Page 134 of Sunsplitter
“Would you care for a walk?” he offered.
“Oh, no.” A soft reply, apologetic. “I have work to get back to. A rather intricate floral arrangement for an anniversary party. I just wanted to see you, and…” Tentative, she brushed her knuckles to his cheek. “Be careful?”
It wasn’t a full reconciliation. But it didn’t hurt. Her words,her touch, felt… fine. For now, that was enough. Another dawn, slower to rise.
Yme left. Antal tracked Syvr down in the back suite and heckled them into proper clothes, emerging just as Ixli appeared in the main room—returned, it would seem, already fully dressed in silviamesh.
“We’re leaving?” she asked. “Good. Take these.”
She pressed a pair of dagger hilts into Antal’s hands.
The last ones she’d gifted him had been works of art, the metal carved with dahlias and engraved with his name in ornate script. A lover’s gift. These new daggers were sleek. Undecorated. Practical. Tools to keep him alive.
“Don’t lose them this time,” Ixli ordered.
Antal wouldn’t. He’d hold on to them as if they were his own claws.
“Now, fetch your human,” she said. “We have an aedari to find.”
Fi was proud of her plan to act as aedari bait. She was determined to see this succeed. And she was definitely, absolutely, sure as permafrost on the Winter Plane, not terrified of dying an excruciating death skewered by energy feathers.
Aisinay huffed and nudged her shoulder.
“Ok, maybe a little,” Fi whispered. “Don’t tell the daeyari.”
She patted the horse’s snout. Aisinay flicked finned ears at the leaves of the Autumn Plane. Syvr and Ixli had poured over the aedari’s path on Winter, Summer, and what they knew of Spring, deducing that Autumn had the fewest reports. Which made Autumn the most likely place for the immortal to flee and skirt detection. Fi had mapped the Curtain network, plotted the outlets, identified roads that would provide good hunting grounds.
It seemed fitting, didn’t it? Fi had begun her tangle with immortal schemes upon this bright, aggressively colorful swath of Autumn forest, hired to smuggle energy capsules for Verne’s coup. She’d been a pawn then. Now, she braced for battle.
Aisinay’s ears flicked sideways, a contented snort as Antaldescended from his vantage point in the canopy. He landed with soft feet against loam.
His tail flicked the litter of orange and crimson leaves. As nervous as Fi.
“What are you worried about, Antlers?” she said in her best false bravado.
He growled, fangs snapping a chastising nip of her earlobe. Actuallynippedher like a misbehaving kitten. Audacious beast.
“Point taken,” Fi grumbled.
“Just don’t try anything too reckless,” he entreated.
He pressed a kiss to her cheek. Fi ran her fingers across his jaw, eager to pull him in for something less chaste.
Until she spotted Avroz drop down from a tree. A mood killer, if Fi had ever met one.
The beast moved with the grace of a wraith, down the limb of a birch tree and a whisper-soft landing. He was lithe in his traveling clothes, dark attire against pale skin, and Void, some parts of him lookedso muchlike Antal. More lethal than Antal. As if someone had taken her soft daeyari and honed him on a grinding stone for nine centuries.
“Antal,” he greeted as he joined them. Then, harder, “Vavraesa.”
He acted differently, since he’d carved her open. Since she’d held a blade to his throat.
The change was subtly skin-prickling. Not as dismissive as before, when his burgundy eyes had spared Fi only passing attention. He looked at her sharper now. Keener. A predator, eyeing not a hare, but a potential threat.
Fi hesitated to call it respect.
It was either that, or Avroz waiting for his chance to rip her throat open instead.
She felt Antal tense as his father neared. Not just concern for her. Avroz always made him this way, guarded and unsteady,an endless battle whittling him to the bone. Antal thought his father needed to be pacified, conflict avoided at any cost.
