31 Sealed in Gold #3
Ixli grinned. “If I’m an artist, you’re a monsoon. You had that aedari quaking, human.”
Fionamara blushed, her grin feral. “And Antal?” She shot him an even more devious look. “Excellent job not being useless.”
“Vicious woman,” he said. “And so uncharitable. I helped plenty—”
Static snapped his tongue. They all looked up.
At Avroz: staring, burgundy eyes wider than Antal could recall in recent memory.
At Syvr: one step behind, brows raised to the stars.
“Well, crack my antlers,” they said in a hush. “Look at that.”
“Welcome, izaevi.” Antal swept a magnanimous arm at the felled aedari. “Your timing is, once again, awful.”
He hadn’t spoken so blithely to his father since velvet coated his antlers. He’d lacked the confidence to stand upon. But a dead aedari was some kind of confidence.
It felt good.
“You did it?” Avroz wore his guarded tone, stepping closer to inspect the corpse. Deliberate movements. His politician’s guise. Did he not believe his eyes, even now?
Ixli stood, her bowed head more formal than Antal’s. “There was a second aedari. A magician.”
Avroz hardened. His scowl was subtle, fit to wound in every deep way Antal knew. Ixli flinched.
“A second?” Avroz demanded. “Where?”
“It… got away.”
“Can you track it?”
“We barely caught this one. The trail… it’s probably not enough…” That was shame in Ixli’s voice, tail low, drowning her previous mirth.
Antal would have none of it.
“We’ll find it again.” He parroted Fionamara’s words, her confidence, as he faced Avroz. “Later. We’ll never pick up its trail if it was teleporting so quickly. But for now? This deserves celebration, doesn’t it? Your kezri has achieved a great feat.”
Ixli deserved to celebrate her first aedari kill, not be chastised for missing the second. She slipped him a subtle grin.
Avroz lifted the aedari’s severed head, eyes hard as he inspected the features. His hesitation was striking, even by his stalwart standards. Certainly, Antal wouldn’t want to be the one returning to the Daey Celva, informing them there was still one aedari loose.
But at his core, Avroz was a creature of tradition.
This occasion demanded recognition. A ritual passed through millennia, for any daeyari skilled enough to fell such quarry.
Avroz gathered himself, a slow breath as formality slid over his posture. He held the aedari’s head over his hand, draining golden blood into his palm.
“An aedari has fallen,” he announced. “Who drew first blood?”
The words were a recital. A ceremony Antal had never witnessed in person.
For some reason, Ixli was staring at him.
Antal frowned—then straightened at the memory of the aedari holding Fionamara by the wrist. Antal lunging for the beast. His claws dragging gold from its chest.
“Antal drew first blood,” Ixli said.
The flicker of surprise across Avroz’s face wasn’t unexpected. It was his father’s grin that caught Antal off guard. That moment of rarely relinquished pride. Part of Antal loathed it. Part of him coveted it.
He stepped forward, kneeling at his father’s feet. This time, for once, he didn’t feel powerless on his knees. Avroz held out his hand, palm pooled with aedari blood.
The prize of a successful hunt. Offered by one Sunsplitter, to another. An honor Antal had never imagined earning—but he knew what he was meant to do.
He took his father’s hand, then drank.
The effect hit instantly. This wasn’t blood like any mortal creature. Aedari veins ran with concentrated energy, thick as syrup, the taste like… Antal struggled to place it. Summer sunlight on his tongue. Fire-cracked stone.
Daeyari liquor was strong. But this was incomparable. Heat flooded into Antal’s stomach, a surge of energy that lit every nerve in his body. He gasped as the swell reached his head, sending the Plane into a dizzying, euphoric swirl.
Antal sank back on his heels, breath shuddering, tongue tracing his lips to savor every drop. The world was all heat, and kaleidoscopic leaves, and fireflies as bright as little suns.
Maybe this hunt wasn’t such a wretched venture, after all.
“Who fought at your side?” Avroz asked next.
Antal waded through the haze of aedari blood. He looked first to Fionamara. Her bemusement was palpable, brow quirked upon the ritual. She nudged her chin at Ixli.
“Ixli fought at my side,” Antal announced.
Avroz collected more golden blood in his palm, beckoning Ixli forward. She moved on her usual lithe strides, head high, only the sway of her tail betraying anxiety. Knelt at Antal’s side, she accepted Avroz’s offering and drank.
The effects washed over her as lidded eyes. A shudder. Then a contented sigh.
Avroz looked between them. “And who landed the killing blow?”
Despite his muddied thoughts, Antal stiffened. That wasn’t what Avroz was supposed to ask next. He was supposed to continue the chain, asking Ixli who fought at her side, until all warriors had been acknowledged.
But Avroz didn’t see any other warriors to acknowledge, did he? Ire rooted in Antal’s ribs, bitter and familiar.
In the end, the omission didn’t matter. Who landed the killing blow?
Both Antal and Ixli looked to Fionamara.