Page 199 of Sunsplitter

Avroz surveyed the dead aedari. “So single-minded, these scouts. It trailed me without hesitation. I’d planned to lead the brute most of the way back here before escaping.” His tail betrayed an annoyed flick. “That tracker it tried to put on me did complicate things. And I only encountered the one. I ought to have guessed it would recruit a partner. All dealt with, now.”

Avroz spoke so easy. No denial, no deflection, no insistence that this was all some grave misunderstanding. Was Antal not even worthy of that much?

“Butwhy?” Antal demanded, fangs flashing.

Avroz shrugged. “Some pieces move too slowly.”

“What pieces?”

That calm was an act, too. Meant to make Antal feel foolish for baring his teeth.

“I’ve been patient with you, Antal.” His father’s words turned chastising. Another familiar tactic. Merciless Void, Antal knew every step of the dance, yet he could never seize the lead. “I had to give you some way to catch the Daey Celva’s notice, content as you seemed to languish on this humble Plane. Then you killed Verne. You put yourself into the spotlight.”

“She tried tounseat me.”

“That sort of attention couldn’t be squandered. And whena seat on the council opened? It had to be now. You forced my hand.”

Antal’s fault. Somehow, it was always Antal’s fault.

He pushed closer. Fury made him bold. The thought of an arrow through Fionamara’s eye—how close she’d come to death. Avroz had done all thison purpose.

“How can you speak like it’s nothing?” Antal said. “You led the aedari to our doorstep. Put how many lives in danger?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Avroz scoffed. “I only brought them to the Season-Locked Planes, just close enough to raise alarm. The Twilit Plane was never in danger.”

Of course—because who cared about the human lives here?

“So you endangeredmy territory?” Antal pushed even closer. “You sacrificedmy peopleto be hunted, killed, burned—”

Avroz slapped him hard across the cheek.

The impact hurt. The claws hurt more. Antal hunched, feeling a trickle of blood from the slashes, all of him… stunned.

The wound was superficial. Already, energy prickled his skin, weaving flesh back together, moments before the evidence vanished. But Antal’s breath shook. His insides writhed with something sharp, squirming.

His father had never slapped him. Not in two and a half centuries.

Antal strained to look up, as small as the child he’d always been.

Avroz looked down on him, cold and composed as ever.

“You’re a daeyari,” he growled. “Actlike one.”

The command dripped derision—his own father, speaking to the useless son he’d been burdened with.Not family. Using you.Antal had no time to process how deep the wound cut.

A flicker at his side was his only warning.

He grabbed Fionamara as she hurled herself at Avroz, metal claws bared, snarling like a panther. Antal barely held her back, a wriggling mass of rage and crimson hair.

“Don’ttouch him!” she shouted. “I’ll kill you! Worthless cunt of a daeyari, I’llcarve your antlers into towel holders!”

“Fionamara, please.” Antal urged her to still,beggingher to not make this worse—all his strength focused on holding her head against his chest, keeping that eye hidden. Her fingers clawed the air, promising to rip Avroz apart.

Antal couldn’t blame her.

Yet the thought of confronting his father froze him in place.

He didn’t know what to do. Even with that ghost of a slap on his cheek, he didn’t know what hecoulddo. Two and a half centuries of submission and compliance, rooted so deep in his ether, he couldn’t even shake them off when Avroz fuckingslappedhim.