Page 127 of Sunsplitter

At last, Antal sighed, heavy enough to fill the Void.

“We have a plan, then,” he agreed.

It was a clever plan. Too clever. Antal could brook no argument.

He’d brought Ixli and Syvr to Thomaskweld, this haven he’d carved out of isolation, this home unlike any they’d ever seen him in. He’d braced for judgment. Claws. To stand between them and Fionamara like hissing cats.

Instead, she’d made them coffee.

This vicious anomaly of a woman had laughed with Syvr’s taunting. She’d matched strategy with Ixli. Now, she stood over the table with crimson hair and dark eyes, commanding every gaze in the room. Offering herself to see their ends met.

The past few days had been a windstorm of emotion.

He’d been angry at her—then he’d poured his heart out into the comfort of her arms, confessing every fear. He’d wanted to keep her from the dangers of his old world—then she’d convinced him to invite more daeyari to their city. He’d heard Syvr laugh, seen Ixli lower her hackles, and for one naïve moment, he’d dared to think this might all work out.

Then Fionamara proposed her plan. This woman, destroying him with her bravery.

Syvr and Ixli bent over the map, debating which search zonesto prioritize, their scents of sea salt and metal achingly familiar in the shared space. Fionamara slipped to his side. She was warmth against the chill in his chest. A smell of embers and home as she pressed close, touching her shoulder to his.

“If you really don’t want me to go,” she whispered, “I won’t. We can find another way.”

She meant it. Her soft tone, the way she looked at him through veiled lashes. Antal nestled his nose into her hair.

“It’s a good plan,” he said. “I trust you.”

“And I trustyou.” Fionamara caught his tail in light fingers, a new weapon, enough to crumble him with the gentle pressure of her palm. “You’ll be at my side the moment I need you.”

He hoped to Void and Veshri that she was right.

A human courier slipped into the room. With wide eyes on the pack of daeyari, she delivered a letter to Kashvi then scampered back out. Kashvi inspected the missive. Frowned. She handed it across the table to Antal.

It was addressed to him, urgent, from the Thomaskweld hospital.

After this meeting, he didn’t have the stomach for any moreurgentdemands. But as he sliced open the seal and read…

Relief. Unexpected, and swift to the pit of his stomach.

Fionamara leaned against him to spy the note. She replied with a soft “oh,” posture relaxing to match his. The hospital had a meal for him. A voluntary donor, not half an hour old.

Death was nothing to celebrate. Antal’s relief came solemn, sorry for the loss. But this was their new system at work. A body willingly given, none of the burden of sending Fionamara to track one down, the guilt of pressuring a grieving family.

She nudged him. “Go on. While it’s fresh. We’re done here, anyway?”

And Antal would need his strength, if they were to face an aedari again.

They all would. He glanced at Ixli, Syvr, another pang in his chest. Daeyari typically shared their meals, one body enough to feed many. Antal had shared more dinners with these two than he could count.

Fionamara tracked his gaze.

“We agreed, no more pushing them away?” she said. “It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

Syvr raised their mug for a toast. “We have a plan, then! We’ll have that aedari by the pins of its energy feathers. And Antal finally invited us to visit? A good day all around.”

Ixli clinked mugs but didn’t drink. “Don’t scare him off, Syvr, or we won’t see him again for another five decades.” For once not an insult, but a joke. Even Antal added his quiet laugh to the others.

“The visit was long overdue,” he said. “I appreciate you journeying all the way here. And… I could offer dinner, before you leave?”

It didn’t hurt to ask. Even if they refused. Even if they both looked at Antal with the same derision his parents had when they’d learned he’d been eating corpses, at least he’d tried—