Page 203 of Sunsplitter

It was late in Thomaskweld.

Fi arrived to a capitol building with dark windows, all the sensible staff gone home for the night. But of course, when she Voidwalked into Kashvi’s office, the lights were on. The dutiful governor hunched over her desk, focused on paperwork.

Kashvi jumped at the sight of an intruder.

“Void alive,” she snarled, hand darting for the crossbow beneath her desk.

“Kashvi!” Fi greeted, no time for either pleasantries or crossbow bolts. “There have been developments. I need your help.”

“Fi?” Kashvi blinked, hands drifting back atop her desk. She got a good look at her visitor—then flinched again. “Fi?”

“I know it’s late.” Fi crossed the room. “Sorry, I don’t have a lot of time to explain.”

Kashvi rose from her desk. “Fi, what—”

“I need a box. Metal. Not very big, like those ones for storing energy chips—”

“What the fuck happened to your eye?”

Fi frowned and touched her face, fingers skimming cool Void-ether flesh around her eye.

“Well. I guess I… did almost die.”

Fi summarized swiftly: the antler and the aedari, the arrow through her head, repairing it with Void ether, Avroz confirming himself to be an even bigger dick than previously thought. As she spoke, all the color drained from Kashvi’s face. The normally unflappable governor leaned back against her desk, uncomfortably silent when Fi finished.

“So…” Fi said. “Can you get me a box?”

“Ok, ok.” Kashvi waved a hand. “You’ve been through a lot tonight. But toclarify.” She pointed. “Why does your eye look like that?”

Fi frowned again. “Like what?”

Dread rooted in her chest. What was wrong with her eye? Kashvi must be overreacting. Antal would have said something. Instead, he’d…

Stared. Repeatedly.

He’d told her not to let Avroz see it.

The aedari had asked what she was.

Oh, fuck Fi in the Void. What was wrong with hereye?

“I’ll get your damn box.” Kashvi pointed to the door. “Go clean yourself up. Look in a mirror while you’re at it.”

Fi complied with a huff.

Outside, the hall was dark. Fi headed for the bathroom, the capitol building too quiet in the middle of the night, the tiles too loud beneath her boots. Or was she just walking too fast?

This was fine. Her eye wasfine. Kashvi was being dramatic. Fi turned the corner, the next hall even darker without the light from Kashvi’s office.

Or, it should have been.

Fi stopped in the unlit passageway. The hall ahead was rendered in shades of gray, too dim for color, but she saw the outlines of the wall and floor, the landscape paintings in their frames, even the stairway at the far end.

She covered her old eye with one hand. Still, she saw the hall just fine.

She covered herneweye with one hand. The hall vanished, too dark to see.

Fi sprinted the rest of the way to the bathroom.