Page 189 of Sunsplitter

Fionamara fell quiet. She was a strategist. Of course she’d come to the same conclusion.

Because Avroz was a Void-damnedopportunist.

“He came here.” Antal’s voice rose, a building rage aching his fangs. “He left the antlerhere, on the Winter Plane?”

“Antal…”

“He led the aedari to my territoryon purpose?”

Antal burned inside, restless energy scorching beneath his skin. For two centuries, he’d watched Avroz manipulate. Lie. Kill, if it would get him what he wanted.

“And for what?” Antal spat. “To make sure I’d be involved, when my territory was threatened? To make me distinguish myself for the Daey Celva? Does he think that fucking little of me?” Antal’s tail lashed the snow. “Just for that, he led the aedari here, and told no one. Pretended he was surprised when they were discovered. Let themfeast on my people.”

Antal’s vision blurred. He was so hot, so fractured down every curve of his ribs. He sank his claws into the nearest beam, just to tear something apart. All the time they’d spent hunting the aedari, trying to prevent further calamity.

While Avroz had known all along how the beasts had gotten here.

Fionamara’s hand on his arm snapped the world back to focus.

“We can make him pay the consequences,” she said, hard through her teeth.

“How?” Antal struck a hand to his chest. “I’ve never been able to stop him doing whatever the fuck he wants!”

“We have this!” She pointed to the severed antler.

Antal scoffed. “How much good will that do? When it’s his word against ours? Avroz will deny everything, even if we have—” Antal snatched the antler out of its resting place.

The moment he touched it, golden light erupted.

Antal recoiled, dropping the antler to the snow. A flare of light shot upward, arcing high above the shiverpines, then vanishing with azap. He and Fionamara froze like hares in a spotlight. Once darkness returned, he blinked, light spottinghis vision, a scent of sunlight flooding his nose.

Dread came fast on its heels. He scanned the clearing. The trees. Empty, but that light would have been visible for miles, its magic hot on his tongue.

“We need to leave.” He reached for Fionamara.

Too slow.

Before he touched her, a sharp pressure struck his back.

Antal watched, as the tip of an arrow erupted from his chest.

Heat split through him, a flare of pain that flooded white across his vision. Antal felt his knees hit frozen ground. He felt the cold of ice. He gasped, and the ache through his sternum left him doubled over.

Distantly, he heard Fionamara shouting.

He dug his claws into the snow, grasping at consciousness. Not a lethal wound. He knew that, yet some instinct rioted against reason, his body remembering it wasn’t meant to function with anarrow through its chest.

It had missed his heart. Only just.

Fionamara was still shouting—in his ear, actually.

Antal blinked her into focus, crouched beside him, wide-eyed. She looked down. He followed. The arrow had cracked through his sternum, oozing black blood. Coated in golden aedari glyphs. His own energy fought against the wound, trying to knit, to heal, but heat seeped off the metal. By Veshri’s sharpened antlers, itburned.

Fionamara reached for it.

“No,” he rasped. “Wait—”

She screamed, flinching backward as the arrow’s magic seared her palms.