Page 25 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

What’s a little death threat between friends

Fi would have been perfectly pleased to see a rabid moose barge inside. Perhaps a scurry of vengeful squirrels. Anything— anyone— but this ghost she’d evaded for a decade, now set to haunt the rest of her days.

Astrid surveyed the tavern with snow dusting her sable elk coat, frost glistening the low rise of her antlers. Something colder crystallized her ruby eyes.

Fi ducked out of sight in the kitchen, pressed against the cabinets like the small, craven creature she was. She heard chair legs scrape. Boden’s inhale.

“Astrid?” he exclaimed. A talent. He crafted the breathless hush of seeing a long-lost friend, no hint of her name on his tongue moments before.

“Boden,” Astrid returned. Flat as a stripped screw. They’d never been close. Fi, drawn to Astrid like a hand to a flame, Boden hovering nearby lest she burn herself.

“Void take me, it’s been… seven years? Kashvi! This is Astrid. An old friend.”

“You may have mentioned her a time or two,” Kashvi replied dryly.

“Not enough, then.” Boden laughed. “Come in, Astrid. It’s good to see—”

“Where’s Fi?” Astrid said.

No pleasantries. No preamble. Just Fi’s past come to hunt her down.

“Fi?” Boden said. “We haven’t spoken in all this time, and that’s who you want to talk about?”

“We can skip the dancing, Boden. You’ve always been too good at it, and I don’t have the time. I know Fi passes through here. Where is she?”

Fi flinched at soft footsteps. Iliha leaned over a counter, energy crossbow ready at her shoulder. She shot Fi a questioning look. Four on one? They could overpower Astrid.

And send a beacon to Verne. Fi couldn’t risk bringing the daeyari’s attention to Nyskya.

In the other room, Boden sighed. “Fi’s… hard to pin down. She shows up now and then, when she needs something. Haven’t heard from her in months.”

“You’re talking about that useless sister of yours?” Kashvi scoffed. “Good riddance.”

In the silence, Fi pictured Astrid’s razor cheekbones. That stubborn clamp of her mouth.

“Dreadful, that woman,” Boden said. “Surely, we can do better. How are you, Astrid? Kashvi and I were just finishing breakfast, but could we get you something?”

“I’m not here for breakfast .” Astrid hissed. “Not for your nostalgia, either.” Boots creaked floorboards, pacing like a wildcat. “I bear a message on behalf of my Lord Daeyari, Verne. Antal has abdicated.”

A pause. A fitting crack in Boden’s voice, act or not. “Abdicated?”

“Verne has claimed her right to this territory. She expects a sacrifice from Nyskya by the end of the year. As a show of good will.”

Fi’s heart dropped clear through her stomach. Ice in all her bones. She’d come here worried that she’d bring ruin to Nyskya.

But even she hadn’t expected it this swiftly.

“A sacrifice ?” Boden said. “Nyskya hasn’t sent a sacrifice in years.”

“You’re overdue, then.”

“We ask for no daeyari aid.”

“You’re part of this territory. Verne’s territory. She’ll have you behave as such.”

“Astrid. Can’t we talk about this? As friends? The people here ask so little—”

“ Friends? ” Astrid boomed. “Since when, Boden? Since we were children ? Since you abandoned our town as a lost cause, like your sister did?”

“Astrid—”

“You’ve spent seven years hiding in the woods, letting others pay their price to the daeyari. Send your sacrifice. Or tell me where Fi is, and I’ll consider putting in a good word.”

Footsteps moved to the door. Fi barely heard them above the flail of her heart.

“Astrid, please,” Boden said. “There must be another way—”

“There’s no other way with daeyari.” Then, lower. More vicious. “You don’t know what I’ve had to do. I stayed behind. I kept our town safe.”

Boden might have kept arguing.

Then the power went out.

A momentary darkness. The lights flickered back on in swift order, conduits humming, but the damage was done. Nyskya was in no position to negotiate.

A long silence stretched.

Then, so quiet that Fi barely overheard, “It’s not worth fighting them, Boden. Send your sacrifice. Get the help you need. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

The door slammed shut.

Fi shriveled into a ball on the floor, head in her hands. Just a job. Just a few energy chips. Just a debt to an old friend she thought she could repay too easily.

Iliha slipped out the back door, knuckles white on her crossbow stock. Fi didn’t move for several minutes. When at last Boden appeared in the kitchen doorway, she crumbled at one look from those shadow-hung eyes.

Her barbs, useless against someone who’d seen her as a sniveling girl with scraped knees, who knew that was all she would ever be.

“I’m sorry, Bodie,” Fi whispered.

“You’re part of Nyskya. No one’s taking you.” He ran a hand through his hair, fingers tangling on frost-worn knots. “Can you get home without being seen?”

Fi nodded. A jaunt through a Curtain, and she’d be fine.

“Kashvi will make sure Astrid leaves,” Boden said. “Lay low for a few days. I’ll send along any news.”

Lay low. Don’t get in the way. Don’t make this worse than you already have. Every moment she sat here made Fi feel smaller.

Boden continued, “Anything else I should put an ear out for?”

Fi raked through the chaos of the last few days, searching for threads to grasp.

“Cardigan.”

Boden’s brow lifted.

“He gave me the energy capsules,” Fi said. “Then ran like a coward’s ass when we got jumped by trade wardens. Not sure if he’d know Verne’s plans.” But that was all she had.

Boden hummed. “Cardigan… swear I’ve heard that name. Somewhere in the energy conduit market? I’ll track him down.”

Another weight on his shoulders.

Fi snuck out the back door. Her heart raced all the way to the Curtain, but Nyskya’s streets stayed sleepy. She saw no one.

Astrid was hunting her. So long as Fi fled, Nyskya wouldn’t know peace.

She reached her cottage on heavy footfalls, kicked her boots clean on the porch. Fi paused at the door to collect herself. Astrid wasn’t the only one who’d followed her here.

But inside, her home was empty.

Lights glowed from the rafters, the furnace pumping heat from its energy capsule. The tub had been drained. Water droplets spattered the floor, but beyond that, nothing out of place. Only a scent of ozone on the air.

Good riddance. If Fi never saw that useless daeyari again, it would be too soon.

She poured herself a scalding bath and sank into pomegranate-scented bubbles, willing them to swallow her. Smother her. She soaked until her fingers shriveled and the lather dwindled to tepid skim.

For hundreds of years, all of the Winter Plane had been carved into daeyari territories.

All of Summer, Spring, and Autumn.

And beyond these Season-Locked Planes, dozens more.

Hundreds more. Worlds Fi had never seen, but she knew they looked the same, more carnivorous immortals to appease.

From their origin on the Twilit Plane, the daeyari had spread their hunting grounds throughout the Planeverse.

How far would Fi have to run, to truly escape?

She didn’t want to run. Not this time. Nyskya was her home, Boden’s home, and she wouldn’t let Verne take it from them. Resolution burned into the marrow of her sternum.

Fi would fix this.

She just… didn’t know how.