Page 16 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

A friendly chat about insurrection

Any schemes abandoned her.

Rational thought? What was that?

Fi was a hare. She was a dumb, defenseless animal, kicking in panic, bolting for the closest hole to hide in.

The daeyari caught her wrist. Her struggle earned a look of warning, the beast restraining her with the ease of a panther pinning a rabbit.

“What are you doing?” he hissed.

They weren’t alone. His teleport brought them to a plaza, surrounded by humans who froze like startled prey at the appearance of an immortal in their midst, wide eyes watching him—and Fi—as if a twitch might invite doom. Fi didn’t care about them. She flailed against his grip, heedless of claws.

“No! Not here!” Fi saw her father’s glassy eyes when the attendants took her. Heard Boden rioting in the background. She’d escaped Verne once. She’d run like a coward, and broken everything she had, and she couldn’t be back here again.

The daeyari eyed the watching crowd, tail flicking. “Keep your voice down. And stop this futile flailing.”

“This is Verne Territory!”

“Of course. If we’re to discover who seeks to unseat me, we begin with my most cunning neighbor.”

“You can’t.”

“You’ll find I easily can —”

“Not her! You can’t take me to her !”

Fi’s squirming dragged claws against her arm until red welts appeared.

A veil of rainbow hair fell across her face as she sagged, breathing hard, curses pooling on chapped lips.

She shouldn’t be here. She didn’t deserve to be dragged back to this wretched place, implicated in schemes she had no hand in.

Fear meshed with fury as Fi gathered every bent bristle, clutching them like armor.

She snapped her head up at the daeyari, resolved to fight whatever immortal fire flared in his eyes.

The softness in them sliced her speechless.

His gaze withered her like too light a breeze before a storm, that moment the wind gathered and sighed before unleashing fury.

Those otherworldly eyes, those piercing shades of crimson and black shouldn’t have been able to look at her this way, as if he hadn’t spent two centuries devouring bones.

As if Fi’s terror meant anything more than the thrill of flailing prey.

“You know Verne?” he asked. Entirely too quiet.

His sincerity struck her off balance. What did he know? What did he care ?

“I grew up here,” she said. “I left. To get away from her .”

Fi hated the way he looked at her—too long, too slow, too sharp against the barbs she was fighting for her life to keep up. His grip tightened, drawing her closer. His scent of ice and ozone sent her taut.

“You claim you didn’t know my attendants’ scheme,” he said in a confiding low. “Make no mistake, Fionamara, that’s the only reason you’re still alive.”

Fi’s mouth curled a sneer, fingers flexing within the cage of his grasp.

“But regardless of your intentions,” he said, lower still, “you did play a role in this. And you’ll help me resolve it. That’s the debt I ask of you.” His grip softened. “For now, we walk on the same side. Stand with me, and Verne won’t harm you.”

When the daeyari released her, Fi didn’t bolt.

Fury gave her firmer ground to stand on. She was not responsible for this. She was lied to. Manipulated. Nearly fed to a daeyari. Yet as her fight or flight response leveled, she ground her teeth on an unsavory truth: he could probably force her to come, if he wanted to.

“Do you promise I’ll be safe?” Fi demanded.

She could have blinked and missed it: that twitch of a frown on his mouth. A heartbeat, where this lethal beast looked less…

He snapped back to granite, cold and unflinching as she expected from an immortal. “What does my promise mean to you, Fionamara?”

The daeyari didn’t wait for her reply, off on lithe strides toward Verne’s chateau.

This, to Fi’s chagrin, left her with a choice. She weighed how fast she could sprint for the nearest Curtain, how fast the teleporting immortal would catch up to her, how much of a fuss she could make while he dragged her behind him…

Or, she could make a gamble that this daeyari—that Antal might be her strongest shield at the moment. At least until she figured out what was going on.

Fi hissed her displeasure as she trotted to catch up, arms crossed against her too-thin tunic, a shiver digging deeper with each step.

Ten years.

Yet this wretched place brought back a weight she could never shed: she was meant to be Verne’s.

She’d been chosen young. Too young to understand.

Her father sat her down beside their wide stone hearth, brought a mug of her favorite hot chocolate with peppermint.

He asked about the Curtains Fi claimed to see.

A rare skill, he’d told her. A gift after surviving that icy river.

When Fi came of age, Verne would want her. Voidwalkers were prized by the daeyari.

All sacrifices came ready to sate their immortal’s hunger.

But those with exceptional potential? More valuable alive.

A daeyari could choose to make an Arbiter.

As Fi grew, the people of her town were certain she’d be spared, that they would reap the benefits of an Arbiter chosen among them: no more sacrifices for a lifetime, new energy conduits for their ailing infrastructure, better metallurgy contracts.

Fi’s confidence waned as the day approached.

She’d have to drink the twilight sorel, the attendants told her, then declare her request to become an Arbiter.

Put herself at the daeyari’s mercy. Her nights passed sleepless, imagining what would happen if Verne didn’t choose her.

If she’d make a better meal than a pet. When the time came, when she saw the hollow look in her father’s eyes as the attendants led his daughter away, the last of her courage crumbled like ash.

Now, Fi returned. Still not of her own will.

A stone arch led into the courtyard. She’d never been inside, only viewed the chateau from Verne’s shrine in the forest below.

Fi’s new daeyari—not her daeyari, just the one who happened to bring her here, Antal— led the way like a streak of vengeance, no pause for the humans who skittered out of his way like lemmings.

There wasn’t a guard in sight. After a decade as a smuggler, Fi had a sixth sense for trade wardens, city patrols, bounty hunters. She was so conditioned to skirting attention, the absence of watchful eyes in the courtyard made her itch.

What use did a daeyari have for guards? What human could threaten such a beast, the fiercest mortal swords no match for immortal claws?

No, the humans scattering from Antal’s path wore simple coats, work trousers, the occasional pin of an artisan—petitioners, Fi realized with a twist in her stomach.

Verne kept a tighter leash on her territory than most daeyari.

All edicts were enacted by her governor, yet she still made her subjects climb up here to grovel in the cold and make requests.

Not that Verne entertained such pleas in person. A steward in silver robes paled at Antal’s approach, hurrying inside without a word. Fi wasn’t sure if she ought to be horrified or relieved to walk beside this beast, while her more level-minded kin had the sense to run.

“Hey, real quick?” Fi hissed.

The daeyari returned a curt—and unappreciated—sigh. “Yes?”

“Am I meant to shiver quietly at your heels? Or do you have a plan?”

“Milana claimed she was conscripted. Offered reward for her subterfuge, by an Arbiter of Verne.”

He might as well have slapped her. The cold in Fi’s bones turned from sharp to numbing, a slow bloom up her spine.

“… What?”

“An underhanded tactic.” Antal’s tail flicked. “I must know if the Arbiter acted alone, or at Verne’s request.”

No, no, no. He was wrong. Milana lied, or he’d misunderstood. Astrid wouldn’t do this. Astrid wouldn’t do this to Fi , wouldn’t lure her in with smiles and reminiscence only to toss her into an exploding building. Sure, Astrid might have been working with Milana and Erik…

And sure, they hadn’t parted on… the best of terms…

Another shiver went through her, that memory of the dark forest. Hands on her arms. But that was ten years ago.

“Can you be stealthy, smuggler?”

Fi squinted. “Not really the purview of a smuggler , but—”

“While I entertain Verne, you’ll speak to her Arbiter. Determine who’s behind this.”

“ That’s your plan? That’s an awful plan!”

He bared a fang. “What’s wrong with—”

The chateau’s double doors opened, timber groaning on cold-strained hinges. Fi froze, arms clutched over her chest, a deeper cold carving her sternum.

Astrid stood upon the threshold.

Astrid—who looked perfectly fine, compared to Fi’s feral hunch. A perfect, toothy grin as she bent for a bow.

“Welcome, Lord Antal,” she greeted warmly.

Astrid had wrung Fi’s heart a thousand times before this.

At seven, their first big fight, Fi accidentally broke Astrid’s training crossbow, earning the silent treatment for a week before they made up over cinnamon cookies.

At fourteen, Fi confessed a crush on a boy at school.

It took her dense brain a month to figure out why Astrid was pouting.

At eighteen, they lay alone in Fi’s room, limbs tangled, Astrid’s skin warm as hearthfire.

Now, Astrid guarded the entry to Verne’s chateau, dressed in tight leather trousers and a sable elk coat, dark hair swept across her antlers. Her ruby eyes snapped onto Fi.

A pause. One breathless moment.

But not a word of acknowledgement.

Fi had her fill of granite looks from the daeyari who’d stolen her. Receiving the same blank glare from her oldest friend cut to the bone.

A misunderstanding. It must be.

Astrid addressed Antal. “A pleasure to have you back. You wish an audience with my Lord Daeyari?”

“Please,” he commanded.