Page 174 of Sunsplitter

Veshri watched the exchange with that quiet acuity. Fi took a deep, big-girl breath before breaking away.

“I’ll be right back,” she vowed. At a glance to Veshri, he nodded.

His hand remained extended. Fi took it, shuddering at the cool skin, the brush of claws.

Then, a plunge into black.

Fi couldn’t breathe, that stasis in her chest as she temporarily didn’t need air.

She could barely see, outlined in dim light that seemed to seep from nowhere.

Old news. It was the solid ground beneath her feet that caught her off guard.

Well, notground. She stood with Veshri in the Void, not floating like usual, an invisible surface beneath her boots. He’d done this before. Tricks of a Void-born immortal, somehow commanding the ether. Weaving it.

This is bearable for you?

Fi flinched at the voice in her head. No air in the Void meant no speaking out loud.

How do you talk like this?she thought at him.

I learned.

How?

How many things have you learned in…He squinted.Fifty years?

Fi mustered all her willpower into a mental scoff. I’m thirty-three.

The daeyari shrugged.Pebbles.

He seemed different here. Not just the way the Void made the black of his sclera deeper, his robes more wisping. Veshri paced the not-ground, tail swaying in the gloom.

What’s wrong with the Void ether?Fi asked.It’s not going to make me melt or something?

How did you do it?Veshri asked.

That wasn’t a no. Fi very pointedly noted that wasn’t ano.

I was injured, she said.Badly. Too much to heal normally.She shuddered at the memory of Avroz burying his claws in her stomach.

Veshri winced.

You can see that?Fi asked.When I think it?

Fragments. And strong emotions. You were in pain. Afraid.

An understatement. She clawed her feelings back, trying not to let them seep through.I knew daeyari could create flesh out of Void ether. So I reached out, and…

Fi lifted a hand. She hadn’t been sure what to feel for, then. She hardly had a firmer grasp now. Only that the emptiness against her fingers wasn’t truly empty. When she focused, she felt the barest wisps of something against her skin, almost too delicate to grasp.

Veshri watched, head tilted.

Is that how you do it?Fi asked.

It took me many attempts, at first. Harder, when I was only energy in the Void, no physical fingers.He swept a hand in front of her.

And the Void rippled.