1 New terms and conditions, same （part time） Void smuggler #2
She clicked her tongue. “For the past year, the Lord Daeyari only accepts meals who’ve died of other causes. Those who agree to donate their bodies. If you’re interested, I can get you the signup form.”
“How charitable.”
“The others I’ve spoken to certainly thought so.”
Clarence would have heard Fi was tracking smugglers.
He would have heard how many she’d recruited already.
She saw that glint in his eyes, the fight between wary survival instinct, and not wanting to miss a lucrative deal.
Fi unbuttoned her coat, crimson stone glinting on her cuffs, and pulled out a piece of cardstock. Her sprint had crinkled the edges.
“By official decree,” she read. “Antal, Lord Daeyari, grants unhindered entrance to and movement within his territory for?… hey, look! That’s your name, right there.” Fi pointed to the Clarence Shale inked at the bottom of the page.
He squinted. Something tangible always shifted the odds. No hollow promises, real ink on paper. Still, Clarence played aloof, idly scratching his beard.
He held out a hand.
“Let me see that.”
Fi relinquished the page then sat back, watching him scour the words.
He rubbed the paper between his fingers.
Picked at the edge of the black seal. Yes, Clarence, that was a genuine daeyari seal, wax mixed with immortal blood.
She’d always loved this feeling, having the proper cards to play at the proper time.
Laorsek, the daeyari called it.
She’d learned to speak much of the daeyari language this past year—in many instances, solidly against her will, and supremely annoyed at the smug beast whose idea of “teaching” was to repeat a hundred words at her until she relented and shouted them back.
Laorsek was the person who held the upper hand in a negotiation.
“A nice carrot,” Clarence grumbled. “What happens if I’m not interested? Your daeyari comes after me instead?”
“Nope,” Fi returned cheerfully.
“… Nope?”
“Regardless of your answer”—she nodded to the cardstock— “that’s yours to keep. Daeyari make strict territory borders to control human movements, to keep us dependent. This territory doesn’t work like that anymore.”
Clarence scowled at the paper. Another long silence, as he considered Fi. And with a little extra nudge—
“Why did you become a smuggler?” Fi asked.
“For the energy chips.”
“Right. But what else?”
“The energy chips are pretty motivating.”
“Because of the daeyari,” Fi pressed. “To skirt around their control of the territories, demanding sacrifices in exchange for resources. You know I’m the same, Clarence.”
“Yet you’re helping one of them?”
“This daeyari is different. Serving under his elected mortal governor, rather than giving orders. Expanding the representative council. Repairing and improving energy conduits with his own hands. Eating the dead, instead of live sacrifices.”
Fi attributed Clarence’s narrowed eyes to the atypically sincere and profanity-free monologue. Another obnoxious skill she’d had to develop.
“This is real change,” she said. “Don’t you want to be part of it?”
Clarence lifted a brow.
“And getting fucking paid, obviously,” Fi added. “Antal has kept every promise. I’ve made sure of it.”
Another long pause. Clarence made a deliberate show of reading the letter again.
“What’s the job?” he said at last.
With that, Fi had him.
“We’re upgrading all our cities with more efficient energy conduits. We need conductive metal—the best you can get. Bring it to Thomaskweld, and you get paid.” She dug out a second page from her jacket, an invoice for various metal grades.
Clarence’s brows shot up when he read the rates. Fair prices, no more daeyari suppression of materials or technology.
Fi let him hum over the paperwork, let him pretend he was playing hard to get. That was the trick, letting people think they had the upper hand. Being laorsek was a contest of confidence, more than anything.
At last, Clarence stowed the paperwork into a pocket of his coat.
They stepped outside together. Fi shook his hand.
“I look forward to doing business with you,” she said, syrupy sweet.
“Invite me to coffee next time, you ass. What am I supposed to think, the daeyari’s Arbiter sneaking up on me in my hotel room?”
“Not his Arbiter,” she reiterated.
“The fuck am I supposed to call you, then?”
Truly, Fi didn’t know. Their world had a name for humans who served as the hand of their immortal lords—Arbiter. They had words for humans willing to fall into daeyari beds—foolish, playthings, casualties.
There was, as far as Fi knew, no name for whatever she was, partner instead of prey.
“Fi is fine,” she said. “The same as always.”
With their business concluded, Clarence disappeared into the terminal.
Fi let him go with a smug smile, fists braced on her hips after an excellent negotiation.
He hadn’t even genuinely tried to stab her.
That separated him from a solid half of the smugglers she’d talked to.
Granted, most of those had owed her an attempted stabbing.
She retraced her route out of the transit terminal, past the bright lights and wide windows of the waterfront shops, back to the quay overlooking the harbor.
She found Aisinay lying on the concrete, fluked tail curled around folded hooves.
The fins at her tail-tip and down her neck were fanned open to the sun.
Feathers littered the ground. At least one seabird had wandered too close.
At Fi’s approach, the blind horse huffed. Whatever Fi’s energy smelled like, it earned her a welcoming snort.
“Oh, sure, now you get out of the water?”
Another snort, curter.
“No, you’re right. You wouldn’t have been much help in the transit terminal.” Obnoxious know-it-all. “Ready to go home?”
Aisinay stood with a clack of hooves. Fortunately, the sun had dried her scales. Fi mounted the horse’s bare back then settled a hand on her neck. No sight, but Aisinay sensed the gentle energy current Fi Shaped at her fingertips, steering her forward.
The Curtains in the transit terminal, Fi avoided. She preferred quieter routes, lesser-known Curtains outside the city, the coveted navigation routes she’d mapped out as a smuggler.
She guided Aisinay away from the waterfront. Shopfronts shifted into apartments. Apartments shifted into homes on wider lots, the city fringes splintering into inland peat bogs.
The outskirts of Calvariz were busier than Fi had ever seen, carts clogging the frozen mud road, new houses being built.
Antal Territory had long been a haven for those seeking a more lenient daeyari, fewer sacrifices, and free reign to his elected governor.
Now that he’d stopped eating live prey altogether, word was spreading, more humans moving in every day.
Fi had made this happen. When Antal’s daeyari neighbor, Verne, had staged a coup to seize this land, Fi had helped him kill the tyrant and reclaim his territory. She’d pushed Antal to make real change. It was strange, seeing her actions have such wide-reaching consequences.
She didn’t feel like a sellout. She did feel like the world was larger than it used to be.
And maybe that was a little terrifying. A year of progress, but always more to do.
Fi was nearly to her Curtain when she smelled smoke. Odd, with snow crusting the bogs.
As Fi was being responsible today, she steered Aisinay off the road, weaving through hillocks and tundra ponds until she came upon a pair of patrol officers in dark blue coats. Ahead of them lay charred timber, the remnants of a building.
At their feet lay a heap of muddy cloth. Body-shaped.
“What’s happened here?” Fi called out.
The officers turned. She watched their appraisal of her Void horse, her rainbow hair.
Then, a more pointed appraisal of her Void horse. Her rainbow hair. Her black and red coat. Fi was still settling into the role, might not know what to call herself, but she retained enough petty spite toward law enforcement to enjoy flummoxing patrolmen any day.
“Miss Kolbeck? We hadn’t heard you were visiting the city.”
“Territory business,” she returned imperiously. “What’s happened here?”
“A fire, miss. Burned the place down before anyone could stop it. Owner was a sheep herder. Poor bastard didn’t get out in time.”
Fi surveyed charred foundations, loose sheep wandering the yard. What a wretched way to go. “If you—”
Aisinay lurched beneath her. Fi barely held on as her horse pranced, nostrils flared. She pressed a hand to Aisinay’s neck, urging calm.
Fi didn’t enjoy the smell of burnt flesh, either.