Page 15 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

To see him now, overlooking his city with an uncompromising tilt to his chin?

Claws coiled like black sickles at his sides?

Speaking of anarchy with a flint of rage on his tongue?

For the first time, she got a clearer picture of Antal, the Lord Daeyari who’d owned this territory for longer than she’d been alive.

And someone was trying to take that from him.

Someone who’d dragged Fi into this mess.

Politics—those larger things she’d spent ten years fleeing.

She cursed Milana and Erik, players in some unknown scheme.

For the first time since everything went to shit, she thought of Astrid , strutting into her life after all these years, assuring her partners that Fi was perfect for the job.

Had she known this would happen?

Or had Astrid been duped the same, only for Fi to abandon her to another disaster?

To find out, Fi had to survive this daeyari first.

Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten since before the explosion, and combined with the potent adrenaline circulating her bloodstream, dizziness was catching up to her. So long as the daeyari claimed he wanted to use her rather than eat her…

“Do I get breakfast?” she asked, testing the waters. After all, he hadn’t let her freeze—or cut her open when she’d raised her voice at him.

The beast blinked.

His frown came slow. Head tilted, as if he couldn’t have heard her right.

“Breakfast?” he asked.

“ Breakfast .” Repeat it, and maybe he’d stop gawking. “I’m no expert in daeyari nutrition, but I assume you don’t devour corpses for three meals a day, or humans would be extinct.”

His tail flicked. “Your point?”

“That I”—Fi struck her chest with an emphasizing thump — “require three meals a day. So if you don’t want me to pass out, I need breakfast.”

His tail swished rougher, wider. Not anger. Not hunger.

Annoyed? Void be damned. If Fi could pull off her finest skill on a daeyari, she wasn’t out of her element yet.

He huffed, a disgruntled mutter of, “ Breakfast . Of course. Yz’vum en zhem jivvi…”

Fi didn’t speak daeyari. She’d never known a human who did, the immortals miserly about sharing their language, but tone enough told her that wasn’t a flattering—

Static sparked Fi’s tongue when he vanished.

She blinked at his absence.

Not for an instant… had she expected that ploy to actually work.

Fi moved swiftly, no telling how much time she had.

She Shaped energy to her fingertips then dulled her gaze to see beyond the Winter Plane, searching for a place to cut a Curtain.

A Bridge. A Shard. She’d take anything to get her out of here, but she spotted nothing beyond stone and mood lighting.

With a growl, she paced the room in search of a different vantage point.

Static pricked her tongue again.

Fi gasped when the daeyari reappeared, directly in front of her. Chests nearly touching. Ozone filled her nose as thick as when she’d laid in his bed, the waft of cold off his skin enough to drag gooseflesh down her arms.

He was nearly the same height as her. Maybe an inch or two taller, thanks to the odd rise of his ankles—a couple more, if she counted the antlers—yet he loomed like a cliff of ice. It took all her constitution not to flinch away, not to back into the wall like some cornered animal.

Surely, that was what he wanted. Fi swallowed hard and held her ground.

The daeyari appraised her through dark lashes, a sharp look to the energy spooled silver at her fingers. He bared a long canine. “I told you not to try that.”

“Well. To be fair.” Fi licked her lips. “You’re faster than I thought you’d be.”

When he huffed, the exhale brushed Fi’s cheek. She braced for teeth.

Instead, he offered a lump of paper.

Wary, Fi took it. Blessed heat sank into her hands.

She unwrapped the package to find a baked roll the size of her fist, oozing glaze and cinnamon.

For such a small gesture, this topped the morning’s list of baffling developments.

Had the dreaded Lord Daeyari stolen a pastry for her?

Or demanded it of a terror-stricken baker in Thomaskweld?

“Thanks.” Fi allowed herself to back away a step, itching with his proximity. “You are good, right? I don’t need to worry about becoming a mid-morning snack?”

He showed his teeth again. “You talk more than I expected.”

Another confidence boost. Fi clung to the daeyari’s confoundment like shelter from a gale. Confusion made him less of a wraith, more a creature who could be bartered with.

“Is that right?” Fi shot back. “You have a lot of experience talking to humans you aren’t about to eat?”

“Plenty,” he said. No inflection. Nothing on his face.

Cryptic prick.

He paced back to his perch, gifting Fi space to breathe. And to devour the sugary roll like a starved raccoon. She guessed she looked little better: borrowed clothes, hair windblown, eye liner no doubt smudged to ruin.

As food cleared her thoughts, she combed through the ludicrous events of the past two days, trying to make sense of anything. She’d brought the cart to Thomaskweld. Met Astrid. Got fucked over by Milana and Erik. Then came the explosion, followed by…

By the endless black Void. It almost slipped her mind.

“It was more than the explosion,” she said.

The daeyari tilted one crimson eye toward her.

“Afterward,” Fi said. “When everyone was evacuating, there was a… creature . A huge panther with white skin. Antlers. It ripped the governor apart.”

A subtle tension snapped over the Lord Daeyari. His veiled expressions left her unsteady, unsure how to gauge where to push or retreat. Fi keyed to what small signs he relinquished: his tail frozen, eyes unblinking.

“Milana said the same,” he replied. “There are many beasts across the Shattered Planes.”

“I’ve never seen something like this. It had black sclera. Some kind of Void beast.”

His tail made a sharp flick.

“We focus on one thing at a time.” He spoke with finality. A warning edge not to press. Fi still would have.

If he hadn’t startled her, by holding out his hand.

“If you’ve finished your breakfast ,” he said.

She backed away. “What’s that for?”

“I need to touch you to teleport.”

“We’re going now ?”

“There’s no time to delay.”

Fi could name a hundred reasons to delay: her father told her not to go anywhere with strangers, resting after breakfast was important to good digestion, she still didn’t have a Void-damned coat . All seemed flimsy against the daeyari’s gem-cut glare.

“Your aid, to pay your debt,” the beast repeated. “Unless you’d prefer the traditional payment?”

Fi weighed the threat of being eaten alive against the danger of following an immortal. One of those, she stood a better chance of escaping. She took the daeyari’s hand with a wince.

His palm was cool. Surprisingly soft. His fingers tightened, grasping her firmly, but careful not to plunge claws into flesh. When the sharp tips brushed her thumb, she shuddered.

“Hold your breath,” he said.

“Why—”

The world lurched.

Or maybe Fi was the one who fell, tumbling through black. Energy surged over her, cold slicing from every direction. When she tried to gasp, she found no air.

The journey halted as abruptly as it began.

The daeyari’s grip kept her upright as she staggered, gasping to refill her lungs with frigid air.

The lingering prickle on her skin reminded Fi of her transport stone, though not nearly as intense, no nausea.

Not a full dematerialization? The immortal stood unfazed.

However daeyari teleportation worked, they’d gained the ability after returning from the Void, their grayscale skin no longer the same as mortal flesh, not as vulnerable to damage or energy currents. Convenient for him.

With air back in her lungs, Fi scowled over her surroundings.

She stood upon rose quartz tile, dusted in snow.

Black-trunked ginkgo lined the walkway, their leaves metallic copper, one of the few non-coniferous trees bred by horticulturists to survive the Winter Plane.

Ahead, a stone chateau perched upon a cliff, tall windows and dark minarets narrowing to fanged points tipped in starlight.

A chill of recognition nearly buckled Fi’s knees.

Her heart stilled at the sight of this garden, this view onto a valley of conifers. Every bristle gone the moment she spied that moonlit lake in the distance, smooth as glass. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t stop her hands from trembling. Fi hadn’t seen this place in ten years.

But there was no mistaking it.

This was Verne Territory.