The effect was immediate. Lykor’s entire body went rigid, his chest shuddering in uneven gasps, eyes glassy and vacant.
The courtyard seemed to hold its breath, an eerie silence settling like heavy snow. Water dripped from every surface, pooling around Lykor, tracing thin rivulets down the spiked edges of his armor. One by one, the others released their magic.
Vesryn’s boots clipped against the stone as he stalked forward, scowling at Lykor’s immobilized form before headdressed Jassyn. “Get rid of that coercion,” he ordered. “No hesitation this time. Not like with Magister Thalaesyn. Do it now—bring my brother back.”
Jassyn pursed his lips, stalling as he lifted a hand. Moving closer, he channeled threads of mending toward Lykor, healing his wounds. A puncture in his shoulder from their encounter in the jungle. Another between his ribs, likely from the prince. “I need to be careful—”
“Untangle the fucking coercion and free my brother,” Vesryn snarled, his boiling fury threatening to erupt. “Get rid of this…thisbeastlatched onto his mind.”
“Vesryn!” Serenna warned from behind them. “Give him room to work.”
Biting back his own argument, Jassyn clicked his teeth together. Resistance wasn’t an option, not while Vesryn’s glare burned with command. Lykor wasn’t some monster to be removed, but now wasn’t the time to press the prince. He couldn’t risk Vesryn attempting to rend through the coercion himself.
Jassyn’s hands trembled as they hovered inches from Lykor’s head, his gut churning with the bitter truth that he was using coercion as a leash. Lykor’s worst fear had become reality—the terror of being controlled, of feeling another’s will supplanting his own. But there was no other way, no gentler path to free him from this domination.
Jassyn swallowed hard, his exhale unsteady against the rising guilt. His only hope was that if Lykor even remembered, he would understand this was to help.
The world faded—the tense courtyard, Vesryn’s pacing, this foreign fortress, Serenna, Kal, and Fenn all dissolving. Jassyn drifted, swept away in a current, everything around him dimming until only Lykor’s vacant stare remained, the person within locked inside the prison of his mind.
A lattice of magic unfolded before Jassyn’s eyes, a complex web of knotted threads—the familiar architecture of coercion. Jassyn narrowed his focus, homing in as he readied to unravel each coil. But a faint flicker caught his eye, a glimmer in the distance. Driven by curiosity, Jassyn moved toward it, sensing something familiar.
An obsidian door materialized before him, its surface pulsing faintly, as though something alive slumbered within the stone. A chill raced down Jassyn’s spine, his instincts flaring in silent warning.
He’d passed through that door earlier in the evening when he entered Lykor’s mind, but he’d moved so quickly that most of the details had blurred. Whatever lay beyond the looming barrier was meant to stay hidden. And yet, the door seemed to draw him in—a silent lure he couldn’t ignore.
Jassyn’s heart pounded as he closed his eyes, gathering his will. Then, with a final push, he shoved the door open, slipping fully into the depths of Lykor’s mind.
CHAPTER 4
LYKOR
Loathing for this cursed chamber writhed in Lykor’s gut, a festering wound that refused to close. He glared at the obsidian ceiling, as if sheer defiance could shatter the dark stone above. His mind thrashed like a caged beast clawing for escape.
But it was pointless.
He knew this room, knew the torment it promised—an endless cycle of agony carved into memory. His muscles spasmed, straining for the smallest reprieve against the icy stone. Sweat trickled down his temples as a tremor quaked through him. Fear coiled tighter despite trying to deny it.
Chains, colder than death’s embrace, pinned him to Galaeryn’s twisted altar. Every movement sent them clinking, the sound stabbing through the silence. Golden shackles clamped around his wrists, neck, and ankles, pressing hard enough to bruise. Their links snaked away into the shadows, winding across the chamber, binding him to the walls.
Golden spikes skewered his spine, gouging into his flesh as he lay on the marble. Pain flared, slicing deeper with every shallow breath, a sick reminder that struggling only summoned more blood.
Lykor’s gaze veered to the ominous obsidian doors, silent sentinels barring his escape. Dim orbs of illumination drifted around the chamber, casting long shadows over stone. His pulse quickened, knowing Galaeryn would enter any moment.
Releasing a slow breath, he squeezed his eyes shut, every muscle taut with a desperate urge to shatter that barrier and escape.
But nothing happened. The restraints denied his freedom. Panic gnawed at him when stone scraped against stone—the doors grinding open.
Lykor clenched his jaw, eyes locked on the ceiling as a tide of memories surged from the shadows. He’d never be able to escape the past, his mind an inexorable warden.
Coercion caged him in this mental prison, forcing him to relive every excruciating moment, eternally preserving Galaeryn’s cruel reign. The anguish of the king ravaging his magic loomed, an endless cycle of transformation from elf to wraith and wraith to elf.
Defeat burned in Lykor’s chest, a devouring abyss. This was his fate. A hollow existence, doomed from the start. He’d tried to protect the wraith. But he’d failed. Everything stretched endlessly. It was hopeless. Pointless. The fragile flame of freedom he’d once held had been extinguished without mercy.
Soft, hesitant footsteps whisked in the silence. Unusual. Against his will, Lykor’s gaze shifted toward the sound, curiosity betraying him to this unfamiliar intrusion.
It wasn’t the king entering the room.
Of course it fucking wasn’t.
