Page 31 of Sunsplitter

Of course his father had sent her. Never a hand left unplayed. Antal drew himself up, hardening that mask he’d let slip for Fionamara—that he’d let slip for Ixli, once.

“What does he want?” Antal said.

The arc of Ixli’s tail tightened. “What do you mean?”

“Avroz sent you. What does he want?”

“Avroz didn’t send me to do anything.”

“Why else would you be here?”

“Why? Because Imissed you!”

Her fangs flashed. She paced closer, hard and bristling and… angry. It sounded genuine.

Antal wavered, too much to balance holding his mask, and keeping Fionamara in the corner of his eye, and debating whether Ixli was about to lunge for his throat. How was he meant to survive her, on top of every other torture?

But Avrozmusthave sent her. Too dangerous to wish otherwise.

It could only lead to his ruin, that soft piece of Antal that couldn’t help but notice, in fifty years apart, Ixli had added another curve to her antlers as well. That she’d tempered her viciousness from the last time they’d argued. That her hair was shorter than he remembered.

“You… cut your hair,” Antal observed awkwardly.

“You fucking ass!”

Well, maybe not all tempered.

“That’s all you have to say?” Ixli’s imperious air vanished, replaced by something raw. Almost cracked. “You wretched piece of Void ether! You come home for the first time in fifty years, and that’s it? No good to see you? No sorry for vanishing off the Plane?”

Not just angry. She sounded hurt.

Antal had never wanted to hurt her. He’d wanted a friend, a haven from Avroz’s schemes and the way this house drained him to the marrow. Even now, even with her fangs bared, there was a memory of comfort in her face. Her familiar smell of metal and moonbeams.

That was what put his guard back up.

Who could Antal rely on in this place? A face he used to trust, sent at too convenient a time. Words to lull. To disarm. The reason he’d built this mask to begin with.

And Antal was hurt, too. For decades before his banishment to the Winter Plane, he’d been broken over Razik’s death. Fighting his father tooth and claw. Where had Ixli been? Gone. Traveling distant Planes. Still distant whenever she’d returned, always carrying the weight of what had ended between them.

“I never vanished anywhere,” Antal snapped. “You knew exactly where I was. You weren’t even here the day I left.”

“I was a dozen Planes away! You knew how much I’d been traveling.”

“And I’ve been running a territory. Onesingleterritory. It’s not hard to find, Ixli.”

“Yet you never sent a single word.”

“Neither did you!”

Antal bared every tooth, long canines to jagged molars.

Ixli hid hers. Here was a new blow, her quiet inhale, the way her tail drooped.

“I didn’t think you wanted…” She spoke softly again. Hesitant. “It’s been so long, Antal. But when Avroz said you were finally coming back, I thought… maybe we could…”

As she softened, Antal went rigid. “What do you mean?”

“I thought maybe we’d finally talk again, you ass! After all this time and—”