Page 225 of Sunsplitter

“Look,” she conceded. “I couldn’t write abook reporton it, ok? Syvr and Ixli gave me the highlights. You’re supposed to… bite me, or something?”

She held out her arm, skin soft and pale in the Shard light. No hesitation.

How far they’d come since she’d first sparred with him, spitting and kicking. Her compliance now was no less of achallenge, her dark and silver eyes unflinching.

Gently, Antal held her arm. He leaned down, nose brushed to her wrist, breathing her in.

He’d put his teeth on her a hundred times. He knew exactly the pressure to tease and scrape, but leave her skin unmarred. He knew exactly the pressure needed to puncture.

She gasped as he bit into her.

For daeyari, there was no greater show of trust than letting another predator bite them. Antal recognized the gesture for a human was a careful line to tread. He bit only deep enough to leave an imprint of teeth, pulling away swiftly. Warmth lingered on his tongue, the taste of her full like woodsmoke, sweet as embers. An honor, to savor this small piece of her on his lips.

He cradled her wounded wrist, blood dripping down her arm, as vivid as her dress.

“For flesh offered in trust,” Antal said, “I offer this in return. My fangs, to protect, and never to harm. My claws, to hold and never sunder.”

Fionamara inspected the bite mark with scholarly focus. As Antal spoke, her lips moved subtly, mouthing the words.

He offered his arm. Fionamara took it as he’d done.

She bit down. Her teeth were all flat, no fangs for piercing. The first bite came hard. Not hard enough. Antal hissed, but held still, wincing at the grind of teeth on flesh.

From the onlookers, Syvr snickered.

Fionamara growled, a blush lighting her cheeks, a terrifying glint of motivation. She gripped Antal’s arm and bit again.Harder. At last, her teeth broke skin enough to leave a mark, his energy shivering beneath her lips.

She straightened. Black blood mixed with her lipstick, a scandalous exhale as she tasted him. Antal forgot any pain, watching her tongue trace her lip.

She repeated the lines with diligent pronunciation. “For flesh offered in trust, I offer this in return. My fangs, to protect and never to harm. My claws”—her grip tightened on his arm—“to hold and never sunder.”

They held each other, both bleeding. Crimson and black.

“I vow, before the Void that made me,” Antal said.

Fionamara frowned, considering the words. She tipped her chin up.

“I vow, before the Void that made me.”

Still the truth. Fionamara might not be ether-woven like a daeyari, but the Void had made her all the same, honed into the woman holding him today.

Antal continued. “To stand by your side, for as long as you’ll have me. To share my life, for as long as you wish to walk together.”

She repeated the vows, slow, shaping the daeyari pronunciation.

He sensed her pulse quickening. Her smell bloomed with anticipation, trepidation. Antal felt the same, nervous energy prickling his spine.

With vows complete, he looked to his mother, his friends, observing in silent support—the family he thought he’d lost, here for a new beginning.

Fionamara’s hold on him was firm. She nodded, and Antal pressed close, wrapping an arm around her waist.

Together, they stepped sideways, off the Shard and into the Void.

The plunge was like going underwater. One moment they were falling, off the edge of the Shard and into the abyss.

The next moment, darkness engulfed them, floating, weightlessness snagging Antal’s hair and the tails of his jacket. Thesmell of the Winter Plane vanished. No sight of solid ground, no aurora overhead. Only the Void.

And Fionamara, still holding him.