Page 64 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Where’s that smug grin, now?

The silver bolt cut through morning air, striking the Beast’s shoulder. The creature’s howl was ear-splitting.

Astrid spun, her own crossbow unfired, a flush of surprise as she watched the Beast reel, its wound healing in a sizzle of thick hide and black blood. Fi—once she’d recovered her heart out of her own damn throat—traced the bolt’s trajectory, searching for the source of the attack.

Shouts filled the streets of Nyskya.

The quiet shattered, empty avenues unleashing a small battalion into the square: bakers’ sons and forge daughters dressed in the quickest coats they could grab, armed with crossbows still unfamiliar in their hands. No less determined for it. This was their home.

Fi shook in relief. She’d done her job—bought Boden and Kashvi enough time to warn Nyskya of the intruders.

And more.

She ducked for cover as a volley of bolts loosed from every side of the square, quicksilver projectiles striking daeyari flesh, glancing off antlers, snapping against the ground.

Their aim needed improving, deeper shots if they hoped to pierce that hide faster than it could heal.

Even so, the sheer number of bolts had the Beast backing away, snarling as red energy sizzled over its skin.

Astrid cursed and sought cover in an alley.

“Reload!” Kashvi led her ranks with crossbow ready, dark hair messy after what must have been a mad sprint through the village to raise their army. Her arm trembled as she raised it, voice rasped, but she didn’t bend. “Fire together on my signal. On my signal , you useless—”

The Beast lunged at its assailants.

“ Navek! ” Astrid shouted.

The derived daeyari paid her no heed. It bounded across the square, uncaring of energy bolts grazing its skull, latching onto a target. Feren, the gangly baker’s assistant Fi had seen wield his first weapons just yesterday, screamed as teeth closed on his arm, a sickening crunch.

Static hit Fi’s tongue.

Antal hurled himself at the Beast, sinking crimson-sheathed claws to the knuckles in the creature’s throat.

It reeled. Released its prey. Black blood drenched the snow, a crack of two warring red currents: one slicing, one defending.

Watching those bloodstained teeth snap at Antal’s head was harder than it used to be.

“Fi! Catch!”

Kashvi tossed Fi a crossbow. About time.

She didn’t want to fight here, didn’t want to see Feren’s face twisted in pain as he dragged himself to cover, but this was her home, too .

Astrid wouldn’t take it from her. Fi Shaped a silver bolt onto the crossbow track, struggling to aim a clear shot of the Beast’s skull as it fought to shake Antal off.

If she nicked the wrong daeyari, she’d never hear the end of it.

A zip.

A clang.

“Fuck!”

Fi threw her crossbow to the ground as energy seared her fingers—an enemy bolt strike straight through the barrel. Her own bolt burst on the track, fireworks of silver that left the metal bent beyond use.

She spun on the culprit: Astrid, hunkered in an alley with a smirk.

New plan, then.

Fi screamed and hurled herself at Astrid.

They hit the snow in a writhe of limbs, Fi’s fingers clawing the crossbow, Astrid’s snared in the rainbow swirls of her hair.

In the depths of Fi’s memories, they were children tousling on an icy riverbank.

Teenagers tangled in hot sheets. Astrid had always emerged the victor, a year older and fierce with slender sinew.

Now, Fi held her own. After wrestling a daeyari, even Astrid’s worst snarls didn’t seem so harrowing.

“Call off your guard dog, Astrid!”

“He isn’t listening, if you hadn’t noticed!”

Useless. Fi couldn’t fathom a bluff so brazen, Astrid parading that Beast around when she couldn’t even—

A boot hit Fi’s nose.

“Son of a bitch!”

Fi cradled her throbbing face, blood slick through her fingers. Astrid pushed to her feet. Raised her crossbow. With another curse, Fi lunged for cover behind the corner of the general store. An energy bolt snapped the ground where her leg had been.

What sick game was Astrid playing? This would be so much easier if she had the decency to aim for Fi’s heart.

The Beast wasn’t so discerning. A crack of bone drew Fi’s attention back to the square, her breath catching as she watched the derived daeyari hurl Antal across the frozen ground. Antal rolled to a hunch, breaths heavy, black blood everywhere. The Beast lunged for him.

A crimson energy bolt sank into its temple.

Another howl pierced the square. Nyskya’s recruits lacked for experience, but Kashvi held her crossbow at a practiced level, a daeyari capsule in hand, dark eyes glinting with focus.

Red energy snapped across the Beast’s skull, repairing fractured bone and split flesh. Void be damned, how much would it take to kill the thing?

It lunged for a new target.

“Kashvi!” Fi shouted.

A flick of static. A snarl. The Beast’s claws raked empty air as Kashvi vanished.

By the time the second spark hit Fi’s tongue she was already running, toward the side of the tavern where she spotted Boden holding down a base of operations—where Kashvi and Antal reappeared in a haggard heap. Kashvi emerged from the teleport gasping, but unscathed.

Antal dropped to his knees, each exhale a string of curses. “Veshri take my fucking bones, that Beast has teeth like bread knives!”

Fi skidded to his side in the snow, soft hands to keep him upright. “Are you ok?”

“I’m excellent , Fionamara.”

The drip of sarcasm was a relief, though entirely inappropriate for how much black blood soaked his clothes.

The wound was horrendous, a serrated slash down his arm, rent flesh and fabric stuck together.

Boden pulled away from tending another injured fighter, a wad of gauze in hand, wide eyes as he realized gauze wouldn’t do shit for Antal’s horrific gash.

Fi would have gawked the same, if she hadn’t seen daeyari recover from worse.

Red energy writhed over the exposed flesh, knitting Antal’s skin back together.

Kashvi sat back on her elbows, a stunned look swiveling from the battlefield to their current position. “You… we… teleported?” She scowled at the daeyari. “You saved me?”

Antal laughed through gritted teeth. “We’re on the same side, Kashvi.”

And for that moment, they were—Fi and Antal, Boden and Kashvi, all hunched together in the snow, drawn to common purpose in this reckless bid.

A roar rumbled the square. A snap of crossbows. No time to linger.

Fi looked to Kashvi. “We need to—”

“Organize our fire. I know. I know! ” Kashvi pushed to unsteady feet and ran to rejoin her troops, shouting orders to regroup. The Beast moved through their ranks like a sickle, felling another combatant as he tried to flee. A scream turned to rending flesh.

If that creature set after any of Nyskya’s unarmed citizens, this would be a massacre.

“We’ve cleared civilians away from the square,” Boden said.

“Not good enough, Bodie. We need to get everyone out of the village.” Their plan had been to evacuate the residents before fighting broke out, not on such a crashed timeline, but they could still catch up.

Fi and Boden looked to Antal. The daeyari returned a sneer.

“Absolutely not,” he snapped.

“What if that Beast moves on the rest of the village?” Fi argued. “What if Verne decides to show up? We have a plan, Antal, and we need to make it happen. Now . The fighters can stay. You need to get everyone else out to the safehouse we set up. You’re the only one who can.”

“And leave you to fight that Beast on your own? I won’t—”

“We’re your partners, Antal!” Fi gripped him by the shirt collar. Faces inches apart. “Trust us . Your people need you.”

She was close enough to hear his teeth clench. Energy raged in his eyes, rippled hot under his skin. But there was no time to argue.

“We’re having words about this later,” he seethed.

“Bring your worst, daeyari.”

She kissed him hard, a taste of Void on her tongue and a hammer in her ribs and everything moving in too-fast motion. Antal sank against her, a drag of teeth against her mouth and a snarl as he pulled away. Then gone in a blink.

Boden witnessed the display with flushed cheeks. Their entire world crumbling around them, yet he found time to stammer, “That’s… really a fucking thing, then?”

“It’s really a fucking thing.” Fi leveled a finger at him. “And you should be impressed.”

Antal would teleport Nyskya’s civilians out of harm’s way, a hundred people or so, enough to keep him occupied for several minutes.

Kashvi regrouped their volunteer fighters at the edge of the square, not fierce in number, but holding ground.

Boden squeezed Fi’s shoulder then ran to join them, armed with a medical kit. And Fi—

A mauve energy bolt crossed the square, biting one of Nyskya’s fighters in the calf.

Fi sprinted toward where Astrid hid behind cover of a shop porch.

Chaos worked to her advantage. Fi skirted the main skirmish of bolts and claws, drawing her sword hilt in one hand, a capsule of daeyari energy in the other.

Antal’s energy. Where once she’d balked at the foreign current burning her palm, now the pulse bloomed familiar at her fingertips, a taste of ozone as she drew energy to Shape into a crimson blade.

Astrid leaned from her cover, crossbow focused on another target.

She glanced sideways at the last moment, surprise sparking ruby eyes.

Fi swung at the crossbow, her blade severing the metal track from the stock.

“I told you to get out of Nyskya!” she shouted. “Out of my home!”

A decade of guilt and rage charged Fi’s swing, catching Astrid across the shoulder. Astrid reeled, Shaping a cloak of maroon energy to shield the next strike.

“You left your home, Fi.”

“And I made a new one. Better than throwing my lot in with Verne!”

Astrid backed away, boots scraping the pitted wood of the porch, a gleam in her eyes like a cornered wildcat. “I never threw my lot in,” she hissed. “ You did it for me.”

You. You. You . It was always what Fi did, never the pit Astrid carved afterward. She couldn’t bear this anymore, couldn’t hold the full weight of their severed friendship on her shoulders alone. “You could have refused her! You could have chosen anything else!”

“You think Verne would have let two of us walk away? She would have—”

The Beast’s roar shook Fi’s bones. She staggered, blade shifting to defense as she glanced to the larger fight in the square.

And saw the unthinkable. The Beast dropped to the ground, tangled in metal nets the local trappers used for heath boar.

As it thrashed, Kashvi called for a volley.

Bolts fired into haunches and neck, into the thick hide, the wounds seeping blood as they cracked with frantic red energy.

Kashvi ordered her fighters to reload. To aim.

Fi couldn’t believe her eyes. It was working. The plan was working .

Get fucked, Verne.

Static flickered on her tongue. Again. And again. Antal, in and out of Nyskya, moving its people to safety before Verne could reap her vengeance. Her Beast was on its knees. Astrid watched the shifting battle with a ghostly pale to her face.

Then, the Beast bolted.

A flail of claws freed it from the nets, sending cords whipping around the square. While the fighters ducked for cover, the wounded Beast ran, black blood staining its wake as it stumbled out of the square, a panicked animal.

Astrid sucked in a sharp breath. Ruby eyes darted over the fleeing abomination, the surge of warriors regrouping. A sharper gaze locked with Fi.

Then, Astrid fled in the opposite direction.

That hypocrite. That conniving, craven snow slug. Fi hesitated, cold and bloodied, torn in two directions as Kashvi mustered her fighters to chase the Beast down the main avenue. As Astrid stumbled away down a side alley.

If the Beast daeyari escaped, it would return to Verne to heal, all their casualties for naught.

Losing Astrid would mean the same, a warning to her mistress of what she’d found.

Their enemies would return stronger, more prepared to crush Nyskya’s makeshift rebellion, probably with a full daeyari at their side.

In the square, Boden pulled up the rear of the fighters, bandaging one last clawed arm before racing after the others.

He spotted Astrid. Then Fi.

She thanked the endless Void that they didn’t need words. In an instant, Boden understood everything she did: that Kashvi and her fighters needed his help to take that Beast down, that Fi could handle Astrid. That Fi had to be the one who handled Astrid.

“Go!” Boden shouted. “We’ll catch the daeyari, don’t let her get away!”

Fi ran.