Page 12 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Are you lying to me?

Fi hadn’t had this nightmare in a long time.

She shivered, rubbing her arms against the cold. She asked the attendants for a thicker coat, but they told her not to worry. It was time to leave. One took her arm and led her away from her home. She looked back one last time.

Her father watched her go, his expression hard. Eyes hollow.

Fi lifted back to consciousness as hands hooked beneath her arms, hauling her into a sitting position. Her head throbbed like a vicious hangover. Vaguely, she recalled hitting a wall, stone striking her skull. She shivered. No coat. Snow at her feet.

Someone pressed a hot mug to her lips. She drank, too eager. The tea scalded her tongue and sank like fire down her throat.

Even awake, the nightmare teetered at the edge of her thoughts.

She was twenty-two. She’d agreed to this years ago, long enough that she should have been prepared. Enough to follow willingly. She’d be given a tea, the attendants told her. When she drank, it would take all her worry away. It would take all the pain away.

Fi’s throat clenched when the numbing sensation registered, a cloying creep down the back of her throat. Twilight sorel. For daeyari sacrifices. She spat what remained in her mouth, but another pair of hands held her still. Someone forced the cup to her lips.

“We’re sorry.” Milana’s voice, thin with fear. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Please. We’re so sorry.”

Fi tried to curse, but her tongue was leaden. Too much tea swallowed already, and as her limbs weakened, Erik pulled her head back for Milana to open her mouth. The rest of the drink slid down like honeyed poison.

The attendants dressed her in silver robes and led her through a stone hall. When she hesitated, when her pace began to lag, they gripped her arms and urged her forward with saccharine smiles. Outside. Into the forest.

Milana and Erik hauled Fi to her feet, a limp weight between them as the twilight sorel sank into every muscle. Groggy, she registered the shadows of conifers. Night. The forest outside Thomaskweld. Her captors dragged her through the snow, arguing in hushed tones.

“This is madness,” Erik said.

“He requested a sacrifice,” Milana cut back. “You want to refuse him now , of all times? She’s our best option. Our only option on such short notice.”

Fi’s heart tried to flutter, but even that was muted.

“Don’t be afraid,” the attendants told her. “It won’t hurt.”

She didn’t believe them. The cold already bit her cheeks. How could teeth be kinder?

The cold cut Fi now, sharp through the thin fabric of a long-sleeved shirt she didn’t recognize. More silver of a daeyari attendant, without the extravagant furs. She tried to curl her fingers, but they refused more than a twitch.

“We should be long gone,” Erik said. “Cut our losses.”

“That would look even more suspicious! We hold out a little longer. It’s almost finished.”

“ Is it? We thought we knew the plan. Then that… creature appeared. What was that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

The trees parted. A stone structure rose in the clearing, pillars lined by silver lanterns.

At the sight of Verne’s shrine, Fi’s courage fled. She wasn’t ready. She’d been a fool to agree to this. She dug her heels into the frozen ground, but the attendants gripped her harder.

“Don’t be afraid,” they said. Stern this time.

Fi rallied every muscle to fight, to bite and scratch her abductors, but the tea left her limp.

Where was her cloak of bravado when she needed it?

That cage of barbs she’d crafted to hide this brittle heart?

Useless. Fionamara Kolbeck, bane of a dozen territories, barely able to focus on the skim of stone beneath her boots.

Milana and Erik carried her onto a patio with a silver mat and satin pillows.

Pine boughs arced overhead like a vaulted ceiling.

The attendants urged her on, reminding her of her pledge.

They told her what a boon this would serve for her town.

Didn’t she want to honor her family? But Fi fought back.

She’d heard of hares throwing themselves against trees as they fled, rupturing their own hearts in panic.

Hers didn’t feel far off from splitting.

“I changed my mind!” she shouted. “I don’t want to go!”

They laid Fi upon the mat. Milana worked gently, for a cold-hearted bitch, arranging Fi into a comfortable position, clearing the hair from her face.

“It won’t hurt,” she whispered.

Fi didn’t believe her.

She should have left that cart of energy capsules on the Autumn Plane. Should have thrown those chips back in Milana’s face. Should have run the moment their plan started to sour. So many opportunities, each doomed by her own stubbornness.

A shadow shifted across the pavilion. Fi watched in mute horror as darkness coalesced into antlers. The flick of a tail.

The daeyari, Antal, stepped into the light.

A sleek creature, fluid as the dark, more at home here in night-shrouded forest than in the halls of the capitol.

He dressed in similar finery: silver caps to his antlers, high-waisted trousers cut slim to narrow hips, embroidery of conifer needles up the sleeves of a dark jacket.

A cruel play at civility. As if he weren’t a beast come to devour her.

His ethereal stillness remained, skin pale as bone and claws sharp at his sides.

How long had she been unconscious?

Long enough for him to learn what happened to his city. To demand a sacrifice. Fi wanted to run, but she couldn’t. She tried to shout, but she couldn’t.

“A swift response,” the daeyari said lowly. A soft blush brushed his mouth, yet behind the facade came a glint of sharp canines. Crimson eyes slid over Fi, framed in pitch black sclera, but she couldn’t even manage a shudder.

Milana bowed. “Of course, Lord Antal. We’re eager to accommodate your request.”

His scowl creased deeper, flashing a fang. “She’s drunk the tea already?”

“At her insistence. To ease her nerves. This day has been harrowing for us all.”

Liar. Fi fought to form the word, but it stalled over frigid lips. Cold seeped from the stone below. She lay defenseless as a rabbit on a chopping block, screaming inside.

A decade ago, Fi hadn’t been ready to die. She still wasn’t ready.

The daeyari loomed over her. She’d never been so close to one, glowing red eyes fierce enough to scorch.

Silver lamplight glinted against the lacquer black of his antlers, the blue-black of his hair.

He smelled like pine and ozone. Like the snap of ice that left livestock dead in the field come morning.

“And her request?” he asked.

“A willing sacrifice from among your flock,” Milana said. “She requests your aid in restoring the city.”

Fi could have laughed. Could have screamed. Milana played a devious hand, from the silver tunic she’d dressed Fi in, to the fact the daeyari had seen her with the other attendants at the capitol.

“Very well,” he said.

The attendants bowed and turned to leave. Fi itched to shout every curse she knew.

The daeyari knelt beside her.

With every shred of stubborn will she possessed, Fi fought to shift her head. To lift a single hand against this shadow-honed beast poised to devour her. Nothing.

He rolled back his sleeves, motions crisp, baring forearms lean with muscle. Strong fingers made for carving. Would he slit her neck open? Use energy to stop her heart?

Air sank leaden in Fi’s lungs. She’d have settled for a gasp. A pathetic whimper. Nothing .

The daeyari traced claws down her throat with horrifying gentleness, the brush of his knuckles cool as a Spring breeze. A mask of composure, but up close, hunger hollowed his cheeks—parted lips and eager fangs.

Fi wished he could feel her heart racing, but even that was stubbornly still. Despite her fiercest effort to fight, to scream, her mouth barely twitched.

The daeyari paused, eyes narrowed.

He leaned closer, head tilted to the whisper of her breath.

A frail hope sparked in Fi’s chest. Never mind that their faces were too close.

Never mind the chill of his breath against her cheek.

Even a rabbit deserved the dignity of a final shriek.

She fought every useless muscle in her throat to work.

To move. To do something . That leaden air in her chest, impossibly heavy as she forced it out all at once.

Her breath escaped as little more than a rasp.

Two scarce syllables, the best she could manage.

“ Kill… them… ”

The daeyari’s eyes sharpened like blades. Like teeth poised to snap.

The moment dragged forever. Fi met his gaze, forcing herself to stare into those unblinking eyes framed in Void-black, pleading that he’d understand. He had to understand. His race couldn’t have become what they were without being intelligent.

But would he care?

“Milana,” he called out, smooth as fresh snow. “Stay a moment.”

The words jolted Fi like lightning. She couldn’t see Milana’s reaction, but she heard the delicious halt of boots against the patio.

That small victory didn’t buoy her long. If she couldn’t speak, this was still their story to spin. Her terror returned as the daeyari slid his hand beneath her shirt, cool palm settling atop her heart. Fi braced for pain. For the icy snap of death.

A spear of foreign energy sank into her chest.

The current burned hot and cold at the same time, ozone coating her mouth as the pulse careened through her ribs. It sliced through muscle and viscera, flooding every extremity, burning fiercer and fiercer until she shrieked.

Fi tensed at the realization.

She could shriek again.

The daeyari’s magic washed through her like cleansing fire, burning away the twilight sorel. Fi gasped when he removed his hand. Her muscles trembled even with the current gone, weak as if rousing from too deep a sleep, but when she rolled onto her side and sucked in a breath…

“You back-stabbing clump of stale Void lichen!” she shouted at Milana.

The woman went ashen. Beside her, Erik betrayed a gasp.