Page 38 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Just say you forgive me

Fi finally made coffee.

Once the copper kettle sang, she drowned one mug in sugar and cream for herself. Next, a semi-sweet concoction for Boden.

They shared a look of surprise when Antal accepted a cup, bitter and black as the Void.

Boden leaned over the kitchen table, scowling. “But you told me you don’t drink—”

“I don’t. Not with mortals.” Antal clacked his claws to the mug and sipped.

Fi cocked a brow at Boden, a wordless, “ Can you believe this shit? ”

But Boden was staring at her hands, the dark fractal of an energy burn down her thumb. He looked to the daeyari, then back at her. But said nothing.

They spent a long time hammering out details, Boden laying out what he’d learned of Cardigan’s villa on the Spring Plane. By the time they had a workable strategy, the hour was late, their mugs empty. Fi pushed Boden out the door to get some sleep.

He kept looking between her and Antal, like she’d be devoured the moment he left.

“I’ll be fine, Bodie. I’ve survived two weeks without your incessant worrying.”

She got him onto the porch. Antal stayed inside.

When the door shut, a cold quiet wrapped around them. Night air carried the hoot of a distant owl through the trees. In the clearing, Aisinay conversed with Boden’s boreal horse in soft snorts, little nuzzles to each other’s necks.

Fi didn’t know how angry he was for keeping all this from him, for bringing a daeyari to their village without asking.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Instead, she watched the green aurora drift above the trees, a soft hiss then snap with each wave, whispers of lost souls reaching out from the Void with—

Boden grabbed her coat and pulled her into a rib-crushing hug.

Fi froze in surprise. She forgot how to hug back, arms falling awkward to her sides as Boden wrapped her in an unflinching embrace. He smelled of dust and aurorabeasts. Of safety.

“You should have told me,” he said in a hush.

Fi’s throat tightened. At her silence, Boden cupped the back of her head and pulled her tighter against his shoulder.

“You should have told me,” he said, “so you didn’t have to do this alone. Void have mercy, Fi. Are you all right?”

Why did it sound like an apology?

And no, come to think of it, Fi wasn’t all right. She wanted to sink into him. She wanted to cry out that she was afraid, and she didn’t know what to do, and wouldn’t someone please help her fix this.

“You never told me you’d met Antal,” she said in the flattest, safest tone she could.

Boden shifted her to arm’s length, hands tight on her shoulders. Then, a sigh. “I came home after the election, and he was out in the paddock. Watching the aurorabeasts. He couldn’t have stayed more than ten minutes. I didn’t want to worry you.”

A partial truth, Fi guessed. Boden didn’t want her to run away again. Same reason he’d stowed her up here the past two weeks, out of the way.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

“I know, Fi. But—”

“I won’t leave you again, Boden. I going to fix this. I’m going to—”

He grabbed her into another hug, smothering her fervor against his coat.

“Stop it,” he whispered. “Stop it, you stubborn girl. None of that matters anymore.”

Of course it mattered. Fi wriggled in protest. “I left you.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“You’re my brother, and I left you.”

“You’re my sister. And you’re the only family I have left.”

Boden held her so tight. As if she might vanish the moment he let go. Fi fought through the hitch in her breath, a treacherous prickle in her eyes.

She wanted to believe it was that simple.

She wanted to believe it didn’t matter how she’d run away, how she’d left Boden to tend their father as alcohol rotted his liver and picked holes through his brain.

How Boden had to track her down in a backwoods village on the Winter Plane to set their record straight.

Boden had never given up on her. For that, Fi loved him more than anyone on all the Shattered Planes. She wanted his forgiveness as desperately as she needed air in her lungs.

But he refused to talk about the past.

Anytime Fi approached the subject of reconciliation, Boden deflected, shut down. Like he could stomach moving forward, only by refusing to look behind. Seven years they’d worked together, this gaping wound between them, scabbed but still leaking pus.

Maybe he could still forgive her, if she didn’t fuck this up. That sole hope gave her the strength to hug him back, a moment of weakness as she sank against his chest and buried her face in his coat.

“You aren’t doing this alone,” Boden told her.

“Of course not. We have a daeyari to help us.” Fi broke from his embrace, snapping back to practiced nonchalance. “Let’s get you home. I can take you through a Curtain.”

She climbed onto Aisinay’s back before Boden could protest. The Void horse poked her snout at his coat pockets, a huff when she found no treats. He patted behind her finned ears then headed for his own mount.

Fi guided Boden through the Curtain nearby, across a Shard, out another Curtain by his ranch. He hugged her again when they bid goodnight. Too long. More earnest than she deserved.

She returned alone to her home on the ridge, to her quiet shiverpines and aurora-kissed needles, riding slow to let cold air clear her head. At last, they had a fresh plan. Only time would prove whether it was sounder than all her failures so far.

Ahead, golden light spilled out the windows of her cottage. She wondered if Antal would be gone, slipped away in her absence like a shadow in the night.

She cursed her relief when she cracked the door open, greeted by red eyes.

Antal lounged on her sofa, arms sprawled across the backrest, an empty coffee mug dangling from his claws. His tail swayed a slow arc as he glanced between her and the door, no Boden in sight, something dry and questioning in his look.

Fi sighed.

“He means well,” she said. “He’s a worrier. And a little stubborn. But he cares about Nyskya, and he’s good for a promise. He won’t rat you out to Verne.”

Antal propped his head on a palm. The slow spread of his smirk put Fi on guard.

“ Fi-Fi? ” he said.

She sucked in a sharp breath.

“I will end you myself,” Fi said in a low, warning tone. “Then end you again, when you come back for me.”

Antal laughed. The sound startled her every time, deep notes reverberating through her rafters. She breathed a little easier, the weight of her talk with Boden slipping to a safer recess of her mind.

“Fi, then?” He spoke the name like a curiosity. Like he was tasting it.

“If you’d like.”

“What would you like?”

“I mean it, Antlers. I don’t care.” Fi made the words forcibly flat.

Because she did care. More than was good for her.

Growing up, Fi had loathed her full name and its lengthy syllables, had lobbied and threatened against it, until close acquaintances knew her by nickname alone.

Older now, that spite had diminished. Fionamara was a name spoken with authority, the respect of satisfied clients or the curses of thwarted foes.

Yet the way he said it. Something else entirely. The syllables tumbled off Antal’s tongue like a warm Spring breeze. Like a whisper through midnight shadows. Fi wanted him to say it, just so she could dissect the cadence.

She couldn’t tell him that.

Antal rose. Fi watched him cross the room on those easy strides, returning his mug to her kitchen. She recognized the movements of a night coming to its close, a visitor making his play to depart.

She couldn’t tell him about her name. Instead, she said something more dangerous.

“Do you… have a place to sleep?” Fi asked.

Two weeks of him flitting through her life, yet she’d hardly spared a thought for where he disappeared to. Not to his home, so long as Verne banished him from Thomaskweld.

Antal’s movements slowed, that guarded posture she’d come to recognize.

“The cold is no trouble to daeyari,” he said.

“Sure. But you’d prefer somewhere warm?” He’d survived the river outside, but still relished sinking into her tub.

“What would you propose?”

What, indeed. Fi steadied herself, careful not to betray too much inflection. A simple offer of cooperation.

“You can stay here,” she said. “If you’d like.”

Antal kept his guard up, studying her crossed arms and defiant chin. “I’ve already accepted your price for my help. You don’t need to offer anything further.”

“It’s not about…” Fi wrinkled her nose. She’d berated Boden for this moments ago, only to find herself slipping the same way. Different. This was different . “It’s not a matter of payment. We’re partners now, right? You deserve to be comfortable.”

And she didn’t want to be alone tonight.

Antal stayed rigid. It was artful, the way he stood like carved ice, the crafted menace of his narrowed eyes. This was his response to kindness?

Was he so unaccustomed to it?

“I don’t wish to inconvenience you,” he said.

“It’s no inconvenience. Honestly? You’re not as terrible as I thought a daeyari would be. So far. And cottage life can get lonely. Having company has been… nice.”

Fi stopped herself right there. Not another word, or she’d combust.

She sweltered all the same, when Antal smiled.

Not a smirk. Not any of the goading grins she’d parried during their sparring earlier. It came on slow. As if Antal, too, were testing the feel on his lips.

He smiled like a slip of moonbeam through trees. Like that first sight of stars after stepping back from the Void. A subtle shift, yet one curve of his mouth changed every line of his face, softening chiseled edges into velvet, a carnivore into…

A man. Different flesh. Different blood. Heart stilling, all the same.

“Just don’t be a dick about it,” Fi deflected, too close to breathless. “And you can stay.”

The beast regarded her with those too-keen eyes. Then, a bow of his head.

“Your hospitality is much appreciated, Fionamara.”