40 Family #2
“So we should do nothing?” she demanded. “How many humans have died on the Season-Locked Planes, drained by aedari and burned in their homes, because of him?”
All viscerally true. But to confront Avroz? That had never worked. Could never work.
“We need his support, Fionamara. To nominate me to the council. To protect Thomaskweld.”
“What if we do it without him?”
Now, Antal glared at her, saying ridiculous things at a time like this. “How?”
“It would be another huge gamble.” Fionamara took his hands.
Lowered to an earnest tone that carved his insides.
“But Antal… you’re a Sunsplitter now. And a territory lord.
Fuck Avroz. Put your name forward for the council without him.
We don’t need a daeyari who hates humans to help us protect our people in Thomaskweld. We can do this. Together.”
“No, no, no…” This was more than nausea. Fear. The certainty that challenging Avroz only ever made things worse. “That’s not how daeyari politics work.”
“Then let’s play politics! Won’t turning in a traitor earn you even more clout?”
“It will never work. I’m nothing, compared to him. I need him.”
“… what?”
“I hate him, Fionamara. I hate that I need him. But he has the power I don’t. The influence I don’t. I can’t do this on my own—”
Fionamara grabbed his face again. Her touch, commanding. Her tone, evisceratingly soft. “Antal, turning Avroz in would be risky. And scary. We can agree on that. But you don’t need him. You aren’t nothing without him.”
So easy for her to say. She hadn’t endured two and a half centuries of Avroz’s derision. She wasn’t shaking at the thought of defying his father.
“I’ve never been as cunning as him,” Antal said. “As strong as him.”
“He’s a narcissist and a murderer,” Fionamara growled.
“He’s still my father.”
Merciless Void, how could he make her understand these rioting feelings?
These contradictions even Antal couldn’t untangle?
Loathing for his father, always warring against those days when Avroz would ruffle his hair, would praise him for remembering his daeyari history. When Antal used to be enough.
“He’s still family,” Antal whispered. “Things shouldn’t be this bad between us. They weren’t always. But no matter how hard I’ve tried, I failed to be what he wanted…”
“He’s not your family. Ixli and Syvr? They welcomed you back, accepted you for everything you’ve become. Yme? She’s stuck in her ways, but she’s trying to learn. That’s what family does. Avroz is not family.”
Antal winced. Not family hit him like a blade, carving to the bone.
“Avroz… has been kinder this time…”
“He’s using you, Antal!” She gripped his collar, fingers clawing fabric rather than flesh. “And me. Every day he’s played nice, it’s just a ploy to get what he wants. He still killed Razik in front of you!”
Antal flinched. That memory of too much blood on the tile, the light leaving Razik’s eyes. Because Avroz was a monster. Because Antal had never been strong enough.
“Now, he’s put all these Planes in danger,” Fionamara said.
“So when is it enough? We fought to get Thomaskweld back. We have more fighting to do, if we want to help humans beyond our territory.” Her voice cracked, a plea warring with exasperation.
“All that, and you’re still too afraid to stand up to him? ”
“I know, Fionamara.” He gripped her arms, desperate for anything to cling to. Two and a half centuries of fighting, his father chipping away at him, piece by piece. “I know I should hate everything he’s done. I know I should never want to speak to him again. But…”
His voice turned small. Because he hated this “but” the most.
“If you had any chance to fix things with your father,” Antal whispered, “wouldn’t you?”
“Fuck no,” she returned without hesitation.
Antal fell to startled silence.
“Do I wish I’d had a better father?” Fionamara said. “Of course. I wish I’d had a father who bought me ice cream for my birthdays, and braided my hair, and didn’t try to serve me to a carnivorous immortal to elevate his own social status.”
Antal tried to pull away. She held tight to his collar.
“But I could never fix the way he tried to use me. I could never fix him falling into a drunken stupor every night. I could never fix him pulling our family apart like rotting wood. Do you know why? Because he never wanted to fix those things!”
Antal loathed the man anew for putting her through such agony. He settled his lashing tail, trying to anchor it against her leg.
“This is… different,” he stammered. “So much of this is my fault.”
She fell still as a midnight sky. Even her grip on his collar loosened.
“Your fault?” she said, low.
“I could have been better—”
“Your fault?” she roared with Void-chilling fervor.
Antal, over two centuries old and woven from eternal ether, shrank back.
“My father thought giving me to a daeyari would help our family,” Fionamara said. “I ruined that for him. Would you tell me that was my fault?”
Antal was a whisper to her tempest. “Never.”
“I ran away from everything, left my brother and my friend behind, because I couldn’t bear the crushing weight of that place any longer. Would you tell me that was my fault?”
“No.”
“I never spoke to my father again before he died. Would you tell me that was my fault?”
Antal soothed a hand through her hair. “None of that was your fault. Your father hurt you.”
“Listen to yourself, you stubborn daeyari!”
She pulled him into a crushing embrace. Antal shattered from the force of it. Something inside him had been shattering for so Void-damned long, he could hardly hold the pieces, could only hold her, the one warm thing amidst a world that had tried to break him so many times.
Avroz had tried to break him so many times.
“You asked me once,” Fionamara said, her fingers buried to the roots of his antlers, “if I ever forgave my father for what he did. I’d spent years, convinced that everything was my fault.
” She pulled back, eyes bright. “But you helped me work through that, Antal. Now you’re trapped in the same place.
Avroz is supposed to be supporting you, protecting you.
He’s the one who failed you. But he has no reason to change, because he’s already getting everything he wants. ”
She was right. Antal knew, with the clarity of reason, that every word she said was right. But reason didn’t stop him shaking. It buckled against the lifelong instinct to do as Avroz said. To behave. To not fight, because fighting hurt, fighting was futile.
“We can’t do nothing,” Fionamara entreated. “For you. For the promises we made to Thomaskweld. Just once, that asshole needs to face consequences.”
She made it all sound so easy.
“I want to do something,” Antal said. Just as entreating. “But treason isn’t a light accusation, Fionamara. Without any proof?”
“Then we find proof.”
“How? If he’s discarded the marked antler? If no one saw what he did—”
Fionamara grabbed his hand. That resolve in her eyes was what he’d fallen in love with. And what terrified him most about her.
“Two months ago,” she said. “That’s when Avroz ran into the aedari. That was when the first house burned down on the Winter Plane. We start there. We search every site again, until we find something.”