Page 34 of Voidwalker
“You’ll find I easilycan—”
“Not her! You can’t take me toher!”
Fi’s squirming dragged claws against her arm until red welts appeared. A veil of rainbow hair fell across her face as she sagged, breathing hard, curses pooling on chapped lips. She shouldn’t be here. She didn’t deserve to be dragged back to this wretched place, implicated in schemes she had no hand in. Fear meshed with fury as Fi gathered every bent bristle, clutching them like armor.
She snapped her head up at the daeyari, resolved to fight whatever immortal fire flared in his eyes.
The softness in them sliced her speechless.
His gaze withered her like too light a breeze before a storm, that moment the wind gathered and sighed before unleashing fury. Those otherworldly eyes, those piercing shades of crimson and black shouldn’t have been able to look at her this way, as if he hadn’t spent two centuries devouring bones. As if Fi’s terror meant anything more than the thrill of flailing prey.
“You know Verne?” he asked. Entirely too quiet.
His sincerity struck her off balance. What did he know? What did hecare?
“I grew up here,” she said. “I left. To get away fromher.”
Fi hated the way he looked at her—too long, too slow, too sharp against the barbs she was fighting for her life to keep up. His grip tightened, drawing her closer. His scent of ice and ozone sent her taut.
“You claim you didn’t know my attendants’ scheme,” he said in a confiding low. “Make no mistake, Fionamara, that’s the only reason you’re still alive.”
Fi’s mouth curled a sneer, fingers flexing within the cage of his grasp.
“But regardless of your intentions,” he said, lower still, “youdidplay a role in this. And you’ll help me resolve it. That’s the debt I ask of you.” His grip softened. “For now, we walk on the same side. Stand with me, and Verne won’t harm you.”
When the daeyari released her, Fi didn’t bolt.
Fury gave her firmer ground to stand on. She wasnotresponsible for this. She was lied to. Manipulated. Nearly fed to a daeyari. Yet as her fight or flight response leveled, she ground her teeth on an unsavory truth: he could probably force her to come, if he wanted to.
“Do you promise I’ll be safe?” Fi demanded.
She could have blinked and missed it: that twitch of a frown on his mouth. A heartbeat, where this lethal beast looked less…
He snapped back to granite, cold and unflinching as she expected from an immortal. “What does my promise mean to you, Fionamara?”
The daeyari didn’t wait for her reply, off on lithe strides toward Verne’s chateau.
This, to Fi’s chagrin, left her with a choice. She weighed how fast she could sprint for the nearest Curtain, how fast theteleporting immortalwould catch up to her, how much of a fuss she could make while he dragged her behind him…
Or, she could make a gamble that this daeyari—thatAntalmight be her strongest shield at the moment. At least until she figured out what was going on.
Fi hissed her displeasure as she trotted to catch up, arms crossed against her too-thin tunic, a shiver digging deeper with each step.
Ten years.
Yet this wretched place brought back a weight she could never shed: she was meant to be Verne’s.
She’d been chosen young. Too young to understand. Her father sat her down beside their wide stone hearth, brought a mug of her favorite hot chocolate with peppermint. He asked about the Curtains Fi claimed to see. A rare skill, he’d told her. A gift after surviving that icy river. When Fi came of age, Verne would want her. Voidwalkers were prized by the daeyari.
All sacrifices came ready to sate their immortal’s hunger. But those with exceptional potential? More valuable alive. A daeyari could choose to make an Arbiter. As Fi grew, the people of her town were certain she’d be spared, that they would reap the benefits of an Arbiter chosen among them: no more sacrifices for a lifetime, new energy conduits for their ailing infrastructure, better metallurgy contracts.
Fi’s confidence waned as the day approached. She’d have to drink the twilight sorel, the attendants told her,thendeclare her request to become an Arbiter. Put herself at the daeyari’s mercy. Her nights passed sleepless, imagining what would happen if Verne didn’t choose her. If she’d make a better meal than a pet. When the time came, when she saw the hollow look in her father’s eyes as the attendants led his daughter away, the last of her courage crumbled like ash.
Now, Fi returned. Still not of her own will.
A stone arch led into the courtyard. She’d never been inside, only viewed the chateau from Verne’s shrine in the forest below. Fi’s new daeyari—notherdaeyari, just the one who happened to bring her here,Antal—led the way like a streak of vengeance, no pause for the humans who skittered out of his way like lemmings.
There wasn’t a guard in sight. After a decade as a smuggler, Fi had a sixth sense for trade wardens, city patrols, bounty hunters. She was so conditioned to skirting attention, the absence of watchful eyes in the courtyard made her itch.
