1 New terms and conditions, same （part time） Void smuggler #3
“If you need help,” she continued, “or if there’s family needing assistance, send word to the governor in Thomaskweld. We’ll support however we can.” A year had shown her the needs of a territory were endless. Every small kindness was remembered.
The patrolmen nodded. Fi, eager for home, urged Aisinay toward the road.
The horse wouldn’t budge. She pranced again, eyes wide.
“What’s gotten into you?”
Aisinay took longer to soothe this time, her snout raised, scenting the air. Fi scanned the moors, searching for the source of her agitation. There were only sheep. Only burnt rubble.
Fi dismounted and grasped the fin down Aisinay’s neck, leading her into a walk.
Reluctantly, Aisinay complied. Her head stayed tilted. Still testing the breeze.
The fickle horse was back in good spirits the moment she smelled home.
A couple hundred miles lay between Calvariz and their destination, but Fi never traveled the long way.
They stepped through the first Curtain outside the city, off the Winter Plane, onto a smaller Shard.
The fragment of reality lay beneath silvered light, speckled in heather brush with bone-white stems and pale leaves, stone crumbling into nothingness at the edges.
Around the Shard, the view was black, starless, moonless. An endless Void of liminal space beyond realities, ozone sharp on Fi’s tongue.
Maybe she wasn’t taking the fastest way home.
The human concept of Voidwalkers—mortals who could see Curtains, but still relied on walking across Shards to travel from one Plane to another—was a misnomer, Antal insisted on reminding her.
According to daeyari, real Voidwalking would require Fi to jump into the abyss itself. A feat she’d survived before.
But Aisinay preferred solid ground beneath her hooves.
They passed through a Curtain onto another Shard. Another. Another. Each stepping stone warped distance compared to the Plane, cutting the journey down to an hour. As the final Curtain approached, Aisinay perked her ears and pushed into a canter.
They passed through with a prickle of cold, back onto the Winter Plane.
Twilight lay upon the mountain ridge. Shiverpines loomed above, needles dark and snow-heavy. Fi set Aisinay loose into the trees, off to forage for fish in the nearby river.
Her cottage lay in the clearing. Windows dark.
Had she really been gone a whole month this time? Her longest absence yet. More and more, she spent time where she was needed, in Thomaskweld and other major cities. Another reason the world felt bigger—her quiet retreat in the woods, traded for a capital city.
Still had to check in occasionally, make sure no rats had moved into her cupboards. Fi kicked the snow off her boots then stepped inside.
She touched a metal wall panel, Shaping energy out of arm muscle to power on the lights. The place was as she’d left it. Her plants, she’d cleared off the kitchen counter. The table, messy with empty energy capsules. The air, stuffy with disuse.
In the corner… the heater was already on?
A prickle ran down her neck. Fi tensed.
She knew that gut twinge of being watched. Instinct pushed her to the balls of her feet, a grab for her sword. Her only warning was a creak from her rafters.
A tackle sent her to the floor. She hit hard on her elbows, snarling to free herself of the arm snaring her waist. When she twisted for a kick, a tail lashed around her ankle. Claws gripped her shoulders, pinning her to the boards.
Above her, fangs flashed. Crimson eyes glowed in frames of black sclera, the lethal gaze of an immortal daeyari, the nightmare every human had been raised to fear.
“Did you try to kick me?” the beast demanded indignantly.
Antal’s thighs straddled her hips. His tail brushed floorboards, five feet of surprisingly strong rope restraining her calf, as if he suspected she might try kicking him again.
Reasonable. She certainly would.
Fi tried to wriggle free, to no avail. These were fearsome creatures indeed, as cruel and cunning as all the stories claimed. Pinned beneath a terrifying predator, no rescue in sight, she pressed the back of a hand to her forehead and swooned.
“Oh, woe is me!” she proclaimed. Loudly. “A fearsome daeyari, ambushing me in my home. Surely, I’m doomed to be eaten.”
Antal leaned back. Blinked. Void alive, she loved that dumb fluster on his face.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She squinted one eye open. “I’m role-playing, you wet mop!”
“Role-playing?”
Fi swooned again, tossing her head to the side in a splay of hair. “I’m the helpless damsel. You’re the beast. Surely, there must be a folktale like that?”
“Oh? And how would that one go?”
When he grinned, her breath came too short.
His mouth cut a wicked curve, sharp with predator’s teeth.
Dim light glinted on dark antlers, the blue-black tousle of hair between, the sides shaved close.
Shadows starkened the clavicle left carelessly bare by his unbuttoned collar, traced every hard line of his forearms as he held her down.
He leaned closer, pressing his weight against her thighs. Fi devoured the tease of ozone on her tongue.
“Well,” she breathed. “I’d think it would start with—”
But before she could finish, he was kissing her.