Chapter Twenty-Seven #3
The Monarchs were pre-convergence, in that scholarly scrawl, underlined.
Old ways of thinking. Old sacrifices.
Old thinking.
They needed a seelie. One that belonged to the House.
Zyr belonged to the House.
Zyr belonged to Robin. First and foremost. He had said so. Given Robin everything. But still oathsworn to Linden.
A seelie who was a part of the House and Zyr with an allotment that had belonged to someone else, his by rights and–
“Dinam.” Robin sounded so so calm. Dinam froze, eyeing him warily. “I am going to tell you something and you are going to repeat it. You’re going to believe it as if your life depends on it, because it does. And you will put all of the ‘I weave with Faerie’ weight behind it you can.”
Dinam’s expression didn’t become any less wary. “What is it?”
“I’m seelie. Whatever Faerie considers my true name, that’s who I am, and I’m seelie.” The old fae used to think so. Robin would think so. Because it would work. It would fucking work.
“... are you a seelie?”
“Yes, cat, I’m fucking seelie,” Robin snapped. “For all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what I am. Robin Alexander Campbell, Aster Goodfellow Gardner, is a damn seelie. Say it back to me, what I just told you.”
“You told me you’re seelie.” And, yeah, the cat looked uneasy, but he didn’t balk. “You declared your names and said the true name belonged to a seelie. To you.”
“Drop the ‘you told me.’ We already know what I told you. Repeat the rest of that first part, do it in your head if you need to, but do it.” Robin spun back to the ward, to Zyr, and rapped his knuckles three times on the shimmering pane, staring hard at the beithir.
“Head up. Look at me. They want to play with ancient magic, we’ll play with ancient fucking magic. Beithir, tell me what I am.”
Zyr lifted his head, eyes open. Unlike Dinam, he didn’t look confused or wary. There was that admiration in his gaze, the look he gave Robin when he called him ‘clever bird.’
“You are seelie,” Zyr said, the depths of a squall in his words. “By the old reckoning, as has placed humans on the very throne, you are seelie.”
Robin ignored Dinam’s quiet whispers, his attention on Zyr, Dhanra, his beithir. Robin mouthed the man’s name, his true name, stroking his fingers over the ward where he’d be able to grab Zyr’s horns, if there were nothing between them.
“I’m seelie. That’s right. Now tell me what’s mine.”
Literal life-or-death situation with corpses and Dinam in the room be damned, Robin nearly tore the ward down with his teeth as Zyr lowered himself to his knees, very deliberately, looking up, hands still against the ward.
Zyr, unquestioning, understanding, brought everything back to what they were.
On his knees in supplication, watching Robin.
“Me. I am your beithir. My soul, my status, my allotment, all belong first to you.”
“Your allotment. Your status. Your soul. My beithir, acknowledged by myself and the Monarchs. Both sets. Beautiful man.”
Robin’s anxious, ringing nerves settled enough for him to focus on the moment. On Zyr. Who was his. Waiting for him.
Robin pressed his right hand harder against the ward. Willing it in. Visualizing his fingers in, through the spellwork, into Zyr’s wet mouth that spoke the truth that he, Robin, was seelie, and Zyr was his.
Seelie Robin, he was seelie and Zyr, Linden-sworn, was his.
House-tied seelie. House. Tied. Seelie.
Paper, aged and thin, written on in blood and chocolate, edges curled and darkened by lightning.
His fingers moved, hovering where Zyr’s mouth would meet them, soft and warm, if they could. When they could. Because it would fucking work.
“Seelie for unseelie. Mine.” Old magics. Old reckoning. Pre-convergence, he could have sat on the throne. Been Monarch. “I am seelie.”
His, Zyr was his. All he was and all he possessed. Faerie, almost accepting it, the ward letting the tips of Robin’s nails push through.
Fine. Robin knew how to make his point.
“Open your mouth. Give me what’s mine.”
More than his nails through, then. One knuckle. Two. Three fingers, and Zyr opened his mouth, a flash of pink beyond ridged predators teeth. “There you are. That’s good, Dhanra.” True name breathed, just between them. “Lean in. Take what I offer you.”
Wet, slick heat. Dark eyes. A storm of bitter, sweet darkness, the spark of it sharp sharp sharp under a storm cloud sky, engulfed by tomes lost by time, and Robin made a sound.
He didn’t know what kind. Whatever sound you made when the world shifted again and your fingers curled over a tongue and lightning filled you, when all you could see were blue scales and gorgeous eyes and feel everything, everything, and tangle it all up into one.
Zyr. Dhanra. He was everywhere. In Robin’s mind, his soul, the beithir pressed to the ward, fingers clawing and lips parted, desperate for Robin in a way that filled his senses with sea salt and dark chocolate.
Robin had always liked thunderstorms. The lash of rain and wind, destruction from a distance, affecting everyone with the change of tides and pull of currents.
That was Zyr, more and more and more of him. Robin’s skin crackled, thrumming like a wire pulled taut, as good a feeling as a new length of rope.
Such an obscene beithir, close and trying to be closer still. Robin, pushing for the same, curling and uncurling his fingers, willing them deeper into that hot mouth, lips against the ward, obscene and perfect, the way it should be.
Mine. He’s mine.
Too lost in it, the repetition of seelie seelie seelie slipping away under the onslaught of shocking pleasure, rich on Robin’s tongue. Focused on the beithir, his, his bond, and his fingers started to burn, the ward tightening like a string around each finger, pressure increasing by the second.
Robin hissed, yanking his hand back. The ward snapped shut on empty air instead of his fingertips.
“Zyr.” Ripped from his throat or hissed or said on a gasp. All. Neither. Somewhere in between.
He reached for the ward again. Clawed at it. He needed what was his.
“Search for the bond between you.” Fucking cat, and even his voice was annoying. Low and urgent, and those were two things Robin knew to pay attention to. “For his magic. Then pull it to yourself.”
He did, breath harsh in his lungs, felt for the sharp-shock-sweet-shudder that was Zyr. Took hold of where I became we and then him. Careful and precise, handling the storm and drawing some of that crackling, beautiful, warm lightning of his beithir into his hands, his eyes.
He wanted his bond.
The ward lit with their magic. Shattered.