Page 196 of Sunsplitter
Fi never felt wholly right in the Void, cold and air-starved, but she did feel steadier. She lowered her palm, stained with blood and ether. When she blinked, she felt something in her eye socket thatcouldblink. A promising sign. Another blink settled Antal into sharper focus.
He wasn’t blinking.
He stared at her wide-eyed, mouth parted. His thumb skimmed her temple, the ridge of her eye, testing the new flesh with stunned slowness. Fi recognized the shape of her name on his lips, soft in disbelief.
She pulled him into a kiss.
It was the fiercest kiss of her life. Her fingers clawed into his collar, lips bruising, claiming every inch of him she could snare between her teeth. Then, the slower roll of a tongue, soft and savoring and eternal as the emptiness around them. It was a kiss that said more thanI love you. More thanI’ll never leave you behind.More than a thousand words could say, none of them sufficient compared to the press of her mouth against his.
And if this was the last time she ever kissed him, she wanted it to be memorable.
Moment of truth.
Fi held him tight and visualized the snow. The burnt beams. The ash. Were a few wisps of ether enough to fix an arrow through her head? If she’d healed it wrong, would she die the moment she left the Void? Would it hurt? She didn’twantto leave Antal behind, but oh, soft daeyari, if she got this wrong, she was so, so sorry—
They fell together.
Fi toppled back onto the Winter Plane.
Freed of Void stasis, sensation slammed into her. Knees hitting the ground. Head spinning. Her stomach spun worse, hunching her into a dry retch. She sucked in a breath and held it, waiting to collapse, waiting for pain and the surge of hot blood down her face.
Nothing happened.
Fi breathed again. She steadied her hands on her knees, sitting up slowly.
Still nothing.
Veshri’s fucking flashy teeth, she wasn’tdead?
She felt like Void-dragged shit. Aches everywhere. A little dizzy. When she blinked, her vision focused at a delay, her healed eye not matching the acuity of the old one. Warmth bloomed on her cheek, not blood, translation glyphs still intact.
The aedari stood not three yards in front of her.
The immortal’s wings drooped, melting the snow at her feet. She’d retrieved her severed arm, golden ligaments attempting to reattach it—answeringpartof Fi’s regeneration question. With Fi on her knees, the magician could have attacked.
But there was that split-second delay. The aedari stood stunned, feathered ears flat, eyes wide and bewildered upon the not-dead human who’d taken an arrow through the skull.
Fi would never let that opening go to waste.
She lunged at the immortal. Her sword was in the snow somewhere, lost before they’d tumbled into the Void. But Ixli’s gifted claws were deliciously heavy on her fingers, metal hungry for energy, devouring the silver current she Shaped to fiercen the tips.
Her slash raked the aedari’s uninjured arm, marring as many glyph tattoos as possible.
A flash of black and crimson followed. Antal’s natural claws slashed the aedari’s chest. The immortal reeled. Gold energy glowed in her hand, but none of her remaining tattoos lighted.
She swiped a finger in front of her instead, manually drawing a glyph on the air.
Too slow.
Fi pulled a dagger hilt from her belt and buried the energy blade in the aedari’s heart.
Gold flared alongside the shriek. This time, Antal grabbed Fi fast enough. The blur of a teleport stole her breath. They emerged several yards back, avoiding the molten wings.
The aedari collapsed to trembling knees. Head bowed, feathers fully splayed across the snow—choking on golden blood. If these immortals were like daeyari, a dagger to the heart wouldn’t kill. But it would fuck her up until she managed to heal.
Aedari needed glyphs to wield their magic. The magician hunched with ragged breaths, one arm severed, the tattoos on the other shredded. When she tried to raise a hand to the puncture in her chest, her fingers trembled, then slumped at her side.
She raised her eyes to Fi, shimmering with pain. Blazing with immortal fury.
