Page 174 of Voidwalker
“What if that Beast moves on the rest of the village?” Fi argued. “What if Verne decides to show up? We have a plan, Antal, and we need to make it happen.Now. The fighters can stay.Youneed to get everyone else out to the safehouse we set up. You’re the only one who can.”
“And leave you to fight that Beast on your own? I won’t—”
“We’re your partners, Antal!” Fi gripped him by the shirt collar. Faces inches apart. “Trust us.Your people need you.”
She was close enough to hear his teeth clench. Energy ragedin his eyes, rippled hot under his skin. But there was no time to argue.
“We’re having words about this later,” he seethed.
“Bring your worst, daeyari.”
She kissed him hard, a taste of Void on her tongue and a hammer in her ribs and everything moving in too-fast motion. Antal sank against her, a drag of teeth against her mouth and a snarl as he pulled away. Then gone in a blink.
Boden witnessed the display with flushed cheeks. Their entire world crumbling around them, yet he found time to stammer, “That’s… really a fucking thing, then?”
“It’s really a fucking thing.” Fi leveled a finger at him. “And you should be impressed.”
Antal would teleport Nyskya’s civilians out of harm’s way, a hundred people or so, enough to keep him occupied for several minutes. Kashvi regrouped their volunteer fighters at the edge of the square, not fierce in number, but holding ground. Boden squeezed Fi’s shoulder then ran to join them, armed with a medical kit. And Fi—
A mauve energy bolt crossed the square, biting one of Nyskya’s fighters in the calf.
Fi sprinted toward where Astrid hid behind cover of a shop porch.
Chaos worked to her advantage. Fi skirted the main skirmish of bolts and claws, drawing her sword hilt in one hand, a capsule of daeyari energy in the other. Antal’s energy. Where once she’d balked at the foreign current burning her palm, now the pulse bloomed familiar at her fingertips, a taste of ozone as she drew energy to Shape into a crimson blade. Astrid leaned from her cover, crossbow focused on another target.
She glanced sideways at the last moment, surprise sparking ruby eyes.
Fi swung at the crossbow, her blade severing the metal track from the stock.
“I told you to get out of Nyskya!” she shouted. “Out of my home!”
A decade of guilt and rage charged Fi’s swing, catching Astrid across the shoulder. Astrid reeled, Shaping a cloak of maroon energy to shield the next strike.
“Youleftyour home, Fi.”
“And I made a new one. Better than throwing my lot in with Verne!”
Astrid backed away, boots scraping the pitted wood of the porch, a gleam in her eyes like a cornered wildcat. “I never threw my lot in,” she hissed. “Youdid it for me.”
You. You.You. It was always what Fi did, never the pit Astrid carved afterward. She couldn’t bear this anymore, couldn’t hold the full weight of their severed friendship on her shoulders alone. “You could have refused her! You could have chosen anything else!”
“You think Verne would have lettwoof us walk away? She would have—”
The Beast’s roar shook Fi’s bones. She staggered, blade shifting to defense as she glanced to the larger fight in the square.
And saw the unthinkable. The Beast dropped to the ground, tangled in metal nets the local trappers used for heath boar. As it thrashed, Kashvi called for a volley. Bolts fired into haunches and neck, into the thick hide, the wounds seeping blood as they cracked with frantic red energy. Kashvi ordered her fighters to reload. To aim.
Fi couldn’t believe her eyes. It was working. The plan wasworking.
Get fucked, Verne.
Static flickered on her tongue. Again. And again. Antal, inand out of Nyskya, moving its people to safety before Verne could reap her vengeance. Her Beast was on its knees. Astrid watched the shifting battle with a ghostly pale to her face.
Then, the Beast bolted.
A flail of claws freed it from the nets, sending cords whipping around the square. While the fighters ducked for cover, the wounded Beast ran, black blood staining its wake as it stumbled out of the square, a panicked animal.
Astrid sucked in a sharp breath. Ruby eyes darted over the fleeing abomination, the surge of warriors regrouping. A sharper gaze locked with Fi.
