Page 40 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

She bit back a gasp when he appeared beside her, bit her tongue as he leaned close enough for his breath to brush her ear.

“Straight through, ten paces,” he whispered. “Pass one Curtain on your right. Take the second. I’ll find you inside.”

His tail swayed, a parting graze against her calf. A game , Fi reminded herself for the hundredth time. A dance between predator and prey, even as that flutter filled her stomach. They both tested. They both adapted. He was still the one with claws ready, if she ever stumbled.

Fi pushed through the Curtain, onto a Shard, grateful for the cold to clear her head.

Here lay another forest, more twisting than the Spring Plane, Void above and fog low between silvered trunks. She followed Antal’s directions, past the shimmer of one Curtain, through the second.

She emerged in a hall inside Cardigan’s villa.

Not only was Fi unaccustomed to a partner who could see Curtains, but she’d never met anyone so good at it.

She’d have to find a way to tell Antal how impressed she was, without stoking his ego.

Some sort of reverse compliment sandwich: “ Hey, your sleeping habits are insufferable, but you navigate Curtains like a savant. Also, your teeth are unsettling. ”

In contrast, she couldn’t scrounge a single compliment for Cardigan’s decor.

Fi snuck down a hall of Spring Plane marble polished to a squeak, oil paintings of Summer vistas, curtains of Autumn velvet, fixtures of Winter metal shaped like… lizards? Abstract mice? They held orb lights in crooked teeth, emitting dim silver energy.

A murmur of voices led her to a doorway. She paused outside, her view limited to a shaggy rug, bookshelves packed with curios and insultingly few books.

“Your sister ?” came Cardigan’s grating voice, that lilting Spring accent.

Bingo.

“My condolences,” the bastard continued. “Family can be such a burden.”

“Unfortunately,” Boden agreed. A little too earnest.

“Can you believe that bitch accused me of alerting trade wardens to our rendezvous?”

“She’s always been thankless.”

“And that hair. Alarmingly unprofessional. Those kinds of people, always looking for attention.”

Fi couldn’t groan without giving away her position. She rolled her eyes instead. Her ears perked at the tap of distant boots, guards moving outside the villa. Not a problem. Yet.

“You can understand why I’m eager to be rid of her,” Boden said. “Would twelve energy chips be enough incentive to track her down?”

That a boy, Boden. Aim high.

A chair creaked. Fi pictured Cardigan leaning back his stocky build, lacing his fingers. “You think she’s worth that much?”

“If it means keeping Verne happy?”

Silence.

“Forgive me,” Boden said. “I assumed we both had similar motivation, in that regard.”

“Do we?” Cardigan spoke slowly. “She is a dangerous mistress to disappoint. But also a purveyor of attractive rewards. Perhaps if you’d be interested in sharing those rewards…”

Fi’s pulse skipped higher. Not just at Cardigan taking the bait. She inched down the hall, drawn by a flicker on the air.

A Curtain. Another one inside the house?

It wasn’t alone. A courtyard lay at the villa’s center. Two more Curtains fluttered in the still air, one near a tiered fountain, the other tangled in a trellis of blooming jasmine. This many in such density couldn’t be naturally occurring.

Someone must have cut them.

A hand clamped over Fi’s mouth. She was dismayed to not feel claws.

Fi spat a muffled curse as her assailant pinned her to his chest. Before she could draw her sword, cold raked her skin. She fell backward.

Pulled through a Curtain.

They emerged on a different Shard to the one she’d entered through. One of the smallest fragments she’d seen, edges crumbling into the Void on all sides, ground a stagnant mix of bog and gravel. Several sheds sat at the center, and combined with the multiple Curtains cut into Cardigan’s villa?

Fi was livid she’d never thought of such an efficient setup for storing contraband.

Add it to her growing list of reasons to loathe Cardigan. He’d conned her into transporting energy capsules when he already had his own Voidwalker on staff?

“Don’t fight,” the man warned in a Spring Plane accent. And stupidly.

Fi elbowed his stomach.

Heat leached from her muscles as she Shaped energy over her arms, enough to zap his hands off her. Fi lurched free then faced her attacker: a slouched and unassuming man, cradling his gut.

The assistant ?

He lunged. Splayed a hand across the damaged silviamesh of her stomach. A pulse of energy sent Fi staggering like a gut punch.

Cardigan’s assistant was a fucking Voidwalker ? And he’d still hired Fi to walk those energy capsules into a building about to explode?

Fi dug into her pockets. Her opponent grabbed one wrist and twisted, forcing her to drop her transport stone. He kicked it over the Shard edge, lost into the Void. Fi gasped her indignation. Transport stones were expensive .

But he’d disarmed the wrong hand. A daeyari energy capsule burned hot and cold in her palm. She pressed it to his side.

The current spiked molten up her arm, but at least she prepared for it, Shaping the chaotic energy away from her flesh and into her assailant.

A ripple of crimson hit the man’s ribs. He screamed.

Released her. They tore apart, his shirt tattered, a horrific energy burn across his chest. Fi’s arm throbbed.

Better than some of her practice rounds with daeyari energy, but the black blotches along her fingers weren’t pleasant to look at.

With a frantic swipe, the assistant dove back through a Curtain. Fi barreled after him.

“ Intruder! ” he bellowed down the hall of Cardigan’s villa. “It’s—”

Fi tackled him. As they hit the ground, she clenched a fist. Though she held no physical hilt, she Shaped silver energy from the heat of her sternum, forming a dagger. The raw magic seared her skin without any buffer. She didn’t have to hold it long.

One plunge drove the blade into the man’s heart.

Fi didn’t hesitate. Not for people complicit in daeyari coups. Not when the threat of more guards remained. Survival came first.

As the man fell limp beneath her, bootsteps thundered outside, two guards emerging from the courtyard. They looked at Fi. The body of their comrade. Both lifted energy crossbows.

The shadows moved faster.

One man disappeared from the doorway in a flash of tail and antlers, his scream melting to a gurgle. The second man had barely swiveled his crossbow before Antal shoved him to the wall, claws rending his throat open in one deep slash.

Horrifying to watch.

But damn was a daeyari useful in a fight.

They were in motion now, too much blood on the floor to turn back. Fi burst into the office to find Cardigan wide-eyed behind his desk. His green pinstripe vest strained its buttons as he reeled, attempting to meld with his leather chair. Across from him, Boden lurched to his feet.

“Fionamara!” he shouted with theatrical surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Great delivery, Bodie.” She patted his shoulder. “Really top notch. But we’ve progressed solidly into Plan B territory.” In other words: no more pleasant chatting. Time to take what they needed and kill anyone who got in their way. Just… happened a little out of order.

Boden shifted from bristle to groan. “Well fuck, Fi, you didn’t give me much time.”

“Things escalated!”

“ You .” Cardigan slammed his hands to the desk. “You dare intrude upon my home? Damage my vintage door?”—to Fi’s credit, she hadn’t meant to hit the door so hard on entry—“Stain my carpet?”—blood, it was definitely blood on her boots—“Guards! I’ll have you—”

Cardigan fell mute. Jaw slack.

Antal appeared in the doorway like a winter chill. Like death from the Void. The daeyari’s eyes burned red, fangs bared. This creature who lounged in Fi’s rafters, all the fiercer by contrast, a heart-stilling reminder of exactly what she’d let into her home.

She and Boden stepped aside.

“Antal,” Cardigan wheezed. “My Lord Daeyari. So good to see you well. I heard what happened in Thomaskweld. Such unsavory business with—”

Antal vaulted over the desk. Cardigan sent paper and inkwells scattering like confetti as he flailed to escape, unsuccessful as the daeyari grabbed his collar and slammed his head to the wood.

“What did you do to my energy conduits in Thomaskweld?” Antal demanded.

Red energy bloomed as Antal’s fingertips pressed Cardigan’s temple, the same magic he’d used on Fi to turn her thoughts to sludge. Cardigan’s eyes went glassy, his voice a rasp.

“We installed… unstable copper alloy… prone to degradation…”

“You sabotaged them?”

“I… we… yes.”

“For Verne?”

“Yes.”

In their planning, they’d humored the possibility where Cardigan turned out to be a witless pawn. With his confession, Fi watched any chance of a merciful resolution melt away. Antal’s claws tightened on Cardigan’s skull until blood welled beneath the tips.

“ What else? ” Antal said.

Cardigan gasped, a spark of pain warring against watery eyes. “We sold faulty conduit parts throughout the territory… to the Tsuga Cartel… the Glacier Crest Market.”

“The Glacier Crest Market?” Boden clamped his hands against the desk, bent level with Cardigan. “That’s where Nyskya gets our materials.”

“How unfortunate,” Cardigan mumbled.

“What happens to the people who rely on those conduits?”

“Let them freeze. They’ll turn to Verne’s side easier, begging for the help their last Lord Daeyari couldn’t provide.”

Fi clenched her fists to stop from shaking, stinging fresh energy burns along her knuckles. When Antal had used that magic on her, she wasn’t able to lie. Cardigan wasn’t lying, didn’t give a shit about Thomaskweld or Nyskya or anyone in between.

If Antal didn’t kill this piece of bog moss, Fi would.

The daeyari didn’t sneer as openly as her or Boden, falling back to deathly stillness. “What does Verne plan next?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where is she keeping her Beast?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her… not for weeks. We were supposed to be partners. Why won’t she speak to me? Why won’t she…” Cardigan’s words slurred.

Another dead end.

The room fell quiet. Just Cardigan’s labored breaths, the tick of a clock on a bookshelf, and lower, a buzzing in Fi’s ears.

As if she could hear the failing energy conduits all the way from Nyskya, the cold seeping through the windows.

Nyskya, which was supposed to be safe from all this.

Hidden in the wild, distant from daeyari prying. Not distant enough.

Antal tipped a razored glance to his fellow conspirators. “Anything else?”

Boden shook his head. Fi did the same.

When Antal released Cardigan, sense returned slowly to his eyes. Then, fear. Unnecessary perhaps: giving him that moment of clarity.

Antal buried black claws in Cardigan’s throat, a jagged slice through the jugular. Too swift a death.

Fi winced as Cardigan collapsed to the floor, blood gushing onto his rug. Boden watched with a hollower look. Not for Cardigan, she assumed.

“He sold faulty conduits to Nyskya. That’s why we’ve had outages. That’s why…”

Fi heard that shake in Boden’s voice, blame leveled on himself for not recognizing the danger sooner. They’d been snared in this mess even before Fi took that ill-fated smuggling job.

Antal flicked blood from his claws then sniffed the air. Another whiff led him to a drawer in Cardigan’s desk. He pulled out a familiar metal case, flipping it open to reveal a set of daeyari energy chips. One, he pinched between his claws then ran his black tongue along the edge. A grimace.

“At least Verne paid well,” Antal muttered.

Boden paced the room, as if he’d find some answers in the mussed desk or useless bookshelf curios. “We shouldn’t linger. Take your payment, daeyari.” Lower. “Looks like you have your pick.”

“You as well.” Antal slid the energy chips toward Boden. He wrinkled his nose at Cardigan’s corpse, disappearing into the hall instead.

Fi caught herself watching him again. Curious again, in a way every rational survival instinct said she shouldn’t be.

“I’ll search the office,” Boden said dismally, “see if there’s anything we can use.”

“Aren’t you… a little curious?” Fi asked.

He looked at her. The door Antal had disappeared through. Back at her, paler than before. “Not remotely .”

Fi always had the tougher stomach. And her hands were shaking too fiercely to sort through bookshelves.

“Do your snooping. I’ll keep watch.”

She felt Boden’s gawk dig into her back as she left the room.