23 The claws come out
They were gone.
Fi scanned the fields, every tree line, but they were gone. The aedari. Ixli. Antal. She considered Voidwalking, but that was far too slow, could only take her somewhere she’d been before. She couldn’t flit anywhere in sight like a daeyari. By now, Antal could be anywhere.
He’d left her behind.
Hadn’t she proven to him, time and again, that she was strong enough?
But Fi was still human. Still fragile skin buzzing from her transport stones, the second half of the shell dropped somewhere in the dirt. Still stuck here, unable to follow.
Static snapped her tongue.
Avroz and Syvr appeared, far too late. Both daeyari surveyed the yard—and Fi, glaring like an angry mongoose.
“Where the fuck were you?” she demanded.
“Scouting another ridgeline for a better vantage point,” Avroz said. He sniffed, followed by a sneer. “What happened?”
“The aedari,” Syvr answered. They prowled the yard, nose wrinkled, inspecting drops of golden blood in the dirt.
“The others?” Avroz asked.
“Antal and Ixli went after it,” Fi returned.
“And Jazst?”
Her lips thinned. “Inside.”
Syvr was first to the house, a tap of bare feet against the porch. They pushed open the door.
“Oh… fuck.” Their tailed arced low, eyes wide on Jazst’s headless corpse.
Syvr disappeared into the house. There was nothing Fi could have done. The aedari had moved so fast. She’d just stood there and watched as—
“What happened?” Avroz snarled.
He circled the battlefield, ground rutted by claws and singed from energy strikes, but his glare focused on her. His accusation sliced for her.
“The aedari was disguised as that human farmer,” Fi said. But why pretend? The immortal was supposed to be sleeping, not role-playing house chores. “He killed Jazst.”
Avroz’s tail lashed to stillness. A serrated, “He?”
Fi didn’t care enough to argue pronouns. “It came after me. Ixli fought it.”
“She let it get away?”
“She had to fight it on her own. Antal wouldn’t let me—”
“You distracted him?”
“I helped more than you!”
Fi tried to keep her voice level, but merciless Void, she couldn’t stop herself shouting at this utter tool of a daeyari. She pointed to her head, miming imaginary antlers. “Oh, esteemed Sunsplitter. Couldn’t even grace us with your fighting prowess when we needed it.”
Daddy Fangs didn’t like that.
His tail dipped. Words a warning rumble.
“Do not speak to me like we are equals, vavraesa. The way you speak to him.”
There it was. Finally, after all these days of playing nice.
“You agreed to let me come,” Fi accused.
“And see what good it’s done. Antal would be better off leaving you at home where you belong. Keep his bed warm, if you must, so long as he sees to his duties.” Avroz leveled a claw at her. “You will not ruin this for him.”
Or ruin it for Avroz. Fi heard that selfish undertone.
He’d been suspiciously tolerant of her—when Antal was here. When Avroz needed his son to fall in line.
Antal was too soft, too easily swayed with his heart exposed. Fi was still angry at him. Of course she was furious that he’d left her behind, that he’d bowed to his father’s will time and again. Not a single rigid vertebra in that Void-woven spine.
But Fi had been the same with her father.
She’d hated the man. She’d needed him. She’d wanted nothing more than to earn the love he ought to have given her freely, would have sacrificed anything for a functioning family. The same impossible position Antal was in now.
He’d asked her, once, if Fi had ever forgiven her father.
She’d never considered it. She’d always assumed she was the one who’d broken things, she was the one who couldn’t live up to the perfect daughter her father wanted.
Had Fi been so short-sighted, to not see Antal suffering the same?
He hated Avroz. He ached for forgiveness.
He wanted a family that didn’t shred him to pieces.
Except this bastard daeyari didn’t deserve forgiveness.
And there, at last, Fi saw the full shape of what Avroz was doing.
“You didn’t kill me when you had the chance.” Fury simmered in her chest, but she kept her voice low, not alerting Syvr inside the house. “Not out of mercy. Because killing me would drive Antal away again. It would make him less useful to you.”
All this time, she’d only been a carrot. A fake olive branch.
Avroz’s narrowed gaze confirmed as much. Maybe she’d been dissecting him from the wrong angle. She’d assumed he’d murdered Razik out of maliciousness, that cruel daeyari superiority—but why, if Avroz wanted Antal on the Dusk Council so badly? Wouldn’t he have known he’d be pushing Antal away?
“Because even you fuck up sometimes, don’t you?
” Fi said. “You made a mistake when you killed Razik. You thought you had Antal so firmly under your claws, that getting rid of his human would bring him back in line. But it did the opposite. It drove him away for a century, and you’re still making up for lost ground. ”
Avroz’s tail was unnervingly still. His tone, level enough to slice a jugular. “Careful, vavraesa. Speculation is a dangerous game.”
“I won’t let you hurt him,” Fi said. A threat.
“Hurt him? He’s my son. Why would I ever—”
“Listen to me, you twig-headed dusk fungus.” Now she leveled a finger.
She bared her teeth. “I won’t let you hurt him.
I know your type. You’re too used to being in control.
You take gambles you shouldn’t, because you’re so sure your power will always protect you.
That overconfidence is going to take you down. It always does.”
That was the step too far.
Fi saw the subtle shift in Avroz’s posture. A human? He could tolerate. An inconvenience? He could endure.
A pawn not moving the way he wanted? Unacceptable.
The flick of his tail was wide and sharp. Familiar.
“You think you get to decide?” he said.
Fi didn’t regret her words. She did feel that prey instinct in her gut, when Avroz stepped toward her. With heart quickening, she glanced at the ground. The dirt. The color of the gravel.
“You think you have any choice in this game?” Avroz said. Another step closer.
Fi forced every stone into memory. The smell of the wheat. The heat of the sun.
“You’re a pet,” he spat. “Pretending you have fangs.”
“My fangs are plenty sharp.” Energy pooled hot at Fi’s fingertips.
“Are they?” One final tail flick.
Avroz lunged.
Fi threw herself backward, through a rip in reality, into the black of the Void.
The silence was instant. Fi floated, body slowing to near stasis, cold pressing her bones. She had no time to contemplate the abyss, no time to worry if this was her own reckless gamble.
She closed her eyes and visualized: dirt, gravel, wheat, the old boards of the farmhouse painted in fading blue.
She’d never done it like this before. Had never tried Voidwalking to a place she didn’t know like the back of her soul. But the principle was the same.
She had to visualize in perfect detail.
Sun-baked dirt. Gravel in grays and tan. Wheat itching her nose, the old chaff strewn across the yard, faded gold compared to splashes of aedari blood.
Dirt, gravel, wheat.
Dirt, gravel, wheat.
Dirt. Gravel. Wh—
The air flew from her chest as she plunged.
Fi lurched out the other side, back into Summer sunlight. Back to Avroz—staring at the place she’d just been. The stunned look on his face was delicious.
Just a human, was she? Just a pet to warm Antal’s bed?
Fi Shaped her sword and swung. Avroz dodged as fast as expected, for an immortal Sunsplitter. Claws swiped for her side.
She pushed into the Void again. It was easier this time. Dirt. Gravel. Wheat. Fi knew she could do it now, welcomed the plunge into the Void then back to reality.
She emerged into a tackle. Avroz fought for balance, but Fi had been practicing how to tumble daeyari for a year.
She knew the slight difference in their center of gravity, thanks to those raised heels.
He hit the ground. She grabbed one antler, holding fangs at bay, pinning his head against the dirt.
He fell still when her energy sword pressed his throat.
It was haunting, how similarly Antal and Avroz wore that bewildered look, one version that warmed her heart, the other decidedly more murderous. Fi knelt atop her conquered prey with a bloom of victorious adrenaline—
That was only slightly marred by the excruciating pain spearing her center.
She fought to keep her breath steady, despite Avroz’s claws buried in her stomach.
Her silviamesh had stopped him slicing clear to her spine, but energy-coated claws still popped the seams, digging deep into vulnerable flesh.
Avroz lay beneath her sword, eyes bright with a rage she’d need nine centuries to comprehend, fangs ready for her throat.
He pushed his claws deeper. Fi clamped her teeth against a scream, blood slipping hot down her navel.
She didn’t know what to do.
She hadn’t expected to get this far.
The noise drew Syvr out of the house. They halted on the porch, eyes wide. But they didn’t intervene.
All Fi could do was hold her blade steady.
“Release me, vavraesa,” Avroz ordered. “If you value your life.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed. Fi felt the swish of his tail beneath her. Pain pushed black around the edges of her vision.
“No?” he seethed.
“You first.”
“Release me. Or I’ll shred you down to bone.”
“So will I, daeyari!” Fi fought through the pain, warred to keep her sword firm at his throat.
“We’ll go together, if that’s what you want so badly.
I’ve got thirty-three years to leave behind.
You’ve got nine centuries. Which is a bigger legacy to give up?
Because rest assured, you have no idea how petty I can be. ”
Petty enough to keep Tyvo’s antler. To kill Verne. Were those the calculations running behind Avroz’s glare? Or was he debating the swiftest way to gut her?
“Fuck’s sake, Avroz,” Syvr said at last. “We’ve got one dead daeyari already.”
Fi decided, then, that she might actually like Syvr.
With a snarl, Avroz pulled his claws free. That hurt more.
She toppled off him, on her knees for only the moment it took to gasp and stop herself from passing out. Standing up required cataclysmic effort. Fi collected herself on trembling legs, backing away.
Avroz stood with the sleekness of a panther. He watched her in silence. Her sword had left a singe on his neck, healed with a snap of red energy.
Fi couldn’t heal so easily. She risked looking down…
“I’m not sure you’ve made the point you wanted to, vavraesa,” Avroz said.
Her breath quaked. Her silviamesh was shredded, ten red gashes cut deep into the pale skin of her stomach.
Holy fuck, she was bleeding a lot.
Holy fuck. She might be dying.
Fi staggered, legs not just shaking, but weakening. The current she’d been Shaping sputtered in her hand, extinguishing her sword.
Syvr stepped warily toward her. “Fi, sit down. You don’t look—”
Avroz flicked a hand to silence them. “She wants to play alongside daeyari? Let her.”
The world dimmed. Syvr’s worried eyes. Avroz watching for her to fall. Blood on her hands, as she tried to press them to the wounds. She was bleeding too fast.
She needed more time. Needed to slow this down. Needed to get away from…
A weak current sparked on her fingers.
Fi half pushed, half fell into the Void.
It still hurt. That was disappointing.
The black of the Void wrapped Fi like an embrace. Constricted like a vice. Everything fell quiet. Everything slowed. The blood from her stomach dulled to a trickle, but still a mess.
Still a problem.
Fi tried not to panic. She tried not to hyperventilate, this place already airless, her lungs aching with cold pressure. This time, it didn’t feel like floating. It felt like sinking, a slow drift to some interminable depth.
How easy it would be, to close her eyes and let go? Regardless of what Avroz said, she’d made a damn impressive point.
Tragically, it wouldn’t seem as impressive if she died.
Fi inspected the wound. The Void was endless black, yet always, a strange light clung to her, dim enough to see her edges. The cuts were deep. Flayed skin. Flayed muscle.
A deeper dread bloomed with the pain. Energy Shaping couldn’t heal this. Fi could speed her body’s natural healing, could cauterize flesh. She couldn’t regenerate tissue.
Not like daeyari could.
For the hundredth time, Fi cursed this fragile flesh, this inadequacy she couldn’t shake. She’d tried. She’d learned to Voidwalk. She’d learned to fight. She’d tried so hard to be more than this mortal body she’d been stuck with.
Daeyari used to be mortal, too.
The realization struck slowly. Hanging in the Void, life slipping away, Fi sifted through what she knew of daeyari myth.
They were mortal once, millennia ago. Veshri had died.
His energy had returned to the Void, like all living creatures, but he hadn’t passed to the afterlife.
Nor had he fractured into waves of aurora, like other souls who failed to move on.
He’d woven a new body to hold his energy, using Void ether.
That was how daeyari healed themselves. They could rebuild flesh, not out of nothing.
Out of Void ether.
Antal had tried explaining the process, once. A puzzling mix of intention and instinct. Daeyari had to will themselves to heal, could pull ether from the Void even while standing on a Plane. Once they handed their bodies the raw material, the tissue rebuilt automatically.
They gathered ether. A physical thing. Fi waved a hand in front of her, but felt nothing.
This was stupid.
But she had to try. Fi focused. No matter how swift or slow she swiped her hand, no matter how she wiggled her fingers, she felt nothing but emptiness.
Emptiness and cold. When Fi licked her lips, they tasted of ice and ozone, like when she ran her tongue over Antal.
A taste of daeyari energy.
Fi closed her eyes and felt for energy.
The Void was emptiness—but a weight to it. Silence—but a thrum of something eternal in her bones. If she listened close, Fi could almost hear the whispers of dead souls around her. She could imagine eyes peering back from the depth of infinity.
She reached out.
This time, not just with her hand. Fi Shaped a current. She summoned the energy inside her, leached out of living muscle, calling to the surrounding emptiness.
And there, at her fingertips, Fi felt something. So light, she might have imagined it.
She kept her eyes closed.
Fi pulled the strands like spider silk, spooled gossamer at her fingers. They were cool. Wisping. Ephemeral threads, but she gathered what she could, touching them to her ruined stomach.
And she began to weave.