Page 76 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

We can’t keep meeting like this

Seeing Astrid here made no sense.

Those wide, ruby eyes made no sense. Her hand on the Beast’s snout, urging it to sit still, made no sense . For a moment, Fi considered whether she had, without her knowledge, developed a remarkably impressive skill for hallucination.

How else to explain this ghost. One who always came back.

“Fi.” Astrid held up her hand. “Wait. Please.”

Oh, good. This apparition sounded like Astrid, too. Which meant Fi was fully entitled to shout back at her, “What the fuck part of leave and never come back did you not understand, Astrid!”

Maybe Fi hadn’t used those exact words, but she felt it was strongly implied.

Astrid hunched beside the monstrosity, her black hair damp with snow, her dark coat less eye-catching than her usual showy attire.

“You don’t have to do this,” Astrid pleaded.

Fi swung off Aisinay’s back, sword clenched tight enough to ache her knuckles.

“What are you doing here? I told you to run!”

“I did run. I ran from Verne, just like you asked. Please, Fi, just—”

“Then why are you still here?”

“I couldn’t leave him behind!”

Fi stopped. Struggled to swallow the word. “ Him? ”

The Beast bared its serrated teeth, drenched in blood and breathing labored. When it shifted, Astrid pressed its snout, mumbling something soft in daeyari. The creature leaned against her, skeletal horse snout tapping light against her shoulder.

What in all the Shattered Planes…

Kashvi, Yvette, and Mal approached with crossbows raised. Eyes wide. They looked to Fi. As if she had any fucking clue what was happening.

“His name is Navek,” Astrid said. “Or… it used to be.”

It had a name. How could this monster have a name ?

“It wasn’t his choice to come here,” Astrid went on. “Verne wanted an edge in the fight. She wouldn’t tell me where she went, out to some Plane far away from here, and she came back with… him. Smart enough to understand orders. Too far gone to argue back. She’s used him like an animal.”

“He is an animal,” Fi said.

“He’s hungry. Confused.”

“He killed Boden!”

Astrid went pale as snow. She looked from Fi, to the other humans—Boden not among them. Her fingers trembled against the Beast’s blood-spattered skin.

“Boden is dead?” she breathed.

As if she cared. As if she wasn’t the one who brought this upon them. As if Fi hadn’t given her the chance to run away.

“When you brought this Beast to Nyskya,” Fi said. “It killed Boden. And five others!”

“I… tried to stop him. He was afraid. And hurt , when all the crossbows started shooting.”

“It would have eaten everyone in the village!”

“He’s done what Verne ordered him to do, just like me!” Their shouts stirred the Beast. Astrid stroked its snout, urging calm. “Please, Fi. I know what it’s like to be at Verne’s mercy. You’ve come here to face her? Do it. He doesn’t need to be part of that.”

The monstrosity quieted, a whimper against Astrid’s hand.

Fi couldn’t feel pity. Not for this creature. She’d given Astrid the chance to run because of that haunt in her eyes, the teeth scarring her arms. This Beast was…

Also afraid. Trembling in the snow, eyes flitting over its attackers like a beaten dog.

In Nyskya, Astrid had tried to stop the Beast attacking. He’d fought back when fired upon.

A daeyari, once. Intelligent, once.

“Antal?” Fi begged, hoping for some answer to this insanity.

He stood uncomfortably quiet beside her. Antal watched the Beast with that usual horror, that low flick of his tail, as if he saw fragments of himself in taut limbs and gnarled antlers. As if its mere, wretched existence deserved pity.

“This far gone,” Antal said, “it… he wouldn’t have the same sense of a first-form daeyari. More instinct than intention.”

“I didn’t know about Boden,” Astrid said. “I’m sorry, Fi. I know that can’t mean much anymore, but I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I ever brought Navek to Nyskya, but he doesn’t understand . He’s as afraid of Verne as everyone else.”

Fi didn’t know. She came here to fight, to wield her grief as a sword—not forgiveness.

“Astrid. I—”

Static pricked Fi’s tongue.

Disappointingly, Antal hadn’t moved.

“Look at this,” came Verne’s velvet cadence. “A reunion, and no one invited me?”

Antal snapped taut, a spark of fury in his eyes. Terror, in Astrid’s. A creak of mortal crossbows raised in unison.

Verne stood at the edge of the clearing.

She wore a black shirt tucked into slim trousers, silky fabric with iridescent stars, cut deep for a show of ash-gray chest. Delicate silver chains draped her antlers.

Her coat was black velvet embroidered with white quartz, the regalia of a queen come to greet her commoners.

True to form, Kashvi fired first.

Without hesitation, she aimed and loosed, sending a crimson bolt flying at Verne’s head. The daeyari was a heartbeat faster. Verne vanished, leaving the projectile to zip across the clearing and crackle through hemlock branches.

Verne reappeared with scarlet lacing her fingers. Her Shaping came more elegant than Antal’s, harnessing the energy at her immortal core into a long whip of red. She slashed, striking Kashvi’s crossbow into two pieces, slicing up the woman’s arm. Kashvi shouted and dropped to her knees.

Panic followed. Mal and Yvette fired their silver bolts. Mal’s missed. Yvette’s grazed Verne’s ashen cheek as the daeyari dodged. Her searing whip caught Yvette by the ankle, pulling them off their feet then dragging them across the ground.

Antal teleported between mortal and immortal. He slashed with crimson coated claws, severing Verne’s whip in a crack of rival currents, freeing Yvette to back away.

Verne tipped her chin up, red energy at her fingertips, but no move to attack.

“Antal,” she greeted haughtily. “You look upsettingly well.”

While the daeyari glared at each other, Fi rushed to Kashvi’s side. The woman cradled her arm, skin seared with silver veins and the long red welt of an energy burn.

“I’m fine,” Kashvi hissed. “Fuck, that bitch is fast.”

Her crossbow lay ruined in the snow. Yvette and Mal raised theirs with fresh bolts, hesitating when Antal held out a hand to stop them.

Fi didn’t know why she bothered making plans anymore. They were supposed to face Verne alone, surprised and powerless. Instead, the daeyari came to them, the Beast and Astrid back on the playing field.

Antal stood between them, a shield of claws and teeth. He slipped into his mask: face chiseled, tail still. Commendable. Fi would have cussed her out.

“Verne,” Antal returned. “You needn’t inconvenience yourself. We’d have come to you.”

“Why wait, when you’ve made such atrocious noise so early in the morning? You and your impressive rebellion.” Verne’s scarlet eyes slid unimpressed over the mustered forces. “You’ve been slinking behind my back for weeks, and this is the best you could gather?”

“More than I see at your side.”

She laughed. “You should have run home, Antal. You think your human pets change the odds?” Her fanged grin fell on Fi, sharp enough to spike a throb through the healing bite in her shoulder.

“So this one made it back to you, after all. I thought humans willing to suck daeyari cock were a rarity, yet you have a talent for finding them.”

Oh, Fi was going to kill her.

“Help me understand,” Verne taunted. “What is it you enjoy about fucking your food? You get off on having them soft? Defenseless?”

Antal’s growl rumbled low in his chest. Fi bared her teeth the same, which only amused Verne further. The daeyari lord stood with velvet coat and silvered antlers wreathed in the growing dawn, flawlessly confident.

Just like every narcissist who’d tried to swindle Fi over the years.

Yet Verne wasn’t fully relaxed: tail coiled, weight taut on the balls of bare feet.

Bluffers, all these daeyari. Verne had avoided killing Antal from the start, suggesting she shared his hesitance for slaying rivals and creating reincarnated beasts.

“But you’ve neglected manners, Antal,” Verne said. “You offer only teeth? No discussion of terms?”

Fi gripped her sword hilt. “I’ve got her terms right—”

Antal waved a hand to quiet her—bold of him , to think she gave a shit about diplomacy, but Fi restrained herself long enough to give him a chance. He stepped forward, fierce as a proper Lord Daeyari, and if Verne touched him, Fi would grind her antlers into glitter.

“My terms,” Antal said. “Return my territory, and I’ll rule as I see fit. No more living sacrifices.”

This, at last, struck Verne’s calm. Her expression melted from smug. To baffled. To a fang-sharp sneer.

“No sacrifices?” she said.

“I won’t rule my people with fear.”

“That’s what this is about? All this trouble for a na?ve, pointless promise?” Her voice lowered. “The Daey Celva will never abide that. You should know better than anyone.”

“Then I’ll deal with the Daey Celva.”

“Do you want to hear my terms, then?” Verne hardened, that crack like early-morning cold. “Leave. Never show your face here again. Or I’ll send your energy back to the Void, and your antlers back to your father with a note of what a disappointment you’ve been.”

Never mind—Verne’s antlers were turning into glitter regardless.

Antal’s tail flicked, claws curled into sickles. Two crossbows flanked him, and Fi with her sword. This wasn’t how the plan was meant to go, but they still had Verne outnumbered. If Astrid could keep the Beast out of the fight…

“Astrid,” Verne said.

Astrid flinched when the daeyari said her name, scarlet eyes flicking to her Arbiter for the first time.

“It’s good to see you.” Verne spoke viciously soft. “I was concerned when you didn’t come back. Perhaps this would be a good time to assure me of where your loyalties lie?”

Astrid stood with the slowness of a cornered hare. Fi watched a dozen tangled emotions ghost across her face: that glass-eyed fear of facing Verne’s wrath. Shock, at how swiftly Antal stepped to Fi’s defense. A calculation, gauging the distance he’d left between them.