Page 71 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Well, excuse me for almost dying

Fi blinked at hazy surroundings, her thoughts the consistency of algae: dense and floating, even with solid ground beneath her again.

She eased herself onto aching elbows, every muscle in her tattered body gone numb. Cold. Prickling, like that sting of human flesh exposed to too much energy. But then, a foggy glimpse of familiar shiverpines. The rough boards of a porch beneath her fingers.

Her porch. Her cottage.

She spent the last of her strength on a haggard, disbelieving laugh. Home. She didn’t understand how, but she was home.

At the edge of her vision, a shadow shifted.

Fi’s thoughts sputtered as the daeyari from the Void paced the base of her stairs, inspecting the trees, the stars… then her. Persistent, for a hallucination. She had no strength to shudder, exhaustion urging her to collapse against the porch.

Another shadow appeared. This one, horse shaped. Aisinay approached on cautious hooves, ears lowered and nostrils flaring at the scent of the phantom. He held out a hand. She sniffed. When she swayed her finned tail in agreement, he stroked her muzzle.

Fi couldn’t stay here. Verne might still be nearby.

She snarled at the effort of sitting up.

Pain spiked her shoulder, shredded flesh no longer in stasis, blood seeping into her coat.

She clawed the closest beam for support, toppled down the stairs, caught herself against Aisinay’s scaled flank.

The horse sniffed her hair, warm breath against Fi’s neck.

She hauled herself onto the creature’s bare back.

Black spotted her vision. Fi slumped against Aisinay, cheeks bruised by the fins down her neck, hoping her mount knew where to go after all the supplies she’d helped shuttle. As Fi tumbled toward unconsciousness, cold in her bones and pain drowning every thought, she cast one last look to her side.

Her parting sight was carnelian eyes. A tilted head and slow, swishing tail. A convincing hallucination. Perhaps too convincing.

Then, into black once more.

This black was less smothering than the last.

Fi drifted in and out, cotton-thick thoughts registering fragments of a horse’s gait beneath her. The cold of a Curtain. Another. Another. Warm hands. Worried voices. A throb in her shoulder then coarse blankets like a cocoon. She drifted again, deeper this time.

She woke slowly.

The world returned to her in pieces: pain in her shoulder, an itch against her skin, weight at her legs.

The pain of her bite wound, wrapped in gauze.

The itch of blankets, a simple bed and barren room in an abandoned mining outpost.

And the weight against her legs. Antal sat in a chair, head pillowed atop his arms at the foot of her bed, chest rising with the tempo of sleep.

Even taking all this in, Fi’s thoughts were sluggish putting the pieces together. She remembered teeth in her shoulder. She remembered running. Running from what?

A bed like this one. Blankets soaked in blood and—

“Antal?” His name slipped out like a plea. An anchor, as the world around Fi swirled too fast again.

He blinked awake. Crimson eyes darted over the room, surveying for danger. When they landed on her, the well of concern broke Fi like a hammer to the ribs.

“Fionamara.” Her name fell soft off his lips. The slightest catch against his teeth.

Fi sat up, but… by the merciless Void, her shoulder hurt . Bandages tugged her skin, warmed by an energy chip to fuel the healing, numbed by twilight sorel ointment. She gritted her teeth and forced herself still, trying not to strain the wound.

Antal watched every grimace, tail taut. “What happened?”

“I…” A haze of grief. Teeth. Blackness. And Boden. Her brother was—

Fi shoved the thought away, safe behind a hastily built wall, before it could shatter her all over again.

“You left,” Antal said. Then, harder, “Here one minute, then gone. Your horse brought you back like this.”

Fi swallowed against the lump in her throat. “I went back to Nyskya. Verne was there.”

Antal’s tail fell deathly still. His claws dug trenches into the blanket.

“You ran back there alone?” he hissed. “You faced Verne? Alone? ”

Well sure, when he put it so bluntly, Fi sounded like a reckless idiot. She was a reckless idiot. Somehow, she’d survived, made it back here to him, this last safe harbor after so much had been stripped from her, after Boden had—

“Stop looking like that, daeyari,” She urged her words into a tease. A desperate grasp at levity, when everything else ached. “I’ll think you’ve started caring what happens to me.”

“ Would that be such a terrible thing? ”

Antal’s words bit like fangs. Fi reeled at the assault of hard eyes and bared teeth, the daeyari’s tail a sharp lash. Angry. He was angry at her? She clutched her fists into the sheets, drawing instinctive barbs she was too exhausted to wield.

“I didn’t know she’d be there,” Fi tried to argue back. “I held my own. Just… not enough.”

“She could have killed you.”

“She didn’t.”

“A lucky chance!”

His venom sank into her like another wound. Fresher. Hotter. Fi fought a sting in her eyes. She already knew this was her fault, always her fault, hated herself for running without thinking. She didn’t need Antal clawing the guilt deeper.

“What difference does it make?” she shouted back, baring her own teeth. “We knew this was a risk when we decided to fight. Even when we face Verne together, I could die. You could die. Boden already…” She swallowed, tightness overwhelming her chest.

“And do you think that means nothing to me?” Antal snapped. “That you mean nothing to me?”

Fi fell speechless at the crack in his voice. Like a fissure through ice. Chips from that marble facade he wore, crumbled and strewn to the floor.

“I vowed I wouldn’t do this again.” Antal’s words dropped low, cutting like a knife.

“Then, the first mortals in a century who let me into their lives? One dies by a Beast who came hunting for me .” His voice shook as it rose.

“Not an hour later, the other throws herself at a daeyari alone! Void and Veshri help me, Fi. What if you hadn’t come back? ”

Fi felt cold again, knuckles white where she clenched the covers. Antal had teased her with teeth and sharpened words. He’d tasted her raw, held her in his bare arms and whispered shivers against her skin.

None of that, as intimate as the sincerity breaking him now. This anger, a mask for an ache that terrified Fi even more. He was angry…

Because he cared what happened to her.

Because that was hurt, brightening his eyes.

“Antal. I—”

He stood. A curt dismissal. “You need to rest.”

“But—”

“ Rest , Fionamara. I’ll keep watch, make sure Verne doesn’t discover us here.”

He stepped out the door before she could speak, gone in a swirl of tail around the frame.

Fi tried to go after him. She managed to swing her legs off the bed before dizziness struck, pain in her shoulder as she slumped against the wall. Footsteps came down the hallway.

“ Fi? ”

Kashvi stormed into the room, hair a frizzed bob, tired eyes framed with darker circles than Fi had ever seen on her.

“What are you doing?” Kashvi demanded. “Get back in bed, you stubborn woman!”

“But Antal—”

“Hasn’t left your side since your horse dragged you back in a bloody heap. You both need rest.”

Fi relented to Kashvi’s strong arms pushing her into bed, exhaustion dragging her down against the pillow. Kashvi pulled up a chair, uncharacteristic worry etched into stone-hard cheeks.

“You’re awake. Good.” Kashvi’s sigh came heavy, a hand grasping Fi’s too tightly. All the past snarls and spats between them, vanished into heart-stilling sincerity. “What happened? One minute you were here, then…”

She eyed Fi’s gauze-wrapped shoulder. Damning evidence of a bad decision.

“I ran into Verne,” Fi said. “She’s every bit the bitch you’d think she is, in case you were wondering.”

Kashvi didn’t laugh. Her grip on Fi’s hand tightened. “Fuck, Fi. We saw the bite, but didn’t know for sure. How did you get away?”

“I…”

That was the haziest part. Fi remembered panic. Cutting a Curtain. Where had she gone from there? So much black. The cold emptiness of the Void.

Then…

“I cut a Curtain,” Fi said, too groggy to disentangle the rest. “I ran.”

Kashvi didn’t press for details. For that, Fi was grateful. She settled back while Kashvi inspected her bandages, trying not to shudder at the memory of the Void crushing down on her.

At the image of carnelian eyes, clear enough to send a chill down Fi’s spine.