Page 51 of Sunsplitter

In the clearing lay the rubble of a building, burned to ash.

“What is this?” Antal demanded.

“A fire,” Avroz said.

“What are you doing here?” Antal advanced. “What have youdone? Are you so petty that you’d—”

“Enough,” Avroz growled. And to Antal’s shame, he silenced. “You think I did this?”

“Who else?”

“Smell it, Antal. You cansmellit, can’t you?”

Antal sniffed the air. He smelled fire, long extinguished, woodsmoke smothering everything. Subtler, a scent of burnt fabric. Burnt flesh. The resident hadn’t gotten out in time.

But then, beneath it all…

Something hot. Not like flame. Piercing as sunlight, old asdust, a honeyed aftertaste that turned his stomach. An instinctive shudder crept up Antal’s Void-woven spine, a smell he’d never known in person. One he’d been taught.

One that all daeyari were taught.

Avroz bared his fangs. “An aedari was here.”

“What the fuck is an aedari?” Fi asked.

Antal had mentioned the name before, with frustratingly minimal details: a rival race of immortals from the far Planes, the prized quarry that had earned Avroz golden bands on his antlers. But what did thatmean?Both the daeyari had snapped from snarling teeth to grim as the grave. Antal looked as though someone had cut the heart from his chest and held it in front of him.

Avroz looked to Fi with those skin-peeling eyes.

“You brought your vavraesa?” he said, seething distaste.

Fi would skinhim. Add his gold-plated antlers to her collection.

She grabbed her sword hilt. One bristling step forward—then Antal snagged her around her waist. She snarled and squirmed.

“Let go of me, Antal!”

“Fionamara.Stop.”

His voice shook. Merciless Void, was it that bad?

In Fi’s momentary lapse of sympathy, Antal shifted her behind him, stepping toward Avroz.

“What do you mean, an aedari was here?” he demanded.

“The smell is masked by the fire,” Avroz said. “But unmistakable.”

“An aedari can’t have been here. Not on this Plane.”

“That seems to no longer be the case. A courier detected the scent at a Curtain nearby. And others. The council met urgently to coordinate an investigation.” He leveled an unimpressed glower on hisson. “I was nominated to visit this particular territory. For obvious reasons.”

“And when was I to be notified?” Antal snarled. “No warning of your visit, no warning of what might be going on in my own forest—”

His voice rose as he argued. He spoke faster—a littletoofast in daeyari for Fi to follow easily. She picked up the severity from the number of curses, the tremor in Antal’s words.

Whatever had happened here was bad, in a way she didn’t fully understand.

Fi backed away, letting the daeyari bicker as she inspected the clearing.