Page 187 of Sunsplitter

Fionamara had donned a black coat. Antal weighed her frown, the tension between them. He wanted to assure her they’d expose Avroz. He couldn’t see any way that futile endeavor wouldn’t end horribly. What a wretched tangle.

She touched the base of a lantern. The energy bulb lit with a cool glow, ghostly across the snow. Fionamara set off across the clearing.

Antal followed the crunch of her boots, his bare feet quiet against the drifts.

Not family. Using you.

He didn’t need her to tell him all these things. He’d seen the evidence play out over a dozen decades, a hundred arguments fought against Avroz’s disapproving glower. Yet when Antalcontemplated letting go, his stomach knotted fierce enough to bend him over. There had to be some compromise. Some level ground to find with his father.

Avroz had let him keep Fionamara—and dug his claws into her cheeks that very night.

He’d proudly presented his son to the Daey Celva—then steered Antal like a wayward lamb through the afterparty.

Not family. Using you.

Antal clenched his teeth until they ached.

In the clearing sat a lumber mill. The closest city, Runeyska, was a major trading hub, its transit terminal housing Curtain connections across the Winter Plane and beyond. But that was some distance away. Here, the settlements were sparse, no nearby neighbors. A rumble sounded from a river, a water wheel alongside. The mill itself remained intact.

Only the home had burned. The earliest record they’d found on the Winter Plane, so old that Antal barely smelled ash beneath ice and pine. Snow covered charred stone, blistered beams. Not much left. Aedari fire was destructive.

As Fionamara lifted her lantern over the ruins, Antal’s tail lashed. He’d accepted this territory. It was his duty to protect its people from immortals. If Avroz had done this…

“What are we looking for?” Antal asked.

“Anything.”

“This trail is long cold.” In their search for the aedari, they’d not bothered visiting these older sites, focused on fresher tracks.

“Try anyway. Maybe we could narrow down when, exactly, the aedari arrived? Or what Curtain they used to get here? Track them backwards, see if that links to Avroz at all.”

Even on good days, Antal knew better than to argue with her. He stepped into the tangle of snow and timber, sniffing what remained.

The scent of scorching sand on stone sent him rigid.

“Antal?” Fionamara called, concerned.

“It’s…” He rounded a beam, smelling alongside it. Sunlight stung his nose, sharp and hot and unmistakable. “An aedari.Recent.”

“How recent?”

“Not within the last few days, but fresher than two months.”

Metal clicked as Fionamara drew her sword hilt, eyes wary on the dark tree line. They’d lost the magician less than two days ago. Had slain its partner. Had the aedari visited before that?

Why return to grounds it had already hunted?

Antal dove deeper into the rubble. He searched under beams, through frozen ash. As he worked, Fionamara kept watch. Her silence could be interpreted as focus.

He knew better.

“I’m sorry,” Antal said, pausing alongside what had once been a stone hearth. “I shouldn’t have made you speak of your father.”

“Except you did,” she returned, curt.

She’d survived so much loss. Not just her father, but her brother, her childhood friend, all ripped from her hands. Yet when she’d spoken of his family, she’d named Syvr and Ixli, Yme.

She’d said nothing of herself, despite doing more for him than all the rest combined.