, it felt personal, as if her ancestors were hiding not only their earthly relics but their secrets as well. Surely in a millennium, one of them had struggled with her animal magic and her place in the world?
At the center of the ruins was the Everlasting Flame—or rather, the cold, empty pit that was all that remained of it—the truest monument to death Avalkyra had ever seen. She walked there now, drawn to it in a way she could not explain. Perhaps it was the devastation of it, the sense of something dead and destroyed but still there, despite everything. Something that refused to fade away completely.
It, too, was surrounded by archways, larger and grander than the others.
At first she’d thought they were all the same, replicated over and over again from some ancient mold. But now that she’d walked the ruins for several weeks, she was beginning to note distinct, deliberate differences. The phoenix above her now had a vast wingspan, while she’d seen others that were smaller in size. The height of the crests, the length of their feathers… insignificant details, maybe, but Avalkyra began to suspect these archways were dedicated to specific phoenixes who had come and gone. Her theory was proven correct when she found an archway outside the temple with its inscription intact:
Here flew Xauriel, bondmate of Friya. May her eternal flame burn bright.
There were thirteen archways that surrounded the Everlasting Flame, and Avalkyra was certain they were meant to commemorate the First Riders and their mounts. Ignix. Cirix. Roxana. There should have been fourteen, but there was an open space that told her one had likely collapsed. Their inscriptions were gone, smoothed away from years of wind and sun and rain. It even snowed sometimes, up here at Pyrmont’s summit. And these pillars were a thousand years old.
Avalkyra hated them. She hated the ancient Riders and their loyal mounts, hated the phoenixes carved on every available surface. Aura was a wasteland of crumbling temples, towering sculptures, and wide, soaring walkways—and all of it was marred with a constant reminder of what she did not have. What she could never have again, it seemed.
She’d had a phoenix, once: Nyx. Fierce and reliable. Avalkyra didn’t romanticize the bond like Veronyka did—Nyx had been a useful ally. A means to an end. But she’d been strong and steadfast. And yes, loyal. Until the end.
But the end hadn’t been the end, had it? And while Avalkyra had clung desperately to life, Nyx had left her all alone.
At times like these, Avalkyra missed Veronyka and her endless hope. Or was it Pheronia’s company she craved? Sometimes it was hard to tell. The two were so similar.
And yet… she had lost Pheronia, even before she’d died. Avalkyra had pushed her sister too far when she murdered Pheronia’s scheming mother, and Pheronia had finally severed contact. Letters unanswered. Treaties unsigned. She’d tried to backtrack, to mend their fractured relationship—because of Veronyka, Avalkyra now knew, though she hadn’t at the time—but it had been too late. In some ways, Veronyka was the peacemaker. The thread that bound Pheronia and Avalkyra together even still. If Pheronia hadn’t been pregnant… if there hadn’t been a baby… they both would have died in that war, and there would be no Ashfires left in the world.
Veronyka the Peacemaker, like Queen Elysia herself.
Avalkyra snorted.
She hadn’t lost Veronyka yet. Avalkyra had given the girl her space, but with shadow magic between them, separation was an illusion. No distance was too great. Avalkyra would make Veronyka hers again.
Avalkyra had had time to think about it—too much time—and decided that she’d finally figured out the mistake she’d made. She had always assumed Pheronia understood what needed to be done, that she was a vital part of the future Avalkyra saw for herself—for them both. Yet Avalkyra had never come out and asked her sister. She’d never said the words, assuming the words didn’t need to be said. But maybe they did.
You and I are meant to rule together. Join me, sister. The world is ours.
After years of strife and separation, when they’d come face-to-face again, it had been too late. Those dreams had been dashed.
But this time… Veronyka was different. Things were different.
She was a shadowmage, after all, and a Phoenix Rider. She was more than Pheronia could have ever been, and together they would be truly unstoppable.
But that same magic that made Veronyka strong had also convinced Avalkyra that the words didn’t need to be spoken—that they understood each other because of their bond. And so she’d made the same mistake she’d made with Pheronia. Despite all the ways Veronyka was superior to Pheronia, she hadn’t been raised with the knowledge of who and what she was. She didn’t understand that they were chosen, destined to rule.
She still didn’t know.
It had been too dangerous to risk when she was young, her shadow magic wild and unpredictable. And now? Avalkyra had given Veronyka pieces of what she needed, but not the whole picture. Until she had a plan of her own, revealing to Veronyka her true heritage would only complicate matters.
Avalkyra thought she’d had a plan—hatch a phoenix, raise it until it was big enough to fly, then start gathering her allies and make her move on the capital. This had been her plan for years. For a lifetime. And it had failed repeatedly, spectacularly, over and over again.
Avalkyra needed a new plan, but no matter how she looked at it, she needed a phoenix. What kind of Ashfire queen would she be without one? She’d be like poor, powerless Pheronia.
No, Avalkyra needed a phoenix to ride into battle, a fiery beacon to light the night and warn the empire of her second coming. Without that, she’d be a shadow of her former self. A pale comparison.
Maybe she already was.
While her shadow magic was as strong as ever, honed over two lifetimes, her animal magic felt weakened. Whisper thin. Whatever she’d gained in shadows, she’d lost in her desperate bid for new life. She could not give these phoenixes what they sought. No matter how much life she gave them, no matter the heaps of bones and white-hot pyres, they refused to come forward.
Then, as if summoned there by thought alone, the endless, haunted silence was punctuated by a distant, steady pump.
Wingbeats.
For a wild moment Avalkyra thought it was Nyx—a stupid, foolish thought. Nyx had not come back. The bond endured—Veronyka and her phoenix had proven that. If Nyx were alive, Avalkyra would feel it.
No, this phoenix was larger than Nyx. Older. A female, her long purplish feathers marked her as a centennial—possibly many times over, so dark was her plumage—and her beak was narrower, her neck longer. As for the crown atop her head… well, it put Avalkyra’s crown of feathers to shame.