Page 48 of Sunsplitter

The passage of two daeyari turned heads. Softened conversations. Most passersby curved to give the immortals a wide berth.

But they didn’t flee, as they used to.

At a cafe patio, a human woman shoveling snow paused to dip Antal a deep nod. Her energy conduits had gone out months ago. Antal had fixed them.

Behind the window of a clothing shop, a man fussed with the suit on a mannequin. He waved and grinned. Fionamara had dragged Antal into the shop to have a new jacket made. After the initial tension, the tailor had been delighted to experiment with daeyari measurements.

There was a shoe shop, where he’d accompanied Fionamara when she’d needed new boots. The restaurant with her favorite soup, which he’d brought her when she’d caught one of those mortal sicknesses that made her cough and sniffle and groan like she was a step away from the Void, but which she’d insisted was just a cold, and had altogether been one of the most stressful weeks of his existence. At least the soup made her feel better.

Then there was the music hall where she’d taken him dancing.

And grander, in the distance, the arches of the orchestra building.

Antal couldn’t begin to describe to Yme what that place meant to him, the years he’d snuck into the rafters to listen to the symphonies. The delight of Fionamara finally convincing him to attend a proper show. The masterpiece of a dress she’d worn that night, dark as her eyeshadow, slinky fabric beneath his hands.

“You do this… often?” Yme asked quietly.

“You wanted to know how I’ve spent my time on the Winter Plane. See for yourself.”

Yme looked. She saw. But she’d not be able to appreciate the voices of the street, the hum of conversations on carriages and sidewalks. She didn’t know seasonspeak.

Antal hadn’t, either, when he first came here.

His predecessor had instructed him on running governor elections, managing conduits, requesting sacrifices. Then he’d left. Antal, alone, had gone to his forest shrine for the first time, had greeted the attendants waiting for him.

They hadn’t understood a word he said. He’d never forget the terror on their faces, as if they thought he’d eat them purely for the inconvenience. He’d had to teach himself the language, scrounging books and eavesdropping conversations.

The avenue ended at the river, a plaza bordered in iron railing. The water thundered by, thick with ice. Wind gusted down the valley, harsher than the Twilit Plane, but invigorating. Familiar, after fifty years.

Yme studied the street they’d walked down. Then her son. Not the vapid glances she so often took refuge in, but longer. Pensive. Antal overlooked that part of her sometimes, that she was nearly as old as Avroz. Perceptive, in her quieter ways.

“They aren’t afraid of you,” she observed. Not chiding. A quiet fact.

Antal trailed claws along the railing, picking at ice as he gathered his thoughts. How much should he tell her?

All of it, to have any hope of her understanding.

“I’ve chosen to rule my territory differently. The humans select their governor. They send representatives to a council. They live and thrive by their own hands, and I work to earn their support through aid, rather than fear.”

Yme’s tail flicked. “But they’re prey. How can prey not fear you?”

“A new system. I take no more living sacrifices, only the freshly deceased.”

“Corpses?” Yme’s nose wrinkled, crimson eyes wide with concern. “You haven’t been eating live? Is that why you look so thin? You’re still young, Antal, you need proper food.”

“It’s the same, azaevi. The taste is the same. The sustenance is the same. I’ve been moderating, is all. A temporary measure.”

His cheeks were fuller since his meal on the Twilit Plane, his eyes brighter. He had that at least, some shield against her worried gaze.

But Yme’s voice only lowered. “If Avroz knew…”

“He’ll find out eventually,” Antal said with hard surety. “I intend to do as much as I can, while I can.”

“They could strip you of the territory for this.”

Another aspect of her that Antal sometimes overlooked: she’d spent nearly four centuries at Avroz’s side. Never a taste for politics herself, but she listened, learned. Yme knew how the Daey Celva operated as well as anyone with a seat on it.

“I know,” he said.