Page 41 of Sunsplitter

“Look at me. I’m ok.” Her thumb brushed his cheek. “I’m ok, Antal.”

She was ok. Bleeding, but ok. Antal wrapped an arm around her waist, tail twined around her calves. He pulled her tight against him, breathing in the ember smell of her hair. Warm. Alive.

When he fell to his knees, she fell with him, sinking together into the peat.

“I’m ok.” She nestled her nose to his. “A little shaken up, that’s all. I’ve had worse bar fights, honestly.”

She combed her fingers through his hair, around the base of his antlers. Enough to calm his tremors. Not enough to quench the nervous energy prickling his sternum. He could have lost her. He never should have brought her to the Twilit Plane.

Gently, he brushed back her hair. Claw marks sprinkled her scalp, all shallow. Thank Veshri and the endless Void.

“What happened?” Antal asked.

Fionamara bared her teeth. “Avroz knew. That bastard cornered me. I should have taken his head off.”

Fresh panic scraped Antal’s chest. “Fionamara.”

“I will. I have room for more antlers.”

“Fionamara.Please.”

Antal hugged her. Too fierce, this woman. Her temper would be the death of him.

Fionamara flexed her fingers like claws. Then, a calming inhale.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

Antal didn’t know where to begin answering that. He’d put her in danger. He’d earned his father’s ire once again. He’d snapped fangs at his mother.

“I left,” he whispered.

“You did.” Fionamara cupped his cheeks again. A devious grin twisted her lips. “I’m proud of you, Antlers. Standing up for yourself?”

“Avroz will be angry.”

“Of course he will.”

“How will I ever go back?”

“You don’t have to, Antal. You never have to go back.”

“And how is that anykinder?”

The weight hit him unexpectedly. All the rage of walking those blood-stained halls, of stomaching his father’s sneers, of keeping his face drawn into a perfect mask.

But equally crushing, the prospect of never seeing that twilight again. Never smelling his mother’s flowers. Never brushing tails with an old friend. Holes in his being, leaks he hadn’t known needed patching. Now, he might never do so.

Fi frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I hate that place, Fionamara. I hate the person I have to be in that place. But…” His tail tightened around her ankle. “It’s been so long since I’ve spent time with other daeyari.”

“There are daeyari on the Winter Plane. Tyvo. And Verne. And… others?”

“All politics,” he said. “I speak with my neighbors when we have disputes to settle. Nothing more. No daeyari who care about me.”

“Antal.” Fionamara wound her fingers with his. “The humans in your territory care about you. I care about you.”

“Those aren’t my people.”