Page 54 of Sunsplitter

“All we’ve fought for,” he said. “All we’ve built. Now this.”

Fi stepped closer, brushing her hand against his.

“What are they?” she asked. “These aedari?”

They’d fought immortals before. How different could this be?

“The aedari come from a Plane far, far from here,” Antal said. A slow recital. “As far as daeyari have ever travelled in the Planeverse.” He considered. “Aside from Veshri, perhaps.”

Mind-numbing to consider. Fi had heard the Shattered Planes described as infinite, a labyrinth of Shards and other worlds. She’d never dared venture beyond the four Season-Locked Planes, but there were hundreds more Planes underdaeyari control, humans their primary residents.

A year ago, she’d learned what happened to daeyari when they died, reincarnated as feral beasts, pushed to more distant Planes where they’d not bother their civilized relatives.

But apparently, even farther beyond that…

“The aedari were also mortal once,” Antal said. “Then found immortality.”

“By coming back from the Void?”

He shook his head. “That was how daeyari did it. Veshri, the first daeyari to weave a new body out of Void ether rather than mortal flesh.” Raw energy, contained within an immortal ether shell. That was the reason daeyari didn’t age, could regenerate despite absurd wounds, could Shape magic better than humans without burning themselves apart. “The aedari found a different path, bodies woven from the dust of the Planes.”

“Ok. Immortal dust people.” Weird, but Fi could roll with it. “What’s so bad about them?”

“They feed on energy.”

“So do daeyari.”

“Daeyari eat energy and flesh. Aedari subsist on only energy. Mortal energy, mostly. The offerings of their supplicants.” Antal’s tail flicked. “But they can also…”

His silence was familiar, though Fi took a moment to place it. The restlessness of a predator, not used to being prey.

“They can eatdaeyari?” she said.

Aisinay huffed at the raised tone. Her ears pricked toward the clearing, the rubble scented with aedari energy. One of those things had been here, and in Calvariz, and no one knew?

“Our species met millennia ago,” Antal said. “Daeyari are travelers, as was Veshri’s way. We found their Plane. Offered peace.” He bared his teeth. “The aedari turned on us, captured some daeyari to feast upon, sought to destroy the ones theycouldn’t control. They’ve created more reincarnated beasts than any other force in the Planes, are ruthlessly difficult to kill.”

Fi laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic, Antal. We’ve fought Tyvo, Verne. That reincarnated beast of a daeyari with bread knives for teeth. This aedari can’t be any worse?”

His silence didn’t reassure her.

“The aedari have never found the Twilit Plane,” he said. “The route has been a guarded secret. To my knowledge, no aedari has ever set foot on the Season-Locked Planes, either. This is the closest Plane cluster to the daeyari home world. If an aedari scout has made it this far…”

Then that was bad news. Enough to attract the urgency of the Dusk Council. Enough to bring Avroz here to poke through cold ash.

Fi enjoyed many aspects of sharing her life with an immortal. The silly way he laid on his stomach to protect his antlers. All the emotional quirks of his tail. His ozone taste on her tongue, so foreign, yet familiar to the scrap of Void she carried from her childhood brush with death.

She was decidedly less enthused about this aspect of immortals: the terrifying creatures and world-ending hazards, millennia-old wars with a species she’d never heard of.

She’d thought their world was getting too big. It just got a whole Planeverse bigger.

Antal looked terrified enough. Fi tipped her chin up and kept her voice steady.

“So what do we do now?”

Antal studied her, perceptive enough to know her defensive barbs. Shrewd enough to leave them be. He mirrored her, shoulders drawn up, a sigh through clenched teeth.

“I’ll attend the next meeting of the Daey Celva,” he said. “To hear what they decide.”