Page 191 of Sunsplitter

He’d thrown Antal into the fray like a fledgling bird shoved out of the nest.

Golden eyes snapped onto Fi. “Andyou.”

There was such a particular, spine-tingling way immortals saidyou.Youtiny thing.Youinconvenience.Youstepping stone that had the gall not to fit into place.

“We offered to help you,” the aedari said, flashing long canines. “We offeredsalvation.”

“Fuck you,” Fi spat through her uncomfortably heavy tongue. Energy simmered through her muscles, shoving at the counter magic, but this wasn’t Shaping. The aedari’s glyphs held fast as nails through flesh.

“You choose to fight alongside beasts?” The aedari’s fist clenched, and Fi’s weight seemed to double, lungs straining for air. “You helped the daeyari ambush us.” A flare of golden wings, brighter than the sun. “Now he’s dead. Because ofyou!”

Now, that one was a different “you” entirely. Vicious. Vengeful. Through the agony of having her face crushed into the ground,Fi circled back to the familiar way the two aedari had spoken to each other, the subtle touches between them—

Oh…fuck.

This aedari wasn’t just livid. She wasbreaking, from the blinding edges of her feathers to the crack in her voice.

“We tracked that daeyari here,” the aedari seethed, a cruel and intentional taunt. “Found the antler he’d cut off, in this light-forsaken pit of the Shattered Planes. After you beasts caught our trail the first time, I thought he might return here. But you’ll do, instead.”

So the aedari had laid the antler in this trap recently? Did Avroz even know it was here?

Fi pushed against the magic holding her down, an effort like shoving concrete. On the aedari’s other side, Antal’s tail lashed snow, a smell of burnt ether as he tried to pull the arrow from his chest.

“He’s gone.” The aedari’s sunburst eyes raked back to Antal. “You killed him, you wretched beasts. You disgrace to immortality. I’ll carve out your bones and return them to the Void myself!”

Gold glowed at her knuckles. Fi heard the sizzle of flesh as the arrow through Antal’s chest burned brighter. His snarl started vicious, cracking into a whimper of pain as he hunched against the snow, tail coiled in agony.

Fi would kill this creature. She’d drive her sword through the heart of anyone who hurt her daeyari.

She supposed, then, she understood what the aedari must feel.

She understood the sharp twist in her belly, to even contemplate losing her partner. She understood the heat of rage beneath her skin. A terrible thing, to see one’s enemy as a creature capable of hurt—of love. But Veshri himself had toldher, not all aedari were the same. Not all of them need be her enemy.

In that moment, she hated Avroz all the more for what he’d done.

She hated that none of this had to happen this way.

“But first,” the aedari seethed at Antal, “tell me where your wretched home Plane is. I know we’re close. Give me something useful, beast, and I’ll consider killing you swifter.”

Fi’s knuckles tightened on her sword hilt. No one wouldtouchhim, so long as she had anything to say—not that she had much to say, pinned to the ground. The aedari loomed over her captives like the goddess she’d professed to be.

Her strain was so subtle, Fi almost missed it: the quivering fists. The way she planted her feet. When the aedari’s attention focused on Antal, the weight on Fi’s chest lightened.

Because it was hard, holding them both at once?

Could the aedari even strike at Antal, without letting Fi go?

He pushed to a kneel, pain-glazed eyes locking with Fi’s. Merciless Void, she loved knowing the same realization had clicked for both of them. She hated what it meant.

“You’re the one who ran, aedari,” Antal rasped. “You left your partner alone. We hung the corpse by its ankles, drained every precious drop and poured it out in shot glasses.”

A jolt went through the clearing.

Raging energy, blistering heat, both hit Fi in a wave radiating off golden wings. The aedari sucked in a hissing breath, all her ire levelled at the daeyari before her.

And why should she bother with Fi? Just a human. Just a pawn of her immortal rivals. A flick of the aedari’s wrist released Fi from the magic.

And that was her mistake—because she hadn’t seen half of what this human could do.