Page 195 of Voidwalker
She braced, the bite of their last conversation still raw. Two days had given her time to cool, to admit how lucky she was to return alive. She didn’t know what to expect from Antal. Would he have carried his anger while he’d avoided her, fed and stoked it into more snarls at her recklessness? This closeness between them was too young, untested.
“Would you like help?” he asked lowly.
Fi considered the axe rubbing blisters in her hand. The pile of logs, not half finished. “No. I need to do this. But… you can stay. If you’d like.”
A plea, as much as a peace offering. She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to go back to bared fangs between them.
Fi cut the current to the axe head and leaned upon the haft, resting weary muscles. Antal stepped closer, phantom footfalls in the snow. He kept a cautious distance. Reconciliation was a new dance, one whose steps they hadn’t learned with each other.
And yet the worried crease of his brow disarmed her in an instant.
“I’m sorry, Fionamara. I shouldn’t have been angry at you.”
“No. You were right. I was lucky to get away from Verne alive.”
They exhaled together, tasting clear air. An untested dance, but they fell into wary steps.
“When you disappeared,” Antal said. “I was worried.”
He spoke without anger, though that low tone carried a different kind of bite.
And do you think that means nothing to me?he’d said, desperation hidden beneath snarls.That you mean nothing to me?
“I didn’t realize you cared.” Fi caught herself. “Not like that. I know youcare, but…” Not just for her. Antal had carried every one of Nyskya’s people to safety. He’d stood with her in that room that smelled of too much blood, eyes hollowed as they watched Boden—
Fi pushed it away. The memory of him. Her grief, fighting to bubble to the surface.
Antal humored her a mirthless laugh. “I can’t fault you for that, uncommon as kindness seems to be amongst my kind.”
But he’d always been kind to her. Even when they fought, even when he was angry. Verne had dug claws into Fi like a pincushion. She’d spoken with sharp teeth and sharper dismissal, as if Fi were less than a mouse in her hand.
“You never hurt me,” Fi said. “Even in the beginning, when we were at each other’s throats. You never made me feel like you would hurt me.”
Antal studied the snow. “I’ve not always made the best decisions, Fionamara. I’ve been complacent. I’ve lost people who were important to me. But I havetriedto be better than a beast. I’ll keep trying to be better.”
That hitch in his voice would ruin Fi. She noted it now, Antal’s eyes downcast. She’d noted it two days ago, when she’d put her life in danger, Antal clutching her sheets in desperate claws and snarling what it would mean to lose her.
She’d noted it every time he spoke of the last human he lost.
He was much like you.
Of course, Fi had suspected before now. She hadn’t wanted to confront him about something so personal, so raw. But the pieces fit. Verne’s cackle when she’d realized Antal had shared a bed with Fi. That blank spot on his antlers, fifty whole years of mourning.
“Your last human friend,” Fi said. “You and Razik… you were lovers, weren’t you?”
No matter how soft she spoke, it wasn’t soft enough, the silence of a snow-muffled forest amplifying each word like the plunge of a dagger.
Antal straightened. A slow inhale, too deliberate to hide.
A few weeks ago, he’d have snapped on a mask. He’d have stood there, as still as the trees, and told her nothing was wrong, only the twitch of his tail to betray him.
“Why do you ask?” He spoke low. Didn’t look at her.
“Because it matters,” Fi said. “It matters who he was to you.”
Antal’s reaction said enough. His words were salt to the cut.
“These things are frowned upon, among daeyari. Humans areuseful resources: food, labor. An occasional novelty to play with. Never anything more than that.”
