Page 147 of Sunsplitter

The aedari swung, lurching as its sword cleaved air instead of flesh. Its eyes shot wide as it staggered, off balance.

Ixli surged into the opening, her spear a comet. The aedari jerked sideways, Ixli’s energy blade missing its throat, burying in its chest instead. It cried out in its language. Its wings flared, raking burns down Ixli’s arms. She didn’t withdraw, spear through her quarry’s sternum, pinning it in a kneel.

Fionamara reappeared in a snap of cold. Sword raised.

“Strike hard!” Ixli shouted.

And she did.

Fionamara brought her sword down on the aedari’s neck with the force of an avalanche. Crimson energy hit reinforced immortal skin, a hammer to a cinderblock. The air crackled. Hissed thenshriekedwith warring currents. Her blade stalled at the spine, golden energy writhing from the wound, the aedari shouting as its wings thrashed.

Ixli pressed all her weight against her spear, holding it down. Antal gripped the binding cord until he feared it might cauterize his fingers. Fionamara gritted her teeth, pushing her sword with both hands.

Until she finally cleaved through.

The sound was instant, an ear-shakingsnapas golden energy lashed out of the aedari in sunlight fractals. Antal staggered at the impact. The jolt shuddered the surrounding trees, a reek of burnt honey in the aftermath.

The aedari’s head hit the ground.

Its body slumped.

Its wings crackled out, leaving a perfect impression of feathers scorched upon the leaves.

The forest went quiet. Blissfully dark, as Antal sank to his knees. Beside him, more weight hit the loam, a hiss as Ixli withdrew her spear and dropped to a kneel. An emphaticumphas Fionamara, breathless and wild-haired, fell back on her ass.

They all sat silent.

All staring at the severed head, golden blood spattering leaves.

The deadliest creature in the Shattered Planes—reduced to a heap on the ground.

“Is he… dead?” Fionamara said at last.

Merciless Void, it looked dead. The aedari’s sword lay on the ground, back to unlit metal. Its blood glowed in the dusk light, dim as the fireflies.

“Will he reincarnate?” Fionamara asked. “Like a daeyari?”

Antal shook his head, numb, the answer a recital. “Daeyari are Void-wrought. Upon death, our energy returns intact to the abyss. But aedari bound themselves to the Planes. When their physical bodies are broken, their energy untethers, and they…”

A pause.

“Explode?” Fionamara finished.

Antal nodded. His history lessons had no doubt used a more eloquent word thanexplode, but for the immortal life of him, he couldn’t think of such technicalities now. Not with a dead aedari at his feet.

And certainly not when Fionamara tipped her head back, a decidedly maniacal laugh splitting the night.

“We fucking did it!” She laughed, a sound to strike terror in the fiercest immortal—to stir something decidedly warmer in Antal’s heart.

An aedari, dead.

It was ludicrous to think. Ludicrous to see all three of them alive, Ixli iron-wrought as ever as she inspected her fallen prey. Fionamara with that indomitable look, a gleam in her eyes that made Antal want to devour her whole.

He laughed with her.

“We did it,” he voiced in a hush.

Ixli scowled. “There’s still a second one. It fled in the opposite direction, probably too fast to leave a scent, but we could still search the area—”