Page 41 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Nothing to waste

The hall was a mess. Fi stepped around blood spatter, around the corpses of two felled guards sprawled across the marble. The Voidwalker assistant was missing. She followed the smear of red dragged across the floor, steeling herself as she approached the courtyard.

A reckless curiosity, even by her standards. But Fi needed to know, didn’t she? What kind of beast she’d truly let into her home. What she was risking, if she misstepped.

Cicadas buzzed in the courtyard. Fragrant jasmine drifted from the trellises.

Antal crouched beside the body. Fi’s heart stilled at the sight: his lean and Void-hewn form poised over quarry, antlers sleek with moonlight. In the dark, his eyes burned.

Fi shuddered when they snapped onto her.

“Why him?” she asked.

Antal sniffed his prey. “The strongest Shaper amongst them. The richest energy.” His tail flicked the flagstone. “You don’t want to watch this, Fionamara.”

He might be right. Fi had watched crag panthers take down elk, ravens picking at carrion. She’d skinned game since she was old enough for her father to put a knife in her hand. How different could that be from…

A person.

Fi knelt across the corpse from Antal. “Someone should keep watch. In case Cardigan had any more backup.”

Antal held her with a bone-scraping stare. His irises were faded crimson against black sclera, his crouch wound too tight. Breaths too shallow.

He was shaking.

How long had it been since he’d eaten? Nearly three weeks, since Milana dragged Fi to his shrine. Merciless Void, how was he standing. How had he not ripped Fi open while she slept.

“Eat,” she ordered. Then, softer, “You need to eat, Antal. He’s already dead. Don’t let it go to waste.”

The daeyari bared his teeth at her, this beast who’d cut down three corpses today alone, a vicious timbre to his growl. Should Fi be afraid? A fresh throat, too close to a predator and his meal.

Most predators were defensive while they ate. Vulnerable, while they set teeth to flesh. Behind the fangs, Fi recognized that defensive bristle, desperation and hunger fracturing through the facade.

“Let me keep watch,” she repeated. “So you don’t have to worry while you eat.” It had to count for something, that they’d shared a roof, that neither of them had ripped the other open while they slept.

Antal settled slowly, sinking onto his heels.

When Fi refused to back down, he grumbled and rolled back his sleeves.

He set to work with the precision of a butcher.

First, the man’s jacket. A slice of energy-sharpened claws rent fabric like tissue paper, exposing bare arm, probably saturated with energy after such recent Shaping.

Antal’s fingers were strong, dexterous. Carving tools.

He flayed skin with clean cuts. Separated tissue and tendon. Shaking more, now.

Antal gripped the arm in both hands and sank his teeth into exposed muscle.

A small, wretched groan wracked his chest. When he swallowed, his entire body sagged, an exhale trembling in relief.

Three weeks. He hadn’t eaten for three weeks , starving himself, because he wouldn’t touch Fi. Wouldn’t touch anyone in Nyskya.

He ate greedily, teeth slicing easy through flesh, inhaling mouthfuls of muscle with the fervor of an alley cat. Fi held to her watch as promised, knuckles clenched against her knees. She braced herself to be sick. To revolt at the sight of a fellow human reduced to meat.

But the longer she watched, the more anger stirred her gut.

For as long as Antal had held his territory, he’d had a reputation for taking fewer sacrifices than most daeyari. That was one reason Fi settled in Nyskya, profiting off lax policy. How often had he deprived himself? Suffering, to try to ease his part in an unjust system?

Once Antal had cleared the larger muscles of the forearm, his breaths came noticeably smoother. His posture, less wretchedly taut. He paused, wary eyes flicking onto Fi, blood painting his mouth in vivid crimson.

“You don’t even cook it?” she said, aghast. No magical sautéing, not even a pinch of seasoning?

Antal blinked at her. “ That’s your question?”

“Start with that. We can work up to…” She gestured over the grisly scene.

“Cooking would diminish the energy.”

Antal set to the second arm with less urgency.

He carved out choicer pieces of forearm, worked through half a bicep, before finally sitting back on his haunches.

An ease settled over him that Fi hadn’t seen in…

ever . His long, black tongue slicked across his mouth, cleaning every speck of gore.

Red energy zapped any lingering flesh from his claws. The rest of him he’d kept immaculate.

“That’s… it?” Fi asked.

“My needs are meager, Fionamara.” Antal spoke in a low, shadowed tone. “Only the means are vile.”

She gestured to the mostly intact body. “But there’s so much left .”

“On the Twilit Plane, daeyari commonly eat in packs, one body enough to feed several. In the territories, we live more sparsely. One human is far more than enough.”

Watching him eat was unsettling… just not as much as she’d expected. It wasn’t grotesque. It wasn’t cruel. Not nauseating, the way Fi felt after her nightmares of being dragged onto Verne’s altar, her stomach split open while she screamed.

But it was wasteful . An entire life, for a couple cuts of meat?

“You said daeyari can go up to a month without eating?”

Antal grimaced. “Eating once a month is possible but… unpleasant.”

“What would be more pleasant?”

“Once a week.”

Before Verne took over, Fi had never heard of sacrifices being dragged to Thomaskweld every week. Antal had been moderating himself, but even so—

“Why do you insist on living sacrifices?”

Antal blinked again, slower this time. A warier pinch to his brow. “What do you mean?”

Evasive. He ought to know better. “You can eat dead bodies? Same as live ones?”

His tail twitched. “Fresher is better. Energy deteriorates, but within the first hour or two after death, it’s comparable.”

“So why living sacrifices? Why not eat corpses? People would be less afraid of you.”

“Daeyari have ruled these territories for millennia. This is the system set in place.”

“But why ?”

“You’re clever, Fionamara. You know why.”

She did. She wanted him to say it. But if he wouldn’t—

“Because daeyari want us to be afraid?”

That was why every daeyari-controlled Plane paraded sacrifices to their shrines? Why Fi’s people had no stories of how to fight their immortal masters? Not because daeyari were invincible. The prickly bastards just built the narrative that way.

“Live prey tastes better,” Antal said, brittle. “More exciting, for some. But most important: fear means fewer uprisings. Less bloodshed. A kinder compromise than hunting you outright. That’s how the daeyari see it.”

He stood, signaling the conversation was over.

As if Fi would let him get off that easy.

She stood with him, planting herself in his path like concrete. The truth was crushing. It left her feeling small, like she ought to curl up and hide from everything.

Which meant she needed to fight harder .

“Is that what Verne would say?” Fi challenged.

Antal’s eyes always glowed to some extent. They blazed now, crisper crimson after being fed, scalding beneath his lashes. “She has. Many times.”

“What do you want?”

“Not this. I need food, but I don’t want it to cause pain. Grief.” His tail swished low at his ankles. “It doesn’t matter what I want. This is the system I was given.”

He tried to step around her.

Fi cut him off again. A warning growl rumbled his chest. Dramatic ass. They’d been through this show of snarling and snapping enough times to cut through the bullshit.

“What’s an Old House?” Fi asked.

A crack hit Antal’s facade like shattered porcelain. Deeper than any blow or curse she threw at him, that trembling inhale and eyes narrowed to slits.

“You’re from an Old House,” Fi pushed, heedless. “Do they tell you who to eat?”

“The Daey Celva is the governing body of all daeyari.” Antal’s words grated like fractured glass. “We’re a solitary people. Civil service is regarded as a role of great sacrifice and honor. The Old Houses are daeyari families who’ve served on the Daey Celva since its founding.”

Fi offered her most unimpressed eyebrows. “Your family are politicians?”

“My father is a politician.”

“You ran an entire territory, Antal.”

“And I never wanted to come here!”

They stared at each other. Antal hadn’t used that slicing tone since their early days.

Had he softened so much to her, that they both looked surprised?

He softened now, clawed feet whispering over flagstone as he retreated a step. “When the previous daeyari of my territory retired, my father volunteered me. An opportunity to learn independence. Responsibility.” Antal scoffed. “That’s gone well , as you can see.”

Of all the unsavory attributes Fi had assumed of Antal, a nepotism hire was never one of them. “Have you considered telling your father what happened? Asking for help?”

Antal laughed, back to that biting and humorless thing, none of the warmth he’d let slip before.

“I guarantee you, he’s heard what happened by now.

And look at all the help he’s sent.” Antal held his arms wide on the blood-spattered courtyard.

“Either I return home in disgrace, or I fix this myself. He won’t lift a finger for me. Not if there’s a lesson to be learned.”

“Is that why you stayed? To impress your father?”

“I don’t give a fuck what my father thinks of me. I only want to do the right thing.” Antal’s voice dipped. “For once.”

Fi’s voice didn’t dip. “Then do the right fucking thing!”

“It’s not that simple!”

He bared his fangs at her. She bared her blunt teeth right back, pressing their faces too close, making him balk in surprise. His breath smelled like ozone and the sweet of fresh blood.

“You think it’s easier for us?” Fi hissed. “ Kinder to us?” She grabbed his shirt, dragging the fabric like claws of her own. “You think you were the first time I escaped a daeyari altar?”

Antal stilled. His tail fell slack at his ankles, all his fight gone in startling swiftness. The look on his face knocked Fi breathless, not just shock but… horror. Eyes so wide, they couldn’t belong to a predator. Mouth parted, and all Fi could look at was the flushed curve of his lips.

He looked down. Her fist clenched his shirt, blotched in fresh energy burns.

“You’re hurt,” he whispered.

Deflecting piece of shit.

“Getting better with the capsules,” Fi said. “Still not perfect. I’ll be—”

Slowly, he lifted his hand. Fi raised every bristle, spine straight as steel, but when he touched her, his palm settled cool against her aching knuckles. His claws, so much softer than the carving tools she’d just witnessed.

They both stilled. Fi, waiting for the strike. Antal, she realized, giving her the chance to pull away.

When she didn’t, he said, “Daeyari Shaping is poor at healing mortals. But I can…”

Crimson energy glowed at his fingertips. It skated Fi’s skin, not penetrating but pulling, gathering shards of red energy that lingered in the burn like splinters.

“I’m sorry, Fionamara,” he said lowly. “I didn’t realize what you’ve been through.”

He released her. Fi inspected her hand with a scowl, poking at tender flesh. The burns didn’t vanish. The stinging did, replaced by a milder ache.

So soft, when he wanted to be. Soft, as he lounged in her rafters. Soft, when he spoke her name. Soft, despite every barb she threw at him, even their worst snarls leading them back to this moment of unfathomable quiet.

Fi’s anger didn’t disappear. She only redirected it. Focused it.

He wanted to do the right thing.

“Will you change?” she said. “If we get your territory back?”

His tail brushed the flagstones. “I’ll try, Fionamara.”

“Swear it.”

“I—”

“Swear it on that wretched god of yours.”

“He’s not a—”

“Do it.”

Antal sucked a breath through his teeth. “I swear I’ll do better. On Veshri’s teeth and watchful eyes, on the path of the First Void Weaver. May my antlers grow crooked in the next life if I don’t.”

The oath turned out funnier than she’d expected. Fi would have to remember that one.

For now, movement caught her eye. Boden poked his head into the courtyard.

“Are you all right?” he called. “I heard raised voices and…” He blanched at the butchered corpse.

Fi met him on commanding strides. “Mayor Boden of Nyskya! I have a new proposal.”

“Oh no,” Boden muttered. “Fi, can this wait until—”

“Verne has sabotaged your energy conduits. She demands a sacrifice. We need to stop her.” Fi turned to Antal.

“You can’t take down Verne and Astrid and her Beast on your own.

The two of us probably won’t be enough. You aren’t getting help from Tyvo, or your family, or any other daeyari. We need help. Human help.”

Boden listened with an expression that said either “you’re onto something brilliant” or “I cannot fathom why you thought those words were acceptable to come out of your mouth.” She had trouble telling those two faces apart.

He understood, though. “I can’t order Nyskya to fight for him, Fi.”

“Then ask,” she said. “Give them a choice. It’s the only way we’ll win this.”

Boden gnawed his lip, not an outright refusal.

It was Antal who looked dubious. He didn’t scoff when Fi faced him. Didn’t jeer at the na?ve plan. His tail fell low enough to brush the floor again.

“Why would they fight for me?” he asked. “Why risk their lives for a daeyari?”

“Because you’re going to promise them something different,” Fi said. “You’re going to do the right thing, Antal.”