Page 28 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

The same, but not the same. No other option, but there were always other options.

Fi found no clear answer.

She jogged to catch up with him, afraid to linger in another daeyari’s forest. The slope leveled out, a ridgeline of trees catching the wind like black sails. In the canopy, boughs moaned. On the ground, a separate world, still and snow-locked.

When they fell into step, Antal didn’t look at her.

He trudged forward, agile strides unhindered by the deep snow, though Fi noted his pace slowed to let her keep up.

As much as this daeyari shifted the ground beneath her feet, she recognized confidence and cooperation as currency. He’d shown her both.

A truce, then. A common enemy. That was her best option on the table.

“What’s your problem with Verne, anyway?” Fi asked, because she never did learn to keep her mouth shut. “Why’d she do all this? Kill your governor, kick you out.”

Antal seemed to weigh the levity of her question, this offer of an olive branch. His concession came as a dry glance, a scathingly arched brow.

“Other than her being a spiteful hag?” he said.

One thing they could agree on. “Sure. But why do you think she’s a spiteful hag?”

“Verne claims to champion tradition , but she only cares for herself. Thinks she’s entitled to more territory.

More humans to tremble at her feet. And so confident in her cleverness.

” Antal bared his teeth in distaste. “When I first arrived on the Winter Plane, set out to meet my neighbors, Verne didn’t wait five minutes before trying to seduce me. ”

Fi inhaled too fast, choking on her own saliva.

As she coughed herself straight, any conundrums over mortal death or immortal hunger toppled to a backburner. This had her full attention.

“Hold on. Hold on . You’re talking about… fucking Verne?”

“Immortality has no use for prudishness,” he chided. “Daeyari aren’t self-conscious about carnal pleasures.”

“Neither are humans. The surprised face”—Fi gestured to her eyebrows—“is for Verne specifically. You two weren’t… together?”

“Of course not. There’s intimacy for passion. Then intimacy for negotiations.”

“Negotiations?”

“A way of weighing potential adversaries. Daeyari don’t fall easily onto our backs. We fight, to see who will end up on top. Verne tried to subdue me, so sure of herself.”

Fi contemplated the terrifying image of two daeyari wrapped in sheets, claws bared. “And you let her?”

“You think so little of me, Fionamara. I pinned her down until she begged .”

The roughness of Antal’s words rumbled something in Fi.

An unexpected flutter filled her stomach, not that sour of adrenaline, but something… warmer. Confusing. Curious? Never in her life had she considered the politics of daeyari tumbling. Fi enjoyed some quality biting as much as the next girl, but that ?

It might not be so bad, with caution. Antal and Verne had emerged unscathed.

“So, you used to be stronger than her?” Fi said.

If Antal ground his teeth this much on a regular basis, she was surprised he still had fangs. “That was without magic. Just the two of us. Verne knows her strengths, enough to put me at disadvantage when…”

He stopped. Sniffed the air.

“What’s wrong?” Fi snapped alert.

“Tyvo’s noticed us.”

“What?” She scanned the trees, but spotted nothing. “How do you know?”

“I smell his energy.”

“You what ?”

Antal frowned. “Why do you say that like it’s an odd thing?”

“I’m not a daeyari. I can’t smell energy.”

“Keep your voice down.” Another clench of teeth. “And stay behind me.”

Didn’t have to tell Fi twice.

The conifers parted on a clearing of untouched snow, silver in moonlight, wind lifting ice crystals into flurries. Beyond the ridge, lights glowed in the distance, a far-off city.

Fi rarely set foot in Tyvo territory, her fees twenty percent higher in any jurisdiction without a judicial system.

Tyvo’s approach to governance was simpler, more iron-clawed than most daeyari.

He chose a governor. The governor did as Tyvo ordered.

Fi didn’t want to touch that dynamic with a hundred-yard pole.

She spotted the eyes first.

All her life, she’d avoided immortals. Now, here was the third in a matter of days, perched amidst the high branches of the shiverpines.

The daeyari reclined against the trunk, tail wrapped around the bough beneath him. His eyes glowed orange-red like an old hearth. His skin, deathly white. Onyx stone crusted a high-collared black shirt, aglint like eyes in the dark.

Daeyari didn’t age like mortals. Despite Antal’s two and a half centuries, he was… fine, Fi would admit he was handsome . Handsome in that ethereal way, a man carved from Void and ice and a dissonantly soft curve to his mouth.

Tyvo had a harsher face, sharper brow and leaner cheekbones, hair shaved at the sides and a slate-gray herringbone plait between black antlers.

And those antlers . Tyvo’s rack arced back over his head before curving up in a barbed crown, eight tips each side against Antal’s three, the points razor sharp.

Antal stepped forward, a brush of Fi’s arm urging her to stay back. Gladly. She didn’t want to be anywhere near that creature.

He entered the fray as a different person entirely, no trace of the taunts or whispered words he’d let slip on their walk, as ice-chiseled as his kin. Above, Tyvo’s mouth curled a grin.

“Antal,” he called down. “Ka Voz grel ef yzru.”

The daeyari language had syllables sharp like teeth, rhythm smooth as an aurora.

“Void smile upon you as well, Tyvo,” Antal returned in seasonspeak—for Fi’s benefit, she realized with no small fluster. “Thank you for seeing me.”

He held out his arms, palms up, the way Verne had greeted him.

Tyvo didn’t move. He appraised his guest with the cocked head of a raptor, tail swaying.

The start of a deal always set the stage. Fi sensed that shift in the air, silence dragging too long. Tyvo’s response was, she gathered, not polite.

Even more so, when he snapped out of sight, reappearing inches in front of his visitor. Antal flinched.

“A visit from a neighbor?” Tyvo said, voice deep, teeth glinting. “Anytime.”

He didn’t lay his hands palm up, as Antal had done for Verne. He gripped Antal beneath the forearms. From a distance, Fi thought she saw claws too tight on flesh. They held the posture, a play of power in purposeful proximity.

“To what do I owe this unusual pleasure?” Tyvo backed away on prowling strides, his build fuller than the younger daeyari. His shirt shifted inlaid onyx and iridescent vesper fabric. Antal’s humble attire seemed drab by comparison.

“Unusual?” Antal returned with his guarded countenance.

“To see you away from your cave. You’ve visited, what… twice in five decades? Once to introduce yourself. Once to complain about borders.”

“I know you prefer your solitude.”

“And yet here you are.” Tyvo’s grin showed a single fang. “A shame. If you’d have visited more often, I’d have gladly brought you hunting.”

Fi didn’t want to know what that meant. Antal’s tail betrayed a flick at the tip.

“My apologies,” he said. “I’ll… keep that in mind.”

“Apologies, apologies. Ah, but you have that serious look about you.” Tyvo’s tail was a demur sway at his calves, posture taut like a hawk. “What brings you?”

“I come to discuss our shared neighbor. Verne.”

Tyvo’s tail never broke pace. “Yes?”

“She’s moved upon my territory. Claimed it as her own.”

“And?”

In the silence, Fi listened to the moan of shiverpines in the wind. The scratch of snow abrading snow. The thrum of her heart against her ribs.

“ And ,” Antal said, “I come seeking your counsel on how we should address this.”

Tyvo’s head tilted, claws tapping his chin.

“Ah, I see,” he lamented, the grim tone at odds with his grin. “There seems to be a misunderstanding. Did you come here thinking I’d help you?”