6 Hard to Swallow
He’d known this wouldn’t be easy.
By Veshri’s high and sharpened antlers, Antal had known coming back here would be excruciating, yet he still had to clench his claws to keep from trembling, bite his tongue to keep from snarling. A calm mask. A blank mask. That was all he’d give them.
The vavriter steward, Geslam, had been middle-aged when last they’d met, gaunter-cheeked now, and more gray in his hair. Antal watched him lead Fionamara down the hall toward the guest quarters. Then he was alone with his parents in that dusk-lit sitting room.
It was the same as the day he’d left.
There, the wide stone sills and glassless windows overlooking his mother’s garden, where he’d napped as a child with his tail dangling over the ledge. If he sat still enough, the moths visiting the flowers would land on his growing antlers.
There, the sitting pillows, where his mother had held him in her lap and taught him how to braid his hair. How to be gentle with his claws. How to Shape energy through metal toys.
There, the swath of tile where Razik had bled out on the floor.
Stone so dark, it had swallowed the red.
Where Antal’s lover had looked to him, reached for him in his final breath.
Where Antal had, for one time in his wretched life, lunged at his father with teeth bared—only to be pinned to the floor, blood so thick in his nose that he’d nearly choked.
They don’t last, Avroz had said, claws wet from Razik’s throat. They’re a distraction. You have bigger things to accomplish.
His mother linked her arm with his, smiling as if nothing was wrong. She smelled like the flowers he remembered, like soil and fresh growth.
“You’ve chosen an excellent time to visit,” she said. “New blooms in the garden.”
Chosen? Antal could laugh. Could snarl. Avroz drifted alongside them in his silver-tipped robes, that calculated calm on his face. That feigned disinterest Antal knew too well. Gauging every Void-damned inflection like a slip of soft skin beneath armor.
His father. For the first time in decades, Antal faced his father and found him stunningly unchanged.
The same slow gait. The same cunning gleam in his burgundy eyes, the same chilling scent of hoarfrost on old stone.
Avroz was grinning more than the day he’d banished his son to a different Plane of existence. That was the only difference.
Merciless Void, Antal hated this place.
Most of it, at least. The brush of his mother’s tail against his was a forgotten comfort. A fresh ache.
“I would love to see your garden,” Antal said.
She squeezed his arm. “Tomorrow morning, then. You’re only staying for three days?”
“I have duties to return to, azaevi.” Even that word, so disused on his tongue. Bittersweet.
She tutted. “Surely, your mortals can take care of themselves for three days?”
They sat. The cushions formed a circle on the floor, a space of empty tile in the center. Antal settled cross-legged upon his pillow, his father across from him, his mother to his side. Like they always used to sit. Like nothing had changed. Avroz lifted a kettle and poured into stone cups.
Antal accepted the drink and breathed in the warm, bitter aroma.
Coffee on the Season-Locked Planes came from a different plant, similar in taste but not as full on the tongue.
Not the same as the brew he’d shared here on so many nights with his family.
And with others. Subtly, he appraised only three cushions set out, no sign of additional guests. Probably for the best.
Footsteps approached, Geslam returning from the hall.
Fionamara followed him.
Antal caught one look of rainbow hair, that defiant chin, before he snapped his attention away like a burned hand. What was this reckless woman doing? She’d slipped past his family, could have stayed safe in a guest room for the rest of the night.
She sat on a pillow by the wall, out of the way. Still far too close. When Geslam disappeared through the door to the kitchen, dread burned Antal’s core. Surely, Fionamara must realize—
“Antal, dear.” Yme studied him with worried eyes, her tail a slow swish. “You look thin. Are you eating well?”
No. Not nearly enough. Antal had stretched himself since he’d moved to the Winter Plane, not wanting to take more living sacrifices than he needed for bare survival.
He’d fared little better under their new system, donations slow to accumulate, time necessary to earn trust from the people he used to devour.
He felt the hunger as hollows in his cheeks.
A restless, needy energy carving under his skin.
“Why would I not be eating enough, azaevi?”
Yme’s brow creased, a delicate chime from the chains on her antlers. “I would hope your mortals do their diligence in taking care of you. After all you do for them?”
“I’ve been busy. There’s much to repair, after the damage Verne left.”
Avroz sat silent, sipping his coffee. Antal felt his father watching him. He’d been taught to do the same, to study adversaries and dissect their twitches, their intonations. He used to think it fascinating, a remarkable talent.
Until Antal had realized how often his father was dissecting him.
“Of course!” Yme said. “Please, you must tell us all about what you’ve been busy with.”
Antal forcibly unclenched his teeth. “Mostly drudgery, azaevi. I’m sure your flowers are far more interesting—”
The kitchen door opened, and Geslam returned.
He led a human with him.
The man—their dinner—was brought out mostly naked, a loincloth his only modesty, hair damp from a recent bath. Prepared like an animal to slaughter. His steps came slow, eyes glassy, already drugged to oblivion with twilight sorrel tea. Geslam offered an arm, steadying the man the last few steps.
Antal tried to keep his tail from lashing—failed. He tried to stop the energy swirling hot in his chest—failed. He hadn’t eaten a live human for a year, but that wasn’t the worst of it, the reason the world suddenly stilled with a low thrumming in his ears.
The man looked like Razik.
Uncannily like Razik. That soft brown skin. The short curls of dark hair. The full lips. Those chestnut eyes, so warm, then so empty when Avroz had held him down and…
Something was breaking inside Antal. It splintered, each time he took a breath. It stung in his palms, where he’d curled claws too tight against flesh. He looked to his father.
Avroz tilted his head, meeting Antal’s gaze with measured calm. It was the longest he’d kept eye contact since Antal had arrived. The challenge, conveyed in a subtle arch to Avroz’s brow.
A test. Antal knew it was a fucking test, and he still almost shattered.
Avroz set his cup down with cutting nonchalance. “Thank you, Geslam.”
The steward nodded and returned to a seat at the edge of the room. The human knelt upon the middle tile, encircled by predators. Bare knees fell heavy against the stone. An ornate drain waited beneath him, metal plates molded into vines.
Antal fought a wave of revulsion. He couldn’t bear to look at Fionamara. She’d seen him eat, but never like this. Never treating her kind like livestock.
Avroz rolled back his sleeves. His forearms were slim, but strong, black claws too delicate as he cupped the human’s chin. The man was too oblivious to react.
“Perhaps your humans are too lean on the Winter Plane,” Avroz said. “Cold has never done their species well.”
It took all of Antal’s resolve not to flinch at the slash of claws across the man’s neck.
At the splatter of blood onto tile.
Avroz gripped his limp prey by the hair and leaned him forward, emptying his throat into the drain in the floor.
Antal focused on keeping his breath steady, his tail still against the pillow as Avroz began to carve.
The forearms came first. Delicacies. The muscles most concentrated in energy by mortal Shapers.
Avroz severed elbows with magic-sharpened claws and snaps of bone.
He offered the first to Yme. The second to Antal, a gracious host. He took the upper arm for himself.
The flesh was warm and fresh in Antal’s hands. As soft as Fionamara’s.
But he was ravenous.
His breath shallowed, an agony to hold himself back from digging into the meal like a feral beast. With near-shaking claws, he peeled the skin away. Sliced for the muscle. He still couldn’t look at Fionamara, but he felt the weight of her stare.
The first bite was instant relief. Heat in his mouth. A flood of energy down his throat, hot and rich and stoking his own like bellowed embers. Antal forced his hands to steady, swallowing any signs of his distress.
Even so, Avroz watched with the subtlest tilt to his head.
The first cuts passed quickly. Avroz butchered more, larger muscles of the back and thighs.
Far too much meat for just the three of them.
So much waste. Antal swallowed that, too, eating in bitter silence as his mother talked of fickle plants, the latest blooms, a particularly challenging floral arrangement she was working on.
“You’re quiet, Antal,” Yme said at last. “Why don’t you tell us of the Winter Plane?”
“A simple place,” he returned, eyes down. Picking at a tendon.
“What do you like best about it?”
Antal bit into muscle to mask his sneer. They hadn’t written in fifty years. They hadn’t cared in fifty years.
“It’s quiet,” he said. “Beautiful mountains. Taller than any here.”
“That sounds wonderful, Antal. What a delightful Plane for a territory.”
Avroz sat quietly, skinning flesh off a femur. Biding his time by letting the small talk play out. What in the cold, black Void did he want? Why summon Antal now? It was another game, lulling an opponent, lowering their guard before the strike.
Then, Antal noticed the antler.
On Avroz’s left antler, one of the points on the back side was missing. A new wound. Antal stared too long, until Avroz noted his attention.
“A recent visit to the Contested Planes.” Avroz tapped a claw to the missing antler point. “More dangerous, these days. But dealt with.”