28 Best of Both Worlds
It was a clever plan. Too clever. Antal could brook no argument.
He’d brought Ixli and Syvr to Thomaskweld, this haven he’d carved out of isolation, this home unlike any they’d ever seen him in. He’d braced for judgment. Claws. To stand between them and Fionamara like hissing cats.
Instead, she’d made them coffee.
This vicious anomaly of a woman had laughed with Syvr’s taunting. She’d matched strategy with Ixli. Now, she stood over the table with crimson hair and dark eyes, commanding every gaze in the room. Offering herself to see their ends met.
The past few days had been a windstorm of emotion.
He’d been angry at her—then he’d poured his heart out into the comfort of her arms, confessing every fear.
He’d wanted to keep her from the dangers of his old world—then she’d convinced him to invite more daeyari to their city.
He’d heard Syvr laugh, seen Ixli lower her hackles, and for one na?ve moment, he’d dared to think this might all work out.
Then Fionamara proposed her plan. This woman, destroying him with her bravery.
Syvr and Ixli bent over the map, debating which search zones to prioritize, their scents of sea salt and metal achingly familiar in the shared space.
Fionamara slipped to his side. She was warmth against the chill in his chest. A smell of embers and home as she pressed close, touching her shoulder to his.
“If you really don’t want me to go,” she whispered, “I won’t. We can find another way.”
She meant it. Her soft tone, the way she looked at him through veiled lashes. Antal nestled his nose into her hair.
“It’s a good plan,” he said. “I trust you.”
“And I trust you.” Fionamara caught his tail in light fingers, a new weapon, enough to crumble him with the gentle pressure of her palm. “You’ll be at my side the moment I need you.”
He hoped to Void and Veshri that she was right.
A human courier slipped into the room. With wide eyes on the pack of daeyari, she delivered a letter to Kashvi then scampered back out. Kashvi inspected the missive. Frowned. She handed it across the table to Antal.
It was addressed to him, urgent, from the Thomaskweld hospital.
After this meeting, he didn’t have the stomach for any more urgent demands. But as he sliced open the seal and read…
Relief. Unexpected, and swift to the pit of his stomach.
Fionamara leaned against him to spy the note. She replied with a soft “oh,” posture relaxing to match his. The hospital had a meal for him. A voluntary donor, not half an hour old.
Death was nothing to celebrate. Antal’s relief came solemn, sorry for the loss. But this was their new system at work. A body willingly given, none of the burden of sending Fionamara to track one down, the guilt of pressuring a grieving family.
She nudged him. “Go on. While it’s fresh. We’re done here, anyway?”
And Antal would need his strength, if they were to face an aedari again.
They all would. He glanced at Ixli, Syvr, another pang in his chest. Daeyari typically shared their meals, one body enough to feed many. Antal had shared more dinners with these two than he could count.
Fionamara tracked his gaze.
“We agreed, no more pushing them away?” she said. “It doesn’t hurt to ask.”
Syvr raised their mug for a toast. “We have a plan, then! We’ll have that aedari by the pins of its energy feathers. And Antal finally invited us to visit? A good day all around.”
Ixli clinked mugs but didn’t drink. “Don’t scare him off, Syvr, or we won’t see him again for another five decades.” For once not an insult, but a joke. Even Antal added his quiet laugh to the others.
“The visit was long overdue,” he said. “I appreciate you journeying all the way here. And… I could offer dinner, before you leave?”
It didn’t hurt to ask. Even if they refused. Even if they both looked at Antal with the same derision his parents had when they’d learned he’d been eating corpses, at least he’d tried—
“Oh?” Syvr’s head tilted. “A visit and dinner? Take my false heart”—they pressed a hand to their chest—“From this new system of yours?”
“Already dead,” Antal said. “But fresh. Relatively. I understand if you don’t…”
“I’d be delighted.” Syvr beamed.
Ixli was more hesitant. A long pause as her tail swished. Then, a nod that stunned Antal to his core.
That swift? That easy?
He flinched when Fionamara patted his shoulder. “Isn’t this wonderful! I hope you three enjoy your meal.” She flashed a smug grin.
Antal fell in love with her all over again.
“You won’t be joining us?” Syvr asked.
Fionamara barked a laugh. “No. I’ll pass on corpse dissection. Thanks.” Her arm fell around Kashvi’s shoulders. “What do you say, governor? The daeyari are taken care of. That leaves you and I plenty of time to get very drunk.”
Kashvi glared at Fionamara’s arm as if debating whether to gnaw it off. Then, a nod.
Antal took a deep breath. He sought strength in his friends’ swift acceptance—in Fionamara’s parting glance, urging him on.
“Let’s be off, then.” He held his hands out to Syvr and Ixli.
The Thomaskweld hospital was quiet in the evening. Dim, here in the back halls, with their pale tiles and closed doors. Antal kept out of sight of the lobby, the main patient areas, wary of startling anyone. The basement corridor was empty all the way to the morgue.
A human woman waited for him. Antal recognized the surgeon, outfitted in a clean white smock with long sleeves.
“Lord Daeyari.” She bowed in greeting.
“Doctor Ivreza,” he returned with equal respect.
Their faces always shifted when he remembered their names. Before Fionamara? That face had been fear, as if the safest place to be was out of their daeyari’s attention. Now, there was a softening. A familiarity, like early blooms in a thaw.
Wariness remained. The doctor eyed two more daeyari lurking in the corridor.
“Guests,” Antal assured her. “They’ll do no harm. On my word.”
She nodded then unlocked the door, holding it open for Antal to enter.
When this arrangement began, the hospital had asked if he still wanted meals delivered to his forest shrine.
That seemed an unnecessary hassle for everyone.
Next, they’d asked if they should offer a more comfortable dining chamber, but steel and stone were easiest to clean.
In the end, they’d given him one of the autopsy rooms. They’d removed the antiseptics and dissecting tools, cleared the walls, installed softer lights.
The door clicked closed behind the three daeyari.
A body lay upon the floor, wrapped in a clean white sheet.
“Apologies for the dour setting,” Antal said. “Not the most comfortable dining chamber. Truly, if you don’t want to stay, I understand—”
“Stop apologizing,” Ixli chided. “You’re a gracious host to offer a meal.”
Her tail swatted his calf. Then, the briefest brush to his, a pledge of support he didn’t realize he needed until he shuddered in response. He’d told Fionamara he missed his time with other daeyari. Now that he had them, he felt tense as a windblown shiverpine.
He knelt beside the body, settling upon a fabric pad brought to soften the concrete. Ixli and Syvr sat across from him. Customary, for host and guests. Antal pulled back the sheet, uncovering the face.
He knew the man’s name: Ivan.
They’d spoken, while Ivan still lived. Antal strived to meet every mortal who volunteered to donate, to know them in life.
Ivan had known he was dying. Cancer, the humans called it, their own body turning against itself. Shapers could target energy to attack small tumors, but if the affliction spread too wide, there was little they could do without damaging healthy tissue.
Ivan had no family to mourn him. Not much time left, when he and Antal had met. He’d spoken of making his death worthwhile. Antal had kept him company for an afternoon, letting the human talk of his life and aspirations.
Antal could never be human himself. But he could be more humane. He could treat these people with the respect they deserved, gratitude for the sustenance they provided. He laid a hand on Ivan’s shoulder, the skin still faintly warm.
Before he remembered he wasn’t alone.
Syvr and Ixli watched in silence. No derision, Antal was shocked to see. Only curiosity.
“Why did you start doing this?” Ixli asked.
Antal hesitated. The truth was dangerous, an open wound, cracked ribs bared for all to see. He’d never met another daeyari who understood. He’d never met one who even humored his explanation. But these were his friends, and…
“They all had lives before they come to us,” Antal said. “Dreams. Families. Personalities. I see their faces sometimes… the human I lost, Razik. And Fionamara. There beneath my claws, wearing the same warm flesh.” He looked up. “Do you, ever?”
It was a blade, the way they both looked at him. Still without derision.
“Some are harder than others,” Syvr agreed, their tail a thoughtful brush on the floor. “I’ve met some delightful humans in my travels. Still need to eat, but I’ve never cared for the slaughter myself, have always shared meals where I can. Your method is even less destructive.”
Ixli’s tail flicked. “I’ve never… really thought about them as more than…” Her words trailed off. She touched a gentle hand to Ivan’s arm, her brow creased in thought.
Some daeyari reveled in the thrill of tearing open prey. Others forced it out of mind, food and nothing more, no face and no name. Antal had spent so long trying to be the lesser of two evils.
But Fionamara had proposed a third path. One he could shape himself.
Here were two potential allies, looking as if there was nothing wrong with this way of doing things. Nothing wrong with him.
“Thank you for joining me,” he said. “It’s an honor to have you here.”
The words weren’t enough. They were all he could muster. Antal rested a grateful hand on Ivan’s forehead, a silent prayer that his energy find safe travels across the Void.
Then he set to carving.
Night draped over Thomaskweld.