Page 76 of Sunsplitter

So why was that sliver of fear still lodged in Fi’s heart? The worry that none of this would be enough.

She curled tighter into Antal. She’d survived immortals before. She’d survive this aedari. And Avroz. And whatever other carnivores attended the hunt, sharpened teeth with every desire to see her fail. Let them try.

Fi looped a strand of hair around her finger, considering the rainbow hues.

“Antal,” she said. “What would you think of a different color?”

Antal didn’t like this plan, but there was no arguing with her.

There was no fuckingarguingwith her when she’d looked at him with those dark, determined eyes. When she’d fought him with her teeth. When she’d put him on his back and—

He shuddered in the midday breeze of Thomaskweld. His shirt was midnight fabric, inlaid with swirls of iridescence, more decorative than warming. Daeyari flesh wasn’t damaged by cold. His skin prickled all the same.

He stood upon the steps of his capitol building. Breathed the pine-and-metal laced air of his city. Listened down the main avenue for the waking hum of his people, all their talking and laughing in defiance of soft flesh and Winter chilling their doorsteps. He could safeguard all of this, get exactly what he needed from the Daey Celva.

He just had to kill an aedari to do it.

Antal hadn’t been more than ten years old when his father first held a vial of golden aedari blood to his nose.Smell it, Avroz had told him,and never forget. This is one of the few creatures in the Shattered Planes that can hurt you.

Antal had never seen one. He’d certainly never fought one.

Fionamara had even less idea what they were up against.

He waited for her atop the steps. As weak Winter sunlight filled the capitol plaza, a pair of patrolmen passed, nodding to Antal. Clerks and secretaries bustled through the building foyer, the thrum of a city alive. It was nearly time to leave when he finally spotted her, returning from the main avenue on sure strides, dressed in—

Fucked. In two hundred and fifty years, Antal had never been so hopelessly fucked by another living creature. He wondered, frequently, if it would be the death of him.

Fionamara wore her silviamesh. The silken armor clung to her curves like a second skin, a bodysuit of slate gray trimmed with maroon, framing every perfect line of her thighs. Her boots were matte black leather. Her jacket, black wool embroidered with red.

And her hair.

Since the moment they’d met, Antal had perplexed over Fionamara’s rainbow curls. He’d studied how they tangled when she fought, when she laughed, when she arched moaning beneath him. That morning, she’d left into the city with rainbows framing her cheeks.

She returned with a crown of crimson.

Black roots still, deep as the Void. Her natural shade now melted into solid red, bright and vicious as daeyari energy. As vicious as her. By Veshri’s high and sharpened antlers, in that hair she looked like a creature untamed.

She looked like a creature who could command Veshri himself. By her account, she’d done just that, had crossed paths with the wandering immortal when she’d fallen into the Void. Not even Avroz could claim that honor.

Fionamara smirked up the steps with a knowing sway to herhips, a hand flicked beneath her hair to show off the new color. “Well? How does it look?”

Antal was a saint for not grabbing her there, dragging her into some quiet alcove of the capitol building. Peeling that silviamesh off her.

“We have an appointment to keep,” he said, too rough.

“Oh?” She grasped his collar, a possessive tug that sent heat simmering straight to his cock. “And what would you do to me if we didn’t?”

He couldn’t answer that. Not if they had any hope of arriving on time. Her hair smelled of firewood, laced with fresh sweetness from the dye. Antal settled for a kiss to her temple. He dragged a single claw up her armored thigh, not caring who saw.

“We’re only gathering information today,” he said. “Why do you need armor?”

“How many daeyari will be there?”

“Avroz. Both his kezri, most likely. The lord of the territory with the most recent aedari disturbance, and… fine. Point taken.” His voice lowered. “You’re certain you want to come?”

Fionamara grinned, lips painted a devious maroon, eyes framed with knife-sharp eyeliner. “We meet Avroz on the Summer Plane. We find where this aedari is hiding. We get you on the Dusk Council, get some gold on your antlers—very sexy, by the way. Easy.”

Easy? Nothing with his father was ever easy. Fionamara’s look dared him to argue.