Voidwalker

Book 1: Beasts of the Void

by S. A. MacLean

Genres: Fantasy Romance; Sword & Sorcery

Synopsis

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."

Fionamara is a smuggler. Antal is the reason her people fear the dark. Fi ferries contraband between worlds, stockpiling funds and stolen magic to keep her village self-sufficient - free from the blood sacrifices humans have paid to Antal's immortal species for centuries.

Only legends whispered through the pine forests recall a time when things were different, before one world shattered into many, and the flesh-devouring beasts crept from the cracks between realities, with their sable antlers and slender tails, lethal claws and gleaming fangs. Now, mortal lives are food to pacify their carnivorous overlords, exchanged for feudal protection, and the precious silver energy that fuels everything from transport to weaponry.

When Fi gets planted with a stash of smuggled energy, a long-lost flame recruits her for a reckless heist that escalates into a terrorist bombing - and a coup against the reigning immortals, with Fi's home caught in the crossfire.

She's always known the dangers of her trade - and of the power she's wielded since childhood, allowing her to see the secret doors between dimensions, to walk the Void itself. But nothing could have prepared her for crossing paths with Antal. For the deal she'll have to make with him, a forced partnership to reclaim his city that begins as a desperate bid for survival, only to grow into something far more dangerous.

A revolution. And a temptation - for how sweet the monster's fangs might feel.

Release date: August 19, 2025

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 400

Sample

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, Cardigan 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.

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 ca