Page 25 of Sunsplitter

It took all of Antal’s resolve not to flinch at the slash of claws across the man’s neck.

At the splatter of blood onto tile.

Avroz gripped his limp prey by the hair and leaned him forward, emptying his throat into the drain in the floor.

Antal focused on keeping his breath steady, his tail still against the pillow as Avroz began to carve. The forearms camefirst. Delicacies. The muscles most concentrated in energy by mortal Shapers. Avroz severed elbows with magic-sharpened claws and snaps of bone. He offered the first to Yme. The second to Antal, a gracious host. He took the upper arm for himself.

The flesh was warm and fresh in Antal’s hands. As soft as Fionamara’s.

But he was ravenous.

His breath shallowed, an agony to hold himself back from digging into the meal like a feral beast. With near-shaking claws, he peeled the skin away. Sliced for the muscle. He still couldn’t look at Fionamara, but he felt the weight of her stare.

The first bite was instant relief. Heat in his mouth. A flood of energy down his throat, hot and rich and stoking his own like bellowed embers. Antal forced his hands to steady, swallowing any signs of his distress.

Even so, Avroz watched with the subtlest tilt to his head.

The first cuts passed quickly. Avroz butchered more, larger muscles of the back and thighs. Far too much meat for just the three of them. So much waste. Antal swallowed that, too, eating in bitter silence as his mother talked of fickle plants, the latest blooms, a particularly challenging floral arrangement she was working on.

“You’re quiet, Antal,” Yme said at last. “Why don’t you tell us of the Winter Plane?”

“A simple place,” he returned, eyes down. Picking at a tendon.

“What do you like best about it?”

Antal bit into muscle to mask his sneer. They hadn’t written in fifty years. They hadn’t cared in fifty years.

“It’s quiet,” he said. “Beautiful mountains. Taller than any here.”

“That sounds wonderful, Antal. What a delightful Plane for a territory.”

Avroz sat quietly, skinning flesh off a femur. Biding his time by letting the small talk play out. What in the cold, black Void did he want? Why summon Antal now? It was another game, lulling an opponent, lowering their guard before the strike.

Then, Antal noticed the antler.

On Avroz’s left antler, one of the points on the back side was missing. A new wound. Antal stared too long, until Avroz noted his attention.

“A recent visit to the Contested Planes.” Avroz tapped a claw to the missing antler point. “More dangerous, these days. But dealt with.”

He spoke of the encounter with that unflinching confidence Antal could never master. For a daeyari, losing a piece of antler was a disgrace—but dwarfed by the greater honor of defending their people, vanquishing the beasts who sought to destroy them.

Antal huffed. “You don’t get more gold for that?”

The golden bands on Avroz’s antlers glinted as he laughed. “These are sufficient.”

Antal hadn’t heard that laugh in decades. Centuries, maybe. He remembered it, sitting beside his father when velvet had still coated his antlers, learning daeyari policy. Avroz’s smile whenever Antal got a question right. The affectionate ruffle of his father’s hand through his hair.

What had gone wrong?

Yme fell quiet, watching Avroz with a frown. Her tail rested on her pillow, not twined with her partner’s. Not even an amicable brush. The rift between them wasn’t new, but Antal had never seen it so blatant.

Was that his fault, too?

It was an old worry, one he’d thought long buried. Had Antal been the one who’d broken their family, like everything else?Could he have been a better son? A stronger daeyari?

Could he have kept Razik alive?

“We were worried about you,” Yme said softly.