“So you claimed, Fionamara.” Her name lashed off his tongue. “Yet you come from Verne’s territory. You know her Arbiter.”
“Iknewher Arbiter.” Fi slouched against her counter, shoulder aching. “Thomaskweld was the first time I spoke to Astrid in ten years. I agreed to help her for old times’ sake.” A grimace. “And apparently, sheused mefor old times’ sake.’
“That’s not very helpful.” If Antal noticed the angst in her confession, his flat tone said nothing of it.
“Look. I’m sorry for whatever part I played in this. Truly, I am. But I move contraband. Wine for rich snobs, energy capsules for rural settlements. Notblowing up buildings.Or do immortals not believe in coincidences?”
Antal huffed. “Only the rotten kind.”
He sank into the water until his nose rested above the surface, antlers hooked against the tub to keep afloat. The fiercest predator across a hundred Planes. A hunter made to stalk from trees and chase down human prey…sulkingin her bathtub?
Fi decided a sulking daeyari as preferable to anangrydaeyari, though both seemed perilous.
When Fi and her brother were little, one of their father’s bedtime tales told of a great hunter tracking pinecats through a forest thick as the Void. As the man rested by his fire one night, his keen gaze spotted red eyes in the trees. Instead of reaching for his crossbow, the hunter called out, “The night is cold. Join me by my fire.” Intrigued by such bold prey, the daeyari approached. Sat across from him. They talked deep into the night, trading stories of their most impressive quarry.
Then, the daeyari ate him.
Fi heard variations on the ending. Some storytellers spun more optimistic conclusions, the daeyari impressed by a fellow hunter and his hospitality, enough to part amicably. Her father preferred the original ending.Don’t expect a beast to change its nature, the moral went.
The question remained: would Fi be rewarded for playing along? Or was she the witless prey, foolish to think she could earn civility from a predator?
“That Beast.” Fi spoke low. Testing. “The one Verne summoned. That’s what I saw in Thomaskweld.”
Antal slitted one eye open. Not to look at her. He studied the steam floating off the bath.
“What was it?” Fi asked.
“Why do you ask.” His reply came so flat, it was hardly a question.
“Why do Iask? It nearly killed me in Thomaskweld. It nearly killedboth of usat Verne’s chateau. You took one look at it and shit yourself.”
Antal growled. “I did nothing of the sort.”
“What was it?”
He bared his teeth at the rafters.
“Holy shit.” Fi straightened. “Is this… asecret?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Damn me to the endless Void. Itisa secret?”
“You enjoy hearing yourself talk far too much.”
“You useless immortal.Tell me.”
“That Beast is…” He gritted his teeth. “A daeyari.”
Fi blinked.
Sometimes, people lied to her about where their cargo came from. Sometimes, they told her stupid things, like the latest trick their pet anteater could perform. Or unbelievable things, like how to walk through the Void. All to say: few statements had ever tripped Fi up as much as whatever nonsense Antal just spouted.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think I understand.”
He slunk into the water with a world-weary sigh, as if all of this—all ofher—was terribly inconvenient. “Daeyari don’t die of age. That’s our gift of immortality. But we can be slain, and there in lies our curse. When a daeyari falls, their energy doesn’t pass to the Afterplane. It lingers within the Void, eventually rematerializing upon the Planes.”
Fi blinked again. Hard. “Literally. You’re telling me that Beast isliterallya daeyari?”
