He huffed. “You wound me, Fionamara. I told you, I see your kind as more than food.”
“Sure. But afriend?” In the folktales, there were no happily ever afters with daeyari. The human protagonists ended up flayed alive. Hearts ripped from chests. Frozen in the woods.
“He tended aurorabeasts for my family on the Twilit Plane,” Antal said.
“There are humans on the Twilit Plane?”
“Fewer than here. Mostly daeyari and vavriter. But several mortal settlements remain as… sustenance, in addition to what the territories provide. Other humans find safety in service to the Old Houses.”
“So where is he now?”
“Now?”
Antal’s tone lost all inflection. His posture, stiff as ice.
“That was early in my second century,” he said. “A long time ago.”
A long time.Humans, no matter how their magic and technology grew, had always found an insurmountable enemy in time.
But that was no satisfying end. Fi was ravenous for more: how did they meet? Why did Antal speak with this human rather than devouring him? This daeyari, so guarded, yet full of surprises, like a shiny box Fi had to pry open.
He’d distracted her again.
Maybe this was his most dangerous weapon: not fangs or claws, but velvet words and that soft part to his mouth, dragging her to the precipice of sympathy. Lulling Fi to lower her guard. A treacherous creature, for more reasons than she’d expected.
She rolled the energy capsule in her palm, the current as alluring as it was dangerous.
The plan. Just stick to theplan.
“So how do we kill Verne?” Fi asked.
Antal responded with visible alarm. Annoyingly so.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Only if wehaveto kill her. Terrible reincarnated Beasts and all.” Antal seemed more distressed bythe prospect of a dead Verne than Fi did, but until he offered a better option… “Ifnecessary, how do I kill a daeyari?”
She brandished sword hilt in one hand, energy capsule in the other. Antal scowled at both.
“Is the sword crucial for this conversation?” he asked.
“I think it’s motivating.”
“I think I’d be more motivated to tell you something like that if you weren’t holding—”
The air cracked as Fi tapped the current, fighting red energy into a blade. Not just any energy.Antal’senergy.Hismagic burned through her, leaving ice and ozone on her tongue.
She couldn’t stop herself from wondering: would he taste the same?
With a shout, she charged.
Fi had deduced several things this week. The first: she’d defended herself against Tyvo for a short time, which worked overwhelmingly in her favor.
The second: teleportation was, indeed, utter bullshit.
She swung at Antal, but instead of blocking or parrying or anything reasonable, he vanished. Her sword cleaved empty air. Fi fought the shivering blade back into Shape with a tingle through her fingers.
Static struck her tongue. Antal reappeared beside her.
“You’ll never be fast enough if you only react,” he said.
