“Not as tailored as your last piece,” he said, quiet. “But no rips in the stomach. I’m sure you’ll look just as vicious in it.”
He laid the silken armor in her hands, cool material drinking her heat. Fi had been moping for three days, and he’d been up to this? Gifts to help her fight. To remind her she could be strong.
She shoved Antal against the wall and kissed him.Hard.
Fi pressed herself to every soft and rigid piece of him, bare chest to bare chest, memorizing the curves of his mouth against hers. She hoped her desperation wasn’t too obvious, this gnawing in her heart that anything could go wrong today. The bruising reply of his lips said her worry wasn’t alone. Antal pulled her against him, claws dimpling the skin of her hips nearly firm enough to carve.
Then, a slower drag of fangs across her lip, relishing the shared breath. Antal nuzzled his nose to her cheek. Fi looped her arms around his waist, holding him for just a moment longer.
“I’m glad you’re here with us,” she breathed into the curve of his neck.
He hugged her tighter. “Everyone comes back today,” he murmured back.
Fi would hold him to that promise.
Outside, all was silent. Wind brushed the tops of theshiverpines. An owl hooted in the pre-dawn. Aisinay flicked her ears not at the forest sounds, but the hum of the aurora, green reflected in her blind eyes. Fi stroked the horse’s scaled neck.
Then came a crunch of boots on snow. Kashvi arrived with crossbow in hand, followed by the rest of Boden’s advisory council. Mal, the general storekeeper, his crossbow comically small in burly arms. Yvette the smith, their pale complexion turned paler since Boden threw himself at a Beast’s claws to save them, a cut still angry red on their cheek.
Not as big a force as they’d hoped for, but unmatched in motivation.
No greeting passed between them. They knew the plan. They knew they only had one shot at this, to take back their home and avenge Boden’s memory.
Fi and Antal led the way, guiding the others through a Curtain.
The group emerged on a snowy ridge, the first light of dawn touching the mountains. Above the shiverpines, the minarets of Verne’s chateau loomed like black teeth in the distance.
They’d arrived far enough away that the resident daeyari wouldn’t smell them. She wouldn’t taste the static of Antal flitting through treetops, scouting the terrain.
Astrid was off the board.
Which made Verne’s derived Beast the next target, attacking the queen only once her pawns were toppled. Antal had caught the creature’s scent here, distant from Verne’s abode, like a dog chained in the yard. Twisted, everything Verne touched.
Fi kept a hand on Aisinay’s side, steadying herself against memories of forest shrines and claws at her neck. This time would be different. This time she came as a hunter, not a hare.
At Antal’s signal that all was clear, they set off walking through the trees.
He kept to the higher vantage point of the canopy, a shadow amidst dark branches, an occasional flash of crimson eyes. Below, the human troupe made slower progress, hiking against deep snow in grim silence, their labored breaths the only break in the morning quiet.
Fi dug a couple of daeyari energy capsules from her pocket, more gifts from Antal, offering them to her fellow rebels. Yvette and Mal considered, but shook their heads.
Only Kashvi grabbed a capsule, cradling the orb of glowing red in her palm.
“How are you handling the daeyari energy?” Fi asked.
“Burns like shit if you aren’t careful,” Kashvi said dryly. “But at a lower dose… it’s not so bad. Hurts less than Shaping my own energy, even. Because it’s a different kind of current?”
Fi had never considered: that silver sickness was a mortal body’s adverse reaction to its own energy, that non-mortal energy might elicit a milder response.
“Maybe that’s what you should ask the daeyari for,” Mal teased. “Once this is all settled. More of those fancy capsules.”
Kashvi huffed. “Let the bastard fill his first promises, then we’ll see what else he’s good for.”
That was, possibly, the least like a death threat Kashvi had ever spoken about Antal. A true moment of camaraderie, as they marched toward possible doom.
They reached the foot of a cliff. Halfway up the snow-crusted face, dark rock opened into a cavern. The edges were chipped, scarred by claws. When Antal dropped down beside her, Fi cut him a dry look.
“What is it with you Void-damned daeyari and heights?” she hissed.
