Page 165 of Sunsplitter

She’d never imagined theycouldbe serious. Their tail dropped to a low swish. Their grin flat. Still a predator, beneath the act. Fi resisted the urge to back away.

“Walk with me,” Syvr said.

One shrill little voice in Fi’s head still shouted,daeyari bad, alone with daeyari worse.

A softer voice reminded her that she’d started liking this daeyari, that Antal trusted them. She followed but kept a wary distance.

Syvr led her down the gravel path, then a narrower trail, so overgrown she probably would have missed it. Fi pushed through several large shrubs, dew dripping onto her hair, one spiderweb she swatted a bit too vigorously before regaining composure.

They emerged in a clearing, hidden from the rest of the garden by dense foliage. A pond lay at the center, filmed with floating water plants. A tree arched overhead, gnarled branches weaving a ceiling, leaves dark blue with lilac edges.

“When Antal was younger,” Syvr said, “he was glued to his father’s heels. Always sitting at his side in the study, following him through the halls of the house, through the halls of the Dusk Council as he got older. Endlessly diligent. A little boring, if we’re honest.”

Fi listened with one brow arched, waiting for the point. Or the subterfuge.

“It was a slow thing,” Syvr went on. “When he started slipping away. Into the garden, at first. Quiet places.” Syvr pointed to a limb overhead. “I found him here, most often. Up on the branches. Is that scowl of yours a typical thing, or is my storytelling that lackluster?”

“Antal says you’re the smart one,” Fi said.

Syvr laughed. “Does he?”

“So I assume there’s a point to this?”

The light was dim through the canopy. Little gray moths flitted around the leaves.

“Eventually, Antal stopped coming here,” Syvr said. “He wandered farther when he disappeared. Out to the cliffs beyond the house. Out to the aurorabeast pastures.”

Fi stilled. She’d not seen any of the estate beyond the house. Antal hadn’t shown her, hadn’t mentioned a word about aurorabeasts. The place he’d met Razik.

“You knew?” she hissed.

“No. It would appear I didn’t.” Syvr’s tone took on an unusual melancholy. “Shameful, considering my profession. I knew where he went. I knew who he was avoiding. I tried not to pry, to let him have space. The more time Antal spent away, the more I thought he justneededtime away. Veshri’s teeth, it seems obvious in retrospect, doesn’t it? Certainly, I should have pieced it together when he stopped coming home at night.” Lower. “That was when Avroz noticed, too.”

Fi’s fists were clenched iron. Her stomach, coal-hot. It was like listening to someone describe an avalanche, knowing what end awaited, seeing every crack in the snow.

“I didn’t realize what Avroz would do,” Syvr said. “I didn’t realize what it would mean to Antal. He was different then. Kept everything about himself so guarded. Butyou”—azalea eyes caught Fi like snares—“Antal clearly cares agreat dealabout you.”

“Yeah, people keep saying that,” Fi said. “So sorry to be an inconvenience.”

“Inconvenience? Not at all.”

“What, then?”

Syvr held a hand flat, level with their hip.

“I met that little daeyari when he was this high. Velvet nubs for antlers. Most daeyari when they’re young?Terrors. Too much unrefined predator instinct. They’re like giant house cats at that age, pouncing on anything that moves.”

Fi mulled the insinuation that Antal had, at some point,ceasedbeing a giant house cat. He sulked like a cat. Had practically lived in her rafters when they’d first met.

“But Antal was different,” Syvr said. “He’d lay on the windowsill, let the moths land on his arm and just watch them. Never hurt anything he didn’t need to.”

That soundedtoo muchlike him. Soft little creature. Fi watched the moths drift through the canopy, imagining the peace this place must have brought him. For a time.

“Let me guess,” she said. “Avroz didn’t like that, either? Something about daeyari needing to be fierce? Not giving in to their weaker urges?”

Syvr hummed, not in disagreement. Fi would have raked past Avroz over the coals.

“I’ve watched that daeyari grow up,” they said. “Watched him suffer through things he shouldn’t need to. I’ve not always been in a place to help as much as I’d have liked. As much as I should have. But despite all that, he’s family to me.” A pause. A pointed look. “So. What does he mean to you?”