Antal kept her pinned for one long, too-quiet breath.
“Because this is my fault.”
He released her.
Fi staggered away, his words rattling her balance. His sincerity, a splinter in her skin.Hisfault? Why would a daeyari say something like that? Another snare. Another game.
“I could be back on the Twilit Plane by now,” Antal said,low. As if the forest might overhear. “Not trudging through snow with an ungrateful human, risking my neck to fix this. Verne’s counting on me slinking away with my tail between my legs. But I don’t want to leave my people to her, either. You deserve… better.”
Fi didn’t know what to say.
Antal resumed his disgruntled walk while she stood in the snow, arms crossed into the cuffs of her coat, shivering.
Daeyari weren’t supposed to be like this.
They were supposed to be cold. Monsters in stories told to make children behave. Vicious, ravenous creatures, like Verne’s hollow-eyed Beast.
What was Antal, if not the monster she’d expected?
Easy for him tosayhe didn’t relish playing the wolf. He took sacrifices, but no younger than thirty, old enough to understand the choice. That said nothing of whether their choice was coerced. He’d left Nyskya untouched. He’d spared Fi.
He still ate people.
Because he needed to eat. No different than Fi gutting rabbits.
The same, but not the same. No other option, but there werealwaysother options.
Fi found no clear answer.
She jogged to catch up with him, afraid to linger in another daeyari’s forest. The slope leveled out, a ridgeline of trees catching the wind like black sails. In the canopy, boughs moaned. On the ground, a separate world, still and snow-locked.
When they fell into step, Antal didn’t look at her. He trudged forward, agile strides unhindered by the deep snow, though Fi noted his pace slowed to let her keep up. As much as this daeyari shifted the ground beneath her feet, she recognized confidence and cooperation as currency. He’d shown her both.
A truce, then. A common enemy. That was her best option on the table.
“What’s your problem with Verne, anyway?” Fi asked, because she never did learn to keep her mouth shut. “Why’d she do all this? Kill your governor, kick you out.”
Antal seemed to weigh the levity of her question, this offer of an olive branch. His concession came as a dry glance, a scathingly arched brow.
“Other than her being a spiteful hag?” he said.
One thing they could agree on. “Sure. But why doyouthink she’s a spiteful hag?”
“Verne claims to championtradition, but she only cares for herself. Thinks she’s entitled to more territory. More humans to tremble at her feet. And so confident in her cleverness.” Antal bared his teeth in distaste. “When I first arrived on the Winter Plane, set out to meet my neighbors, Verne didn’t wait five minutes before trying to seduce me.”
Fi inhaled too fast, choking on her own saliva.
As she coughed herself straight, any conundrums over mortal death or immortal hunger toppled to a backburner.Thishad her full attention.
“Hold on.Hold on. You’re talking about…fuckingVerne?”
“Immortality has no use for prudishness,” he chided. “Daeyari aren’t self-conscious about carnal pleasures.”
“Neither are humans. The surprised face”—Fi gestured to her eyebrows—“is for Verne specifically. You two weren’t… together?”
“Of course not. There’s intimacy for passion. Then intimacy for negotiations.”
“Negotiations?”
