39 Between a fang and a hard place
They returned to Antal’s family home, still empty, the sitting room quiet in purple twilight.
Saying goodbye to Syvr and Ixli proved as difficult as removing burrs from aurorabeast fur, but Fi swore on a list of objects both living and hypothetical that she would fill them in on the details soon. At last, they relented and left.
Antal asked if she’d prefer to talk once they were back on the Winter Plane.
He’d wanted to pick through some things in his old room first, possessions abandoned decades ago.
Fi, already teetering on the verge of combustion, couldn’t wait.
They slipped down the hall like mischievous children, hand in hand, into the privacy of Antal’s room.
They sat on the bed, facing each other. Curiosity gleamed crimson in Antal’s eyes, alongside a hint of terror. As it should be. Fi took his hands in hers.
And she told him of immortality.
It all flooded out in an eager rush, her account of standing with Veshri in the Void.
The effortless way he’d pulled the ether.
And then his theory, the possibility of weaving pieces of a body rather than a whole.
An untested path to immortality. The word slipped off Fi’s lips like a secret, a reckless dream.
She squeezed Antal’s hands just to remind herself this was real.
When she finished, he was quiet. A long silence, heavy as the creep of jasmine from the garden, deep as the dusk, his eyes wide and bright.
He lunged forward and hugged her.
Antal held her tight against him, and he laughed, that deep and bubbling sound that swelled Fi’s ribs. She laughed, too. Her fingers swam the ink of his hair, lips grinning against his neck, tasting the possibility of always being his. Of holding him for eternity.
Antal took her cheeks in his hands, eyes stern as a Lord Daeyari.
“Fionamara Kolbeck. Do not, under any circumstances, interpret this as a reason to start cutting limbs off and replacing them with Void ether.”
She batted his hand aside. “Why would you accuse me of something so morbid?”
“You’ve done nothing but threaten to remove antlers since I met you.”
“But those are just antlers.”
Just antlers, he mouthed with an appalled huff.
“Though,” Fi said, “that would make the process faster.” She sliced the side of her hand across an elbow, evaluating the best spot to cut.
Antal swatted her. “Stop that.”
Fi laughed. It felt good to laugh, a weapon to wield against the doubt Avroz had stoked in her. The possibility of a real future with her daeyari.
“I’ll admit,” she said, “we’ve got details to figure out. It will take some trial and error. But I could do it. I could try, at least.” She quieted. “If you’d want me for that long.”
Antal took her hands. His fingers laced with hers, bone-pale skin and black claws against her softer pink.
“Fionamara, for such a clever woman, why do you say such ridiculous things? I want you as a mortal. I’d want you as an immortal. It’s you I want, whatever the form. So long as that’s what you want?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You’d watch other mortals come and go. You’d be different from other humans, forever. Different from daeyari.”
“That’s what we promised we’d do, isn’t it? Find new paths?”
The possibility was thrilling, but scary. Forever was a long time. Something she couldn’t comprehend. And it occurred to Fi, in a more self-reflective section of her brain she was still adjusting to the presence of, that she had a less-than-ideal history of rash decisions under stress.
What if weaving Void ether didn’t work?
What if it didn’t matter? That she’d always be human, immortal or not?
Antal smoothed a thumb over the lip she’d been chewing. “I’m only saying, you don’t have to decide immediately. We can go home. Wait for news of the second aedari. Then we’ll figure this out together?”
Fi grinned, stuffing her uncertainty aside. “Sounds per- fect.”
She kissed him, and any doubt drowned away as his lips pressed to hers, his tongue slipping lazy against her waiting mouth. She tasted him slowly, savoring the bloom of ozone. The heat trickling deeper down her thighs.
“I can think of other things I’d like to do to you at home,” Antal purred. He traced a claw down her throat, drawing a delicious shiver. “I can’t make you scream nearly loud enough here, without disturbing the entire house.”
He leaned in for another kiss, tail winding around Fi’s thigh. She snared him with a finger beneath his chin.
“Hold on, daeyari. What happened to going through your old things?”
“It can wait,” he complained.
“You can wait. Take care of your business first.” She dropped to a whisper. “Then you can have me for as long as you’d like.”
His growl was, as usual, all bluff. Fi smirked at the resigned undertone.
He surveyed the room, gaze passing over the shelves, the table, a set of matching drawers. “There won’t be much. Some old books. Some records.” He cut her a wicked look. “Maybe some toys, since you seemed to enjoy them so much.”
Fi licked her lips but refused the bait. “I can grab you a crate? I saw some outside earlier.” While she’d been moping in the garden.
Antal hummed his displeasure. “I can go with you—”
“Relax, Antlers.” Fi slipped off the bed. “I’ll be fine. I ran into your shitbag father just this morning, alone, and he didn’t even attempt to disembowel me.”
“You… what?”
“This is a trust exercise!” she said sweetly, halfway out the door. “Be right back!”
To Antal’s credit, he didn’t come snarling after her.
To Fi’s credit, she crept down the hall as quietly as possible, loathe to invite attention anywhere in a predator’s den. The sitting room was empty. Syvr was right, that Dusk Council party dragged on a long time.
She stepped outside. Off the main patio, a smaller path followed the curve of the house.
The storage area at the end was mostly screened by foliage, stacked with crates Fi had seen the human housekeeper carrying out of the kitchen earlier.
She selected the box least dirtied with spider webs or coffee grounds— still on her priority list, bribing Syvr to tell her how to acquire proper daeyari coffee for the Winter Plane.
Satisfied with her salvage, she headed back.
Fi was halfway to the patio when static hit her tongue.
“Be sensible, Yme,” came Avroz’s lowered voice.
“I’m the only one being sensible,” Yme snapped.
Fi flattened herself to the wall fast enough to leave a bruise on her ass.
The voices came through an open window. Fi wasn’t as familiar with this section of the house, but yes, it did occur to her that she could be crouched outside Antal’s parents’ room. Who’d, apparently, just returned home.
She’d have to cross the window to get back inside. Fi could attempt Voidwalking to Antal’s room, but—what an inconvenient realization—she’d never asked if that left the same telltale static as daeyari teleportation. Maybe she could crawl under the window, but the voices inside sounded angry, and…
Oh no, Fi was curious.
“Antal has done enough,” Yme said. Those were her light steps on stone tile, her whispering shawls as she paced. “He’s killed one aedari, he doesn’t need to face a second.”
Avroz spoke firm. “He agreed to this, ezria.”
“And you proposed it, Avroz! He’s done what you wanted. Let someone else track the other aedari.”
“The hunt isn’t over. Antal will see his responsibilities through.”
A knot tied Fi’s belly. While they’d celebrated one victory, the second aedari, the magician, was still out there.
And Yme didn’t want Antal to be part of it?
Fi had, perhaps naively, assumed hunting one stray would be easier than two, but the fight would still be dangerous. Yme’s concern was endearing.
Avroz, the crusty lichen flake, only ever spoke of his son as a means to an end.
“He already has his Sunsplitter bands,” Yme argued.
“And facing a second aedari will be even more impressive to the Dusk Council. He’ll be guaranteed a position.”
“He could die.” Yme’s teeth snapped. “Your son, Avroz. You’d put him in more danger, for nothing more than padded odds?”
Fi eyed the distant patio door. Maybe she should try to sneak by. She’d caught hints of the strife between Avroz and Yme, but this was a new level of uncomfortable.
“He’ll be fine,” Avroz said. “According to Ixli, he hardly even fought the first one.”
Ok, but also, fuck him. That was Fi’s joke to make, with love, appreciating her soft little daeyari despite lackluster combat skills. Avroz and his spitting tone didn’t deserve it.
Yme’s voice lowered. “Avroz, I have stood by you all this time.”
“And I’m grateful—”
“I stood by you through what happened two months ago.”
Fi’s heart skipped a beat.
Yme’s tone was scathing, laced with accusation. For what? Two months ago. Fi ticked the weeks backward in her head…
Before the hunt had started. Before Avroz had summoned Antal home.
Avroz growled. “Don’t speak of that.”
“I haven’t spoken of it, Avroz.”
“Yme, that’s enough—”
“I’ve kept your confidence.” Every word grated over fangs. “And in return? You put my son in danger!”
“Antal is fine. Ixli will look after him.” A huff. “And that mortal of his, apparently.”
Each exchange came quieter. Not moving away, just speaking lower, words that weren’t meant to be overheard. Fi, increasingly intent on overhearing them, inched closer to the window.
“You begged me to trust you,” Yme hissed. “You asked for my help, promised everything would be fine. Yet you’ve never explained why you came home ragged that night, Avroz. Why you came to me with those glyphs on your antler.”
Fi was back in the Void, cold in her bones, a vice on her chest. Even through whispered words, she caught the seethe of Yme’s anger. Something only she and Avroz knew about. Something about…
Glyphs. Two months ago.
Just before the first aedari sighting on the Winter Plane.
What in the endless black Void did that bastard do? Fi strained to hear the rest. She pushed her back to the wall, lifting higher than a crouch, a few inches closer to the open window and—
Her boot slipped, dragging the tiniest scuff across stone.