“What’s this bullshit?” Fi craned her neck, trying to get a better view. “Both of them? Working together again? How’s that fair?”
“An insult,” Antal said. “Commanding that Beast like a trained animal.”
Fi quirked a brow. “I thought you hated that thing?”
“An abomination, but it deserves dignity. It was a daeyari once. An immortal child of Veshri, lost to the Void.”
Fi didn’t care what it was. She wanted both interlopers out of her home.
Astrid paused in the square, between the general store and Kashvi’s tavern. While the Beast loitered at her heels, she surveyed silent streets, hair a black curtain down one side of her face, antlers frost-kissed. A long-sleeved blouse tucked into her trousers, hanging from her willowed frame like sheets of silken blood.
Fi and Antal stayed hidden. Astrid wouldn’t find her quarry. She’d have to leave empty-handed, like last time.
“Fionamara,” Astrid called.
Her own name struck Fi like an ice pick through the chest. Of course, a friendly visit was too much to ask, considering the crossbow. And the deranged horse demon.
“I know you’re here,” Astrid said. “It’s time to stop hiding.”
How dare she. Fi was a runner, not a hider. Bitch could at least get her insults right.
“She can’tknowwe’re here,” Fi hissed at Antal. “Right?”
Fi adored his grimace when her teasing was the cause. She hated it now, the way Antal tipped his head to scent the air again. In the square, the Beast did the same, saliva glistening against curved teeth as it huffed.
“You’ve got to be kidding…” Fi said.
“Fionamara. If I can—”
“Yes, Antlers. I realize that if you can smell it, it can smell you. Thanks.”
The panic in Fi’s chest carved deeper, splintering her ribs.
Panic was the enemy. When decisions needed to come swift, panic dug into the brain with hazy fingers. When hands neededto fly to weapons, panic locked the joints and shivered the grip. Fi knew she couldn’t give in to those bitter pangs.
But looking at that Beast daeyari. At Astrid and her granite-cut jaw.
“Don’t do this, Fi.” Astrid spoke in a warning low. “No one else needs to get hurt because of you. Not again.”
Fi noticed it then: the village not entirely silent. Across the square, a wide-eyed face spied out a window. From the path behind the general store, Fi heard a tramp of snow, a hushed voice, someone hurrying to the shelter of home.
If Astrid set that Beast loose on Nyskya, no one would be safe.
She wouldn’t. Would she? Fi rocked on her heels, anxious energy leaching heat from her arms and pricking her fingertips. “What do we do?”
Antal had the audacity to sigh. “They’re your people.”
“They’reyourpeople too, Antal!”
“They… they are. I know they are.” His eyes closed, a slump as he rested his antlers against the fence. “If we fight, people will be harmed. Those who didn’t want to fight.”
And those lives would be on Fi’s hands. She’d chosen to stay in Nyskya. She’d convinced the people here to fight for Antal.
Astrid shifted in impatience. She set a hand on the Beast’s shoulder, stilling its pacing.
“Navek,” she told the creature. “Vu yzu lavary?”
The words tumbled off Astrid’s tongue stiffer than Antal’s, but equally breath-stealing. Since when did she speak daeyari?
