Page 53 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Ask me in the morning

Antal’s words sank in slowly.

Fi replayed them. Tasted. Swallowed.

She stared at him, painfully aware she wasn’t breathing properly. Painfully aware of him looking anywhere but at her.

He’d never wanted to talk about this. She’d never pressed. His friend had…

“Antal?” she forced out at last. And still, he wouldn’t look at her.

Kashvi’s reply came louder, a humorless laugh slicing the quiet. “Well. At least daeyari are predictable.”

Fi didn’t believe that. She couldn’t. “Surely, there’s an explanation—”

“No.” Antal cut her off. “It’s as she says. Predictable.” He tipped his glass upside down on the table. “My apologies for the intrusion. I won’t bother you further.”

Before he could stand, Fi clamped a hand over his wrist. His claws splayed, wicked black tips scraping the brass table.

“ Fi ,” Antal warned with a flash of teeth.

“I swear by the endless black of the Void, Antal. If you walk out of here after a comment like that, I will snap your antlers into tiny twigs and hang bells on them.”

He bowed over the table, eyes closed. “You think it’s such an easy answer?”

“Don’t give me that aloof bullshit.”

“ Fionamara . Don’t make me talk about this.” His voice cracked. “Please.”

The facade vanished. Every facade vanished, his icy composure melting to bowed shoulders, chin low with the bitter weight of something daeyari weren’t supposed to show. Pain. A visceral remorse. Even Kashvi squinted at the unexpected sight.

Fi softened her grip on Antal’s wrist—less demanding, more entreating.

“Please,” she said. “I want to understand.”

Antal’s breath hissed through his teeth. He pulled his hand away from her, still no eye contact, but he made no move to leave. His claws clamped the edge of the table.

“On the Twilit Plane,” he said, “Daeyari live alongside fewer humans. Your kind were brought to our world long ago as food. Those who remain are kept as workers or… pets .”

The word grated like cracked glass.

“Is that what your friend was?” Kashvi accused. “A pet?”

“ Never ,” Antal snapped. “He tended aurorabeasts for my family, a supplemental food source. I used to hide in the barn loft when I needed to get away from my parents. He found me there once, let me stay. We started talking. He…” Each word came softer, slower, a seeping ache as cold as the morning after fresh snowfall.

“He knew every animal in his herd. Not just which ones came easy to the barn and which loitered farther afield. He knew the kind ones who’d heed the softest whistle.

He knew which ones he had to grab by the horns to keep in line. ”

Fi listened in a stupor. How were there still so many pieces to this creature? Shards and splinters, hidden away behind that wretched mask of ice.

“He served our family for years,” Antal said. “Work, in exchange for safety. That was what he’d been promised. Until my father realized I’d been sneaking away. In his eyes, we’d grown too close. He summoned me to our dining room…”

Fi didn’t want to hear it—she had to hear it, from his lips. Antal was ashen.

He’d worn that same expression when Kashvi first confronted him, witnessing her anguish over a lost sister. At the time, Fi had assumed he’d never faced this side of grief.

She’d been wrong. That hollow carve to his eyes wasn’t ignorance.

It was recognition.

“He was tied up like an animal.” Antal spoke through clenched fangs.

“Still alive. ‘ These creatures don’t last, ’ my father told me.

‘ They’re a distraction. You have bigger things to accomplish.

’ He didn’t even beg. And I watched as…” His claws creaked against the table, gouges that Kashvi would never buff out.

“I watched my father slit his throat, then let him bleed out on the tile.”

He finished to silence.

Boden’s mouth had fallen open. Fi stared at Antal in unveiled shock, this creature she’d once thought heartless, listening to his voice shake.

“Did you eat him?” Kashvi asked.

“I could never ,” Antal snarled, baring fangs.

“I fought my father for the next fifty years, trying to convince him not to treat an intelligent race like cattle. He told me this was the way things are, that I was too young to understand. Then this territory opened up. He sent me here to learn responsibility .” The word seethed.

“His form of punishment. He always had loftier aspirations for me than foreign Plane governance. Even so…”

Antal sank back in his chair. His claws curled softer against the table.

“I came to love it here,” he whispered. “The view of Thomas-kweld at night. The smell of the wind off the cliffs. And the freedom, finally away from those old ideas. A chance to be anything different.”

Fi had wondered. She’d asked Antal why he acted so unlike other daeyari, why he saw humans as more than food. He’d pushed. He’d deflected.

Here, at last, was a reason. A friend lost. A family splintered.

It wouldn’t be fair to say he understood the flaws of their world the same way a human did—living in fear of being eaten wasn’t the same as watching secondhand. Yet there was common ground in their grief, that glaze to Antal’s eyes as he played through memories he wished desperately to change.

Fi knew that ache. Too well.

“You’re right, of course.” Antal spoke with head low, eyes on the table. “I could have done more as your territory lord. I’ve been complacent, indecisive… just as I was for him. Now you’ve given me a chance to do better. I know you doubt my intentions. But I am grateful.”

Fi wanted to comfort. To tell him she understood. Taking his hand again seemed too intimate with other eyes watching.

Instead, she slid her leg beneath the table, a brush against his. Antal didn’t look up. His face betrayed nothing at her gesture.

Slowly, his tail wrapped around her, resting in a soft curl at the bend of her knee.

In the silent room, a stopper popped. Liquid bubbled as Kashvi poured another round of drinks. She, too, seemed changed, softer-eyed and less bristled.

Not forgiveness. Something closer to understanding. A first step.

“What was his name?” Kashvi asked.

Antal hesitated. “Razik.”

The name came off his tongue like something disused, stashed out of sight collecting dust. Kashvi spun an impatient finger at Antal’s overturned glass. He flipped it over. She poured.

“When my sister and I were little,” Kashvi said, “we visited family on the Summer Plane. This sunny peach orchard that seemed to stretch forever, and at the end of the day, we each got a cone of peach ice cream. I dropped mine in the dirt. Cried like a blubbering fur seal. Emira picked me up, smiled and handed her own ice cream to me. Always selfless. Always looking to help others. The same reason she came to you.”

Kashvi set the bottle on the table.

“Do you understand, daeyari?”

Antal considered. “Yes.”

“I want you to remember her. Every single person you’ve ever eaten had a life, a future. Just like your friend. Just like Razik.”

Antal let out a stiff breath. Nodded.

Kashvi raised her glass. “To Razik.”

Fi and Boden lifted their drinks like wary hares. They looked to Antal. Waiting.

He took his glass in delicate claws. “To Emira,” he said softly.

They all drank. This toast came smoother than the first, fewer glares. Fi gulped the fire down her throat then slammed her glass to the table.

“Enough of this,” she ordered. “So Void-damned morbid. This is no way to celebrate.”

Boden ran a hand over his face. “Well fuck, Fi. You started it.”

She had. Time to make amends.

“A drinking contest,” she proposed to clear the air. “That’s a proper way to celebrate. You in, Bodie?”

He eyed her. His empty glass. “Um…”

“Glad to hear it. How about you, Antlers?”

Antal blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You. Me.” Fi pointed between them with command—and a little waver, after the mulled wine and two shots. “Drinking contest. Bring it on!”

A somber grin touched his mouth, gone so fast, she might have imagined it.

“Fionamara,” Antal chided. “That’s a horrendously bad idea. Even by your standards.”

He set his glass on the table, ready for another pour.

Fi hated when that smug ass daeyari was right.

Boden slumped into a groaning mess after three rounds of their drinking contest. Fi wasn’t such a lightweight, and though Kashvi’s cinnamon and juniper liquor packed a hot punch, she emerged from that first onslaught with the room spinning only slightly.

Antal’s unphased posture, she took as a personal insult.

Three more rounds and an onset of nausea later, her confidence flagged.

Another two rounds of “would you rather fight one Beast daeyari or a dozen miniature Void horses?” and Fi’s head hit the table.

She groaned as her vision swirled. Her stomach vacillated between flaming hot and trying to somersault out of her abdomen.

“You can’t get drunk, can you?” she accused in her most vicious slur.

Antal propped his head on one arm, studying his empty glass with a mild look.

“I can,” he said. “Just not with this human excuse for liquor. Burns off too fast.”

“Prick.” Fi hiccupped. Antal’s grin was punch-worthy.

At least he was grinning again.

“Fi-Fiii,” Boden moaned through the cradle of his arms. “I’ve got to feed aurorabeasts in the morning.”

She rolled her head for a glare. “Whose fucking fault is that, Bodie?”

“Your fault. Why have you done this to me?”

“Well excuse me for helping you live a little.”

He groaned and clutched his head. “I’d rather be dead.”

“All right,” Kashvi interjected. “Let’s get you two home.”

Miss Brooding Buzzkill had abstained from the entire ordeal, warming her stiff hands on a mug of hot tea instead. This left her with the unenviable responsibility of grabbing Boden before he fell out of his chair. Pushover.

Fi stood on her own. A little wobble. Nothing serious. Had the tavern always looked so… tilting? One moment, she faced a wall. Next, the ceiling.