Page 67 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

I already forgave you

Boden was fine.

He had to be fine.

Fi slipped underneath her brother’s arm to take his weight, relieving the woman who’d carried him here with a limp of her own. Around her, people were speaking, a hum of worried voices. She hardly heard them.

There was so much blood soaking Boden’s coat. His breaths were too shallow.

“Bodie?” she urged. “Bodie, look at me.”

He muttered something, head slumped. The blood was heaviest at his stomach, but she couldn’t get a clear look at the wound. Too much shredded fabric.

“—tracked the Beast out of town.” Kashvi’s voice came hoarse. “Then, gone. Must have fled through a Curtain.” She leaned heavily on Mal’s arm, her own hands stiff with a glint of silver veins, barely gripping her crossbow.

“You let it get away?” Fi demanded.

“It fought like a cornered animal. We tried to box it in, but…” Kashvi licked chapped lips.

She nodded to Yvette. The blacksmith supported Boden’s other side, their silver hair dyed with two colors of blood, a deep cut down one cheek.

“Yvette took a fall, trying to get one of their smiths to safety. Boden ran in to help. That’s when he got swiped. ”

“Stupid, selfless man…” Yvette muttered, eyes bright with concern.

Fuck if that wasn’t something Boden would do. Why hadn’t Fi been there? Too busy chasing Astrid. Even when she tried to do the right thing, it still went wrong.

“Fionamara.”

Antal spoke quietly, tense eyes surveying their surroundings. “We shouldn’t linger. That Beast must be too degraded to remember how to teleport, but if it’s coherent enough to use Curtains, it will find its way back to Verne.”

Fi didn’t care about Verne. Boden needed help.

Void have mercy, there was so much blood.

Against Yvette’s protests, Kashvi took Boden’s other arm, ordering the smith to tend to the gash on their cheek. Then, Antal clasped their hands and took them away from Nyskya.

They’d known it would come to this, that if Verne discovered Nyskya’s rebellion, the people would need a place to hide until the tyrant fell.

Fi and Boden’s father had brought them to this mining outpost in Verne Territory when they were young, back when it was a bustle of metallurgy shops and energy drills carving conductive ore out of the mountain.

Then the veins ran dry. The residents couldn’t afford the daeyari sacrifice needed to keep the energy conduits running.

The place was abandoned, buildings left to crumble in the craggy valley.

Vacant no longer. The residents of Nyskya huddled in the outpost yard, distributing the supplies Boden had toiled to prepare over the past weeks, hiding right under Verne’s nose. Hopefully, her own territory was the last place she’d look for them.

At Antal’s return, heads swiveled in the crowd.

A gasp went out, at the sight of their mayor in tatters.

“We need to lay him down.” Fi’s words came breathless with barely-tamed panic. No need for that. Boden would be fine .

He coughed, a wet and crackling sound in his chest.

“Daeyari!” Kashvi said. “Go back and get the rest of our people out of Nyskya.”

Antal spared too long a look at Boden before vanishing.

Fi and Kashvi brought him into a private room in the mining barracks. He cursed as they set him down on the bed. So much blood. The copper tang filled Fi’s nose, mixed with a stink of bile. Pieces not where they belonged.

“Where’s our doctor?” Fi touched an energy lantern on the bedside table, lighting narrow walls and dusty floorboards in cold silver.

“Overwhelmed.” Kashvi ran a hand through her bloodied hair. “She’s used to stitching gashes from stray hunting knives, not daeyari claws. That’s why Boden was helping with triage.”

“We need her here.”

“No,” Boden mumbled. Another cough. Another distressing gurgle in his chest… blood on his lips. “Let her tend to the others. They need her.”

Fi refrained from punching him. “ You need her, Boden!”

Ignoring his protests, she unbuttoned his coat, pulling back matted fur to reveal…

Void alive. Her breath caught at the sight of flayed flesh. A mess of blood and dark body fluids. Exposed muscle and viscera, his entire abdomen shredded, the smell of it enough to close Fi’s throat.

She couldn’t stop to think about it. He’d be fine.

“Kashvi.” Damn it all, why was Fi’s voice shaking? “We need water. Towels. Anything to start cleaning this.”

“Fi-Fi,” Boden said.

“ Don’t call me that.”

“It’s ok.”

“Stop it.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Shut your Void-damned mouth, Boden!” Her fist clenched, hovering over his ruined stomach. Uncertain where to start. “Just give me a minute to…” She didn’t know what to do. Fi had no idea what to do. “Shit. Shit . You’ve lost so much blood…”

“I know.”

Two words. Flat. Final.

Why did he have to talk like that? Like he’d always figured things out one step ahead of her. Anger tightened Fi’s chest. Energy Shaping could cauterize the bleeding edges. It could pull flayed skin together. It could quicken natural healing.

Shaping couldn’t regenerate tissue.

It couldn’t replenish blood.

So much blood.

And that crackle in Boden’s chest with each inhale. Something in his lungs.

He reached for her hand with cold fingers. “It’s ok, Fi.”

It wasn’t. “Stop talking like that Boden.”

“Sit down. Sit with me. Please.”

“ No . I’ll fix this.”

“You can’t heal this, Fi. You know that.” Boden’s head tilted on the pillow, heavy eyes looking over her shoulder. “Unless the daeyari has a trick.”

Fi turned.

Antal stood in the doorway, motionless enough to be part of the frame, pale skin starkly ashen in the cruel slant of the energy lantern. He stared at Boden’s stomach with hard eyes. A subtle flare of nostrils.

Could he smell a lethal wound that easy? Or did all the blood give it away?

“Daeyari flesh is made of Void ether,” Antal said quietly. “We can regenerate. Mortal bodies… don’t work the same way. Your flesh can’t be rebuilt so simply.”

Boden nodded, as if this was to be expected. As if any of it was reasonable.

The crumbling started slowly. Cold in Fi’s fingertips. Flame fracturing her chest.

“Kashvi?” Boden said.

Kashvi approached the bed, mouth clamped, eyes glassy.

Fi’s ribs were too tight. Collapsing. Suffocating.

“How is everyone?” Boden asked.

“Antal got them all out,” Kashvi answered. “Five fighters dead. Most of the rest wounded.”

“Go. Take care of them. Please.”

Kashvi was silent for a long moment. She placed a hand on his shoulder, a firm squeeze and a deep bow, touching her forehead to his. Floorboards creaked as she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Fi didn’t remember how to breathe. How to push words past numb lips.

“Fi.” Her name was too hushed on Boden’s lips. “What happened with Astrid?”

She opened her mouth a few times before sound came out. “Astrid?”

“You went after her?”

A lifetime ago. A matter of moments.

“I… let her go,” Fi said.

Boden’s brow creased.

“I let her go, Boden. She did so many bad things. I know she did. To us, to other people. But Verne hurt her so much. Hurt her and used her, but even after all that, she was still Astrid. She deserves a second chance and…”

From too few words to too many. Fi gasped for air, but nothing was enough. Every breath, drenched with blood. Antal moved to her side like a phantom, tail curling around her leg.

Even that, not enough.

“You let her go.” Boden cracked a grin, bloody at the edges. “I’m… proud of you, Fi.” Each pause, tainted by a wheeze. “That must have been… so hard…”

No. No no no no no no no—

“Boden. Please. I’ll get the doctor. We can try .” Fi had never begged like this: hands clenched against the bed, knees to floorboards, words quivering like pine needles in a gale.

Boden lifted a hand, smoothing his thumb over the crease of her brow.

“You always do this… when you get worried. When you’re trying not to cry. Always so strong, Fi. Stronger than you think you are.”

Fi couldn’t make her tongue work. Sandpaper in her mouth. Cotton swelling her eyes.

“And Antal.” Boden swallowed. “I… give you permission.”

Her heart stuttered, a flare of indignant fury to cling to in the maelstrom.

“Are you still on about us sleeping together?” Fi snapped. “My intimate life is none of your business, Boden!”

“Fi.” Her name again. Too soft.

“And even if it was your business, we’ve got more important things to worry about!”

“Fi. Not that type of permission.”

She didn’t want to understand why her ears were ringing. Why her heart was thundering in her chest. Desperate for help, she looked up to Antal.

He fell still again. Wide-eyed again. Claws clenched and unclenched at his sides.

“Boden,” he said. “I could never…”

“You’re going to face Verne,” Boden said. “Soon, most likely. You need to be at full strength.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Fi said. “You’re being ridiculous , Boden.”

“This is the plan we agreed to!” Boden’s raised voice shook through him. A wheeze in his chest, a bloom of blood on his lips. He hunched, silent a moment. Then, in breathy words, “Feeding a daeyari without living sacrifices. That was the plan. Make it count.”

His words didn’t make any sense. They rattled in Fi’s teeth, curled barbs in her lungs. He couldn’t be saying this.

Boden couldn’t…

Antal knelt beside the bed.

What an odd sight. A few hours ago, Fi would have laughed to picture a Lord Daeyari knelt on drab floorboards, elbows propped on scratchy sheets, hunched over a human’s bedside.

A dying man.

Her brother.

The finality in Antal’s eyes struck her to ruin.

“Mayor Boden Kolbeck,” Antal said. “You’ve taken excellent care of Nyskya. For that, you have my thanks.”

Boden grimaced. “I want more than thanks, daeyari.”

“And you have my word. I’ll see this through and see your people safe. As Veshri watches from the Void.” He touched the highest tip of an antler.

Boden’s breaths grew shallower, more crackle than air. “She’s my only family, Antal. Take care of her. Please.”