Page 40 of Sunsplitter

Antal stared at the empty place his father had stood. Impossible. Another trick. Another deception to make the strike ache fiercer. He pulled Fionamara against him until she hissed in protest. All of him, braced for the attack.

Nothing came.

The room was quiet. His father, gone.

Antal’s tail lashed fiercer.

“Antal?” Yme’s entreaty broke the silence. She looked at Fionamara—actuallylookedat her for the first time, not the careless glances she’d passed over his human servant.

There was no sympathy in the appraisal. Only confusion knitting Yme’s brow, concern in the low sway of her tail. A pleading look to Antal of,how could you do this again? Shouldn’t you know better?

Antal grabbed Fionamara’s hand. “We’re leaving.”

“Leaving?” Yme said, eyes wide. “But you’ve only just arrived. You said three days.”

“I don’t care what I said!” Antal bared his teeth.

He’d never bared his teeth at her.

But Fionamara was hurt. Avroz knew. Antal couldn’t be here when his father returned.

Yme stepped closer. Another confused glance at Fionamara, bright eyes for Antal. “Stay. Please. We can talk about this.”

After all this time, how could she be so naïve? He had toleavethis place before it drowned him.

“No. We can’t, azaevi. We never have.”

“Antal—”

He left before she could argue. Before the crack in her voice broke anything more in him. Fionamara at his side, Antal pulled them both into the black of a teleport.

He ran.

A snap back to the field of midnight dahlias beyond the cliffs. Straight through the Curtain. Antal fled the Twilit Plane without a backward glance.

He should have done this last time. He should have taken Razik’s hand and run as far as possible, into the endless reaches of the Shattered Planes. He’d been too much of a coward then. Maybe he was still a coward now.

Shards and Curtains flicked by. Again. Again. Again. Distance between him and that house, fragments of reality piled as barriers. Antal didn’t slow until the smell of his home Plane receded to a subtle tickle in his nose. The conifers of Winter spiced the air.

They came to rest upon a Shard. Soft peat lay beneath his feet, skirting shallow pools dusted in ice. A crimson aurora drifted overhead, snapping and sighing with each wave. Beyond it, the endless black of the Void. Starless. Moonless. Still not enough room to breathe.

He turned to Fionamara.

Her face was ashen, cheeks flushed from the sudden cold. She looked at him with hard eyes. Blood on her lips.

“He hurt you.” Antal’s thumb shook as he touched her mouth, wiping away smears of crimson. No visible cuts. She’d bitten her tongue.

“I’m fine,” she breathed.

“Hehurtyou.” Antal’s voice shook. All of him shook. “I shouldn’t have left you. I shouldn’t have—”

He pictured her against the black tile floor. Cheeks even paler. Eyes glassy and blood spilled out in a pool. Avroz, standing over his work.They don’t last. You have bigger things to accomplish.

“Hey! Antlers!”

Fionamara seized his face in her hands. “Look at me.”

“I shouldn’t have—”