Page 79 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

She reached a shaking hand toward her Arbiter. Her claws curled as if she still held the leash choking Astrid’s neck. Astrid’s knuckles whitened, eyes wide upon her fallen mistress.

“You did it,” Astrid said in a hush. “By the merciless Void, you did it.” She looked to Fi, bewildered. Pleading. “What are you waiting for?”

Waiting for courage, the resolve to act and live with the consequences. Antal kept telling Fi she was brave. The way he looked at her now, eyes bright and jaw set, said that confidence never wavered.

“You decide,” he told her.

“ Her? ” Verne spat. “You’d have your human pet make decisions you’re too afraid to?” Back to her Arbiter. “Astrid. Navek. This is the craven daeyari you’d throw yourselves behind? I brought you out of nothing. I’ve given you everything you ever needed!”

Antal never looked away from Fi. “My fight with Verne is political. She’s hurt you in far worse ways. What end do you find just?”

Verne had taken so much—her home, her life with Astrid.

Her brother. Yet this reached beyond Fi.

The people of Nyskya, displaced from their villages.

All the sacrifices Verne had glutted on.

And in this room, Astrid and her Beast huddled together, haunted eyes latched to the Lord Daeyari who’d wielded them like tools.

If Verne left here alive, none of them would know peace. The alternative was a gamble.

Fi had never let a gamble intimidate her.

She looked to Astrid. “Do it.”

Fear sparked in Verne’s eyes. She squirmed, but her blood-smeared hand found no purchase against the sword.

“Astrid,” Verne said—a command, now. A threat. “Don’t be stupid. You think they’ll let you leave here alive? After all you’ve done? Help me, and I’ll forgive you for—”

Astrid released the Beast’s antlers.

In one lunge, he was upon his prey. Fi wasn’t surprised to find Verne a coward in the end, writhing in panic as the Beast caged her chest in his claws, a scream as teeth closed on her skull.

The Beast braced. Tore. Verne’s head came off in a crack of spine, followed by a jolt of energy that left a burnt taste on Fi’s tongue.

Tendrils of scarlet sizzled over the ground.

Then quiet.

Verne’s body fell limp. Her energy fizzled like spent embers, leaving black blood and scorched lines across the floor. The Beast dropped her head then growled over the corpse, claws digging into inert flesh. Let him have it. Fi wouldn’t have intervened.

Astrid did, urging the Beast off his quarry like a falconer with a mantling hawk. He licked blood off his teeth. Astrid inspected Verne’s remains from a wary distance, as if the daeyari might still reach out and snatch her.

“It’s done?” Astrid said. “She’d dead? You daeyari can really die ?”

Verne looked as dead as anything Fi had ever seen. And Antal, the stillest she’d ever seen, no flick to his tail, not even a blink as he stared at Verne’s limp form. Fi wasn’t convinced he was breathing.

Dead. Verne was actually dead.

Antal snapped back to focus. Crimson eyes sharpened on Astrid, fierce enough to make her retreat against the Beast. Belatedly, it occurred to Fi that Antal might not appreciate Astrid putting a dagger to her throat, even with good intentions.

“You had the chance to walk away from this, Arbiter.” He stalked toward her, tail a predatory swish. “A gracious offer. Yet you’ve returned—”

Fi grabbed his wrist. At his growl, she stepped in front of him, cupping a hand to his cheek to remind him what soft was. That this was the person he could choose to be.

“That’s enough,” she said lowly. No less of an order.

Enough blood on the floor. This victory came thanks to Astrid and her Beast staying out of the fight. Antal had the nerve to bare his fangs at her, but the sense to concede, settling with a huff and a soft tap of his nose to her cheek.

When Boden had realized Fi’s entanglement with the daeyari, he’d reacted with shock. Kashvi, with ridicule. Astrid was the first to look impressed, a wide stare of ruby eyes.

“Void alive, Fi,” she breathed. “It’s true, then? You’re braver than I gave you credit for.”

Both of them, braver than they’d started ten years ago. No matter how ashen Astrid looked as she studied Verne, still bracing for the corpse to move, she’d found the courage to finally strike against her mistress. Now, they could both be free.

As for this Beast…

Fi wasn’t afraid of daeyari. Not anymore.

Nothing but spitting cats, snarling and baring fangs as an intimidation tactic.

This was how she reassured herself as she approached the creature, steps slow and unthreatening.

Still, he growled. Astrid laid her hand on the Beast’s head.

He leaned into her touch, too gentle for his monstrous form.

Behind Fi, Antal followed with a whisper of claws on marble.

So many times, she’d mused what separated him from his monstrous kin. The mangled shape. The hunger. The hollow red eyes. But how could Navek be a monster, when he’d chosen to protect Astrid? Less monstrous than Verne, who’d only ever acted for herself.

Fi laid a hand on his snout. His skin was cool. He huffed her scent.

“Fionamara,” Antal said. “He can’t stay here.”

“He can’t,” she agreed.

They both looked to Astrid.

“I’ll take him away,” she said. “Back to the Contested Planes. You’ll never see him again.” Her fingers traced his antlers. “It’s… probably good that I don’t stay, either.”

The best option for both of them. Astrid had done what she had to survive, enough to deserve a new start, not enough to clear her culpability as Verne’s right hand. Not for Fi, with Boden’s loss aching her ribs. Not for the rest of the humans in Verne’s territory.

The best option, and Fi hated it. Saying goodbye was harder a second time.

Astrid laughed, a harsh and breathy sound. For the first time in a decade, Fi recognized the cadence, that show of bravado masking trepidation. “Traveling is common for daeyari, isn’t it? Maybe it’s time I follow my roots.”

Fi noticed her nails biting into her palm, only because Antal squeezed her hand, a brush of his thumb against her fingers. The way his voice softened could only be for her.

“Do you know of the Starfall Plane?” he asked Astrid.

Wary, she nodded. “That’s still daeyari controlled. Not far enough.”

“No. But the closest gateway to the Contested Planes. Take care, Arbiter. You may have found common ground with this derived daeyari, but others of his kind won’t be as docile.

” Antal hardened. “And there are more dangerous creatures in the far Planes, immortals who don’t take kindly to anyone with antlers. ”

Astrid’s lips thinned. “I’ve heard.”

What in all the Shattered Planes was this cryptic nonsense—

Astrid pulled Fi into a hug.

Brave of her, with Antal so close. With Fi still barbed.

In her mind, Astrid was holding her hand as Fi led them through their first Curtain.

She was raising a sword, calling Fi a coward.

She was kissing Fi with lips of honeyed balm and starlight in her eyes.

She was leading a Beast through Nyskya, armed with a crossbow.

Warring memories, all with weight of their own.

Fi hugged her back, a bittersweet thing, but as warm as she remembered.

“I’m sorry, Fi,” Astrid said into her hair. “I didn’t want us to turn into this.”

“Neither did I.”

The apology didn’t fix everything. Wounds still festered between them, maybe some that would never heal. But here was the best resolution they’d get. A second chance.

“Make it count,” Fi said.

“You too.” As Astrid withdrew, she brushed a hand along Fi’s cheek. Left a kiss on her temple.

Her glare for Antal was sharp as splintered rubies.

“She likes dahlias,” Astrid said. Hard. “And everything with sugar in it. And you have to let her win arguments most of the time to keep her happy.”

“ Excuse me? ” Fi protested. “I never—”

“I know,” Antal said dryly. “… Except about the flowers. Thank you.”

Rotten, both of them.

Astrid climbed onto Navek’s back. A wild creature, Fi’s father had always said.

All the wilder now, messy with blood and hair tangled against her antlers, that stubborn tip to her jaw as she sat upon a monstrosity.

Fi’s last memory was a wave goodbye, the slink of a derived daeyari out of Verne’s ruined hall.

But finally, the ghost of a grin on Astrid’s lips, as somber as the ache in Fi’s chest, as free as she’d always deserved to be.