JASSYN
Five years after the fall of Galaeryn
The council chamber never slept.
Jassyn sat at the head of the polished table as evening spilled through the windows of the living tree, gilding his hands while sap pulsed through the grain. Beyond the open arches, the druid jungle climbed into mist, its canopy stirring through the last gold of evening.
Five years had vanished into treaties, uneasy alliances, and realms learning how to stand. Through it all, old wounds strained against every stitch meant to hold them closed.
At last, the delegates had gone for the evening, their portals sealing one by one and carrying them back to their districts with petitions tucked under their arms and grievances left to curdle overnight.
Beyond the chamber, wraith held their posts in the corridors, silent fixtures of a vigilance Jassyn had stopped pretending was temporary.
Alone, then. As much as he was ever allowed to be anymore.
Jassyn flattened his palm over a report bearing the paired seals of Kyansari’s stewards, Mara and Thalaesyn.
A noblewoman of the inner court had vanished without a trace two weeks ago.
Jassyn remembered the name from Farine’s estate.
Jeweled hands. Crystal chalices. Laughter fading to a hum while his mind learned to leave the room before his body could.
A familiar tread traveled through the bark and shuddered into his boots. Through the earth, he sensed Lykor at the chamber’s threshold, irritation arriving with him like a stormfront.
Jassyn kept his attention on the report, leaving Lykor to stand there with the evidence between them.
“You’re late.”
Lykor grunted as he shouldered past the doorframe. “I had matters to attend to.”
Naturally.
Jassyn laid the report atop the drift of petitions spread across the map of their world. At the edge of his vision, Lykor’s claw flexed as he stalked closer.
Jassyn tapped the chair beside him. “Sit.”
Lykor glanced at the empty chair, then back at Jassyn. His jaw tightened before he dropped into the seat hard enough to make the floor creak.
The nearness registered too sharply, the scent of leather and frost, armor still carrying warmth from the sun. Details Jassyn’s mind cataloged when he should’ve been assembling his argument.
He pushed away from the table and rose.
Folding his arms, Lykor tracked him. “What’s this about?”
Jassyn circled the table, placing its carved breadth between them. The polished wood offered enough space to keep Lykor’s hands from undoing his resolve. A week apart, and one touch from Lykor would blunt every accusation Jassyn had honed over sleepless nights.
“We’re going to speak about the matters you’ve been attending to,” Jassyn said quietly.
Lykor shoved loose strands of hair from his face. “If you’re after apologies for my lateness,” he growled, yanking the leather cord free from his topknot, “take it up with Aesar. He’s been occupied clinging insufferably to his human.”
“Marrek,” Jassyn clipped. “You can say his name.”
Lykor’s lip curled, his fingers stilling in his hair.
“And don’t use them to dodge me.”
The cord bit into Lykor’s fingers as he retied the knot at the top of his head.
His attention cut toward the jungle, then back to Jassyn.
“Then what’s this about? Or can we take it somewhere that doesn’t reek of treaties and your fucking need to save everyone?
You’ve probably been holed up in this trunk since sunrise. ”
Jassyn didn’t deny it. He’d already decided to stand for another term. Another five years surrendered to trade routes and border disputes, to the patient work of teaching ruined realms that peace could endure longer than the violence that preceded it.
The work was unfinished. Jassyn believed that.
He feared he’d always believe it.
The Accord would celebrate his decision, and Lykor would hate it. He’d hear another piece of Jassyn’s life offered to a world that never stopped asking, and Jassyn had delayed telling him because he had no argument Lykor would accept.
That secret, at least, could be defended as duty. The other could claim no such dignity.
That afternoon, a druid delegate had opposed the relief measure for Kyansari’s poorer districts—food stores, clean wells, crews to repair cracked stone and shattered glass before the winter rains came.
The capital hadn’t earned rescue from hands it had once chained, she’d argued.
Essence had flared through Jassyn’s veins before thought could intervene. The chamber had gone so still that he’d heard the delegate draw her next breath. She’d blinked once and inclined her head.
He’d compelled her, and no one noticed.
And she hadn’t been the first.
Jassyn could’ve confessed the truth to Lykor, how more than one argument had tilted in his favor before he realized coercion had done the persuading for him.
But Lykor wouldn’t condemn him, and Jassyn couldn’t afford the comfort of that response.
He’d understand too much, trace the violation through every wound Jassyn carried, and call what he’d done necessary until it became permission.
Jassyn didn’t need absolution from someone who loved him enough to excuse what he’d done.
Instead, he said, “I had an…interesting encounter with Blossom.”
Lykor rolled his eyes. “Anyone would have an interesting encounter with Blossom.”
Jassyn studied him.
“She seemed to be expecting you.” He rounded the curve of the table and stopped behind Lykor’s chair, bracing his hands on the carved back. “Care to tell me why?”
Lykor’s jaw ticked, but he kept silent.
“I’ve let you keep your secrets for years, Lykor.” What Jassyn had withheld himself made the rebuke difficult to justify. “I saw the pattern. Maybe I always did, but I chose to ignore it.”
Lykor bristled, turning enough to bring Jassyn into the edge of his sight. “Are you going to get to the point? If I wanted to be punished by riddles, I would’ve visited Rimeclaw.”
Jassyn leaned closer, his voice dropping until every word sharpened. “I could’ve summoned the enclave. Bound you by the laws I forged.” His grip clamped against Lykor’s chair. “But I kept this in shadows. That makes the crime mine as much as yours.”
“I’ve done nothing against your new laws,” Lykor growled.
Jassyn’s composure fractured. “You’re feeding elves to Blossom!”
Lykor surged to his feet, sending the chair skidding backward.
Jassyn stepped aside before the carved legs clipped his knees. Lykor stood rigid before him, crimson eyes burning feral.
“And tell me,” Lykor snarled, “which law, precisely, forbids feeding Blossom their wretched hides?”
Jassyn’s hand shook when he shoved the curls from his face. He turned toward the balcony, where the jungle’s canopy moved in slow green swells, until his pulse steadied.
Then Lykor was at his back.
“You know who they were.” His words landed low and vicious. “Every one of them.”
His hand closed over Jassyn’s shoulder.
Jassyn’s muscles eased under the familiar grip, the surrender swift enough to shame him. That was the cruelty of Lykor’s touch—the shelter of it, the traitorous relief offered by the same hand that delivered bodies to a dragon’s fangs.
Jassyn closed his eyes. “It’s not justice. It’s…”
“It’s what they earned.” Lykor’s fingers tightened. “I won’t let this new world pretend it never happened. Not while I draw breath.”
Jassyn turned on him so fast that Lykor’s hand slipped from his shoulder. “You’ll make me a tyrant. You have to stop.”
“No.”
“You can’t—”
“I can.” Lykor stepped in close enough for Jassyn to feel the words against his mouth. “I won’t stop until every elf who touched you is nothing but bones.”
“There are hundreds, Lykor.” Jassyn shook his head, the number constricting his throat. “Sooner or later, someone will connect the vanishings. I won’t be able to protect you when they do.”
“Then I’ll silence them too.”
The room tilted.
The horror resolved into a purge wearing the face of love, a world built from unsaid permissions where Jassyn’s wounds became law because Lykor had mistaken devotion for mandate. And Jassyn had let him.
Jassyn stepped back before Lykor could touch him again. “No. This ends here. It has to.”
“Then write your laws. I’ll find the loophole.”
Jassyn closed his eyes.
Lykor’s vow remained between them, monstrous in its loyalty, and some treacherous part of Jassyn wanted him exactly like this, dangerous on his behalf.
“I’ll hunt faster than you can enact them,” Lykor said, crowding into Jassyn’s space again. “I’m not finished.”
His mouth grazed Jassyn’s throat.
Jassyn’s palms struck Lykor’s chest. But his fingers closed in the armor and pulled him closer instead of shoving him back.
“Lykor.” His voice scraped thin, stripped of command.
Fangs dragged lightly along his jaw. Jassyn turned into the touch. Then Lykor’s mouth crashed over his.
The kiss breached the last of the distance Jassyn had fought to keep. His fists locked in Lykor’s armor, holding him there while the accusation between them lost its shape against fang and tongue.
Lykor steered him backward, and Jassyn gave ground until the council table struck the backs of his thighs.
Papers slid under his palms when he caught himself.
Maps and laws, borders and treaties—each written in ink and careful lines, each crumpling under his hands while Lykor pressed closer, breath hot against his mouth.
Jassyn planted his palms on the polished wood and lifted himself onto the table. His knees opened in invitation and Lykor stepped between them, fingers digging into his thighs.
The chamber stood exposed to the canopy on every side, wraith visible along the winding corridors and nothing but air flowing in the arches.
Jassyn glanced toward the nearest span. Lykor’s shadows surged up the living pillars and spilled from arch to arch until darkness enclosed the chamber from every direction.
“No one’s getting through that.” Lykor’s eyes flared, landing on Jassyn’s mouth as his palm closed over him through his trousers. “Doesn’t mean the whole fucking tree won’t hear you come apart though.”