7 So, this place sucks
Fi was not too proud to admit that joining this trip may have been a poor decision.
Tack it down to her stubborn personality. To that dumb little thing her heart did when Antal made sad faces. To thinking that, well, she’d gotten to know one nice daeyari, and she’d survived two shitty ones. Certainly, meeting a couple more couldn’t be that bad?
“Come,” Antal said as he turned to leave.
The command snapped Fi from her stupor. As if she’d been focusing so hard on sitting still, on not grimacing, on hardly breathing, she almost forgot how to stand.
She couldn’t stop replaying the sound of that man’s throat emptying. The snap of bones.
The flicker of a moment when Avroz’s gaze had cut to her while he’d done it.
Fi knew this game. Bratty humans, bratty daeyari, similar enough. She knew Avroz was watching to see her flinch. That Antal’s “loyal Arbiter” wasn’t supposed to flinch. She’d bitten her tongue until it ached and not given that bastard the satisfaction of seeing her react.
She just hoped he couldn’t sense how fast her heart was racing. The twist in her stomach at seeing him treat a living human like cuts of meat.
Fi willed her knees into cooperation and followed her daeyari out of the room. Avroz’s gaze followed his son, cold and contemplative.
Then, one slicing look to her, eyes dangerously narrowed.
That cruel creature was nothing like Antal.
The back hall was quiet. Dim. Fractal energy conduits in the walls radiated low light as they passed; an aesthetic touch, considering daeyari could see in the dark.
Antal slipped into his room like a shade fleeing sunlight. Fi glanced down the hall—confirming no prying eyes, terse voices distant in the sitting room—before she followed him. The door, some odd kind of metal, closed behind her without a sound.
The only light came from the garden beyond the windows, crystal lamps and a purple twilight that seemed oddly unchanged since they’d arrived. Antal kept his back to her. Breaths heavy. Tail a terse swish.
“Where did he come from?” Fi asked in seasonspeak. Her voice betrayed a crack, now that they were alone.
Antal didn’t face her. “From this Plane. Or any other Plane under daeyari control. They’re… not hard to find, when an Old House asks for donations.”
“This is how you ate? For two centuries?”
Fi knew what daeyari were. Her entire species knew daeyari were sharp teeth and cold claws and red eyes in the dark. But Antal was different. He was soft. He was caring. He didn’t see Fi’s people as mere food to be butchered on the floor. He was—
Shaking.
A tremor gripped Antal’s shoulders. When he faced her, his eyes were gem-cut agony.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I never wanted you to see this.”
Fi hadn’t seen him quake like this after a coup demolished his capitol building. Not when she’d collected him near-dead from Tyvo Territory after failed negotiations.
She’d had a hard enough time biting her tongue during dinner.
She hadn’t had to sit across from that monster, hadn’t borne the brunt of his sharp-toothed condescension.
She hadn’t been close enough to get that human’s blood spatter on her cheeks.
Though Fi’s stomach roiled—excellent call, eating before coming to this wretched place—she swallowed the nausea like a teenager chugging cheap wine.
Right now, Antal needed her.
“I’m glad you ate,” Fi said. “You needed it.”
Her words only sharpened his scowl. “Too much waste. There should have been others to share the meal. My father’s kezri.”
Another word Fi didn’t know. She’d have to start a list. “Kezri?”
“Other daeyari loyal to Avroz.”
“Oh… like servants?”
Antal bared a fang. “Daeyari don’t keep each other as servants. Kezri share prey, in return for work.”
“Oh. Like employees?”
“More like family, but not by blood. A pack. Since most daeyari families stay small.”
Kezri did sound similar to kezros, the daeyari word for home.
“But I should have known Avroz would want a private welcome,” Antal continued. “I should have warned you about…” His tail drooped. “You shouldn’t have gone out there.”
Fi wanted to touch him. She wanted to cradle his cheeks in her hands, whisper soft words into his neck until his breathing calmed. It was subconscious, that step she took toward him.
“No.” His command, a low snap. “Not here.”
Of course. That was what they’d agreed, no interspecies affection while they were in hostile territory.
Fi inspected the room, having missed the chance to do so earlier.
The bed had dark sheets and one of those strange pillows Antal kept at home, mostly supporting his neck, leaving room for antlers.
No rugs to warm the stone floor. Scarce books on the shelves.
A gramophone. Of course he had a gramophone, nudged into a corner like a hidden vice.
Antal paced around a table, pausing beside the one sign of fresh life: a vase with flowers. They smelled sweet as jasmine. The white petals were narrower, snowy stardrops beneath the brush of Antal’s claw.
Fi hadn’t known he possessed a state more dismal than wet cat.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t draw any attention, as promised. After all, I’m just a simple vavraesa.”
Antal cast her a slow, wary look.
Ah. So he’d purposefully not taught her that one.
“I didn’t think you’d like the name,” he said.
“Rest assured, I hate it. Antler-less.” Fi tapped a finger to her chin. “Not impossible to remedy. I’ve got two daeyari antlers at home.” One cut off Tyvo during their duel. One kept from Verne’s corpse. “Not symmetrical, but enough for a fine hat?”
She’d hoped the tease would draw a laugh.
Antal’s shoulders slumped. “Not now, Fionamara. Not… here.”
How dare he underestimate her persistence.
“So. Your dad’s a piece of work.”
“Fi.”
“What’s with the gold on his antlers?”
Antal considered her wide stance, hands on her hips. His sigh crumbled in defeat.
“Avroz is a Sulskenen.”
“Sun… splitter?” she translated. Whatever it was sounded much cooler than antler-less.
“A mark of highest honor. He’s faced mortal combat with an aedari, the immortal foes of all daeyari, and emerged victorious. The gold signifies his achievement.”
Fi frowned. This was becoming excessive. “What’s a—”
“And so young.” Antal sneered. “Just in his second century. He decided to extend his travel years, explore farther into the Contested Planes.”
“Antal—”
“How was I ever supposed to match that? I returned after my travel years, the normal five decades, and Avroz turned his nose up. As if I hadn’t gone to distant enough Planes, not worldly enough for—”
“Antal.”
“What?” he snarled, tail a tense arc.
“The immortal foes of all daeyari?” she said, putting extra weight on that question mark.
Daeyari were people of dusk. Which made aedari… aed… ari… people of gold?
As Antal studied the floor, his tail slowed to a warier sway. “As I’ve said before, there are many dangers on the far Planes. The aedari are—”
He stiffened.
So did Fi. Static hit her tongue, the sign of a daeyari teleport.
Antal wasn’t facing the window. He had no time to spot glowing red eyes over the sill.
No chance to brace before the figure lunged.
They struck Antal in his side. He fell with a snarl, a flash of dark skin and ice-white hair, bared teeth and two lashing tails as they rolled across the floor.
Antal tried to right himself. His shoulders hit the tile, pinned down by hands on his antlers. Once, he’d told Fi that daeyari didn’t go easily onto their backs, yet this useless predator always seemed to end up on his.
Fi dug under her coat, grabbing the sword hilt she’d hidden in case anything went awry. She’d hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. Weapon drawn, she pulled energy out of her arm muscles, poised to Shape her blade as the attacking daeyari leaned into Antal—
And licked him.
Her black tongue traced long and slow up his exposed throat. Her thighs caged his waist, tail tangling with his upon the floor.
Fi froze, stunned.
Antal’s wide eyes, equally so.
“Ixli?” he breathed.