He held out his arms, palms up, the way Verne had greeted him.
Tyvo didn’t move. He appraised his guest with the cocked head of a raptor, tail swaying.
The start of a deal always set the stage. Fi sensed that shift in the air, silence dragging too long. Tyvo’s response was, she gathered, not polite.
Even more so, when he snapped out of sight, reappearing inches in front of his visitor. Antal flinched.
“A visit from a neighbor?” Tyvo said, voice deep, teeth glinting. “Anytime.”
He didn’t lay his hands palm up, as Antal had done for Verne. HegrippedAntal beneath the forearms. From a distance, Fi thought she saw claws too tight on flesh. They held the posture, a play of power in purposeful proximity.
“To what do I owe this unusual pleasure?” Tyvo backed away on prowling strides, his build fuller than the younger daeyari. His shirt shifted inlaid onyx and iridescent vesper fabric. Antal’s humble attire seemed drab by comparison.
“Unusual?” Antal returned with his guarded countenance.
“To see you away from your cave. You’ve visited, what… twice in five decades? Once to introduce yourself. Once to complain about borders.”
“I know you prefer your solitude.”
“And yet here you are.” Tyvo’s grin showed a single fang. “A shame. If you’d have visited more often, I’d have gladly brought you hunting.”
Fi didn’t want to know what that meant. Antal’s tail betrayed a flick at the tip.
“My apologies,” he said. “I’ll… keep that in mind.”
“Apologies, apologies. Ah, but you have that serious look about you.” Tyvo’s tail was a demur sway at his calves, posture taut like a hawk. “What brings you?”
“I come to discuss our shared neighbor. Verne.”
Tyvo’s tail never broke pace. “Yes?”
“She’s moved upon my territory. Claimed it as her own.”
“And?”
In the silence, Fi listened to the moan of shiverpines in the wind. The scratch of snow abrading snow. The thrum of her heart against her ribs.
“And,” Antal said, “I come seeking your counsel on how we should address this.”
Tyvo’s head tilted, claws tapping his chin.
“Ah, I see,” he lamented, the grim tone at odds with his grin. “There seems to be a misunderstanding. Did you come here thinking I’d help you?”
16
Not as tough as you look
Fi retracted her earlier statement.
Seeking help from a neighbor daeyari wasn’t the best idea she’d heard all week. It was, in swiftly unfolding certainty, an atrocious idea. She shivered against the wind, trying to keep both immortals in sight despite eyeballs freezing in their sockets.
“You knew about Verne?” Antal’s icy facade didn’t break. His tail coiled a sharp arc.
“Did I know about Verne’s recent claim to Thomaskweld?” Tyvo’s grin flashed fangs. His eyes, molten orange. “I ‘enjoy my solitude’ as you say, yelz daeyari. But I’d be a fool not to listen for important news.”
He spoke so slow. Unrushed. Unintimidated by Antal’s glare. His black antlers glinted in the moonlight, carvings divided into sections, one band per century, Fi guessed from Antal’s decorations. Tyvo’s antlers bore eight bands. Not just the oldest creature she’d ever met, but one of the oldestthingsshe’d ever met, on par with the granite monuments of a capital city, his voice like lichen-caked grout.
“You knew,” Antal said. “Yet you’ve done nothing to intervene?”
