38 I’ll have you know that I’m God’s favorite
No one liked awkward silences.
There were the normal kinds of awkward silences, like when you ran out of things to say at a dinner party, or bumping into someone unpleasant to talk to.
Then there was this kind of awkward silence. A profound silence. Verging on cataclysmic, considering all the daeyari staring at Fi.
One of them happened to be… the daeyari insisted, not a god. Though they talked about him like a god. Some confusing demigod-esque situation.
But it was him. The daeyari she’d met in the Void a year ago, now standing before her, an honest-to-goodness statue of himself shading the valley.
Veshri. The first immortal daeyari, Fi could hear in Antal’s hush.
She hadn’t hallucinated him. She hadn’t made it all up… probably?
“Again?” Ixli whispered.
Syvr’s eyes were prying slits. “Where did she learn to Voidwalk? Antal didn’t teach her.”
“I could Voidwalk if I wanted to,” Antal hissed back, indignant.
Syvr cast an impressively dry look, for the circumstances.
“What are you insinuating?” Ixli said. “There’s no way she’s met…”
“Ok. Well. If you must know,” Fi said in as harsh a hiss as the others. “I met him once before. He taught me to Voidwalk. No big deal.”
It was kind of a big fucking deal, the way they gawked at her.
Veshri waited, watching as three daeyari and a human whispered not very discretely in front of him. He blinked. Otherwise, his expression was identical to the stone behind him.
Syvr—Void bless them—stepped forward as emissary. They donned a diplomat’s tone, a deep bow at the waist.
“It’s an honor without equal, to stand in the presence of the first Voidweaver.” They pressed a hand to their chest. “Syvr.” A point to the side. “Ixli. And—”
“Antal,” Veshri said.
Fi shuddered at his voice. Notably less unsettling coming out of his mouth, rather than inside her head. The tone was just as low, just as calm, something ancient.
Antal went pale as death. Understandable, when an ageless creature knew his name. Veshri cast the younger daeyari a long, appraising look.
“She thought of you,” Veshri said. “She had interesting thoughts about you.”
Antal slashed Fi a vicious amount of side-eye.
“Look,” she said. “I was lost in the Void. I thought I was about to die.” He ought to be flattered.
And honestly, she’d forgotten a little bit about the mind reading thing.
Did she need to guard her thoughts now? Fi hadn’t the slightest clue how to do so.
She tried to think of pebbles, of grass, not a shirtless daeyari lying in her bed.
Veshri stepped toward her.
Antal moved between them, snarling. What a selfless, stunning, stupid creature.
“Hey, hey.” Fi settled a hand on Antal’s arm. “Let’s not start fights with any pseudo-gods today, hm?”
She faced Veshri with head high, as bold as she’d faced every immortal who sought to see her cowed. Unflinching—on the outside. Inside, her uncooperative heart attained previously unheard-of levels of chiseling up her throat in terror.
The first immortal daeyari didn’t tower over her, no more than a couple inches taller, discounting his antlers.
Fi felt minuscule all the same. His eyes weren’t skin-peeling like Avroz’s, but they did pierce through her, dissecting at a visceral level.
His antlers were sharp-tipped, carvings over every surface.
At the highest points, two golden bands.
Fi hadn’t noticed before, in the dark of the Void. She’d not known to look.
He’d saved her life, once.
A passing curiosity. One chance meeting didn’t mean this ageless creature saw her as anything more than a gnat, like most of his kin. It didn’t save an insolent human from his not-god smite, as he stared at the fresh gold on her ears.
“Veshri?” Fi greeted.
The younger daeyari flinched at the name aloud. Their creator stared back, stone-faced.
“I didn’t get your name, last time,” he said.
“Fi,” she returned. “Thanks, by the way. For not leaving me to die.”
Ok, maybe his stare was a little skin-peeling. Not in the way that Fi worried about teeth lunging for her throat. Those eyes were too keen. Too time-honed.
“So… can I help you with something?” Fi continued. “Your esteemed… Void-ness?”
The snark was an unfortunate coping mechanism. Fi tried to reign it back, in the interest of not getting gagged by Ixli.
Veshri seemed unflustered, a slight lift of his brow.
“I heard of a successful hunt.” Carnelian eyes flicked over Antal, Ixli, lingering on their antlers. Then back to Fi: “Instead, I find you again. And even more interesting…”
He reached for her.
Fi had about two seconds to decide… no, she shouldn’t swat the hand of the oldest daeyari in the Shattered Planes. Claws cupped her ear. Veshri’s head tilted, inspecting the gold.
“Why?” he asked.
Confusingly, the question bore no derision, addressing this lowly human who dared meet his eyes. Just calm. Mildly curious. The same as last time.
Ixli inched closer. Bowed her head. “Esteemed Voidwalker, she’s earned the marks. She fought with us. Landed the killing blow.”
Void alive, Fi couldn’t cry in front of Veshri, of all creatures. She bit her lip against the kind words.
“You killed an aedari?” Veshri said.
His gaze dropped sideways, eyes unfocused. As if he were listening to something. Fi heard nothing but the breeze through grass.
He straightened, then pinched empty air in front of her, scowling at his claws.
“What are you doing?” Fi asked.
He scowled at her. Sniffed.
“What have you done?” Veshri said in a hush.
Fi defaulted to detained-smuggler. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re referring to.”
Veshri hovered a hand over her. Fi tensed as he passed her head, her arms…
His palm paused over her stomach. He sniffed again.
“What have you done?” he repeated, lower.
Fi stepped back, arms crossed over her middle. She didn’t have to answer, didn’t have to say anything, except… fuck, why were the other daeyari staring at her? Useless co- conspirators.
“I wove some Void ether,” she confessed. “Just a little bit.”
The flicker through Veshri’s eyes was miniscule. Contained in an instant. “Show me.”
“Um?”
Antal bristled at her side. “With all my respect, wise and honored Voidwalker, she’s done no harm. Only mended herself in a time of need.”
Veshri stared at her. Spoke only to her. “Show me.”
The command came… still calm. Entreating. That millennia-dusted voice had sounded the same in Fi’s head when Veshri had appeared for her in the Void. When he’d helped her. She brushed a reassuring thumb to Antal’s hand.
Then she pulled up her shirt.
Veshri stood as still as the cliff. He studied her bared stomach for an eternity, carnelian eyes tracing every pale scar of Void ether. Again. Again.
When his gaze snapped to hers, Fi felt the weight of it like a rockslide. He looked into her. Through her. Something old and impossible cracking through her very being.
He considered the other three daeyari.
Veshri held out his hand to Fi. “Walk with me a moment?”
Antal snarled quieter than before, but no more friendly.
“Fear not, young daeyari,” Veshri said. “I’ll return her to you in one piece. As before.”
Fi appraised the proffered hand. Then Antal, Ixli, Syvr, these daeyari who’d welcomed her as one of their own.
“I trust them,” she told Veshri. “Whatever you want, you can say it in front of them—”
“Fionamara.”
Antal took her hand, his words reluctant, but soft.
“You let me go on my own when I needed to.” His thumb pressed her palm. “You can go now, if you wish.”
She shouldn’t say no, right? When the progenitor of an entire immortal species wanted to have a private chat about, most likely, the weird Void goo she’d melded with her human flesh, Fi shouldn’t say no? She entreated Antal with wide eyes: Are you sure?
He pressed his forehead to hers. Cruel, kind-hearted daeyari.
Veshri watched the exchange with that quiet acuity. Fi took a deep, big-girl breath before breaking away.
“I’ll be right back,” she vowed. At a glance to Veshri, he nodded.
His hand remained extended. Fi took it, shuddering at the cool skin, the brush of claws.
Then, a plunge into black.
Fi couldn’t breathe, that stasis in her chest as she temporarily didn’t need air.
She could barely see, outlined in dim light that seemed to seep from nowhere.
Old news. It was the solid ground beneath her feet that caught her off guard.
Well, not ground. She stood with Veshri in the Void, not floating like usual, an invisible surface beneath her boots. He’d done this before. Tricks of a Void-born immortal, somehow commanding the ether. Weaving it.
This is bearable for you?
Fi flinched at the voice in her head. No air in the Void meant no speaking out loud.
How do you talk like this? she thought at him.
I learned.
How?
How many things have you learned in… He squinted. Fifty years?
Fi mustered all her willpower into a mental scoff. I’m thirty-three.
The daeyari shrugged. Pebbles.
He seemed different here. Not just the way the Void made the black of his sclera deeper, his robes more wisping. Veshri paced the not-ground, tail swaying in the gloom.
What’s wrong with the Void ether? Fi asked. It’s not going to make me melt or something?
How did you do it? Veshri asked.
That wasn’t a no. Fi very pointedly noted that wasn’t a no.
I was injured, she said. Badly. Too much to heal normally. She shuddered at the memory of Avroz burying his claws in her stomach.
Veshri winced.
You can see that? Fi asked. When I think it?
Fragments. And strong emotions. You were in pain. Afraid.
An understatement. She clawed her feelings back, trying not to let them seep through. I knew daeyari could create flesh out of Void ether. So I reached out, and…
Fi lifted a hand. She hadn’t been sure what to feel for, then. She hardly had a firmer grasp now. Only that the emptiness against her fingers wasn’t truly empty. When she focused, she felt the barest wisps of something against her skin, almost too delicate to grasp.
Veshri watched, head tilted.
Is that how you do it? Fi asked.