34 Come at me, daeyari
This bed was fine.
Not home, but the sheets were soft. Fi was warm in the cocoon she’d spun for herself. The air from the gardens fell cool and sweet against her cheeks.
Anywhere could be like home, with Antal’s arms around her.
Wife.
Fi lay awake in the twilight of early morning, her legs wrapped around his hip, his tail resting in her palm, listening to him sleep. His breath whispered against her shoulder, his words from last night a purr through drowsy thoughts.
Marry me. Be my wife.
My ezria.
She grinned. Such a soft beast, here in her arms. Maybe she’d enjoy tormenting him a little, drawing out her answer when he asked again.
Until she said yes, of course.
The past few weeks had been hard. They’d both been stubborn, and afraid, and wrenched in opposing directions. Despite all that, he’d listened. They’d worked together. In the stillness of dawn, Fi lay in his arms and imagined how much else they could accomplish together.
For now, she desperately needed a bathroom.
Antal’s room had a small washing area, nothing suited to baser human needs—weird immortals and their food combustion, not needing bathrooms. Fi slipped out of his arms, drawing a mumble as he burrowed deeper into sleep.
Morning air pricked gooseflesh across her bare skin.
She dressed in the first pants and shirt she laid hands on in the dim light, then padded out the door, down the hall to the human wing of the house.
With her business finished, she walked back at a slower pace.
The halls were quiet, the house asleep. Stone tiles passed cool beneath her bare feet.
In the sitting room, a heady scent of flowers drifted through the open windows.
Fi, drawn to the patio, stood on her own a moment and just…
breathed. Took all this in. Her space within it.
She’d almost go so far as to describe the moment as tranquil.
Until a whisper of claws on stone pricked her ears.
Fi grabbed her sword hilt—because she’d never be caught without it again—spinning and Shaping a crimson blade to level at the daeyari behind her.
Avroz leaned against the doorframe, his expression dry as old bone.
“In my own home, vavraesa? How uncouth.”
All these calculations were becoming familiar: measuring the ten feet between them, Fi alone, the merits of fighting or running or shouting like a demon if he lunged for her.
Instead, he crossed the patio at a casual gait. Still dangerous. Despite the early hour, Avroz was fully dressed, simple clothes for traveling and dual sword hilts at his hip. The dark braid between his antlers was uncharacteristically mussed.
“Where have you been?” Fi asked.
He narrowed his eyes. Lowered to a growl. “Hunting.”
Meant to intimidate her, of course. But daeyari of the Twilit Plane didn’t hunt down their humans, they had them delivered.
The second aedari, then? Had he gone out alone to search for the trail, not even one full night to savor their first victory? Fi hadn’t realized Avroz was so desperate behind that stone facade. So eager to bring good news to the Dusk Council.
“Any luck?” she asked. Because of course she was curious.
“None.” He scowled at her sword. “Put that away. We’re both getting what we want now, aren’t we?”
He leaned against the stone balustrade encircling the patio, tail arced against the rail. That firm set to his jaw was too familiar. That head tilt, too much like Antal.
Fi extinguished her sword. That made her look more confident, keeping her chin up as she returned the hilt to her pocket.
At a delay, she registered that it was not, in fact, her shirt that she’d grabbed off the floor in her haste. The slow drag of Avroz’s gaze affirmed he’d arrived at the same conclusion. Fi clutched her fingers into the vesper fabric sleeves, drawing strength from Antal’s ozone scent.
“Both getting what we want?” She laughed. “And here I thought I was just a pawn.”
Everything about this daeyari was too still. Too keen. His Void and burgundy eyes barely scraped over her, yet Fi had to fight a shudder.
“I’ll admit,” he said, “you’re more than I expected.”
She lifted a brow.
“Antal has always been susceptible to his frivolities.” Avroz shrugged. “Maybe you do love him. Maybe you’re just using him for your own benefit—in which case, admirably played.”
Fi clenched her fists until her knuckles ached. A new calculation: all the reasons she shouldn’t skin this daeyari alive. Frightfully short. Verging on zero.
“My son seems quite taken with you,” Avroz went on. “A difference in taste. But I admit, I’m beginning to see why. To Voidwalk? To heal yourself? To kill an aedari? Impressive feats. For a vavraesa.”
That was, by far, the kindest thing Avroz had ever said to her.
Fi let the praise trickle down her neck.
It seeped into her, cold as mountain ice.
An aftertaste like bitter nettle. She weighed her response carefully, searching for the right words.
The right eloquence. The right counter in this guarded game they were playing.
“Fuck you,” Fi replied.
It felt good to say. She didn’t say it enough, really, given the sheer quantity of fuck-yous that Avroz deserved. The daeyari stood mildly upon his patio, in his home, his Plane, untouched by her petty mortal vitriol—except the subtlest twitch of his tail.
“I offer you peace,” he said, “and that’s all you have to say?”
Fi scoffed. “You aren’t offering peace. I walked through your door, and you looked at me like a cut of meat.
You tried to use me like a tool. And only when that didn’t work, you finally feel like giving a compliment?
” She stepped closer. Flashed her teeth.
“Bullshit. I didn’t become worthy of something by killing an aedari.
I was always worth more. All the humans you’ve murdered and eaten were worth more. ”
She pressed the space between them until scant inches remained. Close enough to smell ice and old stone, to feel the crackle of immortal energy.
Closer than she should be.
As close as she had to be, to spar with these creatures.
Avroz had more experience at this game, a staggering nine centuries—older than some of the cities Fi had worked in, and just as firmly rooted. He didn’t balk at her proximity. His eyes did narrow. Every time she played a hand like this, he hardened a little more. Honing.
He tilted closer a fraction of an inch. Matching her challenge. Fi held her ground, banishing the memory of his claws in her stomach.
“Did Antal teach you this?” he breathed, cold on her cheek.
He was unsettling at a distance. Horrifying, this close. The flawless calm. That calculated flash of fangs through his whisper.
Fi kept her tone flat. “Predators chase after things that run. Your entire species made sure to teach us that.”
Avroz huffed a laugh. In her peripheral, Fi caught the twitch of a tail, the glint of shifting claws. Intentional distractions. She never broke eye contact.
“You want to fight me so badly?” he asked. “I assumed you’d be glad to finally earn my approval.” His eyes flicked, so briefly, to her stomach. “You’ve certainly worked for it.”
Fi bared all her teeth. No fangs to match his, but twice the vitriol.
“I don’t care what you think of me. I’m here for Antal. For your son, who you’ve treated like just another disposable thing, having to work to earn your acceptance.”
Oh, the words she could say. Every single curse she knew in daeyari and seasonspeak, she could scream at this creature, and it would never be enough.
Avroz’s expression was granite. His antlers arced over her, nine time-sharpened points.
And one tip missing, Antal had mentioned. A severed branch on the back arc.
Not untouchable, this beast.
Fi ignored his threats, nodding to the golden bands on his antlers. “Those fancy gold Sunsplitter rings. Will Antal get some?”
Avroz’s eyes smoldered. “Of course.”
“Good. He’s earned them.”
All the words she could say—but none of them worth the breath.
Fi turned her back on him and walked away.
It screamed against every instinct. Never run from a predator. Never show her vulnerable parts. But this was how she told that wretched old daeyari that he didn’t scare her, his taunts and threats couldn’t peel under her skin.
“You’ll never be enough for him,” Avroz said.
Fi stopped.
So quiet, his words. As flat as a blade. Fi faced him again, armed with every bristle.
Every scrap of defense she had, just to hide her flinch.
Avroz leaned against the balustrade, tail curled, as calm as ever. He appraised her with a slow look of… Void, no. That was not pity he was attempting to wield at her.
“Impressive, for a vavraesa,” he said, just as soft.
Just as piercing. “But no matter how boldly you speak, how fiercely you fight, you will only ever be a passing moment in his life. A century, if you’re lucky.
” He shrugged. “What does a century matter? He’s thrown a century away on aimlessness, uncertain what to do with his life. ”
Fi struggled to keep her breath even. To stop her hands from shaking.
“But after that?” Avroz said. “You won’t be part of the centuries he lives after you’re gone. After you wither. After your flesh burns off your bones, ‘returned to the dust of the Plane,’ as your people say.”
Fi’s thudding heart wasn’t cooperative. She knew daeyari could sense the quickened pulse.
“So, by all means,” Avroz finished, “enjoy your time with him. And once he’s done with you, he’ll return to the work he was born to do. The legacy of his family. I don’t need to get rid of you, Fionamara. You’re a temporary inconvenience.”
Her name was the final cut that made Fi recoil.
For the very first time, Avroz spoke her full name—exactly the way Antal said it, purred like a lover, taunting in its false tenderness.
On the outside, Fi was stone. A husk. Something hurt in her chest, only slicing deeper when she turned. When she walked away without another word.
Avroz let her go. Of course. He’d landed the final blow, and it peeled straight to her core.
Fi returned to Antal’s room.
He’d not woken in her absence. She crossed to the bed. Lifted the covers. Slipped back to his side, into the warmth of his arms. Despite several deep breaths, she couldn’t stop shaking.
Why couldn’t she stop shaking?
Last night, she’d been untouchable. She and Antal were a team. They’d slain an aedari together. He’d asked her to marry him. It filled her heart, the thought of spending every day with him. Through kisses. Through fights. Through all that they could accomplish, until the end.
Until her end.
Antal knew she was human. He’d asked her to marry him anyway. So what did it matter? Fi would have to leave him one day, whether or not he called her his wife.
But she would leave him.
And she still couldn’t give him all that he wanted. They’d have a human wedding. Not that daeyari bonding Antal had mentioned. Not if they needed Avroz’s blessing.
Fi burrowed against Antal’s chest. She let his warmth swallow her, counted each rise and fall of his breaths until hers slowed to match. She had to fight this. She couldn’t let Avroz win.
But still, a hollow lingered in her chest. One a human could never fill.