Page 26 of Sunsplitter

Antal stayed guarded. “Worried?”

“When you lost your territory.”

“Were you?” His claws curled, too sharp against his palms again.

“Verne visited the Daey Celva,” Avroz said. “To notify us of the transition.”

He struck with precision. His opportunity waited for, noted, seized. His tone stayed mild, his focus on cleaning his claws after finishing his meal.

Antal weighed the words several times. Verne had gone to the Daey Celva? He’d never thought… butof courseshe had. After her coup, she must have gone to the council to make her case. A petition for ownership of his territory.

“And you approved her request?” Antal said, harder than he ought to.

Avroz picked a bit of bone off a claw. “Verne followed the proper protocols.”

“I noticed.”

“And then you sent her severed head back to the council. Bold, Antal. You could have delivered the message yourself.”

Antal hadn’t thought he was allowed to come back. But after killing Verne, his council-appointed neighbor, it had been crucial to notify them swiftly, ahead of any rumors. He’d tracked down the daeyari courier appointed to the Winter Plane, had written a message detailing Verne’s attempted coup, her refusal of all peaceful reconciliation, a reaffirmed claim to his territory. And a box with Verne’s head as proof.

“I’m glad to amuse you,” Antal said through his teeth.

“Amused?” At last, Avroz looked up. His grin bared a fang.“I’m impressed. Verne was a fool to think she’d triumph so easily. I knew you had it in you.”

“Did you?”

“But how did you do it? Beat her, that is. I’ve been dreadfully curious.”

“You could have asked.”

“I’m asking now, Antal.”

“I could havedied!”

Antal snarled the words, rage pent up since the moment he’d arrived in this wretched place. The accusation rang across the room.

Then silence.

Yme regarded him with eyes wide, tail uncomfortably still.

Avroz drank his son’s vitriol with that same calm. Only the subtlest twitch of a smirk. He loved breaking opponents, proving he was right.

“Yet here you sit,” Avroz said, viciously soft. “Triumphant.”

“Here I sit.” Antal bared his teeth, burying his attempts at civility—because fuck him if this wasn’t a losing battle, his father always a step ahead of him in whatever sadistic game they were playing. “Here I sit, having scraped for everything on my own. You knew what Verne had done. And you couldn’t be bothered to send a single scrap of support?”

Avroz scoffed like Antal was still a child. Like he always would be. “It would have been improper for me to intercede in territory business.”

“You could have—”

“Iwouldhave. If you’d asked. But you didn’t. Instead, you settled your business on your own. Well done.”

Antal hated it.

He hated that his own father had banished him to another Plane. That he’d left Antal to struggle. That he’d known everystep of Verne’s plan yet done nothing to help.

But more than anything, Antal hated that it had worked. That hehadbeaten Verne, hehademerged stronger. Just as Avroz intended.