The truth. He was finally telling the truth.
“Why?” Fi didn’t care about the startled eyes of the others, the creaks of their chairs. She only spoke to him. “To keep us afraid of you?”
“Daeyari have metered mortal technology for centuries,” he said. “Kept territories separate so governments can’t become self-sufficient. Buried any knowledge of how to fight back. You’ll say it’s because we think little of you. Or perhaps we miss the days of hunting you wild through the forests. But the truth is much simpler than that…”
Antal hesitated. Drew a stiff breath.
“It’s because you learned how to kill us,” he said.
The room hung on his words. Still silent.
“Your species started out defenseless,” Antal said. “Easy prey. Then you grew stronger at Shaping. You developed metallurgy, weapon making. The first daeyari fell to your hands. This was unacceptable.” He paused. Images of reincarnated beasts flitted through Fi’s head, hollow red eyes and feral roars. “So my kind brokered peace with yours. Humane treatment, in exchange for sacrifice. A raw deal…for you. The daeyari offer boons, but they’ll never allow you to threaten us again.”
Still, silence.
Until Kashvi slammed a fist to the counter.
“You knew this?” she hissed. “You knew this, you went along with it, and you still expect us to help you?”
“It’s a wretched system,” Antal said with a flash of fangs. “On that, we agree.”
“Then why didn’t you change it?”
“I did what I could. I kept my distance, let you rule yourselves. Took barely what food I needed to survive. Daeyari are free torule our territories as we wish, but the sacrifice system stays the same. Ifoneterritory allows its humans to lose their fear, we risk your entire species becoming emboldened again.”
“So you won’t change,” Yvette accused. “We help put you back in power, and everything will stay the same?”
Fi braced for his evasion. For him to prove his oaths to her were flitting words.
“No,” Antal said. “Help me reclaim my seat as territory lord, and I vow to never take a living sacrifice again.”
If the room was quiet before, it fell deafening now.
“Half measures did me no good,” Antal finished. “Verne saw me as weak for my lenience. My people loathe me for the flesh I’ve taken. If I’m allowed to return to my post, I’ll do so with a system that won’t perpetuate fear.”
He wanted to do the right thing—he wasdoingthe right thing.
Fuck Fi in the Void, they might really have a chance at this.
“Daeyari must eat,” Mal countered. “They must eat humans. Or is that also a lie?”
“That one is true,” Antal said with a grimace.
He looked to Fi.
It took her a moment, snared in the glow of those crimson irises, to realize he was waiting for her to speak on his behalf. Asking her, with that brief softening of his gaze, if she would stand with him. Not as combatants.
As partners.
“Corpse donation,” she said. The plan they’d sketched out the night before, Fi sprawled on her couch and Antal dangling in her rafters. “Most humans get cremated anyway. What do they care, what happens to their body once they’re dead and energy gone to the Void? They could volunteer. A victimless exchange, in return for daeyari aid.”
A wave of wide eyes crashed onto Antal.
“You agree to this?” Yvette asked. Their words tinged with intrigue.
A shifting tide.
Antal bowed his head. “I will accept the dead, if you see fit to offer them.”
