Page 32 of Sunsplitter

“No, Ixli. What do you mean, Avroz said I wascoming back?” Innocuous words on their own, but the emphasis she’d placed on them enough to stoke panic. “I’mvisiting. Three days. Then I’m going back to the Winter Plane.”

Ixli’s wide eyes confirmed it. A move Antal hadn’t foreseen. Shit.Shit. What could Avroz hope to gain by telling her—

“You’re not staying?” Ixli’s voice turned small. His fault. Always his fault, everything broken, this whole wretched place trying to shred him alive.

“Why would I ever want to stay here?” he snarled.

It was like a switch. Ixli, soft one moment. Molten-eyed the next.

“I don’t know, Antal. I thought you might be able to think of something.”

Angry again, hurt again. His faultagain. Antal risked a step toward her.

“Ixli, that’s not what I—”

“Enjoy yourvisit.”

She vanished in a snap of static.

That wasn’t the right thing to say. Nothing was ever the right thing to say, and Antal couldn’t decide if he was more furious at himself, or his father, or this house closing in on him like a cage. He tried to draw a level breath. Ended up shaking anyway. The room felt emptier with Ixli gone, cold and quiet in the twilight.

But there, one figure remained with him among the shadows.

Fionamara.

She studied him, guarded at first. Then, a rise to her brows, until they hit their maximum arc. An ember of life in this place. Some small warmth to cling to.

Antal sat on the edge of his bed, tail draping the floor. All the progress he thought he’d made. All the strength he thought he’d built. Useless, the moment he was back here.

Fionamara’s footsteps weren’t as silent as a daeyari. The scuff of her boots on stone moved her closer, yet not close enough. A cautious distance.

“Yzu krajel vin eg Voz waev,” she mused. Then in seasonspeak, “Means ‘you wretched piece of Void’…”

“Ether,” Antal supplied. Hefeltlike a wretched piece of Void ether.

“And yzu oyzenen lek. ‘You fucking ass’?”

He returned a morose hum, face buried in his hands.

“Do you want to talk about… any of that?” she said in her dry cadence.

“Not particularly.” A pointless struggle. If she wanted, he’d spill his heart for her.

Antal had never wanted her to see any of this. His broken family. His broken home. Ixli. The life he and Fionamara had begun to build together was a haven from all this, a single yearworking to erase the wounds of two centuries. But she’d shared her own ghosts with him. She’d broken down in his arms at times when she hadn’t felt strong.

Antal had never felt strong, either. Impressive, how they could pretend for each other.

“Ixli and I,” he said. “We were… together.”

Fionamara’s brows had not, in fact, reached their highest point. They did now, ruthlessly askew. “Yes, Antal. I picked up on that. Thank you.”

“We were intended to be Void-bonded.”

A pause. A weighted “Oh” that pursed her mouth.

“But that was a long time ago. Before Razik. I haven’t felt that way about Ixli in over a century.” Antal wasn’t sure why he needed to explain. Fionamara had never struck him as prone to jealousy. He’d fear for anyone who challenged her claim, this human as bold as a daeyari despite her blunt teeth and soft fingers.

But she deserved to know that these were old faces. That what he’d shown her was genuine, not another mask.