“Your father didn’t disapprove just because you were friends. You were…” Oh no.Oh no. “And he killed him in front of you?”
Fi’s fingers were claws on the axe. How could this be, another wound he’d hidden from her? How could he bear a grief like that?
Antal stood so very still. From the start, she’d noted that about him, had wondered if the defensive facade was a trait honed by all daeyari, or something more unique to him, a tool crafted to survive.
Just like her own cloak of barbs.
“I hid in the aurorabeast barn sometimes,” Antal said with deathly quiet. “When I needed to get away from my father. Razik found me there. He didn’t tell anyone.”
Fi heard it clearer this time: the ache and the fondness, inseparable.
“He was the first person to truly see me,” Antal said. “The version I crafted for my family, the mask I wore to exist in that world. He saw through that and foundme. The person I could be.”
Fi braved a step toward him. “I’m sorry, Antal. I’m so sorry they took him from you.”
“He served a powerful daeyari house.” Antal’s words hardened. He still wouldn’t look at her. “He was useful. He was safe. He would have lived a long life. If not for me.”
“Antal—”
“And now,you.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Plenty of this is my fault, Fionamara. Verne acted because I was too weak. That Beast came to Nyskya looking for me. I put you and Boden in danger.”
Fi had locked her grief behind a wall. Boden’s name chiseled through the mortar. She buttressed the cracks, setting aside her pain a few seconds longer. Giving Antal this moment.
She didn’t know how to fix the loss, or suffocating expectations, or homicidal parents. She could only reach into the quiet space between them, cupping Antal’s soft cheeks in her hands. And she saw him. The man behind the teeth, revealed in pieces, little cracks of vulnerability. She saw at last the depth of the grief that brought him here, saw it mirrored in the ache of her own ribs. Her loss, a different kind of love, but no less deep.
“We chose this,” Fi said. “We choseyou. And whatever lofty ego you have about your powers of seduction? Don’t think for an instant you’d have gotten me on my back if I didn’t want to be there.”
His laugh was a small thing. Fi took it as a triumph.
“I know,” he said. “But…”
Antal reached out, timid, as if whatever he touched might crack. He cradled his hand behind Fi’s neck and pulled their foreheads together, a small space to share in this too-big world.
“I was sent to this Plane as a punishment,” he said. “Instead? I found an escape.” His thumb brushed slow across her cheek. “But there’s this tricky thing about time. It keeps passing. Whole lives come and go, and even grief grows distant. I made my peace with Razik’s death a long time ago. Then I met you.”
His fangs were simpler to deal with, less breath-stilling than these quiet confessions.
“Me?” Fi said. Inside of her, a splinter. Crumbling mortar.
“You,” Antal returned. “Such sharp teeth. So unyielding, but… kind. Again and again, kinder than I deserve.”
He’d told her all this before. But these weren’t sweet nothings whispered in her ear. These were pleas, hollowed by the old grief he carried. By the fresher grief they shared.
“I don’t want to do nothing, Fionamara. I don’t want to stand still while the people I care about pay my consequences. You have your own path, your own battles to wage. But the next time you have a reckless idea, please. Let me be here with you.”
What if you hadn’t come back?
Fi clawed fingers into his shirt, seeking an anchor. No more running. No more bottling apologies like they’d earn a finer vintage.
“I’m sorry I ran.” Her voice shook. She couldn’t stop. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“I know.” His words only split her further. Soft. Blameless.
“I shouldn’t have gone back. I didn’t know what to do. And Boden…”
