49 Together
The silence in the amphitheater was sharp enough to carve bone. The gallery, quiet. Every member of the Daey Celva, alert on their pillows in various shades of shock and intrigue. Antal shook with the weight of so many immortal eyes upon him.
Then, a shift. He pulled in a shallow breath as the assembly’s focus slipped off him.
Onto Avroz.
For one fleeting instant, Antal saw it: that look of rare, unguarded shock upon his father’s face. The mask snapped back in an instant, back to calm surety, Avroz’s best defense.
Avroz sighed, words dripping disappointment. “Speaker Qirza, my sincerest apologies. It would seem my son has become confused—”
Qirza’s hand shot up to silence him. She met Avroz with the type of hard, commanding look that few daeyari dared in his presence.
For Antal, her glare was no less pointed. “Explain.”
Calm words. Precise words. That was the only way to beat Avroz at this game.
“Avroz led the aedari here,” Antal said. “He found them near the Contested Planes. He let them track him back to the Season-Locked Planes, so he could volunteer to hunt them.”
Murmurs swelled in the gallery: intrigue, outrage, doubt. The tide spilled onto the main floor, council members shifting tails on their pillows.
Avroz stood.
“Antal,” he ordered. “Sit down. This is embarrassing—”
“Silence.”
Qirza stood as well. Her presence rippled silence across the gallery, order commanded by one fist clenched above her antlers. Her shawls glittered like starlight as she scanned the amphitheater, eyes raking every tier until the last whispers ceased.
Again, her glare fell on Antal. “This is a serious accusation. Do you bring proof?”
Avroz scoffed. Even now, he thought himself untouchable. Even now, he thought his son no more than a nuisance, powerless even upon the council Avroz had placed him on.
This wasn’t just fear burning Antal from the inside out. It was rage. Two and a half centuries of building fury.
He looked up to the gallery.
Fionamara wielded her rage like the keenest blade. She was no mere mortal looking down upon him, not with that Void-black sclera, the silver iris blazing. Gasps sounded as other daeyari followed Antal’s gaze, finally noticing this creature in their midst.
Avroz looked as well.
There, another uncharacteristic break in his facade. His eyes widened on the human he’d cast aside, on the inconceivable thing she’d woven—that Void-hewn eye Antal had hidden during their last encounter. Avroz bared his fangs, as if already contemplating her throat.
Fionamara paid none of them any heed. A force of destruction, this woman. She’d entered Antal’s life by demolishing half his capitol building on accident. Now, raw and intentional spite settled in her glower as she drew back her arm.
Then hurled the metal box across the council floor.
Antal caught it. Such a small, simple thing.
The metal was warm from Fionamara’s touch, a mote of her strength passed on to him.
He unlatched it. The antler tip sat inside.
Gold no longer glowed against the lacquer black, the magician who’d cast it dead.
The glyphs were still burned into the surface.
A scent of sand and sunlight drifted out the open box.
Qirza’s nose twitched.
“Avroz is missing an antler tip,” Antal said. “The aedari placed a marker on his antler. He escaped and severed the piece, but left it where the aedari could track it, on the Winter Plane.”
Qirza took the box. Her nose wrinkled as she plucked the antler tip between her claws. Another crack showed through Avroz’s mask, a mortified flash when he saw the evidence he thought the aedari had stolen.
Heat sparked in Antal’s chest. Avroz hadn’t prepared for this.
They might have a chance.
“Do you have witnesses?” Qirza asked. “Any who can confirm these claims?”
As soon as hope dared swell, it swiftly extinguished.
“No, councilor,” Antal admitted. “Besides the slain aedari—”
A shout came from above.
“I’ll speak as witness!”
Antal reeled, looking up to see Syvr at the rail, no longer trying to drag Fionamara away. They stood with eyes bright, tail high and lashing. Antal watched, dumbfounded.
Avroz, equally so, his tail betraying an agitated flick.
“This isn’t proper procedure,” Qirza warned. “Council testimonials must be officially logged in advance—”
“I traveled with Avroz to the Contested Planes.” Syvr spoke over Qirza, either brave or reckless. “To track an aedari sighting. We caught the scent. Avroz suggested we split apart.”
Ixli stepped forward on Fionamara’s other side, an angry beast—and a wall against the restless daeyari of the gallery.
“Avroz missed our agreed meeting point,” she called down to the council. “We found him back home, with his antler broken. He claimed he’d killed the aedari, alone.”
“But he never sent us to retrieve the body,” Syvr said. “He claimed the territory lord would handle it, but I never heard anything more. And I usually know these things!”
Antal had no words. He stared up at Fionamara, Syvr, Ixli, all standing at his defense. Suddenly, he wasn’t drowning anymore. Avroz’s ire wasn’t so debilitating, no longer levied at Antal alone, eyes flicking between his son and two traitorous kezri.
Voices roared through the gallery, daeyari speaking too loud for even Qirza’s shouts to silence.
On the main floor, several other council members were on their feet.
The chamber guards emerged from their shadowed posts, normally invisible in their black silviamesh and dark metal armor, forming a protective ring around the council.
“This is absurd,” Avroz said. “Nothing but unfounded claims, the delusions of young daeyari. Stressful circumstances invite fanciful tales.”
He stepped closer, teeth bared like an admonishing father. That jolt through Antal was fear. Guilt. The reflexive pain that came from disappointing Avroz.
Qirza stepped between them.
This might be what stunned Antal the most. He’d spent centuries, wholly convinced of how alone he was.
That Avroz was, and always would be, untouchable.
Yet there stood his lover and his friends in the gallery, risking themselves to support him.
Here was Qirza, head of the Daey Celva, defending his space to speak, a shift fit to shatter every misconception he’d held.
For the first time in two and half centuries, it made Avroz look… fallible. Vulnerable.
“We will hear all arguments, Avroz,” Qirza said. “In the interest of fairness.”
“Fairness?” he spat. “You’d weigh their speculations against my word?”
“Explain this, then.” She held up his antler tip. “Why does it bear aedari glyphs?”
“My antler was broken in combat with the aedari. How am I to know what became of the fragment after?”
“You claimed to have killed that aedari. Who else would retrieve this?”
“This is outlandish, even for you, speaker. I’ve served this council for centuries. I’ve proven my loyalty—”
A new hush fell upon the gallery.
Avroz looked up. Since Antal had taken his stand, his father had worn disinterest, disappointment, derision. Now, for the first time, his eyes widened in genuine fear.
Yme stood at the railing.
She wore a simple midnight dress, long and silky to her lithe frame. Her dark hair was bound in a single braid atop her crown, loose against her shoulders. A stark simplicity, standing before all the Daey Celva and their audience.
“Yme…” Avroz said. Impossible to tell, whether admonishment or plea.
Yme held her partner’s gaze. A swallow slipped down her throat, her tail a restless swish.
She looked to Antal. When their eyes met it was… not an apology. Her gaze was sorrowful, a ghost of decades gone by without her intervening on her son’s behalf. An acknowledgment that nothing would make up for what she hadn’t given him.
A promise, that now was the time to become something different.
“Enough of this, Avroz,” she spoke in a hush. Then louder, to the full assembly, “He came home that night. With aedari glyphs on his antler.”
“Ezria.” That was a plea. Avroz stepped toward her.
“He told me they were marker glyphs.” Yme looked again to Antal, and he saw the mother who’d laughed as she’d braided his hair, who’d cooed soft words as he’d sat in her garden.
All her flawed ways of loving him, all her desperation to be better.
“Avroz cut the antler off. He disappeared with it, said to tell no one. I…” Her claws tightened on the rail.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know where he took it. ”
“He took it to my territory,” Antal said, shouting above the voices. “He planted it there, so the aedari could find the Season-Locked Planes, all because…” Antal swallowed. Bowed to Qirza. “He wanted me to earn my bands. I’m sorry, speaker, I swear I didn’t know.”
Avroz snarled. “How dare you accuse me.” A step closer, tail lashing. “You’re nothing on this floor. Nothing but what I’ve built you into. And you think yourself strong enough to—”
Qirza grabbed his wrist.
Her claws sank tight enough to puncture flesh, stance wide. An anchor, to prevent him from teleporting. When Avroz growled, Qirza snapped her fangs.
“Do not snarl at me, daeyari.”
The guards circled Avroz. A tightening snare. Here was a version of Antal’s father he’d never seen, had never imagined.
Avroz: a cornered beast. Head high and unrepentant.
“We’ll arrange a formal trial,” Qirza announced. “You, Avroz, may defend yourself at that time. And we will hear the full testimony of all witnesses.”
A guard lashed a cord around Avroz’s wrists, Shaping it with red energy, a binding to prevent teleportation. A second guard pulled him away from Qirza. Avroz snarled at his captors.
But his glare fell upon his son, all his teeth bared. Here, at the end, was all the loathing Antal had known lurked beneath Avroz’s calm exterior, finally displayed for all to see.
“You’ll regret this, Antal,” his father vowed. “Take it back, before it’s too late. You’ll lose everything without me!”
Instinct told Antal to look away, to cower, to hide from his father’s admonishment.
Instead, he stood tall. Antal met his father’s gaze for the first time without flinching. For the first time, he didn’t see a monolith staring back.
Just a selfish daeyari who’d never been worth Antal’s loyalty.
“No, izaevi,” Antal said softly. “I think I’ll be more than you ever were.”
The guards dragged Avroz away. Qirza shouted above the din, but the gallery was in chaos. Daeyari flooded down the tiers, gathering at the rail to witness Avroz’s exit. Others circled a different oddity—Fionamara.
In a snap, Antal was at her side.
She didn’t need him. Ixli and Syvr came to her defense, holding the onlookers back with teeth and claws. She stood undaunted by the throng of red eyes.
“Yeah, I know, weird eye,” she said, her casual use of daeyari leaving several onlookers flustered. “Wait until you hear what I did to the aedari. Actually, two aedari. Oh, hello, Councilor Antal. How gracious of you to join us.”
Her smirk was triumphant. The pride in her eyes could have lifted him to the stars.
Antal wrapped an arm around her waist, a claim for all to see. Her warmth sank into his bones. Her spiced scent, her fingers digging just as possessively into his shirt, drove away any thought of Avroz.
With disorder surrounding them, Antal leaned into her, a whisper in her ear.
“Say it again.”
She looked at him—and there was nothing else in the world beyond those eyes, bright and fierce and focused on him. No bickering daeyari. No shouting council on the floor below. Only the quirk of her mouth as she made an inquisitive, “Hm?”
“Again,” he pleaded, soft for only her to hear. “Properly.”
He was wrong. There was nothing else in the world beyond those eyes—and that grin. It bloomed across her lips, all the more breath-stealing for the flash of her teeth, the way her Void-and-crimson hair framed her face.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll marry you.”
Antal kissed her, a promise for now, for eternity, for whatever lay ahead.
Together.