Page 136 of Sunsplitter

Antal’s farewell came softer, a brush of his palm along her thigh. There were a thousand words in those cracked crimson eyes.

“Be safe, Fionamara.”

He and Ixli vanished in a snap of static. Fi straightened on her horse. Breathed deep of the tannin-laced air as she patted Aisinay’s neck.

Then she steered them toward the closest Curtain.

They emerged on a road.

A blanket of leaves obscured the path, only flat ground and a break in blackberry brambles marking its snaking course through the forest. Trees arched overhead, canopies a blaze of red and orange and gold in the afternoon sunlight.

It was a quiet road. Remote. Infrequently trodden, the closest settlement a few miles down the valley. Fi would have loved a route like this to slip goods off the Plane without notice.

But she wasn’t a smuggler right now.

And those damn leaves were the same gold as aedari wings.

She Shaped a whisper of energy against Aisinay’s neck, urging the horse forward at a walk. Fi forced herself to relax, not too stiff in her seat, not too visibly alert to every sound. Justa normal, nonthreatening human. An easy target.

She tensed each time the breeze passed, sending the forest swirling with leaves. Squirrels became her nemeses, shouting and scurrying in the branches overhead. Aisinay perked finned ears to the creatures, her snort a plea. Fi kept them walking. No breaks for snacking on forest mammals. Aisinay swished her tail in annoyance, but pressed on.

In her father’s folktales, the lone mortal in the woods made for easy prey. But those stories always happened after dark, arboreal predators lurking high in the trees.

Did aedari hunt in daylight? Did they swoop from the sky like eagles picking off sheep? Or was it the hillocks Fi ought to keep her eyes on? Behind the tree trunks? Her survival instincts were honed to beasts with red eyes.

She knew so little of these new hunters. There was a terror and a thrill to it.

The sun slanted as afternoon slipped toward dusk. The Autumn Plane smelled like leaf tannin and cinnamon. The air was always a perfect degree of crisp. Fi followed the road through a meadow, across a brook. Her second greatest challenge of the day was holding Aisinay back from plunging into a pool in search of trout.

Her number one challenge was boredom.

No aedari lurked in the trees. None prowled the roadside. Fi could have guessed this would take time, that her plan might not bear fruit on the first attempt. She still slumped like mildewed tree bark.

If Avroz heckled her for wasting their time, she’d slip mud into his coffee.

Fireflies flicked on in the dimming light. Fi’s breath curled into fog, not the sharp cold she’d grown up in, but enough that she fastened the buttons of her jacket. She didn’t know howmuch farther this road went on. She didn’t know how long the daeyari would leave her out here before calling quits and trying somewhere else—

Aisinay jerked to a halt, ears alert.

Fi snapped to attention with her. The road was quiet. An owl hooted in distant trees. She stroked a calming hand to her horse’s neck.

Aisinay threw her head back and pranced, nostrils flaring to scent the air. Fi’s hand drifted to the hilt at her belt. She scanned the trees for golden eyes, red eyes, shifting shapes of any kind. She saw nothing.

A chill snaked down her neck, when the static of a daeyari teleport laced her tongue. Then again. Still nothing in sight, but they were moving nearby. Why?

It happened in an instant.

A flare of gold so sudden, so bright, it left Fi blinded.

The force slammed her out of her saddle.

Fi hit the ground with several curses. Her thoughts caught up with frustrating delay. There was loam beneath her boots. Heat on her cheeks. An arm locked around her waist.No, no, no, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way!She flailed for her weapon.

Too late, as the aedari lurched into a teleport, dragging her with him.

Daeyari teleportation was dark. Cold. Unnerving on the first run, but Fi had acclimated to the smoothness of it, that quiet slip along the edge of the Void.

Aedari teleportation wasnot that. Near instantaneous—next to her horse in one heartbeat, snapping to an unfamiliar swath of forest the next.