“Yes.”
“Daeyarireincarnate?” Each word brewed more hysterical. “Asthat?”
“The greater the number of rematerializations, the cruder the form that returns.”
“Cruder forms?That creature with a fucking horse skull and scrambling on four paws used to be…” Fi gestured over Antal’s decidedly—and she couldn’t believe she was thinking this—less monstrous appearance.
“A different form of daeyari. Derived. But they never come back… right. With each return, more sense slips away. Until only hunger remains.” His words seethed distaste. Claws gouged the soft wood of her tub.
Fi’s own nails dug into her arm. Daeyari could become even graver beasts. Daeyari coulddiein the first place, though she’d never heard such a feat in any of her father’s folktales. What could kill a daeyari?Anotherdaeyari, maybe? No weapon of mortal make.
“If that’s true,” she said, “why have I never seen one? Neverheardof one?”
“That Beast shouldn’t be here. They’re kept far away from the Twilit Plane.”
The daeyari’s Plane of origin, the closest world beyond Fi’s Season-Locked cluster. If she were doomed to transform into a feral Beast upon death, she wouldn’t be keen on the creatures lurking close to home, either. Endless Planes and Shards lay beyond the world she knew, yet she’d never dipped into that terrifying unknown.
Even less reason to, if other Planes lurked with reincarnated immortals.
“So what are you going to do?” Fi asked. Demanded, more like. This seemed a suitably dire scenario for demands.
Antal slouched, gloomy as a wet cat. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean youdon’t know. What’s your plan to get rid of Verne and take your territory back?”
“I don’t know.”
“She tried to kill you!”
He scoffed. “Killing me wasn’t Verne’s intention. Daeyari don’t plot each other’s demise lightly. She made her point that I’m outmatched, enough to assure herself I won’t return.”
“And you’re going to accept that? You don’t have some grand scheme to march in and take her head?”
“Even if Icouldkill her, I’d rather not have another derived beast after me in a century when she rematerializes.”
Fi had to admit, that was a shitty caveat to revenge: the most lethal race in the Shattered Planes, locked into nonlethal bickering for fear of horrid transformation.
“So what about allies?” Surely, this immortal, this creature who’d walked the Planes for centuries, must know someone who could help. “You don’t have an Arbiter?”
“Correct,” Antal muttered.
“What about attendants? Other than Milana and Erik?”
“All dead or missing. I checked.”
Fuckingouch. Bitch or not, Verne had been thorough.
The territories had no armies. Local guards kept the peace, but the daeyari settled larger conflicts. That wassupposedto be an advantage of their rule. Not so helpful, when daeyari were the ones fighting.
“You and Verne kept mentioning the… Daey… Celva?”
Antal sank deeper into the water. “Our administrative body, on the Twilit Plane.”
“So could they—?”
“No. Verne declared me unfit. And I retreated. By daeyari law, her claim to the territory is valid.”
“But Vernealsosaid you’re from an”—Fi made air quotes—“esteemed Old House. Does that mean someone you could ask for—”
