Page 53 of Voidwalker
“I could use breakfast.” She forced a smile. “Kashvi’s tavern?”
No hiding the strain in her voice, or her uncharacteristic lack of proper eyeliner. Boden chewed his lip but didn’t push. For now.
Still, Fi endured an onslaught of worried glances as they retrieved a crate of aurorabeast milk from his home, then set off into the village. They had the paths to themselves, flanked by houses with steep roofs and dark windows, wreaths of purple peatberry brightening several doors.
Boden’s bottles clinked as they walked. Across town, a pack of sled dogs barked.
Then afitz. Aclang.
The tavern sat at Nyskya’s center, the general store on one side of the common square, general socializing on the other. Though opening time wouldn’t come for another couple of hours, light glowed within metal-paned windows.
A woman stood in the yard. She wore a red wool coat lined in gray fur, a single dangling earring with a pendant of glowing silver glass, her skin a warm brown more common on sunnyPlanes. Her build was sturdy as a wolverine. She planted her boots and aimed a crossbow. Fired.
A silver energy bolt flashed across the yard, clanging into a metal target.
Spotting visitors, she rested her crossbow on one broad shoulder. A sleek copper piece, powered by a silver energy capsule in the stock, heat from the mechanisms snagging as steam in her short black bob. Her family moved from Summer to Winter two generations ago, seeking prospects as weaponsmiths. She stayed because she liked the calm of long nights. Fi could relate.
“Well, well.” She tilted a brow. “If it isn’t Nyskya’s two biggest miscreants.”
Boden nodded. “Morning, Kashvi.”
“Mayor,” she returned, respectful with a tease of familiarity. For Fi, only the tease. “What’s got you looking like frizzed shit?”
Fi debated tackling her to the snow. Boden intervened with a hand on her shoulder.
“We’re hoping for breakfast,” he said. “If it’s not too early.”
Kashvi flexed stiff fingers against her crossbow, dark eyes narrowed to prospecting slits. “What’s it worth to you?”
Boden held up the milk bottles.
She grinned. “I suppose that will do.”
They stepped inside to a swell of warmth, a dark tavern room. Dim light fought through windows fogged with condensation, framed in energy conduits to fight the infringing cold. Brighter light slanted out of the hall, glinting off copper tabletops and stools, timber floor and walls accented in brushed tin, a steel bar counter decorated with aurora stained glass. Kashvi reached for a wall panel, conduits connecting to orb lamps in the rafters.
Her arm went rigid.
The lights flickered on then off again as she hunched, hand clenched, breaths shallowing to gasps. Fi and Boden shared asympathetic glance but said nothing. When he stepped forward to turn on the light for her, Kashvi swatted his hand and took the crate of milk.
“Shit in the Void,” she rasped around strained vocal cords. “I used to shoot targets all morning. Now, I can barely Shape three bolts without a flare up. Oh, stop with the pitiful looks before I throw your asses back in the snow. You know it will pass.”
When she waved them to a table, an argent sheen glinted on her hand, an internal inflammation, veining her skin like quicksilver.
As part of the pact centuries ago, humans had learned more complex energy Shaping from daeyari. But mortals were made of different flesh, more easily damaged when pulling stronger currents. Fi’s overuse manifested as fatigued muscles, a cold stomach, usually fixed by food and sleep. She’d only pushed too far a couple of times, hard lessons learned through energy burns, plus a nerve in her pinky that prickled at random times.
Humans with silver sickness suffered steeper penalties. A disease of the immune system. No cure. Heightened sensitivity to energy made the body attack itself, the corrosion worst while Shaping, affecting muscles in the arms. Legs. Lungs.
Kashvi was fortunate, the spasms had never struck her heart.
As with most daeyari gifts, boon came with burden.
Kashvi passed it off with several slow, steadying breaths to relax her diaphragm. A cautious stretch of stiff fingers. Then, “Iliha! We have visitors.”
While she toted milk and crossbow into the hall, Fi and Boden settled at a table. A record player sat dark in the corner, glass case and steel frame brushed by overhead lights. A flock of automaton birds perched on copper rails above the bar, livelywith clacking beaks during open hours, currently dormant amidst shelves of liquor bottles.
Too quiet. Enough to hear each groan of wind over the roof.
What Fi wouldn’t give for a break in the silence, a reprieve from Boden’s dissecting stare. She couldn’t fault him for it. They’d both honed perception from a young age: the crimped edge of their mother’s mouth, less and less subtle leading up to the day she left. The hunch in their father’s work-worn back that preceded him reaching for a liquor bottle.
