Page 65 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Don’t say I’ve never done you any favors

When Fi and Astrid were young, her father told them not to play along the riverbank. He said the ice was too dangerous.

Astrid insisted that was what made it fun.

If not for her, Fi wouldn’t have fallen into the water that day.

She wouldn’t have died. She wouldn’t have returned a Voidwalker, wouldn’t have been groomed to become Verne’s Arbiter, wouldn’t have buckled then fled then hidden for ten years, only to come back with a bomb in a daeyari capital. Pebbles snowballed into avalanches.

But everything came back to Fi and Astrid, always running after each other.

Now, Fi followed a trail of trampled snow out of Nyskya, into the forest.

Did Astrid think she could outrun her? This was Fi’s terrain, her boots easy over familiar slopes and snow-hidden ravines, her quarry’s tracks haphazard. The chase wouldn’t last long.

And once Fi caught up to her? What then?

Fi couldn’t say if it was rage or despair pushing her to run so fast. Guilt or anger making her want to scream.

Astrid had threatened Fi’s life, had brought a monster into Nyskya, enough transgressions piled overtop each other that Fi knew her friend was gone.

Knew what she had to do. Astrid brought this end upon herself.

But what if Fi hadn’t left her behind? What if she’d swallowed her guilt and apologized all those years ago, not left this wound to rot between them?

Fi pushed on, following Astrid’s tracks through the snow.

Until they ended at a Curtain.

The gossamer sheen rippled in the ice-still air, ethereal and taunting and utterly implausible. Astrid couldn’t flee through a Curtain. She wasn’t a Voidwalker.

Fi spun a circle, cold air burning her lungs, but the track didn’t split off. No signs of broken branches or other escape.

Astrid hadn’t been a Voidwalker. Ten years ago.

Fi’s fury erupted as a scream. Ten years stolen from them. Ten years of change, too much to say how much of the woman she once loved remained. She drew her sword and charged into the Curtain, desperate for an end, to put this long-drawn agony behind her at last.

She stepped out onto a Shard.

And onto a slick of ice that nearly sent Fi to her ass. She skidded, catching herself with windmilling arms as a flat expanse of ice-coated lake stretched before her. The Void hung black overhead, starless, a red aurora humming some low register that almost sounded like a sob.

A slice of heat came for Fi’s side.

Her sword parried Astrid’s at an awkward angle, two red blades screeching against each other. They both pulled back, resetting. Astrid hunched, her shoulder wounded, scarlet light catching the sharp angles of her face and the points of her antlers.

Fi shouted, because it was all she knew how to do when everything hurt like this. “And you criticize me for running away?”

“If we’re keeping count, Fi, you’re still several points ahead.”

“And since when are you a Voidwalker?”

Something tight coiled Astrid’s lips, a knife slant to her brow. “I do what my daeyari asks of me.”

“Aren’t you precious? But to become a Voidwalker, you’d have to…”

Quiet. This Shard was too quiet. Astrid, staring at Fi with hollow eyes, was too quiet.

“You’d have to die…” Fi said. Too quiet.

Astrid charged with a war cry. Fi met her sword, a spark-strewn parry, a messy grapple as Astrid tried to pin her arm.

“Voidwalkers make more useful Arbiters,” Astrid snarled. “Shouldn’t you know that, Fi? It took a few tries. Not all of us get as lucky as you on the first go.”

Fi hated holding only half the cards. She hated that slipping feeling of catching up to something she should have realized sooner, as lurching as the slip of her boots against the ice.

In their grapple, the sleeve of Astrid’s shirt pulled back.

Aurora light slanted against bare skin, milk-smooth when Fi had held it years ago, now coated in scars.

Slashes. And claws. And teeth.

Teeth. On her Astrid. So much rage in her friend’s eyes. Fi had found a daeyari who didn’t use his claws on her.

Astrid hadn’t been so fortunate.

“Why did you stay with Verne?” Fi’s words came out more plea than accusation. “How could you help her do all this?”

“What else was I supposed to do!”

She swung.

“Verne would have hunted me down if I left her!” Astrid shouted.

Another swing, a spark against Fi’s sword.

“She’d raze our entire town just to make a point, would spike my family from the gates of the power factory!”

Fi’s parry slipped, the blade grazing her hand.

“You have no idea what I’ve had to do to protect the home you left behind!”

Astrid kept shouting. Kept swinging. “The people I had to bring to her, Fi. Parents and dissenters and children. Fucking children !”

Fi couldn’t hold her sword steady. She couldn’t focus on anything beyond the rage cracking Astrid’s words, the fractures in her heart.

A boot hooked Fi’s leg.

She fell, smacking ribs to frozen ground.

Then Astrid was on top of her. In a panicked scramble, Fi wrestled the sword from Astrid’s hand, a hiss of energy on snow as it tumbled away.

Astrid twisted Fi’s arm, forcing her to drop her weapon with a shout.

Fi dug nails into cloth instead, into the soft skin of Astrid’s arms as she held Fi down by the throat.

A spark of maroon. Astrid raised an energy dagger, aimed at Fi’s neck.

Then stopped.

They both fell still. Fi: wide eyes on the dagger, scarcely able to breathe past the clamp of Astrid’s fingers. Astrid: straddled atop her, halted mid swing. The weapon trembled in her grip.

“You left,” Astrid hissed. “You left, and I had nowhere to go. No one to help me.”

On the train, Astrid hadn’t swung. In Nyskya, she hadn’t shot.

“Astrid?” Fi whispered, a plea to a panicked beast.

Astrid’s cracks turned to fractures, tears glinting her lashes. A dagger, shaking in her hand. “It hurt, Fi. It hurt so damn much when you left. It hurt when Verne held me under the water.”

A tear spattered Fi’s cheek. She didn’t flinch, couldn’t move as Astrid crumbled atop her. Her friend, used and broken by Verne, like so many others.

“ Why? ” Astrid shouted. “After all this time. Why? Why can’t I…” Her dagger fell limp. She slumped with it, tears staining her cheeks. “Why did you leave me, Fi?”

She was still there. Burning eyes, scar-etched skin, but it was still Astrid . Fi reached out one trembling hand, soft on Astrid’s arm.

“Astrid… please…”

Static snapped her tongue.

The impact slammed Astrid’s side, knocking her off Fi and into a tumble across the ice. Air flooded into Fi’s lungs. She coughed and rolled to her knees.

Her heart stopped at the sight of Antal pinning Astrid to the ground.

Astrid’s retaliation came too desperate, sloppy with panic.

She swung her dagger at the daeyari’s neck.

He caught her wrist, fangs bared. She punched, kicked, writhed against the ice, but Antal broke her guard with claws.

Not soft, like he’d used on Fi. They sank deep into ribs, into the tender flesh of an arm.

As Astrid screamed, his teeth lunged for her throat.

Fi shouted. “Antal! Stop!”

He stopped.

Merciful Void, he actually stopped.

Astrid’s chest heaved beneath him, lips quivering as her blood dripped from his claws. Without releasing his prey, Antal glanced sideways, one crimson eye to where Fi knelt with hand outstretched.

Fi’s tongue was too numb to explain. The best she could manage was to shake her head.

Conflict warred across Antal’s face, a tight mix of fury and confusion. But at Fi’s urging, he obeyed. Astrid whimpered as the daeyari yanked his claws out of her. She rolled away from him, spitting blood and cradling her ribs.

Fi stood. Astrid tracked her approach.

Her laugh was a cruel thing, bitter and defeated and rasping with bloodied teeth. “Prefer to end this yourself? Fitting.”

Fi stood over her.

Her friend. Her Astrid. On her knees beneath the Void—like they used to be. Like they’d never be again.

“Do it!” Astrid spat past a split lip. “Or is this not enough?” Her glare followed the daeyari prowling the sidelines, watching the lash of his tail as he settled at Fi’s side. “I took you for better than one of them , playing with your food—”

“Do you regret it?” Fi asked softly.

Astrid’s gaze snapped to her, brow furrowed.

“Do you regret what you had to do for Verne?” Fi said.

“Do I regret it?” Astrid hissed. “There’s not a single day I don’t regret it. I didn’t want any of this.” Her voice rose, echoing through the silence of the Shard. “ I never wanted any of this! ”

Astrid brought them to this end.

But Fi set them on the path.

Ten years of this. Ten years wishing she’d made a better choice. Even here, at the end, Fi chased poisonous thoughts of whether there’d been a path missed somewhere, a reunion in Thomaskweld where they fell grateful into each other’s arms rather than clinging to old wounds.

But this kind of grief didn’t heal when ignored. It grew. It festered. Fi would never be free of her guilt until she faced it head on, could never forgive herself until she did what she should have done ten fucking years ago.

Fi dropped to her knees and pulled Astrid into a hug.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

The silence was profound. Antal’s tail twitched to a halt as he watched. When Astrid started breathing again, the motion hitched, a shallow rasp against Fi’s neck.

“I’m sorry, Astrid.” Fi knotted fingers into her shirt, into her ice-damp hair.

Astrid stiffened. “What are you doing?”

“I was young. I was so young and so scared, and everything was a blur as I ran, and even when I thought of going back, I couldn’t breathe by the end of it.

That doesn’t begin to excuse what I did.

You meant the world to me, Astrid. And I abandoned you.

I left you to her . I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness.

I’ve been every bit the coward you’ve accused me of. ”

“Fi. What are you doing ?” Astrid’s words shook.