Page 20 of Sunsplitter

He took her hand. Then visualized where he wanted to be.

Veshri was the first to weave an immortal body, the first to master teleportation, gifts he’d taught his brethren millennia ago. That generation of daeyari had woven themselves into immortality, following Veshri’s path. Their descendants, like Antal, were born immortal, the art of weaving lost ages ago, bodies changed by the Void forever.

Antal, born of ether, carried that instinct to slip off the Plane into the dark of the Void—though not a full plunge. Not Voidwalking. Teleportation was a flicker, a brief skip off reality then back at his destination, Fionamara pulled in tandem as long as she held on to him.

They arrived on a mountain ridge, on the far side of the Winter Plane. Daeyari couldn’t teleport between Planes. Farther travel required Shards to bridge the distance, and Curtains to cross from one reality to the next—that translucent doorway visible to immortal eyes, and to Void-touched mortals. Antalled Fionamara through the Curtain, onto the first Shard, a fragment of reality with rocky ground and a sky of black Void.

Another teleport. Another Curtain. Another Shard. Again. Again. A dozen times.

Shards littered the Void like stepping stones, more numerous than Planes by an unfathomable number, disorienting as a labyrinth. But Antal knew this route like it was carved upon his bones. Upon the bones of his ancestors.

One final Curtain.

They emerged to dusk light, peach on the horizon and a lavender sky, stars barely visible overhead. Around them, a field of midnight blue flowers shifted in the breeze. It hit Antal like a reverie, crisp air laced with the sweetness of day turning to night, the richer perfume of dahlia petals, so familiar that it shuddered up his spine.

After fifty years, it was exactly how he’d remembered.

The smell of home.

The Twilit Plane smelled weird.

Not unpleasant, but… Fi took a moment to place it. She couldn’t. That was the weird part. Like the smells were so close to things she knew, an entire world she’d never tasted before, having never ventured off the Season-Locked Planes. The breeze was cool. Sweet.

This was, one might say, an aggressively large number of flowers.

Antal had brought them through the final Curtain, emerging upon a stone platform. A massive field of flowers surrounded them. The blooms were as wide as Fi’s fists, dark blue petals in tight swirls, dusted in silver iridescence. Midnight dahlias, she guessed. The same flowers were carved upon the base of Antal’s antlers. Grown upon the lands of his home, he’d said.

A rock face bordered the field to one side. Distant trees lined the rest, aurorabeast silhouettes browsing underneath. Some daeyari kept the bison-like creatures as supplemental food, not a viable replacement for higher-energy humans, but a fallback in a pinch.

Perplexingly, what Fi didn’t see was a house.

Beside her, Antal’s breaths came heavy. He glanced at the aurorabeast herd, then away just as swiftly. Could daeyari hyperventilate, despite the not-necessary lungs?

He looked to her. One final flash of worried eyes.

Then he straightened. His expression settled into that mask he’d worn when they’d first met, before she’d learned how to make him laugh and moan. This guise was cold. Guarded.

Of course. This was the place where he’d created it.

Antal led them down a walkway, midnight blooms brushing the edges. Among daeyari, walking was a sign of respect—even when returning to his family home, apparently. Fi carried both their bags. She dropped her eyes to the ground like a good human servant, and if Antal knew what was good forhim, his tongue had better pay her back for this later.

Still no buildings. The path led to the rock face, into a fissure she hadn’t noticed. And when they slipped inside…

Ok. Fi gasped alittle.

The cavern stretched so high, she couldn’t make out the ceiling. Silver energy lamps were staked along the path, others speckled through the surrounding garden. More than dahlias this time. The beds overflowed with a stunning variety of blooms in silver, white, and cream, pale colors to contrast in the dim light. The growing lanterns reminded Fi of those used in Winter Plane greenhouses, though these somehow fed the plants without blinding the space.

Weirdly pleasant, for a den of carnivores.

“So daeyari are obsessed with heights and… caves?” Fi observed.

Antal didn’t break stride, kept his tone curt. “Daeyari can only teleport where we’ve been before. Or where we can see.”

So they built their private spaces where no one could see into? And probably weren’t overzealous in inviting house guests. Thewalkway skirted a stone patio, furnished with sitting pillows and low tables—an entry hall for greeting visitors, still no glimpse into the main residence. Fi considered Antal’s home upon the Thomaskweld cliffs in a new perspective, gauging the angles, no clear line of sight from below or above.

At the back of the cavern, a short staircase climbed to double doors of dark wood. Before they’d reached the base of the stairs, the doors opened. Fi braced.

It wasn’t a daeyari who greeted them: red irises, but no black sclera. Antlers, but short, two-pronged points emerging from graying hair. He wore a tunic of iridescent vesper fabric with dark breeches, no tail. A vavriter—descended from when humans had lain with daeyari in ages past, before the latter achieved immortality and incompatible breeding biology.