Page 46 of Sunsplitter

Kashvi braced a hand on her desk, still in reach of her crossbow. “And this one is?”

“His mother,” Fi said.

Kashvi clicked her tongue. “Better than the ex.”

“Stop it, both of you,” Antal said. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m not here to help,Lord Daeyari,” Kashvi shot back. “I’m here to make sure you fix energy conduits. And that no other carnivores snack on my citizens.”

Yme circled the room. She squinted at the bright windows, ran a hand over the back of a sofa, looked at Kashvi as if inspecting a zoo exhibit. Amazing that she didn’t get a crossbow bolt through her sternum for that alone.

“Why are you here?” Antal asked in daeyari.

Yme faced him with eyes bright, tail perked. “Visiting. Of course.”

“Why?”

“I need a reason to visit my only son?”

Fi could have heard a needle drop in the silence, could have sharpened it against Antal’s bared teeth. She withheld her own scoff—only to allow Antal scoffing priority.

“You haven’t visited in fifty years,” he said.

Yme’s tail drooped. “Perhaps it’s time for a change.”

“Did Avroz send you?”

“Of course not! Avroz is gone on council business. Threeurgentmeetings in the span of two weeks, didn’t even bother coming home last night. I don’t know what he’s—” She clamped her mouth. Swished her tail. “This isn’t about him. I came because I wanted to.”

Antal scoffed. An excellent scoff, loud and sharp-edged. Fi was right to give him priority.

“Did you?” he said. “Came to visit because you wanted to? What does that mean for the last five decades?”

“Antal. Please.” Yme bowed her head. “I’m here because of how you left. Because… I don’t want to spend another fifty years not speaking to my son.”

Antal hesitated. Fi swallowed a flash of anger, that he would hesitate after all his parents had done to him.

Would Fi have hesitated, if her vanished mother reappeared? Asked for amends?

The thought struck her unexpectedly. Fi’s mother had left when she and Boden were young, no longer able to endure their father’s nightly drinking, or that suffocating village, or two children wailing at her calves. Who knew the exact reason? She’d vanished in the night, and Fi had let her go. No point searching for someone who didn’t want to be found. No point missing someone who didn’t want her. No point imagining amends that would never…

This proved an unproductive line of thought. Fi abandoned it, easier to simply scowl.

“Perhaps we could talk,” Yme pleaded. “That’s easy enough?”

Antal’s tail hung in a low, pained sway. “Azaevi, I don’t think—”

“One visit. That’s all I ask.”

Antal’s sigh sank his entire chest. Fi knew that defeated look, had practiced it too many times for her own father. Easier not to argue. Easier to just get it over with.

“Fine,” he conceded. “Abriefvisit.” Then back to seasonspeak. “Kashvi, do you have further need of me today?”

His governor cut him a dry look. “What do you think, daeyari? Of course I have further need of you.”

He nodded. “I’ll walk to the river and back. I won’t be long.”

Kashvi huffed in reluctant agreement. Antal looked to Fi.