Fi wiped tears from her cheeks then appraised her half-finished pyre of wood.
“On second thought,” she told Antal, “I’d appreciate your help. It’s more work than expected.”
That night, the residents of Nyskya gathered in a forest that wasn’t theirs, come to honor the man who’d brought them together. They grouped around the pyre, snow blushed green from the aurora overhead. No energy lights. Candles flickered in gloved hands, golden hues catching misted breaths.
They wrapped Boden’s body in oil-soaked cloth and laid him atop the platform. Fi moved through the procession with pine sap sticky on her hands, tar acrid in her coat. She’d not been there for Boden when he’d burned their father. He’d said he forgave her. She had to trust him.
Antal kept watch from the treetops.
Kashvi handed Fi a torch soaked in pine resin.
She snapped a current to her fingers, a spark to light the flame. When she tipped the torch against the pyre, the wood hissed. Lighted.
One by one, the villagers came forward. Each person tossed a candle onto the pyre, small flames of remembrance, building to an inferno.
Fi stepped back as the roar of burning timber filled the clearing. Flames wreathed Boden’s body in gold. His ashes would return to the dust of the Plane. His energy, already gone to the Void.Beyondthe Void, if the old tales were true, another land beyond the Shattered Planes, an endless forest to walk for eternity. Perhaps Boden would find a sunlit meadow there, sweet browse for his aurorabeasts.
He’d told her to see this through. He’d forgiven her.
More than that: he’d asked Fi to forgive herself. To stop dwelling on mistakes and finally move forward. She swallowed a scratch in her throat. Wood smoke clung hot in her nose.
Beside her, Kashvi stood equally still, dark eyes glistening in the light of the pyre.
“We need to move soon,” Fi said. “While Antal’s strongest. Verne knows we’re coming.”
“We don’t have many fighters left,” Kashvi returned. “But those who’ll join are ready. Give the word.”
Fi nodded. “Tomorrow, then.”
With the plan set, Fi cleared a spot to sit in the snow, a sentinel to watch until the last ember of the pyre burned out.
44
Bait and switch with an immortal beast
Fi woke before dawn. Starlight and aurora filled the window of her borrowed room as she lay on her side, knees pulled to her chest, dreading the cold that waited beyond this bed.
Reassured, though, by warmth at her back.
Antal curled around her like a shield. His tail wound her calf, a knee anchored between her thighs, an arm draping her ribs. He was awake, too. She felt it in the subtle press of his hand against her chest each time she stirred. In the uneven tempo of breath against her neck.
“Everyone comes back today,” she whispered to the dark.
Antal clutched her tighter against him.
Now came the toil of rising, of untangling his arm from around her waist. Scratchy sheets aside, she wished they could stay. She wished she had a hot bath, a chocolate pastry waiting on her kitchen counter, and nothing to do all day except pester Boden and his aurorabeasts. She wished her coat didn’t smell of wood smoke.
But Fi had a job to do. And what was step one of any successful job? Looking fierce as shit. She forced herself tall as she tied back her hair, stripped out of sleeping clothes.
Antal’s arm wrapped around her bare waist, drawing her against his chest… though, not for the reason she assumed.
He handed her the hilt of her energy sword. Fi brightened at the unexpected gift. He must have retrieved it from Nyskya while she was recovering.
“You need to stop losing this,” he said.
“Do I?” Fi taunted. “But then you’d have to come up with a real gift for—What is that?”
She gasped at his second offering: a folded suit of slate gray silviamesh.
