Page 18 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

We’re apparently both very bad at this

The room snapped cold as a Winter stormfront.

Fi sat up straight, a moment of… no, she couldn’t have heard that right. Antal went as still as his metal sculpture in Thomaskweld, tail frozen in a low curl.

Merciless Void. Fi had heard that right.

“I expected you here yesterday,” Verne continued, tail swaying like a contented cat. “Did it take you this long to figure it out? Or were you being polite?”

Were daeyari negotiations so different from what Fi was used to? Some immortal tactics she couldn’t wrap her head around? But no. Antal looked equally stunned. So much for whittling that secret out of Verne’s Arbiter.

Astrid lounged against the sofa, chillingly calm.

Unsurprised.

“It was you.” Antal dragged the word over his fangs. “You sent your Arbiter into my territory? Attacked my capital?”

“Why deny something you’re proud of?” Verne batted a hand, fingers flashing black claws.

“I wanted to be thorough—the parts of your government that mattered, at least. The governor. The mayors of the major cities. A handful of head guards and attendants. The rest will cooperate, if they’re smart.

” When she shrugged, bells chimed from her antlers.

“Though, honestly, I prefer a clean slate. Can always replace anyone who doesn’t fall in line. ”

Fi didn’t recall how to breathe. She stared at Astrid, torn between seizing her friend by the throat or begging her to explain what was happening.

“You knew?” Fi hissed.

At last, Astrid glanced at her, brow raised. Her reply was an innocent, insulting, “Hm?”

“You knew what was going to happen?” Fi’s whisper felt vastly insufficient for this much ire. “And you didn’t tell me ?”

“I offered. You’re the one who didn’t want to get involved in ‘bigger things.’”

“So you sent me into a building about to explode? I could have died!”

Astrid strummed her fingers on the backrest. Shrugged. “I suppose you could have.”

“But why?” Antal snapped at Verne. His tail swatted his pillow. “You’d break the peace between us? After five decades?”

Verne clicked her tongue. “So young, Antal. Do you recall your predecessor’s age, when he vacated the territory?”

“What does that matter?”

“Over a thousand. Retired to travel the far Planes, seeking Veshri’s path.” Verne touched the highest tip of an antler, reverent. “May he find wisdom, following the First Voidwalker.”

Fi had no idea what that meant—these daeyari gestures, as foreign as the pit of the Void, leaving her on crumbled footing. Though not as unsettling as Astrid. What did she mean, I suppose you could have …

“Your point?” Antal pressed.

“That overseeing a territory is an arduous task,” Verne said.

“And I know you never wanted this position to begin with.” She spread her arms, bells clinking from her antlers and dress glistening starlight, a magnanimous tone that stuck to her fangs.

“Consider this a gift. No more obligations. Agree to abdicate, and I’ll take care of your territory for you. ”

Fuck literally everything about that.

Permafrost cracked Fi’s ribs. Antal losing ground was one thing, but she’d never considered Verne replacing him.

“That’s all you have to say?” Fi shot at Astrid. And for the wretched life of her, she tried to make it bite, tried to hold her head up like she was made of bristles, ignoring the glass lodged in her ribs. “I could have died? So what? ”

“I assumed you’d be fine,” Astrid returned. “You’ve always been good at running away.”

“And you didn’t care what happened to me?”

“Did you care, when you left me ?”

Fi flinched, fingernails digging into the sofa. When they’d spoken in Thomaskweld, when Astrid greeted her with a smile instead of cussing her off the Plane… when she sank into that kiss for even an instant… Fi could have believed things were fine again. Somehow, the past was in the past.

What a stupid thought. How could things ever be fine, after what Fi did?

“No,” Antal said.

Fi and Astrid snapped their glares to the pair of predators across the room.

“Antal,” Verne said, still in that lulling lilt. “Let’s be civil about this.”

Antal stood, drawing himself up to fiercer height, a snarl baring all his sharp teeth.

“No,” he said. “I refuse to abdicate.”

Verne clicked her tongue again. “Keep your voice down. It’s unbecoming—”

“And oyzen yzru , if you think you’ll convince me otherwise!”

At last, Verne frowned. Those pale lips tilted, and it honed every plane of her face, drawing scarlet irises into fiercer focus.

“I assumed you’d be better at this by now,” she said icily.

When Verne stood, the fabric of her dress shimmered like starlight, posture taut on the balls of her feet.

“I assumed you’d be better from the start .” She paced around the table, pressing unnervingly close to Antal. “A visitor from the esteemed home Plane, an esteemed Old House?” Her words sharpened, not as honey-sweet. “Your father must place great faith in you.”

Antal tensed, a slip in composure as raw as an open wound.

“Or he wanted to get rid of you,” Verne said, scalpel sharp. “But let’s not mince words, Antal. You never wanted to come to the Winter Plane. You’ve never been any good at running a territory. Haven’t you languished here long enough?”

She circled him with unnerving calm, tail brushing his arm. Now, they certainly stood too close. A contest of proximity and raised hackles. Antal pressed closer, meeting her challenge.

As tensions rose, Astrid shifted to a less lax position on the sofa, keeping Verne in one eye and Fi in the other. Fi, surrounded by entirely too many red glares for any sensible person’s liking, inched away.

“Astrid. We can talk about this.”

“Can we? Seems like you’ve been fine without talking. For ten years.”

Fi’s bristles slipped like quicksilver through her fingers. A different kind of panic stabbed her stomach. Not fear, but guilt, screaming at her to flee—like she always did.

“I didn’t know…”

“Where to find me?” Astrid gestured to the giant-ass castle. “Fair. It’s easy to miss.”

“Ok, well,” Fi snapped. “You didn’t find me either!”

“So that was my responsibility, too? I have to do everything for you?”

Of course not. Fi wasn’t saying any of this right. But two daeyari were snarling a few feet away, and this room was alarmingly short on exits, and she didn’t have a weapon —

“I’ve kept my territory in line for five decades.” Antal’s teeth flashed wicked canines.

“Have you?” Verne’s tone rose with his. “Your mortals do whatever they please. Antal the Lax. Antal the Generous . The whispers are maddening.”

“You’d breach our peace on grounds of rumors?”

“Antal, dear.” Verne stepped the closest yet, snarling faces nearly touching. She hovered claws over his antlers, tracing the carvings—lingering on one section left blank. “I have my choice of rumors about you .”

He swatted her arm away. “That’s no business of yours.”

They took up distance, pacing. Fi had seen wolves fight over territory, sensed the bristle of teeth about to snap. But she’d never seen immortals fight. She’d never heard of daeyari fighting each other, had zero desire to see what it looked like. Or who’d emerge victorious.

“Well,” Astrid said. “Doesn’t look like this is going to end nicely.”

She stood like a cat uncoiling. Slow and lithe, ruby eyes sharp with hunter’s focus.

Fi lurched to grab her hand.

Call it an instinct. A weakness. Fi didn’t know the right things to say, but—

“We can leave.” Fi’s grip tightened, clammy against Astrid’s slender fingers, callus against callus. “While the daeyari are distracted. We can run away. We can figure this out.” One mistake didn’t have to ruin them forever.

Astrid went steel stiff. Eyes wide. Her mouth parted on a shallow inhale, hand flexing within Fi’s fingers. Then…

“What in the endless black Void makes you think I’d leave with you ?”

The words struck past every bristle, straight to Fi’s heart.

“I will not abdicate,” Antal spat at Verne in unison. “So unless you plan to take this to the Daey Celva—”

“Why would I ever run away with you?” Astrid ripped her hand out of Fi’s. “After what you did?”

Her shout snared the daeyari’s attention.

A toss up, for which spiked Fi’s pulse worse: Astrid eviscerating her heart? Or two immortals pausing their argument to stare at her? Antal’s crimson eyes darted between Fi and Astrid, a subtle furrow on his brow.

While he looked away, Verne vanished, leaving static on Fi’s tongue.

Fi could pretend she was brave—while Verne was in sight. So long as she had an active total of the creatures who could eat her in the room at any given time. She scoured every window, every red-glowing rafter, searching for the missing beast.

So did Antal. And there was the predator she expected him to be: eyes scorching bright, chin raised to scent the air. His ire settled on Astrid.

“Where has your daeyari gone, vavriter?”

Despite a daeyari snarling at her, despite being outnumbered, Astrid was cast of steel. Even in their worst fights, that glare had never been so hard. It warned Fi not to run again. Not to even try.

For the daeyari, Astrid bent at the waist, a mocking bow. “I assume she’s raising the terms, Lord Antal.”

A growl rumbled the room.

Not from Antal. Somewhere outside.

When static hit Fi’s tongue, Antal’s attention snapped sideways.

A latch. A creak. Verne pushed open the tall double-doors from the patio.

Cold entered with her, the wind off the cliffs snaring what raven hair wasn’t bound in braids, bells a harrowing chime upon her antlers. She stood ice-still upon her threshold.

“I’d have preferred to settle this amicably,” Verne said, her tone anything but.

Another growl joined the groaning wind. The sound shuddered through Fi, a memory of crumbling walls and dust-choked lungs. Of blood spilled over stone.