Page 113 of Voidwalker
“Do you remember her?” Kashvi demanded. “From Sunip, a border town. Verne accused us of pushing her boundary, claimed we owed her a sacrifice. So my sister went toyou.”
Antal hesitated. “She came willingly?”
“She had no choice! She sacrificed herself to save the rest of us. Do you remember hername?”
A longer pause.
“I don’t… ask their names.”
Kashvi screamed. Antal shoved her arm aside as she loosed the bolt, a snap of silver energy striking a wall. Kashvi Shaped a current to her fingertips to reload.
The projectile dispersed when her arm spasmed. Kashvi warred against rage and failing body as her silver sickness shook her muscles, forcing her to her knees in the snow.
Boden knelt beside her, crossbow pushed aside, supporting Kashvi as she steadied her breath. The tavern door opened again. Iliha stepped out in a hastily-shrugged coat, legs bare and feetstuffed into slippers. Wide blue eyes snapped to the daeyari before she hurried to her wife’s side, gentle fingers drawing the hair away from Kashvi’s face.
Antal looked on. Ashen.
Stillness seemed to be an innate daeyari trait, yet Fi had never seen this type of stillness fall over him. His eyes lost their glow, a hollow red like scuffed glass. As if he’d never had to face this side of his sacrifices before.
“Kashvi.” Boden held her shoulders.
“He took my sister,” Kashvi rasped.
“I know. And you have every right to be angry. But we need him, to fight Verne.”
“Those fuckers can both fall to pieces in the Void!”
Boden gripped her firmer. “Kashvi. I need you,too. You want to fight, don’t you? Well, we’re going tofight. We’re not sending any sacrifice to Verne.”
At last, Kashvi quieted.
Fi fell in and out of good graces with the woman, but they shared an understanding born of common pain. A daeyari stole Fi’s life from her. Kashvi knew similar grief, even if she’d never made that walk to the forest shrine herself. An aching kind of grief, the type that nested in the bones, waiting for a chance to shatter free.
Kashvi shoved Boden off her. When she stood, she spat at Antal’s feet.
“For Boden,” she told him. “Not for you. Walk into my tavern, and you’d better have something good to say, daeyari. I don’t guarantee you walking out.”
Kashvi grabbed her crossbow and marched inside, Iliha drifting at her heels like a worried wraith.
Boden slipped Antal a warning look before he followed.
Fi stayed behind.
She had to be careful, reading into Antal’s stillness. That shaken look seemed too close to remorse. He had to eat. But he’d spoken of grief, of not wanting to cause pain, enough that he must realize how many lives like Kashvi’s he’d shredded into pieces?
“You really don’t ask their names?” she whispered.
Antal took a slow breath. “It’s harder to eat someone with a name.”
Why should she believe him? Immortals were clever creatures. His penitence might be nothing more than an act to lure his human partners into sympathy, helping him reclaim his city.
Fi found herself pulled to him all the same. Wary steps, yet she drew close enough to draw a breath of ozone on cold air.
“Antal,” she said. “This is your chance to be different. To bebetter.”
A strange tension snapped over him, eyes sharp on her in shock. Then, down.
Fi had laid her hand on his arm.
