Page 39 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

It’s not a party until there’s blood on the floor

Fi spent one futile night trying to fight Antal out of her rafters.

She delivered impassioned arguments on the merits of her sofa , or the damn floor if nothing else.

In the end, their agreement became: rafters at night for sleeping, off-limits during the day when she wanted to enjoy her home without a predator lurking overhead.

Compromise was crucial to any partnership.

She supposed this arrangement wasn’t so different from having an odd, arboreal guard dog.

Antal slept like a panther in a tree, stomach stretched along the rafter, head pillowed in his arms as his tail dangled.

Fi caught herself watching him too often, captive to curiosity for this strange housemate who melded with shadows and prowled on whisper-quiet feet.

Graciously, he disappeared when she requested privacy.

This morning, Fi indulged a long bath. She sipped her sugary coffee.

Her silviamesh bodysuit, normally a delight to don, summoned a grimace as she examined the shredded stomach and her laughable attempt to mend the tatters with regular thread.

The intact parts were still worth wearing.

She armed herself with dark lipstick and violet eyeshadow, drew her hair into a Void-and rainbow ponytail.

Then, off to meet Boden.

His ranch lay on the outskirts of Nyskya, a low building at the edge of the forest, porch crusted with icicles and shingles sheened with overnight snow. When Fi arrived, her brother waited on the steps, bundled in his coat, eyeing the tree line. So did the herd of aurorabeasts in the paddock.

Fi spotted the source of their consternation: Antal, perched near the crown of a fir, an antlered silhouette and red eyes amidst dark needles.

“Is he trying to freak me out?” Boden greeted as Fi joined him on the porch.

She considered Antal’s obsession with her rafters. His home in a cave overlooking Thomaskweld. Verne’s cliffside chateau, and Tyvo lurking in treetops.

“I think they just like to be up high,” she said.

“They?”

“Daeyari, in general.”

“You’re a fucking expert, now?”

Fi punched his arm.

“You don’t have to come, Bodie. Antal and I can handle Cardigan. If someone realizes you’re helping us, Verne will be on Nyskya in a heartbeat.”

“Good thing I’m not helping you,” he returned, in that smug tone that made Fi want to throw a snowball between his eyes.

“My awful sister? Gone too far, scorning our new Lord Daeyari .” That one oozed air quotes, though Boden’s hands stayed stuffed in his pockets.

“And with Astrid searching for that wretched Fionamara? I’d be foolish not to offer a bounty, bringing a spiteful criminal to justice. ”

Fi regarded him with lips puckered, indulging none of his stuffy attempts at humor.

This was the plan they’d agreed to. If Boden played it right, he’d get himself invited into Cardigan’s estate, convince the weasel they were on the same side, sweet-talk some information about Verne.

If that failed, Fi and Antal would be waiting to offer more forceful coercion.

Overall, she found the plan unnecessarily obtuse and unreasonably perilous to Boden’s well-being. Unfortunately, stubbornness did run in the family.

“Make it a good bounty,” she grumbled. “My average on the Spring Plane has been increasing for five years. Don’t you dare bring that down.”

“Of course.” Boden tapped his chin. “What’s a good offer? One energy chip?”

“Boden.”

“I don’t know these things. I’m not a criminal , like my sister.”

“ Boden .”

Static pricked Fi’s tongue.

At Antal’s appearance in the yard, the aurorabeasts shied toward the far edge of the paddock. He scented the air, circling on predatory strides, wind tousling the dark hair between his antlers.

Otherworldly. A being from the depths of the Void, returned to walk this mortal Plane. Fi found herself forgetting that too often, lulled by how comfortably he sprawled on her sofa and lured her with toothy smirks.

When he reached Fi and Boden, he held out both hands.

“Ready to leave?” Antal asked.

Ready to greet Cardigan with a not-so-fond reunion. Fi grasped Antal’s hand. Boden eyed the other with understandable hesitation.

“Hold your breath,” she warned.

After the first teleport, Fi caught herself on staggered boots. Boden wheezed.

She had a split second to register snow, shiverpines, still the Winter Plane, a Curtain directly in front of them.

“Hold on,” Boden gasped. “I—”

Antal yanked them through the Curtain.

Out the other side, Boden dropped to his knees, hissing curses at his first daeyari teleport.

“It’s like that every time?” he rasped.

Antal cast a tarnished look upon Nyskya’s mayor. “Would you prefer walking to the Spring Plane, Mayor Kolbeck? Gather yourself. Our journey isn’t finished.”

“Sure. Just. Shit, give me a second…”

Fi patted his back. Not everyone had the constitution for cross-world travel.

Around them, salt flats sprawled around shallow pools, reflecting a starless Void sky and pink aurora. Pale coral colonies branched out of the water, bleached trunks with blue frills, leaching energy from minerals instead of sunlight.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Boden muttered. “Don’t know how you spend so much time on Shards.”

Not just a Shard. Fi recognized this Bridge, the splinter of reality connecting Winter to Spring.

While Boden caught his breath, Fi joined Antal beside a pool. The daeyari stood stunningly still in this quiet landscape, his eyes as depthless black as their native Void, sharp as Fi approached, gauging the space between them more noticeably than he had a week ago.

“At least I wasn’t that bad my first time,” Fi huffed, too low for Boden to overhear.

Antal softened swifter than he would have a week ago, too, a smirk lighting his mouth.

“You weren’t.” At his rumble of approval, Fi had to look away. She’d sooner throw herself into the Void than let him see her blush again.

She scowled at the Bridge instead. “I thought you’d take us straight to Spring?”

“Daeyari can teleport within a Plane, within a Shard. Not between. I need Curtains to cross, same as you.”

Despite Fi’s best play at indifference, curiosity sank its claws into her. “When you teleport, it feels cold and black, like…” She looked up into the Void.

So did Antal. “Distance doesn’t exist in the Void. When daeyari teleport, we step off reality briefly, then back on at our destination.”

“But you said teleportation isn’t the same as Voidwalking?”

“It isn’t. It’s…” Antal frowned. Then held an arm horizontal.

“Teleporting is a dip into the Void.” He moved his finger from over his arm, briefly below, back up again, a shallow dive beneath water.

“Then Voidwalking is…” He dropped his finger below his arm and sank, sank.

“A full plunge. But if done properly, you can re-emerge anywhere in the Planeverse.”

As Fi stared into the endless black above them, she shuddered. “Can you do it?”

“I’d rather not,” Antal muttered. “Teleporting is faster. Safer. Just more limitations.”

Humbling, to see even immortals intimidated by the Void they came from.

Once Boden stopped grumbling, Antal grasped their hands again. Daeyari might not be able to teleport between Planes, but the jumps cut travel time, even after he and Fi wasted several minutes heckling over which exit Curtain would bring them closest to Cardigan’s villa.

She’d never had anyone to argue Curtains with. Fi knew no one else who could see them.

They emerged to birdsong. Warm air thick with sweetgrass and magnolia.

The trees beyond the Curtain weren’t the gnarled conifers of the Winter Plane, but slender trunks sprouting blossoms and tender green leaves.

Dappled sunlight filtered through the canopy and danced on loamy, unfrozen ground, the new arrivals causing a scurry of sparrows into the underbrush.

Eternal seasons were an oddity unique to the Season-Locked Planes—something about their close proximity.

Most other, more distant Planes maintained fully-functional climate routines.

The Spring Plane was, of course, more popular than Winter, for those who could afford it. Fi could never get past the allergies.

Antal appeared equally unenthused, grimacing at the bright light. Supposedly, the Twilit Plane received little sun. That explained the grayscale skin of its native predators, evolved for shadows rather than dappled forests.

Cardigan’s villa lay ahead, bordered in wild roses and daffodils.

“Ostentatious,” was a word that came to mind.

“Compensating for something” shortly after.

Wealthy retreats on the Spring Plane typically were.

Compared to Fi’s humble cottage, she couldn’t fathom how Cardigan would use three sprawling stories of tan marble, accented in clay-tiled porticos and balconies dripping potted blooms. The perimeter wall alone must have depleted a small quarry.

Antal’s tree-hopping came in handy. He confirmed the villa’s occupants: Cardigan, two guards in the outer grounds, and one slouching man who matched the description of the assistant Fi had met during their ill-fated rendezvous on the Autumn Plane.

At dusk, Boden approached the villa alone.

The guards met him at the gate. As the light faded past a peach sunset, fireflies flickered on within the trees. Chanting cicadas masked any drift of conversation, but Fi took Boden’s confident posture as a good sign. He was ushered in, the gate closing behind him.

Now came Fi’s turn to get inside.

Her tongue pricked, static along the top. She looked up. Antal perched above her in a maple—wearing his second approving smirk of the day. Fi loathed the swell of pride in her chest.

“Come,” he whispered.

He moved through the trees like liquid night, as swift and silent as the stories claimed. Fi followed, circling the villa on quiet footfalls. Antal brought her to a Curtain, the translucent shimmer barely visible in dusk.