Page 29 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Not as tough as you look

Fi retracted her earlier statement.

Seeking help from a neighbor daeyari wasn’t the best idea she’d heard all week. It was, in swiftly unfolding certainty, an atrocious idea. She shivered against the wind, trying to keep both immortals in sight despite eyeballs freezing in their sockets.

“You knew about Verne?” Antal’s icy facade didn’t break. His tail coiled a sharp arc.

“Did I know about Verne’s recent claim to Thomaskweld?” Tyvo’s grin flashed fangs. His eyes, molten orange. “I ‘enjoy my solitude’ as you say, yelz daeyari. But I’d be a fool not to listen for important news.”

He spoke so slow. Unrushed. Unintimidated by Antal’s glare.

His black antlers glinted in the moonlight, carvings divided into sections, one band per century, Fi guessed from Antal’s decorations.

Tyvo’s antlers bore eight bands. Not just the oldest creature she’d ever met, but one of the oldest things she’d ever met, on par with the granite monuments of a capital city, his voice like lichen-caked grout.

“You knew,” Antal said. “Yet you’ve done nothing to intervene?”

“Antal. You’re playing this game several steps behind. Verne opened negotiations months ago. Asked for my cooperation.”

“And you gave it?”

“She made a compelling case.”

“To displace me?” Antal’s tail flicked fiercer.

“Why not? One fewer neighbor, Verne in my debt. An easy trade.”

They squared off, two predators perched on the balls of clawed feet. Eyes bright.

Tyvo laughed.

“Oyzen yzri. You have your father’s scowl down perfectly .” Tyvo circled a claw at Antal’s chiseled face. “Even that scrunch between your eyes. Marvelous. There’s just one problem, yelz daeyari.”

He moved before Antal could flinch, a firm grasp of his opponent’s antler.

“You haven’t got these to back it up,” Tyvo said.

He skirted Antal’s swat, snatching the tip of his thrashing tail.

“And this?” Tyvo scoffed. “Gives you away.”

Fi hung at the edge of the clearing, cursing herself for allying with the only daeyari on the Plane who apparently had no friends. Antal didn’t snap at the insult, tension confined to ramrod posture and that flicking tail. Certainly, he must feel something at this betrayal.

Which made Fi wonder why he was so good at hiding it.

“Go home, Antal,” Tyvo said, and Fi’s entire concept of “condescending” shifted as she heard it off a centuries-old tongue. “He’ll be glad to have you back. A few decades taking air on another Plane?” Another fang-sharp grin. “Maybe he can finally make something useful out of you.”

At last, Antal’s stone face fissured. He pressed closer to Tyvo with a snarl.

“And who will Verne make her next case to, when she comes over your border?”

“You think so?” Tyvo chuckled like crunching bone. “Verne chooses her fights carefully, prefers stepping on things smaller than her. I suppose that’s what made you an attractive mark.”

“And while you plotted treachery, did Verne share the rest of her scheme? She brought a derived daeyari to do her bidding.”

Tyvo’s grin faltered.

“She commands the creature,” Antal furthered. “Like a pet on a leash.”

Tyvo considered the news with narrowed eyes, a flicked tail. “Can she control it?”

“What does that matter? It’s improper.”

“Improper? Verne is the definition of proper. So she’s indulged one… transgression. The rest of this, she’s played by every etiquette. Even letting you live.” Tyvo’s voice dropped to a growl. “ I wouldn’t have.”

Antal backed toward Fi.

She agreed: time to call this a failed plan and get out before the very crusty daeyari got very fed up with their intrusion. Her gloved fingers brushed the hilt of her energy sword, warm from body heat beneath her coat.

Tyvo’s molten eyes snapped to her.

Static pricked Fi’s tongue. Too fast to react as the daeyari appeared beside her, one icy hand locked around her wrist, blocking her from grabbing her sword. A claw tipped her chin. She froze as the point pinned soft flesh, curses boiling her tongue.

“But who’s this?” Tyvo purred.

Nope. Fuck him and everything about—

“She’s with me,” Antal said. Hard.

“Obviously,” Tyvo returned. “I’m surprised, Antal. Bringing a gift? Perhaps you aren’t as clueless as I took you for.” He twisted Fi’s arm, exposing skin. “Some fine muscle on her.”

Fi was an idiot to come here. She fought to keep her breath steady, even as Tyvo’s proximity trickled cold down her vertebrae.

A hot stab of adrenaline at his horrific proposition.

She’d volunteered for this reckless venture, but would that stop Antal from using her for his benefit?

Just another daeyari, trading human lives like currency.

“She isn’t food,” Antal said. Harder.

“No?”

Tyvo’s nostrils flared at the scent of her. He smelled of forest musk, old bones moldering in loam. And ice. Always ice and emptiness.

Fi yanked her arm like a flailing hare. He didn’t budge. Fast and strong, how absurdly unfair. Energy prickled her fingertips, but what good would it do against an immortal? Daeyari were too swift for a human to fight. To invulnerable.

“She’s not willing.” Antal pressed closer.

“Isn’t she?” Tyvo pinned Fi with ravenous eyes. “What do you say about that?”

She spit in his face.

Tyvo’s lips curled a snarl. “Spirited. No matter. No one notices if a few slip through the cracks, do they?”

A black tongue traced his teeth, too long, summoning bile in Fi’s throat. Antal’s presence prickled her skin, a lurch in her stomach urging her to stay on guard. Tyvo was a different beast. The hunger in his eyes shocked her system like an aurorabeast prod.

“ Release her .” Antal flexed his claws.

Why would he care?

“How about a deal?” Tyvo offered. “Leave her. And I’ll let you walk away.”

Fi swallowed, claws tugging the tender skin of her neck. An easy trade. What could Antal gain by standing up for her, when he’d be better off—

Static struck her tongue. A flash of claws.

Fi fell against snow as Antal tackled Tyvo. The daeyari snarled. Rolled. Another snap fizzled her tongue as they blinked apart, facing off. Tyvo discarded civility like a cloak out of fashion, eyes the lethal gleam of a predator defending his territory.

Antal reached for Fi.

Why? He could be gone already. He could leave her and never look back.

Before they grasped hands, Tyvo lunged. He dragged Antal to the ground in a flurry of snow and thrashing tails.

Daeyari dressed in finery. They connived like humans and spoke in civil measure.

They fought like wildcats, a blur of snarling and scratching, red energy rippling at clawtips. Tyvo held the upper hand in size.

But Antal wasn’t useless.

Without the disadvantage of Verne’s magic or an outnumbered fight, he slashed claws across Tyvo’s chest, rending fabric and spattering black blood across the snow.

He coiled around his larger opponent, tail snaring Tyvo’s arm, legs braced to leverage every cord of lithe muscle, pinning the rival daeyari to the ground. Maybe he had triumphed over Verne once.

Tyvo threw his head forward, driving antlers into Antal’s face.

The wicked points skewered Antal’s cheek and ripped upward, gouging one eye in a mess of blood and punctured sclera. Antal recoiled. Tyvo grabbed the younger daeyari by the antlers and held him down.

His teeth sank into Antal’s throat.

Antal let out the heinous snarl of a skewered cat. A raccoon in the throes of death. Tyvo’s fangs ripped into Antal’s neck, red energy crackling along rent sinew. As Fi pushed to her feet, Antal dug claws into Tyvo’s ribs. As she fumbled for balance, Antal kicked snow, tail flailing.

Tyvo bit deeper . Red energy snapped the air, sizzling against cold as Antal clawed. Then slowed. Then slumped, hands falling weak against the cage of Tyvo’s arms.

Realization sliced sharp in Fi’s chest. This wasn’t like Verne’s intimidation game.

Tyvo intended to kill him.

Not if she had any-fucking-thing to say about it.

Fi ripped the hilt from her belt. Cracked an energy capsule into the pommel.

The blade Shaped silver, tongues of energy rippling off the edge.

Lethal against mortal flesh, but immortal?

Her school teachers didn’t cover fighting immortals.

They never covered regular fighting. Fi ran drills for heating tea kettles or Shaping kitchen knives ad nauseam, but she taught herself swordplay on trade wardens and black marketeers and even a few things with teeth.

Never anything with black eternity in its eyes.

But Antal—Plane’s worst negotiator—was on the ground again, and she couldn’t leave him.

Fi didn’t shout. The snap of energy must have given her away, or the crunch of snow beneath her boots. Tyvo looked up, black blood slicking his chin.

She swung.

A moment of resistance. A spark on her tongue. By the end of the arc, Fi’s sword cleaved empty air. Tyvo reappeared several feet away.

A single antler fell to the snow.

Fi and Tyvo stared at it together. He raised a slow hand, claws clacking against the severed base. The casualty rested upon the ground, black lacquer glinting, snow clumped in carvings of stars and prey fleeing through trees.

“You…” Tyvo began as a hiss. “You fleck of dust .” Rose to a rupture. “By Veshri’s teeth and sharpened antlers, I’ll crack your marrow while you still breathe !”

Fi had wondered how Verne’s twisted Beast could be a daeyari. Yet here stood Tyvo with that same devouring blaze in his eyes, that feral swish of tail. She looked to Antal, bloody and unmoving in the snow. Too far to reach.

Static spiked her tongue.

Fi swung at nothing. Everything. She’d volunteered to come as backup, not a solo act, shouting through a wide arc of her energy sword as the daeyari reappeared. She only saw claws. Teeth. So Void-damned fast. He came at her like a winter gale, slashing for the soft flesh of her stomach.

She angled her sword to parry. Claws shrieked off silver.

Tyvo swiped for her neck. She raised to deflect.

He came for her ribs. Fi brought her sword down like a shield.

What the fuck was happening?

Fi swayed on unsteady steps, fingers strangling the hilt, yet she kept moving.

Backing up. Parrying energy-coated claws.

She ought to be flayed to pieces by now.

She ought to be on the ground with her ribs cracked open and a daeyari ripping her heart out, like every human who’d dared raise a weapon to an immortal in the stories.

A claw glanced off her sword. The sickle tip carved across her lips. Blood red— not Fi’s preferred lipstick shade.

In her flinch, Tyvo grabbed her sword. The son-of-a-bitch grabbed the blade in his bare hands, a shriek of red and silver as he shielded his palms with energy. A shiver ran up Fi’s arm. Her energy blade flickered against the rival current, and fighting immortal energy…

Her sword shattered with a crack .

Claws struck Fi’s abdomen. She hunched, gasping as her wool coat shredded, but her silviamesh held.

At first. A deeper press of claws, of destructive daeyari energy, and the armor-like fabric popped its threads.

Fi staggered back in time, taking several gouges across her skin rather than losing her bowels.

All she had left were energy capsules. Fi cracked one to detonate and Shaped another into a shield. Tyvo retreated from the blast with a snarl, his seared skin repairing itself before her eyes in a flash of red.

“Fionamara.”

Her name came to her as a rasp.

The syllables mixed with gravel, filtered over broken glass. Across the clearing, Antal dragged himself to his knees, dripping blood. Reaching for her.

Reaching.

For her .

Fi ripped her carnelian transport stone from her pocket and cracked the fossil into its two halves. One half, she hurled toward Antal. A pulse of energy activated the second half in her palm, a heartbeat before Tyvo’s claws came for her. She lurched. Not nearly as smooth as a daeyari teleport.

Out the other side of the jump, she staggered, skin hot and prickling from dematerialization. She scooped her thrown transport stone from the snow, retrieved the severed antler—or else no one would believe this—then grabbed Antal’s hand.

A snarl closed behind her. Then the black of a teleport.

Black like the Void, she realized. Too cold and empty to be anything else.

Antal had called her not a true Voidwalker.

He would know, wouldn’t he?