From the author of The Phoenix Keeper comes an era-defining new fantasy universe where spicy romantasy meets the Cosmere, unmissable for fans of the world-building scale of Sarah J. Maas and the world-shifting stakes of Rebecca Yarros. Voidwalker will be your next romantasy obsession, a deliciously feral story that starts with just two words: “bite me.”

Read the first three chapters of  Voidwalker, on sale August 19th below!

The Beast from the Forest

They told her not to be afraid. That it wouldn’t hurt.

Who’d believe that propaganda bullshit? Of course it was going to hurt. She hid her protests, bitter like ice behind every forced smile.

She left home on a sleek metal train, a long day of rattling tracks and crystal glasses clinking on tables, ensconced in a plush booth like some fake aristocrat. Beyond the windows, night sky swirled with bright green auroras—the souls of the dead, gone to the Void.

This time of year, no sun bloomed on the horizon. Frozen valleys passed as pallettes of black forest and moonlit snow. Then, twinkling lights in the distance. The mountains parted, revealing pitched roofs and glowing windows, the capital city of Thomaskweld swathing the valley like a gilded growth.

She was never alone.

Attendants with saccharine smiles sat with her on the train, led her through the glittering city and its maze of marble hallways. They fetched whatever food she asked for: pastries from Thomaskweld’s riverside bakeries, warm candied nuts, juices of guava and pomegranate imported from the Summer Plane. She’d always wondered what pomegranates tasted like, dreamed of what delight might be found in buttery bedsheets and down pillows.

All bribes, for her docile behavior. The theatrics were blatant. Unnecessary. She came of her own will, was too far from home to turn back now.

On her final morning, they fetched her for a bath, combed her hair and scrubbed her skin to glowing. Lavish, wasn’t it? Almost kind, with one chilling omission: no soaps or salts scented the water. When the attendants dressed her in a soft gray robe, they offered no perfume. The preparations left her immaculate. Clean.

Appetizing. As befitted a proper sacrifice, an offering to slate the hunger of an immortal.

The time came too soon. In fur-lined slippers that didn’t quite fit, she trailed two attendants in gray robes more ornate than hers, their sleeves embroidered with swirls of Void-black. One carried an energy lantern, its silver glow lighting the snowbanks as they left the road, an unmarked path into the trees.

Mortals built the city. Older creatures lived in the forest.

Fresh powder crunched beneath her feet. The towering shiverpines offered a familiar vanilla scent, a sigh of needles heavy with ice, reminders of a home far away. Her thoughts drifted to memories of playing hide-and-seek in the forest with her younger sister—to their tear-stained parting at the train station, the pleas for her not to go.

Someone had to. Their village sent the call. She answered, so no one else would.

They reached a clearing. The stately granite pillars looked misplaced, framing a patio with no roof. Pine boughs arced over the shrine like ribs of a cathedral, and from each column, energy lanterns glowed in dusk blue. A silver mat awaited her, flanked by two sitting pillows.

The forest went silent. What she would have given for a single hooting night bird, the chuff of a squirrel—and she hated squirrels. She swallowed hard and told herself:

Don’t be afraid.

Across the pavilion, a shadow shifted. Silent, the figure stepped into the light.

Bough-stalkers, her father had whispered on long nights, a name carried by only the oldest folktales. “My Lord,” a more reverent greeting as the attendants bowed their heads.

Daeyari, the creatures called themselves.

At a glance, he could have been a young man: bone pale skin and guarded features, ink-dark hair shaved close at the sides, a lean frame in a midnight jacket and dark breeches. The rest of him was anything but human. Sable antlers crowned his head. Crimson irises latched onto her, framed by sclera black as night. Black as the Void his immortal race dragged themselves back from millennia ago, refusing to succumb to the shackles of death. Never aging.

Still hungry.

The attendants departed in silence. What came next wasn’t their business.

Cowards.

She fought a shudder as the daeyari studied her, head tilted like a panther eyeing prey, a disorientating flick as a long, slender tail swayed at his ankles. Not human. Not of this Plane.

“You come willingly?” His voice was flat as ice, old as the trees.

“I come willingly, Lord Antal.” Trembling or not, these words couldn’t be minced. “My home is in need of daeyari aid, and I volunteer as payment. It’s my honor to serve the pact.”

An honor. She’d practiced that word the most on the train, until she could say it without a flinch.

Satisfied, the beast gestured to a pillow, his hand tipped not in nails, but black claws. Don’t be afraid. She sat, back straight, legs folded beneath her.

He approached on bare feet, clawed toes whispering over stone. His midnight jacket shifted in the light, patches of iridescence patterned as aurora swirls. She’d never seen one of them in person. An old instinct tightened her belly, a shudder at some ancestral memory of red eyes stalking her people through dark forests. But that was a long time ago, legends of man-eaters carved on stone ruins and folktales told to frighten children. Over the centuries, their two races had come to a more civil understanding: coexistence, in exchange for sacrifice.

The daeyari sat cross-legged on the pillow opposite her, immaculately still aside from that tail curled around him, flicking at the tip. He picked up a ceramic teapot. The politest predator she’d ever met, posture perfect as he poured, prim claws strumming the sides of the cup.

“You’re young,” he said.

“I’m old enough. Thirty-one last year.” Old enough to decide for herself. Old enough to taste the life she could have had.

The words came out a sliver too curt, for addressing her esteemed Lord Daeyari. The beast’s smoldering red eyes narrowed. Another flick of his tail.

He handed her the cup.

She clutched it, warm ceramic heating her hands, spice drifting in the steam. Twilight sorrel. Her mother kept an ointment made from the herb, a numbing salve for skinned knees or mishaps with hunting knives. Never something to taste. She forced a drink, shuddering as a floral heat hit her tongue. Light at first, like starlight on snow. It built into the velvet depth of midnight, a cloying warmth that numbed her mouth and slithered down her throat.

“I come from the town of Sunip.” She’d practiced the words a hundred times, yet they stumbled as her tongue grew leaden. “On the border of your territory. My family smiths energy weapons, but we’ve run low on conductive ore. Two weeks ago, the daeyari from your neighboring territory claimed one of our mines is on her land, demanded payment for its use. Please, Lord Antal. It was a simple mistake. We can’t afford payment to two daeyari.”

He let her speak without interruption, without expression. Only the twitch of his tail.

“I’ll settle this dispute on your behalf,” he said once she’d finished. “Your town will have my protection. And your smiths will have the ore they need for their craft.”

A sickly relief bowed her shoulders. Her home would be cared for, her little sister heartbroken but safe. As her eyes drooped, numbness spread to her fingertips, turning the cup clumsily as she attempted to set it down.

The daeyari stopped her with a single claw tapped to the ceramic.

“All of it,” he ordered. Not harsh. Just firm.

She downed the remaining tea then forfeited the empty cup.

Haze wrapped her thoughts, smothering smooth and warm as a hearth. She drifted, weightless. Pleasant. She didn’t notice the daeyari move until he crouched beside her, claws gentle against her cheek. A pressure on her shoulder.

“Does this hurt?” When he leaned close, she caught the glint of long canines. A smell like pine and ozone as she slumped against his chest.

Run, her baser instinct pleaded. Don’t let this creature touch you.

“Does… what…”

He’d pulled back her robe to reveal a bare shoulder, a scalpel-sharp claw carved across her collarbone. Blood welled from the cut, stark against flushed skin. Yet no pain.

Void be damned. They hadn’t lied, after all. When words failed, she shook her head.

“Good.”

He tilted her gaze away from the wound. Merciful—as much as a carnivore could be.

Run, but the voice was fading. Flee into the forest, as his claws brushed her throat. The smell of pine reminded her of home. She saw slanted sun through needles, heard the crackle of evening bonfires on the crags.

Lost in fog, she barely felt when his teeth ripped her open.

He never asked her name.

Maybe it was easier that way.

Part One

The beast came from the forest, and mortals fled.

Claws made to carve and sharp teeth to devour.

The predator taught prey to fear the dark.

And feasted through nights that forced us to cower.

 

The beast came from the forest, and mortals fought.

Claws cut too swift and sharp teeth aged too long.

The predator taught prey our flesh was soft.

And tore down the weapons we thought made us strong.

 

The beast came from the forest, and mortals bowed.

Claws held out soft and sharp teeth for an oath.

The predator taught prey to speak its name.

And offered a deal that would profit us both.

 

—Children’s rhyme, Winter Plane, The Beast from the Forest

 

1. A beginner’s guide to extra-dimensional bomb smuggling

Fionamara Kolbeck saw her first door between worlds at eight years old.

The never-melting ice of the Winter Plane had grown thick that year, a slick patch as she’d played along the river rocks near her home. One slip, and the water had snatched her like icy claws, dragging her beneath the current, flooding her lungs as she’d screamed for help.

Then, black. An endless Void that had sought to swallow her.

She’d jolted back to consciousness coughing water on the riverbank, black hair plastered to pale cheeks, shivering hard enough to chatter her teeth. Her father had knelt over her, rubbing her chest raw as worry creased his cold-hardened face.

Behind him, a strange distortion had warped the air, like nothing she’d ever seen before. Some kind of translucent Curtain. Those who’d been touched by the Void and returned to life saw easier through the fabric separating worlds, people claimed.

At age ten, Fi learned to step through her first Curtain.

At fourteen, she’d flee to neighboring Planes of reality to escape house chores.

By twenty-three, she’d discovered the lucrative business of cross-Plane smuggling.

Now, hot off thirty-two and with precious few shits left to show for it, Fi nursed a splitting headache while leaning her shoulder into a tree trunk, the spongy paper bark gleaming cheerful white with an intensity she was entirely too hungover to appreciate.

A crisp breeze sent the forest swirling. Leaves cascaded like spilled paint, a head-throbbing blend of gold and scarlet glaring in afternoon sunlight. The trees of the Autumn Plane lived in eternal fall, an endless cycle of growing and shedding and postcard-perfect vistas that drew the snobbiest tourists and entrepreneurs.

Plus Fi, who was neither of these.

She sought refuge in her binoculars, puckering plum-painted lips while surveying two men in the clearing below. They, too, appeared unenthralled by the wish-you-were-here scenery. No whimsical leaf gazing, all fidgeting boots. The pair hunched in wool coats and low-brimmed hats, stationed like wraiths alongside, by comparison, an amusingly quaint wooden cart. A donkey idled in the harness, fluffy ears twitching at flies. Atop the cart, wooden crates brimmed with apples, yet not an orchard for miles.

Amateurs.

“Half an hour early to a rendezvous.” Fi lowered her binoculars and glowered at the too-bright sunlight. “Either clueless or desperate. What do you think, Aisinay?”

Behind her, a Void horse sniffed the underbrush, searching for needlemice to snack on. Dappled shade fell upon silver scales from snout to hooves, a finned tail brushing crimson leaves. At Fi’s voice, the beast perked webbed ears. Her eyes stayed fixed on the loam, milky blind and framed in black sclera.

The horse huffed, scattering leaves beneath her nose.

“Probably clueless,” Fi agreed. She returned to her binoculars, inspecting the gleam of a golden wristwatch. “But clueless with money? I can live with that.”

Fi had never arrived late to a client meet-up in her life. Neither had she ever met a client on time. People behaved more genuinely when they thought no one was watching, and these men were hurried. Brazen.

Aisinay snorted. What the Void horse lacked in sight, she made up for with a keen sense for energy sources, and she’d been restless since they arrived. Could be a pack of trade wardens prowling nearby. Better settle business quickly. Fi latched a metal cart to her horse—careful of the fins spining her neck, in place of a mane—then grabbed the lead and headed for the clearing.

Now came the matter of entrances. This, Fi learned early in her career, could make or break a deal.

Crunched leaves alerted the men to her approach. The younger, Fi’s age, kept close to his cart with downcast eyes that screamed “assistant.” The one with the wristwatch pushed middle-age, sixty by her guess. He straightened at Fi’s arrival, steel-eyed with the intensity of a man trying too hard to look intimidating. She met them with a crooked grin, arms wide.

“Fear not, gentlemen. I have arrived!”

What an arrival it was. Fi wore a bodysuit of dark gray silviamesh with purple accent lines, tailored tight to her curves, the hexagonal fabric light as silk and tough as steel. Sinfully expensive, paid for by a lucrative job five years back, moving a rare collection of sundrop tulips off the Spring Plane. Her mascara: knife-sharp against smoky eyeshadow. Her weapons: on bold display, the metal hilt of an energy sword at her belt, five glowing silver energy capsules affixed to her gloves. But most eye-catching of all: her hair, Void-black roots shifting to pastel rainbow, curls cut to her collarbone.

At least one of these details solicited a raised brow from the elder man. He masked it with a toothy smile. “A beautiful day on the Autumn Plane.”

“Always is,” Fi returned. Consistent to the point of dullness.

Aisinay snorted and yanked her bridle. Odd. The Void horse made excellent character judgments, but beyond this man’s sour attitude, he wore no visible weapons or energy sources. Just a gaudy green vest and suit jacket with gilded pinstripes and… a hint of silviamesh peeking out his collar? Maybe not completely clueless.

“Fionamara Kolbeck? Your reputation precedes you. Impressive, for someone so”—his watery gaze slid over her, appraising in a way that made her fist clench—“young.” He extended a hand. “I’m Cardigan.”

Fi snorted. “Cardigan? Your mother name you after her favorite knitwear?”

He retracted his hand, a scowl curling thin lips. “Perhaps we should get to business.”

Rolling over so easy? Not just impatient, then. If dear, sweet Cardigan had no rebuttal to her insult, he must be desperate as well. In need of discretion, since their meeting was set up in someone else’s name—his sheepish assistant, she assumed. Not local, either. Seasonspeak served as a common language across all four Season-Locked Planes, but he didn’t have the crisp enunciation of an Autumn dialect, nor the heavier syllables of her Winter accent. Something lighter, more frivolous with vowels… Spring, most likely.

All things considered, Fi smelled an opportunity for a price markup. She reached into her cart and pulled out her most intimidating weapon: a clipboard.

“All right, boys.” She brandished a pen like a threat. “Where are we headed? I transport to all four Season-Locked Planes, and all pockets of existence in between. Plus, half-price special for anything you want tossed into the infinite Void between realities—that one’s popular with the politicians.” She winked.

“The cargo’s going to Thomaskweld,” Cardigan answered. “Winter Plane.”

Fi whistled. “A territory capital? I can recommend a good drop-off on the outskirts—”

“The delivery point is inside the city.”

Her pen halted. Each territory on the Winter Plane ran a little differently, and Fi had operated out of the one in question for a decade—obviously why Cardigan sought her out. The frigid wilds were plenty dangerous, but capital cities housed trade wardens, regional police, the elected mortal governor. And worse. Something with claws.

“Moving anything inside the city will cost extra,” Fi said.

“Done.” Cardigan offered a slip of paper. “They’re expecting you in two days.”

Fi frowned at the address, a hotel on the city’s east side. A too-nice part of town. She resumed scribbling on her clipboard, though no actual words. Only an idiot left a paper trail, but she enjoyed watching people crane their necks trying to spy her notes. Cardigan barely recovered from his ostrich stance when Fi continued.

“Are you transporting any perishable, spillable, corrosive, explosive, or in other way hazardous materials?”

The men glanced at each other a heartbeat too long.

“No,” Cardigan replied.

Brow arched, Fi stepped to the cart and knocked her knuckles against the lower layer of boxes. In contrast to the decoy apple crates up top, these were sealed, a rattle of glass inside. “What’s in the boxes?”

Cardigan puckered. “We expected discretion.”

“Discretion is a given, Cardigan. I need to know proper handling.”

“It’s wine. An excellent vintage, from the Autumn Plane.”

Fi drew another swirl on her clipboard, slitted eyes locked with her stubborn client. The bulk of her business came from merchants and private collectors skirting import taxes between Planes, but unless these crates packed an exquisite alcohol collection, Cardigan would be lucky to make profit after her fees. Not her problem.

“Your payment?” At the end of the day, that was all that mattered.

Cardigan pulled a metal case from his pocket. When it clicked open, Fi’s eyes widened at the velvet interior, ten metal cards set in individual slots.

The Season-Locked Planes ran on energy chips—currency for daily exchange, the backbone of every industry. Fi kept a stash of energy chips at home to power her furnace. She kept the smaller glass capsules on her gloves for aid in combat. Factories in big cities like Thomaskweld churned out the common varieties.

But these. Glass strips along the edges glowed not with silver human magic, but crimson. Immortal energy. Gifts from the race of daeyari who ruled the government of every territory. Compared to mortal energy chips, daeyari-made were a hundred times stronger, more valuable. This box could power a village for a month.

“Where did you get these?” Fi asked, unease knotting her stomach.

Cardigan chuckled. “Oh, you know. A daeyari passes them off to a governor. Governor slips one to a mistress. And off they go into the world.” He closed the box with a snap. “Other half is yours on delivery.”

Fi weighed the prize, jaw tight as she tallied outstanding debts, a new harness for Aisinay, maybe a second set of silviamesh.

“Load it up,” she said.

Cardigan’s assistant snapped into motion, hauling apple crates from the top row to get at the contraband underneath. Fi tugged Aisinay’s bridle, moving her cart closer for transfer. The Void horse pawed the soil, but a stroke along her scaled neck quietened her.

Fi stepped aside to let the assistant work. Unfortunately, Cardi-gan joined her. While she stood stoic, hands folded behind her back, he fidgeted with his suit cuffs.

“This delivery,” Cardigan said, “requires the utmost discretion.”

“I have nearly a decade of experience moving cargo between Planes of reality,” Fi recited—because business cards also left a paper trail. “I’m well familiar with navigating among all four Season-Locked Planes, and the Winter Plane especially. Your wine is in good hands.”

“You plan to take the Bridge from Autumn to Winter?”

Fi stood a little stiffer, guard raised. “Seeing as a Bridge is the only way to pass from one Plane to another? Yeah. That’s the plan.”

“What about the customs checkpoint?”

“I won’t be using any public transit routes.”

“You know another way across?”

She held back an eye roll at the poorly veiled prodding. It never worked. “A Void smuggler never shares her routes.”

Most traders and tourists crossed the Bridge from one Plane to another using well-established entrances, bustling transit hubs between worlds—complete with guards and customs officers. More discreet business called for discreet paths, lesser-known doorways from one reality to the next. The more hidden routes a smuggler discovered, the greater advantage over competitors and law enforcement.

And Voidwalkers like Fi, able to see the doorways that normal humans couldn’t? The greatest advantage of all.

Cardigan’s assistant lifted the first sealed crate. A box full of wine ought to be heavy, yet he didn’t strain as he shifted the load, producing another clink of glass. Fi scowled.

“And what about the daeyari?” Cardigan prodded.

A chill hit Fi, an old instinct buried in her bones—in the bones of every human raised across these Planes, alert for the predators who stalked their forests.

Her reply came taut. “The daeyari who rules in Thomaskweld is one of the most lenient of his species on the Winter Plane. I assume that’s why you’re shipping there.” Didn’t make the possibility of crossing paths with one of the creatures any more palatable.

“Have you ever met one?”

The chill sharpened, ice through her gut. “Once.” Once was more than enough.

“How do you deal with them?”

“Void smugglers don’t deal with carnivorous immortals, Cardigan. We avoid them.”

The ice on her tongue should have shut him up, but Cardigan laughed. “Not all of you avoid them. Last year, I saw a sentence go out in the territory next door. Execution, for stealing from a governor. Dragged him to the daeyari screaming. Drew a crowd and everything!”

“Charming,” Fi gritted.

Her fist clenched, knuckles tight against silviamesh gloves. She imagined herself serene. Composed. A glassy mountain lake who wasn’t tempted to clock her client in the jaw.

Another crate moved onto her cart. Aisinay flattened her ears, blind eyes tilted to the load.

“I hope you’ll manage better,” Cardigan said. “I’m told you’re familiar with Antal Territory, enough to ensure—”

Fi left him mid-sentence. She pushed past the assistant and smacked her palm to a crate.

Heat swelled at her fingers. Every living creature had energy, a force to keep organs pumping and cells working. To Shape that energy was a matter of redirecting, leaching out of living tissue and concentrating into physical form. Fi drew a current from her forearm, fed by a breakfast of toast and too much sweetened coffee.

Cold prickled down her arm as she pulled the energy from her muscles. Hot, as a silver glow condensed in her hand. She pushed, sending a small pulse of her magic into the wood.

Something inside the crate shuddered, static thick enough to taste.

Fi recoiled. “Are these energy capsules?” Bigger than the glass vessels affixed to her gloves, judging by the current. A type of energy storage like Cardigan’s box of chips, but made for quicker access. Made more volatile.

The assistant looked to the ground. Cardigan’s lips thinned.

“Our goods are our business.”

The nerve. The sheer audacity. “Did you not register my question about potentially explosive materials?”

Cardigan. As Fi rolled over the name, it poked a fuzzy memory, some connection to the energy production sector…

“What does it matter?” he demanded.

“It matters if you’re stacking a fucking bomb on my cart.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Your payment is more than generous.”

A younger Fi would have backed down. Alone and freshly run away from home, pockets empty and her father’s shouts haunting her heels, the allure of twenty daeyari energy chips would have silenced her sharpest protests. The allure of twenty daeyari energy chips was still pretty motivating. Only now, Fi would have them on her terms.

She squared up with Cardigan. He stood taller than her respectable five-foot-seven, but Fi didn’t blink, her irreverent tone and barbed exterior drawn up like a cloak of armor.

“Listen, Cardigan. I’ll deliver this cargo. Because it’s my job, and I’m Void-damned good at my job, or you wouldn’t be here. But for that to happen, you’re going to tell me what’s in those crates, and how dangerous—”

She tensed at the snap of a branch. Aisinay’s ears perked.

Fi moved without thinking. Thinking was a delay, an invitation to take an energy bolt through the neck. The moment she heard the click of a crossbow, she shoved her clients behind the carts. A burnt taste laced the air. Two bolts of pure silver energy whizzed past to strike a tree, flaring out with a snap. Bootsteps crunched the leaves.

“Trade wardens!” a man called out in an Autum accent: crisp, and curt, and hand-crafted to ruin Fi’s day. “Come out with your hands up!”

Fi banged her head against the cart, exhaling an emphatic, “Fuuuck…”

“Trade wardens?” Cardigan hissed. “Were you followed?”

“Was I followed?” Fi pointed to the decoy apple crates. “While you’re out for a pleasant stroll with your apples, fifty miles from the closest market?”

“Can you get rid of them?”

Fi squinted through a slat in the cart, counting four figures. She pressed a hand to her temples, the throb of a hangover set aside, but not forgotten.

Twenty energy chips. Anything less wouldn’t be worth this.

“Sure. This is…” An existential sigh. “Suboptimal. But I’ve handled worse—”

A rustle of loam was her only warning. Without so much as a “thanks, goodbye,” Cardigan grabbed his assistant and fled into the forest. Fi gawked after them. That useless coward. That husk of moldy pine needles. She hissed several more curses as two wardens broke away in pursuit, leaving two to deal with her.

“Fionamara Kolbeck!” one called. “You’re wanted on charges of tax evasion, illegal territorial entry, illegal possession of hazardous substances—”

She banged her head against the cart again, harder. Fuck Fi in the Void, of course they recognized her. One of the perils of rainbow hair. And her glowing personality. Not to mention her all-around iconic approach to the profession of—

“—blackmailing, trespassing, and harassment of livestock. Surrender now!”

She peered out from cover. Two men entered the clearing, uniformed in scarlet jackets with a double row of gold buttons—colors of this territory’s governor. One wore the badge of the regional police, but the one with the trade warden bars on his chest… Fi vaguely recalled that wiry mustache tilted in equal displeasure a year ago, when she’d passed a shipment of Summer Plane cinnamon trees under his nose. What a quaint reunion.

Both men raised crossbows, metal constructs with bolts of silver energy Shaped onto the tracks. Standing next to several crates of volatile capsules was the last place Fi wanted to be if those bolts went off. She stepped out of cover with hands raised.

But not before popping an energy capsule off her glove and into her palm.

“Afternoon boys,” she greeted with a smile. “How’s the bounty looking these days?”

The warden twitched his moustache, finger itching for his trigger. “Five chips.”

“Five?” Fi scoffed. “Territory next door is offering eight. Get your shit together.”

She clenched her hand, crushing the glass capsule in her palm.

Fi had started charging her own capsules at age twenty-five, after a bootleg one exploded and nearly took her eyebrows off. She spent too much time sculpting those eyebrows. Basic Shaping drew energy from her own muscles, but mortal reserves only lasted so long before needing rest and food to replenish. Pre-charged capsules created an external energy bank to draw from. A handy power boost, when jobs turned sour.

That, and Fi adored the shock on the warden’s face when the glass cracked in her hand, releasing a pulse of silver energy.

She seized the magic before it could dissipate, fingers curled to Shape the external deluge. As she clenched a fist, the energy condensed, flashing a shield in time to catch two crossbow bolts fired at her thigh and shoulder. The air hissed where magic hit magic. Fi’s shield extinguished with a snap.

Her attackers pressed palms to their crossbows, a delay as they Shaped energy into new bolts.

Fi yanked the sword hilt from her belt. She popped another capsule off her glove and cracked it into the base of the hilt. As energy pulsed into the conductive metal, Fi Shaped it to form a silver blade, crackling ozone at the edges.

The warden fired first. Fi dodged. The graze of his bolt stung her shoulder, but her silviamesh diffused most of the energy. She caught his thigh with her blade, a slice that sent him howling to his knees. The second man hadn’t fired yet. Afraid to hit his superior?

His mistake. Fi swung her sword, striking the crossbow where an energy capsule was embedded into the stock. His eyes widened as glass cracked, but no time to react before—

BOOM.

An explosion shook the clearing, rattling leaves from maple trees. Even with another shield in place, Fi careened backward from the impact. Three energy capsules exhausted on a single meetup. What a waste. She caught her footing in the loamy soil, ears ringing. The trade warden slumped in the dirt, clutching his bloody leg. The second man sprawled face down. Unmoving.

He might have been dead. Fi avoided that outcome when she could, but survival came first. Especially when the alternative meant getting dragged to a daeyari. Her retirement plans included a cabin in the woods and a century-old bottle of whiskey, not being eaten alive.

Shouts sounded from the forest, a slurry of voices and splintering branches. Fi had precious seconds to appraise her escape route, the vanished Cardigan, the crates of bombs he’d loaded onto Aisinay’s cart. Abandoning the load would be easy, and though she grimaced to think of sacrificing a lucrative payout, she could stomach lost funds if it meant saving her neck.

The damage a forfeited job would do to her reputation, however? Unacceptable.

Only the worst cowards let fear get the best of them.

Fi closed the metal compartment of her cart with a latch. More shrapnel, if the load exploded, but at least nothing would tumble out. When she vaulted onto Aisinay’s bare back, the Void horse snorted and stomped her hooves. Fi lay a hand on the beast’s neck, accompanied by a gentle pulse of energy. Reassurance that she was there. Eyes for both of them.

Aisinay charged forward, the cart rumbling behind. Fi guided her not with reins, but soft hands on either side of her neck, flicks of energy to urge the blind horse left or right as they dodged between trees. Impossible to gauge the number of voices swarming the forest, but she wouldn’t stay long enough to find out.

She’d chosen this meeting spot for a reason.

They skidded into a ravine. Deep mud dragged the cart wheels, exposed tree roots lashing Fi’s shoulders like grasping hands. At the end of the ditch: salvation. A distortion rippled the air, the translucent folds of a Curtain, barely visible amidst slanted Autumn sunlight.

At Fi’s urging, Aisinay charged straight in.

2. Just a girl, her horse, and the endless Void

The Curtain had no weight—less like cloth, more like a tear. A thin spot in the fabric of the Autumn Plane. Normal humans couldn’t see the doorways sprinkled throughout their worlds, would only note a chill in the air as they passed

Ever since giving death a solid “not today, thanks” on that riverbank as a kid, Fi saw Curtains clear as the hand in front of her.

She reached for the translucent shroud, clinging to the back of her Void horse, cart slowed by the mud. Cold rippled goosebumps down her arms. Fi pushed back. She drew energy out of forearm muscles, Shaped it into a pulse of glowing silver at her fingertips. Like slicing a hand through thick mist. The veil consumed her, crimson leaves and birch trunks fading to black as she left the Autum Plane.

They emerged onto tundra. Dense forest snapped into peat and lichen-crusted stone, firm ground beneath hooves, day turned to night. Moonlight swathed the open expanse, though no moon appeared in the sky. Not a single star.

This wasn’t Autumn. Not any Plane, but rather a Bridge, a narrow path connecting worlds like a log felled across a river.

And that starless sky overhead, that maw of black emptiness: a view straight into the Void, the endless liminal space that stretched between realities.

Fi scanned the hillocks, alert for pursuers. Only Voidwalkers, brushed by death, could see Curtains, but other humans could step through one if they knew its location.

Beneath her, Aisinay’s nostrils flared at the change in the air, the scent of ozone and eternity from the Void. This was her native land. Millennia ago, horses from some Plane had wandered onto a Bridge, adapting to the barren landscape. The blind beast lurched to a full gallop, guided by currents of energy even Fi couldn’t sense, hooves flying over tundra.

Fi breathed deep of the starless sky. The frigid rock underfoot that cracked with the dust of infinity. She may have been born upon a Plane, but she understood the lift in Aisinay’s strides. Her greatest freedom had always come from fleeing into nothingness. A second home, ever since that river tried—and failed—to claim her.

Fi steered Aisinay past glassy tundra pools, over heather with ghostly silver leaves, to the base of a ridge. She slipped off the horse’s bare back, crouching as she climbed to higher ground. A breeze brushed the Void-and-rainbow curls of her hair, air crisp like after a lightning strike.

Nothing moved upon the tundra. No shouts of pursuing trade wardens.

Fi grinned. Amateurs, thinking they could haul her in for five measly energy chips.

In the valley below, train tracks glinted in phantom moonlight. Trans-Plane trains crossed all the major Bridges, the lifeblood of commerce between the four Season-Locked worlds, but Fi steered clear of the major thoroughfares. After ensuring her crate and cargo remained intact, she swung onto Aisinay’s scaled back, urging the horse forward at a more leisurely pace.

Over the next ridge, the ground fell away into black.

While Planes spanned wide enough to encompass great cities, vast territories, Bridges were significantly smaller, mere slivers of reality within the Void. At the border, rock came to a jagged halt, only empty black beyond. Since Fi was a little girl, she could never resist peering over the edge of existence, wondering what it would feel like to just… jump in.

Certain death, of course. Bridges offered paths to walk through the Void separating Planes, but no one ever came back after stepping into the abyss itself.

Except for the daeyari.

Legend said the beasts were flesh and blood once. All living creatures passed their energy to the Void when they died. But unlike all other living creatures, the daeyari had refused death, somehow clawing their energy back onto the material Planes, returning as immortal.

Uninterested in a horrific demise on this—and all—occasions, Fi guided Aisinay along the ridgeline, a safe distance from the plummet into doom. Bridges had more than one exit Curtain to the Planes they linked. She’d spent her life poking through hundreds of Curtains, testing where they led, cataloguing useful connections. Some were innocuous: a rural clearing on the Autumn Plane, useful for covert meetings. Her cart rumbled over rocky ground, passing several more Curtains that smelled of tree tannin and loamy soil.

Then, a shift to pine and ice.

Fi steered Aisinay through a familiar Curtain, palm raised to part reality one more time.

Towering pine trees greeted them, a night-shrouded forest quiet with snow and a breeze through dark needles. Frigid air curled Fi’s breath, a scent of cold and conifers. The sky of the Winter Plane swam with stars, framed by jagged mountains and a green aurora—the lingering energy of dead souls gone to the Void, a hum of almost-voices on the wind.

Home. No matter how far she wandered.

Fi slipped off Aisinay’s back, landing with a crunch of snow beneath her boots. She patted the horse’s neck. Then, a shout to the sky.

“Fuck Cardigan,” she told the looming shiverpines, the weeping firs bent with ice. “Void-damned asshole.”

Aisinay snorted, her finned tail brushing snow.

“Right?” Fi agreed with matching indignation.

The horse pawed the ground, ears tilted toward the cart. Fi stroked her muzzle.

“Don’t worry, sweet girl. We’ll get this load off you right away.”

She’d deliver these crates out of spite if nothing else. The cargo, she didn’t mind—Fi had moved energy capsules before, for clients with the decency to warn her. Withholding information? Alerting trade wardens to a rendezvous? Someone needed to educate Cardigan in black-market etiquette. Preferably with a slap to the face for good measure.

From her cart, Fi retrieved a coat to layer over her silviamesh: sable elk hide with a collar of snowy hare, more strips of decorative white fur sewn up her ribs and arms. She already wore her snow boots, fur-lined with solid traction. With a guiding hand on Aisinay’s neck, she led them out of the forest.

The first signs of civilization came as a stomp of hooves. A snort. The forest opened to a clearing where a herd of aurorabeasts grazed for stalks beneath the snow, bison-like creatures with nubbed horns and dense coats, green energy glowing along humped backs. A ranch house sat amidst the conifers, windows dark. Fi kept her distance from the building, picking up a narrow path down the hill.

The village of Nyskya lay ahead, nestled into the valley like gold dust sprinkled over snow. Glowing windows peered from buildings of dark timber and steep-pitched roofs for sloughing ice, densest at the valley floor, fading into black shiverpines along the slopes. One road cut through the heart of the village. The wide copper piping of an energy conduit ran down the center, smaller channels branching into the surrounding buildings to fuel light and heat.

Beyond that necessary infrastructure, there were no imposing energy factories. No train tracks or trolleys or looming government buildings. People here cut timber and smithed steel. Herded aurorabeasts and hunted pelts from the forest. They sold what they could, but the village prided itself on self-sufficiency.

The perfect place for a smuggler. Fi had lived in Nyskya—well, adjacent to Nyskya—for seven years, spoiled by privacy and easy access to Curtains. She led Aisinay down a less-trodden path, keen on avoiding attention with a cart full of contraband. Heading straight home would be the smarter option, but after a long afternoon of coward clients and energy expenditures, Fi was ravenous. The last thing she wanted was to cook her own dinner.

They stopped behind the village tavern. Fi spent enough nights behind taverns—either puking her guts out or winning fist fights—to appreciate this one as impeccably clean, the trash bins lined up with bear-proof lids, door painted cheerful red. A copper lantern hung above the entryway, powered by a silver energy capsule. She nudged open the door.

The heat of the kitchen thawed Fi’s cheeks. From the hall beyond came the din of the tavern, but her attention narrowed on dishes clattering upon metal counters. The clack of a knife. The smell of roasting fish and cream sauce and Void knew what else. Fi wanted it.

She crept past conduit-powered stoves and wire shelves, wielding the focus of a thieving raccoon. A wisp of a woman stood across the room, chopping onions. While her back was turned, Fi inspected a soup pot, melting at the aroma of salmon and dill. She filled a mason jar, screwed on the lid, then wrapped the hot glass in a kitchen rag. In exchange, she plucked a small energy chip from her pocket and left it on the counter, more than enough for the meal.

On her way out, Fi snatched a couple of spiced ginger cookies off a cooling rack. A strip of elk jerky from a cannister.

Back outside, the cold met her like a jealous lover. Fi hunched into her coat and the warmth of her spoils. The soup and cookies she stashed in her cart. The jerky she held out to Aisinay, who devoured the treat in a snap of fangs.

They both tensed at the crunch of footsteps in the alley. Aisinay’s ears perked.

Fi reached instinctively for the hilt of her energy sword.

“Lurking behind taverns again?” called out in a heavy Winter accent.

A familiar voice. A judgmental voice. Fi’s groan turned to a puff of steam.

Her accuser met her with arms crossed, chest broad from the thickness of his flannel-lined coat more than muscle underneath. Ice crusted his dark beard, a dust of snow on hair pulled into a messy bun. A ruddy cast to pale cheeks suggested he’d been walking in the cold. Always keeping an eye on things: his aurorabeasts outside town, the people inside it.

Always able to sniff Fi out like a foxhound, despite her best skulking.

She pulled her coat into a mock curtsy. “Good evening, esteemed mayor.”

His brow quirked. “Are you avoiding me?”

“Not successfully, it would appear.”

Fi crouched, feigning interest on the wheels of her cart. Thankfully, nothing looked loose, despite the hurried retreat. When footsteps closed at her side, she hid an eye roll behind the veil of her hair. She was tired, she just wanted to go home, she—

“Come on, Fi-Fi. Why the sour mood?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Or you’ll do what?”

Swift as a frost asp, Fi struck at the snow beneath her boots, packed a snowball, and hurled it at his face. He staggered, sputtering ice. Served him right. For anyone but her brother, that snowball would’ve had a rock in it.

Boden Kolbeck, mayor of Nyskya, glared at the smuggler crouched before him.

Then he dove for a snowbank.

The war was brief. Boden’s snowball glanced off Fi’s silviamesh. She struck one more to his chest and a third to the back of his head. When he kicked a drift of powder, she shouted and shielded her face, an opening for a tackle. Two rolls across the ground, and Fi had him in a headlock. Boden might be three years older, but he exercised by strolling his village, not swinging energy swords. Fi had him beat in both grit and underhandedness.

He tapped her arm in surrender. Fi released him, and they collapsed against her cart, breaths billowing mist in the cold night air.

Boden punched her shoulder. Fi hit back harder, making him wince.

They broke into laughter together.

“Ice-hearted, Fi. I’ll have bruises tomorrow!” As Boden rubbed his shoulder, Aisinay nibbled his coat. An excellent judge of character. Their father had been a metallurgist, a craftsman of conduits and machinery parts, but Fi and Boden both preferred live beasts. He patted the horse’s muzzle. “How was the Autumn Plane?”

Fi puckered her lips. “I never said where I was going.”

He reached into the Void-and-rainbow swirls of her hair, plucking out a crimson leaf like a magic trick. Fi gasped.

“Ugh. Leaves.” She flurried her hands through her hair, dislodging several more hitchhikers.

“By all the Shattered Planes,” Boden said. “I thought I wouldn’t see you for a week, after what you did to that bottle of whiskey last night.”

“Birthdays are meant to be celebrated, Bodie.”

His nose scrunched. “Why do you get to call me Bodie, but I can’t call you Fi-Fi?”

“Little sister rules. And mayor rules. You have to act professional. I don’t.”

He tilted his head, eyes dark as hers, warm in the tavern light. “What’s in the cart?”

Fi debated how to put it delicately.

“I think it’s a bomb.”

“What?”

Boden lurched to his feet. As if an extra meter would do him any good. Snickering, Fi grabbed a crowbar from her cart and slipped it beneath a crate lid, easing it open with a pop.

The inside glowed silver. A low, staticky hum. Energy capsules sat in cardboard cups like volatile eggs—glass spheres with swirling magic inside, several times larger than the capsules on Fi’s gloves. Not uncommon for powering lights or larger weapons, but dangerous to pile so many in one box.

Boden peered into the crate with brows raised. “Where to?”

“Thomaskweld.”

“Thomaskweld? Who pays to smuggle energy into one of the biggest energy producing cities on the Winter Plane?”

“See Bodie, this is why you’re a mayor, and I’m but a lowly purveyor of illicit goods. You care about these things.” She closed the crate with a definitive thump. “I don’t.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Fi-Fi. You also rob taverns.” He cast a dry look at the soup and cookies in her cart.

“I paid for it!” she returned, indignant. “Speaking of which. How much do I owe you in back taxes?”

“You think I keep a tally off the top of my head?”

“I know you keep a tally off the top of your head.”

On principle, Fi would sooner throw herself into the bottomless pit of the Void than pay taxes of the income, import, or any variety. Boden was the exception. She’d fled their childhood home first. He’d left three years later, when their father died. They both wound up in Nyskya, away from the dust of that old house and the cooling ashes of their father’s funeral pyre, seeking a place to breathe. Not a bad trade, trusting the mayor to let Fi come and go, in exchange for a cut of her profits.

She tossed him the box with Cardigan’s down payment. “Will this cover it?”

Boden flipped the case open. His pale face went paler. “The shit.”

“Right?”

“Are these daeyari energy chips?”

“Right?”

The chips would be an extravagance for Fi—more useful for Boden. Energy to power the village, to keep houses warm through the endless winter. Larger cities had central power factories, fleets of human workers to Shape energy into the conduits. Nyskya ran on a smaller workforce, supplemented with chips charged elsewhere.

Most settlements turned to their ruling daeyari for such aid. That had been the pact between mortals and immortals for centuries, when the beasts came down from their trees and offered to stop hunting humans like wild game. Peace and partnership—in exchange for willing sacrifices to keep them fed.

Where Fi and Boden grew up, Verne Territory, the call for sacrifice went out every few years, whenever the town needed new parts for their energy conduits or better commissions for metallurgy. Sometimes, volunteers came forward. Sometimes, meetings stretched long into the night to decide who’d have to go, their father returning silent and hollow-eyed.

She and Boden fled to Antal Territory seeking escape, a less vicious daeyari with an uncommon policy: the village didn’t need to send a sacrifice, so long as they didn’t ask for aide. That meant repairing their own conduits. Tracking down their own energy chips. Sourcing their own food and medicine. A rare cause worth supporting.

Boden closed the box. Spoke softly. “Thank you, Fi. This will help.”

“Of course.” She looked away from his sincerity, more comfortable with bristles. “Keep the people from freezing. Wouldn’t look good for your re-election.”

Fi owed him more than this. Much more than whatever numbers he kept in his ledger.

Void knew, she was a pain in the ass little sister, flighty as a Curtain, prone to cussing too much and parading bombs across his doorstep. Here was one meager attempt to repay him for everything she’d put him through ten years ago. For giving her safe harbor in a Plane full of claws. For being the only family she had left.

“This was your payment?” Boden said. “These chips are worth more than the capsules.”

“People pay more when they need something specific.”

Did the job smell off? Of course. Fi kept her margins tight through calculated risk, profit weighed against consequence. Twenty daeyari energy chips were worth a lot of consequence.

Boden, who inherited enough worry for both of them, scowled, but didn’t press. He never asked for names, details. Safer for both of them.

“Anything else you need? Other than pilfered soup.”

Fi gripped Aisinay’s lead. “Drop off is in two days. I’ll lay low until then. As usual, if anyone asks about me…”

Boden pressed a hand to his heart, his tone a tad too dramatic. “Fionamara? I haven’t seen that woman in months. Selfish thing never visits. Never thinks about family.”

Fi left him with a kiss on the cheek. A punch on the shoulder.

She and her horse and a cart of energy capsules left the village. Her home lay an hour’s hike up a snowy canyon, but Fi never took the long way. Once they cleared the houses, she stepped through another Curtain, off the Winter Plane.

The space beyond lay quiet. Snow-dusted. A meadow of silver grass and leafless poplar trees, ground crumbling into the Void within sight in any direction.

Far smaller than a Plane. Smaller, even, than the Bridge that brought her from Autumn. Shards were the tiniest, most numerous scraps of reality scattered through the Void.

Prevailing theory claimed a single world existed once, an age that far preceded flimsy human memory. Then, that reality shattered like a dropped mirror. Planes were the largest fragments, hundreds of separate worlds split from the whole, now scattered throughout the Void. Bridges were smaller slivers, connecting one Plane to another.

Shards were dust around the edges, tinier pockets of reality that connected to no more than one Plane. On the surface, this might make Shards seem like nothing more than extra-dimensional holes to hide in—which Fi had done plenty of as a kid, avoiding chores or her father’s chastisement.

As she got older, Fi discovered the true advantage of Shards lay in how they distorted distance, compared to the neighboring Plane. She walked Aisinay past one Curtain that would return her to the Winter Plane across the valley, at her favorite copse for hunting hare. Another Curtain that, in two days, would take her a hundred miles away to Thomaskweld.

Where the ruling daeyari lived.

Fi huffed the Void-empty air. It was just a city. Just a job. She’d successfully avoided those beasts for a decade.

At last, she reached the Curtain to take her home. She stepped back onto the Winter Plane, onto a forested ridge two miles above Nyskya—traversed in a matter of minutes.

A short walk through sighing shiverpines brought her to a clearing, a cottage with shingled roof and dark windows. Fi unhitched the cart. Finally free of the load, Aisinay cantered into the trees, off to forage dinner in the nearby river. Fi crossed her porch, kicked the snow off her boots, then stepped inside, eager for a hot bath full of pomegranate bubbles, a warm bed piled high with furs.

She’d dream of ten more energy chips waiting for her in Thomaskweld.

Not of claws lurking in the trees beyond her windows.