Page 63 of Voidwalker
Antal huffed. “You’re not a Voidwalker. A silly mortal name. Your version is more a… Shardwalker.”
Fi tipped an indignant brow. “I walk on Shards. Through the Void. That’s literally Voidwalking.”
“You walk on Shards. That’sliterallyShardwalking. You don’t walk through the Void.”
“No one can walkthroughthe Void.”
“Veshri can.”
Fi’s brow migrated higher.
“Veshri,” Antal said. “The first immortal daeyari. The First Voidwalker, who wove a new body out of—”
“So Voidwalking is, what, the daeyari term for teleporting?”
Antal huffed harder. “Teleporting and Voidwalking aren’t the same.”
Some really annoying immortal semantics was all Fi heard.
His hand stayed extended.
If Fi helped this daeyari reclaim his territory, how was she any different than Astrid serving Verne? This option, at least, would hurt fewer people. That had to count for something.
Fi grabbed his palm, cool against her hand, that restrained brush of claws as he held her tight.
Then the world lurched into black.
15
Too close again
The cold hit her first.
Nyskya endured standard cold, biting to cheeks and numbing to fingers, kept at bay by a thick coat. The cold here came sharper. Ravenous. It sliced Fi’s layers and crystallized in her lungs. She hunched to keep her core warm.
Antal breathed deep of the frigid air, sleeves still rolled to expose his lean forearms. He set off walking through calf-deep snow.
Fi followed. She followed a daeyari, to meet another daeyari, and that was the most ridiculous string of words her brain had ever assembled.
Get Tyvo’s help. Get Antal back in Thomaskweld. She could manage that, for Nyskya.
Black shiverpines loomed overhead, no sound but the crunch of ice beneath Fi’s boots and Antal’s upsettingly bare feet. Through needles, she spotted a waxing moon, some dagger-crisp stars in the dusk.
“Where are we?” Fi asked.
“Tyvo Territory.”
Void stop her from slapping him. “Why did you bring us to the middle of nowhere?”
“Daeyari prefer solitude.” Antal picked his way over a fallentrunk, agile as a panther. “Most don’t live in their cities. Tyvo keeps his residence here, in the forest.”
“Sure,” Fi said through chattering teeth. “Couldn’t you teleport ustohis residence?”
“It’s not polite to appear in someone’s home without invitation, Fionamara. Among daeyari, walking is a show of respect.”
“How far?”
“A half mile should be more than gracious.”
