Page 37 of Sunsplitter

Fi held herself rigid. Every barb she’d ever honed, every steel splint she’d welded into her spine, pushed to their limit against this immortal. His words struck too close to the truth she hid, fangs seeking flesh beneath her armor. Did he suspect she was more than an Arbiter? Would he disembowel her regardless, just to test how his son reacted?

Instead, Avroz sighed.

“You helped Antal reclaim his territory from Verne?”

Fi blinked at the sudden softening in his tone. The suddensoftening ofall of him, tail a slow sway across the pillows.

“I did,” she said. “Helped him. Antal was strong, cunning.”

It had been her plan that unseated Verne. And Antal would have been useless without her in the final fight. This wasn’t the time to split hairs.

“Then you have my thanks,” Avroz said.

He stood. Fi backed a step toward the door, but he didn’t lunge. The beast moved slow, unthreatening, a thoughtful pace across his study.

She dared a less bristled stance. “Your… thanks?”

“For helping my son reclaim what was his. For keeping him safe.”

For a moment, it sounded like Avroz cared.

Maybe he did, in his own twisted way. The same way Fi’s father had cared for her, yet had still volunteered her to the teeth of a daeyari, tried to sell her as Verne’s Arbiter. The memory flashed cold and unbidden, all those years he’d told her the duty owed to their family. How it hadn’t been until the attendants led her away that fear had finally shown in his eyes.

Had Avroz faltered the same, when he’d realized Antal might be in danger?

“I was worried,” Avroz confessed. “When I heard what Verne had done.”

He paced closer, tail brushing the floor. Fi didn’t know what to say.

“Verne came before the Dusk Council,” Avroz said. “I didn’t know what she’d done, couldn’t speak out once she’d stated her claim to the territory. Our laws come before personal grievance. She’d planned as much.”

“Did she?” Fi wasn’t sure she believedallof that, but Verne being a cocky bitch checked out.

Avroz hummed agreement. “Verne always thought herself tooclever. I was confident Antal wouldn’t let her win so easily. Still, facing her must have been perilous.”

Easy for him to say, watching from a distance. “Thank you. It was my honor, to help my Lord Daeyari—”

Fi didn’t realize how much she’d lowered her guard until it was too late.

She didn’t realize how close Avroz had drifted, until he stepped between her and the door. That smooth-talking fucker.

Fi lurched toward the closest window.

The daeyari moved faster.

His claws sank into her shirt, heedless of flesh beneath. His other palm struck her temple. Magic hit her like an icepick, a surge of burning, freezing energy through her head. She tried to claw for her own current, but every muscle locked in place, too flooded with foreign energy.

All an act. He’d lulled her with sympathy, striking the one soft spot in her guard: Antal.

“Yes, you two managed quite well, didn’t you?” Avroz said, low through his fangs. “He does know how to find thepretty ones.”

Fi knew this magic. This trick daeyari played to scramble mortal thoughts to putty. She had barely enough muscle control to grab Avroz’s arm, barely enough strength to stay upright as he leaned close.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” he said. “The way Antal lingers every time he looks at you. The way he flinches every timeIlook at you. So tell me, vavraesa. How long has my son been fucking you?”

His energy buzzed her skull. Melted thoughts. Lost in fog, the words dangled too easy on her lips: how much Fi longed to touch Antal. How hard it had been to leave his room last night.

But she wasn’t the weak human she used to be.