27 Terrible plans over mediocre coffee
“Are you… sure you want to be here?” Fi asked.
Kashvi’s wolverine scowl was answer enough. She hummed dissatisfaction and leaned back in her chair, propping boots onto her paper-strewn governor’s desk.
But truth be told, it was the crossbow that really drove the point home. She cradled the mechanism in her lap, stroking the polished metal stock.
“Why yes, Fi. I’m delighted to host a daeyari meeting in my city. In my office. It will be the highlight of my week.”
Sarcasm, noted. And unappreciated.
Luring Antal to this plan had been tedious enough. They’d vowed to be a team again. No more holding each other back. No more dividing lines between their two worlds.
So why not start by inviting the other daeyari to Thomaskweld to plan their next move in the aedari hunt?
A peace offering. A fresh start at working together, rather than whatever raised hackles bullshit they’d been doing. Fi thought it was an excellent idea. Antal had agreed after a tremendous amount of teeth gnashing.
Kashvi had immediately reached for her crossbow.
“They’re nice daeyari,” Fi said.
Kashvi’s brow rose, her dark hair tied in a skirmisher’s tail. “By what standard?”
“Well…” Fi held a hand level with her thigh. “Verne and Tyvo are down here. Avroz is…” She considered. “Ok, also down here. But Syvr!” She lifted her hand to a generous shoulder height. “And Ixli…” A notch down, about chest level. Ixli was growing on her, by badassery if nothing else.
Kashvi’s brow never lowered. Neither did the crossbow.
“Delightful,” she said. “So long as you vouch for them, by all means, let your nice daeyari come. I’m itching to meet them.”
“Could we put the crossbow away? Please?”
Kashvi grumbled and slid the crossbow under her desk, not fully out of reach, but a less immediate threat. Tiny steps.
With that settled, Fi saw to final preparations. Antal would arrive with their guests soon. She started coffee brewing in an energy-heated kettle then circled the windows, pulling blinds shut, dimming the room to more daeyari-friendly ambience.
Kashvi moved to the table at the center of the room. She braced her knuckles on the edge, studying a map full of pins and annotations.
The trail of an aedari, as best as they could reconstruct.
Clarence had tackled Fi’s request for information with stunning success.
While she’d tracked Summer trails with daeyari, Clarence had hunted down every report of mysterious burned buildings and disappearances in Antal Territory—then, the same for most of the Winter Plane.
Kashvi kept pace behind him, verifying reports and collecting investigation records.
The resulting map was labeled with dates, names, any information they could scavenge.
Fi joined Kashvi at the table. The scope of the work was stomach-churning.
Their earliest record of the aedari’s trail was right here in Antal Territory. Earlier than any of the Summer Plane instances, a lumber mill in the countryside near Runeyska. This danger, so close to home from the start.
Kashvi waved a hand over the map. “How do you feel about… all this?”
Fi heard the uncertainty in Kashvi’s voice. Entirely warranted, with a rogue immortal wandering their woods, snatching humans like the monster in some old folktale. She debated her usual mask of false bravado.
But Fi had promised to be better.
“It’s terrifying,” she admitted.
Kashvi looked up, eyes narrowed.
“It’s so much,” Fi went on. “The refuge we built in Nyskya was wonderful, but so small. Even overthrowing Verne feels small compared to this. Warring immortals. Winged beasts that feed on energy. And here’s our city, caught in the middle.”
Kashvi nodded. “It’s huge. But I wouldn’t want to be back in Nyskya.”
Fi was surprised to hear it. Of course, Kashvi’s terrifying work ethic made her an excellent governor. And Iliha was giddy with the success of her new tavern. They’d both fallen in love with Thomaskweld as much as Fi had. Still odd, to hear the stubborn woman admit it.
“If we were holed up in those mountains right now?” Kashvi said. “All this would still be happening. We just wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. At least here, we can.”
Fi couldn’t have said it better.
This fight was huge. Terrifying. She wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, could ask for no better ally than Kashvi, prickly and steel-willed like a wolverine.
“And I suppose,” Kashvi said, “I’d rather work with a cooperative daeyari, versus the alternative.”
Fi needed this in writing and signed by a notary, it was such baffling progress.
A knock sounded on the door. Kashvi flicked a glance to her desk. At a glare from Fi, Kashvi sighed in surrender.
“Come in,” the governor said.
Kashvi donned her usual stiffness when Antal entered. Clenched her fists, when Syvr followed on easy strides. The subtlest eye twitch, at Ixli prowling at the rear.
The door shut. Fi braced as she scanned the room, as if Avroz might leap out at her from behind a sofa. His absence was equal relief, and unnerving.
Antal dressed in a human shirt and simple trousers, sleeves rolled to the elbows. He greeted Kashvi with a bow that only made her scowl fiercer.
“Thank you for having us,” he said in seasonspeak. Then, a swap to daeyari for their guests, “This is Kashvi, Thomaskweld’s governor.”
Syvr wore equally relaxed attire for a daeyari, a shirt of contrasting dark and light blue fabric with silvered trim. They took in the space with bright eyes, a high arc to their tail. At the introduction, they mirrored Antal’s bow and offered a clawed hand to Kashvi.
“I’m Syvr,” they greeted in seasonspeak. “A pleasure, governor.”
Kashvi looked at Syvr’s hand. Back to them. “No.”
While Syvr appeared thoroughly amused, Ixli loomed behind, tail low, eyes ticking over windows and exits. She wore no metal armor. A shirt and pants of dark, scaled silviamesh hugged her frame, arms bare and lithe with muscle.
“Ixli doesn’t know seasonspeak,” Antal told Kashvi. “I’ll translate. If that’s acceptable?”
“Oh, don’t mind me.” Kashvi waved a chipper hand. “I’m just here to lend you my space. And to make sure no one gets eaten. The usual since you showed up, Lord Daeyari.”
“Please be nice to her,” Fi added in daeyari. “She keeps a crossbow under her desk.”
Ixli went rigid. Syvr cracked a wider smile, tail swatting Antal’s calf.
“Veshri’s teeth,” they snickered. “You do have a type.”
Antal looked like the most tired creature in all the Shattered Planes.
He gave Kashvi the usual berth, circling the table to greet Fi with a nose to her cheek.
She purred at his softness, at the brush of his tail at the back of her hand.
All this affection in front of other daeyari?
Fi would have patted him on the head for what a good boy he was being—if she weren’t preoccupied by counting the guests he’d brought.
“Avroz couldn’t join us,” Antal said, noting her wildcat twitch. “Business with the Daey Celva, reviewing candidates to replace Jazst.”
Oh, thank the Void. Maybe this meeting would go well, after all.
They could get straight to business—Kashvi’s impatient stance near the map made her vote clear.
But this was more than a tactical meeting.
Fi eyed the visiting daeyari like wolves captured from their native habitat.
Syvr, always a crafted ease about them, circled the room with head tipped to inspect the architecture.
Ixli stood stone-still, back to a defensible wall, looking every bit a wild animal on foreign ground.
Antal watched both of them as closely as Fi did, his tail low and anxious.
This poor, soft-hearted predator was afraid of every ghost that followed from his old world. But Fi had vowed he wouldn’t fight alone.
She fetched the coffee.
As she poured, clawed footsteps whispered behind her. Syvr circled closer—not too close, she preened to see. Not Fi-could-stab-them-with-an-energy-dagger-again close.
“Good to see you well, Fi. And in better spirits than last time?”
Their greeting was too cheerful. Their smirk, too smug. Not hard to guess, then, that Antal had dragged her away to fuck her brains out. For whatever reason, this fact appeared to increase her standing. She allowed it.
“Much better.” She matched their cheerful tone. “Coffee?”
Syvr accepted a mug, waggling scandalous brows, and by the Void, Fi did like this daeyari a little bit. None of that chiseled cold so common to their species.
Ixli sipped her coffee—then promptly spat it back in the mug.
“What in Veshri’s teeth is this?” she asked.
“Human coffee.” Syvr took a pointed sip of their own.
“Why is it so… sweet?”
“It’s an acquired taste, Ixli.”
“No, it isn’t,” Antal grumbled over his mug.
Fi scowled at her slighted generosity. Sure, she’d reacted the same to daeyari coffee—not that she tasted much of any coffee she drank, with how much cream and sugar she drowned it in.
“Where do I get daeyari coffee?” Fi asked Syvr.
They sipped their drink mildly. “From a daeyari, I imagine.”
She swatted Syvr’s tail. They laughed.
“Look at the nerve of this creature!” Syvr exclaimed, delighted. “She put Avroz on the ground, bares her teeth at daeyari. Antal, why have you been hiding her?”
Ok. This daeyari, Fi wasn’t so worried about. They acclimated to new environments with the resilience of a city pigeon.
Ixli lingered on the sidelines, glaring at her mug. Then Syvr. Then Kashvi. It occurred to Fi, they hadn’t gotten off to the best start. Ixli had started out prickly. Fi had been prickly herself, wary of teeth and past lovers.
But Ixli cared about Antal.
“I never thanked you,” Fi said. “For helping me fend off that aedari.”
Ixli snapped to attention, poised for battle—then wary, when Fi offered peace. Merciless Void, Antal did have a type. What a wonderful, masochistic creature he was.
“As is my duty,” Ixli said, curt.
“You’re incredible with that spear,” Fi added. “I can’t believe how fast you move. And parrying those sword hits? They hit like a train.”