Page 190 of Sunsplitter

Brighter gold flashed through the trees.

“Run!” Antal pushed her away.

The aedari landed beside him with the force of dawn. Itsgolden wings spread overhead, lighting the clearing like day. Glyphs coated the magician’s arms. Rage burned in its eyes.

Antal grabbed the arrow. The heat was unbearable, a scent of flesh melting off his palms. He yanked, dragging the projectile an agonizing inch out of his chest.

Above him, the aedari clenched its fist. The arrow halted, fixed in place, a fresh wave of scorching pain hunching him.

When it grabbed his wrist, he lashed with claws. Snapped teeth like a cornered beast. He tried to snarl, but his lungs had temporarily forgotten how to function. A softer heat bloomed beneath the aedari’s touch. It released him, leaving glyphs seared upon his skin.

When it spoke, he understood.

“On your knees,dusk beast.”

Antal shoved Fi backward. She tripped over a charred beam, smacked into another, her elbow shouting at the impact. Her curses shouted louder.

A trap.They’d stumbled into it like two hares drawn to a carrot—only, she’d not expected an aedari to be the one leaving bait.

The immortal hit the clearing like a meteor. Her wings splayed energetic gold, searing Fi’s cheeks. Tattooed glyphs gilded her arms. A quiver of metal arrows hung at her back, not an accessory she’d worn before. How well-rounded.

Fi might as well have been a snow flea. The aedari’s glower fell on her sworn enemy, Antal kneeling in the snow, a golden arrow burning a hole through his chest. What a truly abominable combination of words. Fi would like to never think them again.

Antal tried to pull the arrow out. It halted when the aedari clenched her fist. The creature grabbed his arm and, no, there would be no more touching ofFi’sdaeyari tonight. Thank you.

Fi pocketed the antler piece Antal had dropped to the snow.Heat ripped through her forearm as she Shaped her sword.

The aedari evaded Fi’s swing, like dandelion fluff on a Summer breeze. Energy wings beat the air. Fi dodged the molten plumes, a smell of burnt hair providing insult enough, the open-handed slap to her cheek turning her feral. An honest-to-Voidslap. What kind of bitchy immortal fought like that?

Cheek hot and stinging, Fi charged again.

Glyphs snapped at the aedari’s fingers. A spark of gold through the air. Fi hit the ground like a boulder had slammed into her back.

The impact winded her. She gasped, air thick with ice and ash. Fi tried to push herself up, but couldn’t. She writhed on her stomach, clawed the snow, but couldn’t stand. Golden symbols glowed on the ground beneath her. No restraints, but every limb felt too heavy, too dense to lift.

The aedari stood between Fi and Antal, two fists clenched with glyphs, holding both adversaries against the ground.

Fi couldn’t tell if the immortal’s hands shook with strain, or with rage.

Before, the aedari had oozed conceited composure. Now, her dark hair slipped free of its bindings, silken strands messy against her neck. Her eyes burned gold, bright as direct sunlight. The heat off her wings made Fi wince.

“I hoped to catch someone out here,” the aedari said. “You’re not who I expected.”

Fi understood the words. Heat bloomed on her cheek, remnants of a slap—plus the translating glyphs the magician must have stuck on her.

The aedari’s feathered ears angled furiously low. “I thought thatotherdaeyari would want his antler back.”

By Fi’s estimation, she currently—magically—weighed several hundred pounds. She still felt lead drop in her stomach.Antal paused his writhing against the arrow in his chest, lifting crimson eyes to his captor.

“I thought I saw it before,” the aedari said with a sneer. “You look like him. That coward fled from me once already. Now he sends children in his place?”

Antal’s eyes were wide as a child cradling a skinned knee—the confirmation that all they’d suspected of Avroz was true. Fi watched his heart shatter from a distance.

Herheart stirred like a battle chant, heavy in her chest. Avroz had never fought the aedari alongside them. He’d managed to be absent for every skirmish—no chance of being recognized.

That sack of conniving Void flesh.

He’d let two immortal parasites feast upon the humans of the Season-Locked Planes.