“A way of weighing potential adversaries. Daeyari don’t falleasily onto our backs. We fight, to see who will end up on top. Verne tried to subdue me, so sure of herself.”
Fi contemplated the terrifying image of two daeyari wrapped in sheets, claws bared. “And you let her?”
“You think so little of me, Fionamara. I pinned her down until shebegged.”
The roughness of Antal’s words rumbled something in Fi.
An unexpected flutter filled her stomach, not that sour of adrenaline, but something… warmer. Confusing. Curious? Never in her life had she considered the politics of daeyari tumbling. Fi enjoyed some quality biting as much as the next girl, butthat?
It might not besobad, with caution. Antal and Verne had emerged unscathed.
“So, you used to be stronger than her?” Fi said.
If Antal ground his teeth this much on a regular basis, she was surprised he still had fangs. “That was without magic. Just the two of us. Verne knows her strengths, enough to put me at disadvantage when…”
He stopped. Sniffed the air.
“What’s wrong?” Fi snapped alert.
“Tyvo’s noticed us.”
“What?” She scanned the trees, but spotted nothing. “How do you know?”
“I smell his energy.”
“Youwhat?”
Antal frowned. “Why do you say that like it’s an odd thing?”
“I’m not a daeyari. I can’tsmellenergy.”
“Keep your voice down.” Another clench of teeth. “And stay behind me.”
Didn’t have to tell Fi twice.
The conifers parted on a clearing of untouched snow, silver in moonlight, wind lifting ice crystals into flurries. Beyond the ridge, lights glowed in the distance, a far-off city.
Fi rarely set foot in Tyvo territory, her fees twenty percent higher in any jurisdiction without a judicial system. Tyvo’s approach to governance was simpler, more iron-clawed than most daeyari. He chose a governor. The governor did as Tyvo ordered. Fi didn’t want to touch that dynamic with a hundred-yard pole.
She spotted the eyes first.
All her life, she’d avoided immortals. Now, here was the third in a matter of days, perched amidst the high branches of the shiverpines.
The daeyari reclined against the trunk, tail wrapped around the bough beneath him. His eyes glowed orange-red like an old hearth. His skin, deathly white. Onyx stone crusted a high-collared black shirt, aglint like eyes in the dark.
Daeyari didn’t age like mortals. Despite Antal’s two and a half centuries, he was… fine, Fi would admit he washandsome. Handsome in that ethereal way, a man carved from Void and ice and a dissonantly soft curve to his mouth.
Tyvo had a harsher face, sharper brow and leaner cheekbones, hair shaved at the sides and a slate-gray herringbone plait between black antlers. And thoseantlers. Tyvo’s rack arced back over his head before curving up in a barbed crown, eight tips each side against Antal’s three, the points razor sharp.
Antal stepped forward, a brush of Fi’s arm urging her to stay back. Gladly. She didn’t want to be anywhere near that creature.
He entered the fray as a different person entirely, no trace of the taunts or whispered words he’d let slip on their walk, as ice-chiseled as his kin. Above, Tyvo’s mouth curled a grin.
“Antal,” he called down. “Ka Voz grel ef yzru.”
The daeyari language had syllables sharp like teeth, rhythm smooth as an aurora.
“Void smile upon you as well, Tyvo,” Antal returned in seasonspeak—for Fi’s benefit, she realized with no small fluster. “Thank you for seeing me.”
