A single look from Antal silenced her. No words. No twitch of his tail draped over the tub. Two slicing red irises warned her not to speak another word.
So daeyari could be as touchy as humans when it came to family.
Not that Fi had any idea what a daeyarifamilylooked like. A pair of proud parents watching their toddler teethe on bones? She didn’t know what the daeyari Plane looked like. Didn’t know they could die. Didn’t know they returned as monstrosities.
Fi knew nothing of these creatures, except that they were meant to be feared.
And she wanted nothing to do with this one.
“What about your mortal government?” she said. “Verne can’t replace them with people loyal to her overnight.”
Antal unwound from his withering glare. “Depends how long she’s been planning. She’s been distant since I took power.”
“Fifty years?” Fi gaped. “You think Verne’s been planning this forfifty years?”
“A short time,” he muttered. “Relatively.”
Thomaskweld would be no help. With half the capitol collapsed, the governor dead, the bureaucracy would be in shambles. And whoever remained? Every government was bound to obey the daeyari in charge. No human in their right mind would back an ousted immortal—she elected to disregard, for the moment, what that said abouther.
Fi buried her face in her hands. She needed breakfast. Or a drink. “Vernedidhand your ass to you. I thought daeyari were supposed to be powerful Shapers?”
Antal straightened, water shifting with the indignant swish of his tail. “My apologies. Daeyari don’tpopinto existence with flawless knowledge of Shaping.”
“I’m just saying, it would help.”
“I’m still a better Shaper than you.”
“I’ve got an energy sword to argue that.”
“Do you?” Antal swept a clawed hand around her home. “Where is it?”
Fi pushed off the counter, bristling to full height, haggard with unruly curls of Void-and-rainbow hair becausesomeonewas using her bath before she’d had a chance. Her sword, taken from her in Thomaskweld by his traitorous attendants. A snarling retort sizzled her tongue.
She stopped herself, realizing how much her guard had slipped.
Of course a daeyari would know how to lull his prey, how to disarm Fi by lounging in her tub with water slicking the smooth plane of his chest.
She shut her mouth and weighed her miserable options.
“I need to go to town.” Fi pulled a fur-lined hat over her hair, heaved on her snow boots. “Enjoy my amenities,Lord Daeyari. Someone needs to warn the common folk that a man-eating tyrant and her pet man-eating Beast have claimed this territory.”
She braced for rebuttal, but Antal fell still again. Guarded again. Back to that statue of marble skin and obsidian claws.
“It would be best if you didn’t tell anyone I was here,” he said. “For both of us.”
“I’m not an idiot. I don’t want Verne tearing this place apart looking for you.” Fi yanked the door open. A gust of cold hit her cheeks. “Don’t fight with Aisinay while I’m gone.”
Antal’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“My horse.”
A deeper furrow. “You named your Void horse…Icy Neigh?”
“A brilliant pun, I know.”
Fi left with confident strides, an act crafted to convince this daeyari she was unflustered. Unafraid. Unintimidated by the visitor in her home and whatever fallout lay ahead.
All of it, lies. Beneath false bravado, Fi’s stomach knotted as if she walked the edge of the Void, one misstep from tumbling into oblivion.
