Page 178 of Sunsplitter

And she told him of immortality.

It all flooded out in an eager rush, her account of standing with Veshri in the Void. The effortless way he’d pulled the ether. And then his theory, the possibility of weaving pieces of a body rather than a whole. An untested path to immortality.The word slipped off Fi’s lips like a secret, a reckless dream. She squeezed Antal’s hands just to remind herself this was real.

When she finished, he was quiet. A long silence, heavy as the creep of jasmine from the garden, deep as the dusk, his eyes wide and bright.

He lunged forward and hugged her.

Antal held her tight against him, and he laughed, that deep and bubbling sound that swelled Fi’s ribs. She laughed, too. Her fingers swam the ink of his hair, lips grinning against his neck, tasting the possibility of always being his. Of holding him for eternity.

Antal took her cheeks in his hands, eyes stern as a Lord Daeyari.

“Fionamara Kolbeck. Donot, under any circumstances, interpret this as a reason to start cutting limbs off and replacing them with Void ether.”

She batted his hand aside. “Why would you accuse me of something so morbid?”

“You’ve done nothing but threaten to remove antlers since I met you.”

“But those are just antlers.”

Just antlers, he mouthed with an appalled huff.

“Though,” Fi said, “thatwouldmake the process faster.” She sliced the side of her hand across an elbow, evaluating the best spot to cut.

Antal swatted her. “Stop that.”

Fi laughed. It felt good to laugh, a weapon to wield against the doubt Avroz had stoked in her. The possibility of a real future with her daeyari.

“I’ll admit,” she said, “we’ve got details to figure out. It will take some trial and error. But I could do it. I could try, at least.” She quieted. “If you’d want me for that long.”

Antal took her hands. His fingers laced with hers, bone-pale skin and black claws against her softer pink.

“Fionamara, for such a clever woman, why do you say such ridiculous things? I want you as a mortal. I’d want you as an immortal. It’s you I want, whatever the form. So long as that’s whatyouwant?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’d watch other mortals come and go. You’d be different from other humans, forever. Different from daeyari.”

“That’s what we promised we’d do, isn’t it? Find new paths?”

The possibility was thrilling, but scary. Forever was a long time. Something she couldn’t comprehend. And it occurred to Fi, in a more self-reflective section of her brain she was still adjusting to the presence of, that she had a less-than-ideal history of rash decisions under stress.

What if weaving Void ether didn’t work?

What if it didn’t matter? That she’d always be human, immortal or not?

Antal smoothed a thumb over the lip she’d been chewing. “I’m only saying, you don’t have to decide immediately. We can go home. Wait for news of the second aedari. Then we’ll figure this out together?”

Fi grinned, stuffing her uncertainty aside. “Sounds per- fect.”

She kissed him, and any doubt drowned away as his lips pressed to hers, his tongue slipping lazy against her waiting mouth. She tasted him slowly, savoring the bloom of ozone. The heat trickling deeper down her thighs.

“I can think of other things I’d like to do to you at home,” Antal purred. He traced a claw down her throat, drawing a delicious shiver. “I can’t make you scream nearly loud enough here, without disturbing the entire house.”

He leaned in for another kiss, tail winding around Fi’s thigh. She snared him with a finger beneath his chin.

“Hold on, daeyari. What happened to going through your old things?”

“It can wait,” he complained.