And how had she learned to stand her ground with daeyari? Not by being passive. By being bold. Never giving in.
She couldn’t give in now. The Void was part of her, and she’d find a way out. Fi had to believe that to that last thud of her heart.
She armed herself with all her bristles and faced the daeyari.
Hey, you! she thought hard at him.
His brow arched. A good start.
Get me out of here, Fi ordered.Now.
The daeyari’s eyes flicked wider, motes of carnelian fire in the dark. So Fi could surprise her own hallucinations? She wasn’t sure if that was something to be proud of.
He pushed off from nothing. For a moment, they floated together, Fi taut as a loaded crossbow, the daeyari drifting to her side in an effortless swirl of tail and black robes that wisped at the edges. Like fabric woven from the Void. He offered a clawed hand.
Why not?
Fi grabbed it.
Weight latched onto her limbs, yanking her down. She lurched as something solid hit her boots. Then, she and the daeyari both stood on nothing, black beneath her feet that felt like stone.
Averycreative hallucination. Fi shivered, her hand anchored light in his.
Where do you want to be?
Fi couldn’t place if it was a voice, or just an urge in her head, her desperation to be gone from here.
Whatever the source of the question, Fi didn’t hesitate to answer. She pictured herself in bed that morning, wrapped in Antal’s warm arms and soft twilight through the window. Ozone on her skin. Before everything went wrong.
The daeyari’s brow lifted higher. A tail flick. As if Fi needed snark from her own—
More specific.
A voice. It was a voice, smooth as midnight in her head.
Fi thought of the quarry where Nyskya’s citizens sheltered, the people who needed her now that Boden was gone. She shouldn’t have run. She should have stayed with them, not fled this grief like she always did, should have stood to face it no matter how it hurt.
More specific.
A demanding voice. Fi glowered at the daeyari, but he stared back with a face carved of granite, tail a slow swish and robes drifting without a breeze.
If he wanted specific…
Fi thought of her cabin outside Nyskya, her home and safe haven for seven years. The home she’d built with Boden. She thought of the porch, of timber she’d felled herself and dragged to the mill on Aisinay’s cart. She thought of the knotted grain of the wood. The dark stain dusted with snow. The gouges in the beams where she and Boden had gotten drunk off Autumn Plane cider, then challenged each other to an energy dagger throwing contest that ended with—
Fi was gone in a rush.
Falling, though she couldn’t tell what direction, careening through black as blood roared in her ears. Her chest tightened to the verge of bursting. A rake of cold across her skin.
She slammed into something wooden.
Then sucked in a breath.
One deep, blissful, snow-cold breath.
42
Well, excuse me for almost dying
