The prince rolled his eyes but pushed off the tree. “Fine. But if you start fumbling with my shadows, I’m coming back in to help.”
Muttering under his breath, he slipped through the swaying curtain of vines that had descended to obscure the entrance.
Fenn made no move to follow. “You might want to get comfortable,” he said, sweeping a claw toward the platform.
Lykor’s lip curled, but Jassyn moved between them before the snarl could rise, his hand landing on Lykor’s arm.
Instinct reared. Muscles coiled. The contact wasn’t unwelcome. Not from Jassyn. Only…strange. To be steadied, not subdued. A creeping familiarity stirred, like a beast recalling it needn’t bare its teeth at every touch.
“I asked him to give you just enough venom to hold you on the brink,” Jassyn said gently. “To keep your body still but your mind aware. But if you feel anything while I’m working…” Hisfingers tightened, heat pressing into Lykor’s arm. “Youhaveto tell me so he can give another dose.”
“And if I can’t speak?” Lykor mumbled, the bite draining from his voice.
He already knew the answer, but balked anyway, unsettled by how little armor it left him to hide behind. His eyes flicked to the hand Jassyn still braced on his arm. He waged a silent war not to linger there, as if staring might turn the anchor into a shackle. When he finally tore his gaze upward, he found Jassyn watching him.
“Then I’ll reach for you telepathically,” Jassyn said. “If you’ll permit it.”
Lykor’s nod was little more than a jerk of his chin.
“Venom settles differently in everyone,” Fenn mused, idly spinning a ring in his brow. “When I bit Jassyn, he went all breathy and silent. The princeling just got louder. You?” His fangs flashed, quick and sharp. “Half the odds you’ll keep your dignity. Half you won’t.”
Lykor scowled. “If I act like the prince did—”
“If you do,” Jassyn cut in, “no one else will be here to witness it.”
Breath leaked in a slow hiss between Lykor’s teeth. He didn’t look at Jassyn. Didn’t glance at Fenn. As if sheer refusal to meet their eyes might conjure distance where none existed.
Lykor did the only thing left to him. He yanked his tunic over his head and threw it aside. Spine taut, shoulders squared in defiance, he crossed the hollow and pushed himself up onto the waiting platform like a condemned man stepping up to the noose.
“Just get it over with,” he ground out, perched on the edge as moss-veiled vines creaked beneath his legs.
“You might want to lie back,” Fenn offered, sauntering over.
“No.”
Jassyn lifted his hands, and the earth obeyed. Vines stirred behind Lykor, braiding into a cradle that caught his spine and braced his weight.
Staring ahead, Lykor dug his fingers into the roots weaving around him, every muscle coiled to the verge of rupture as Fenn leaned in close. Heat radiated off him, but a shiver chased it, raising the hairs along Lykor’s skin before the bite ever came.
He didn’t breathe as Fenn’s fangs breached the slope of his neck—a clean puncture, stinging faintly. Pressure spread like a second heartbeat, pulsing from the base of his throat.
Lykor didn’t flinch or blink. But somewhere deep, he recoiled, fighting the primal urge to rip free.
Fenn withdrew as the venom slid in, cold and silken. Painless. A velvet numbness unfurled through his chest, fanning outward until thought and flesh dissolved into a haze.
Lykor’s eyelids fought the drift. His heart slowed, every beat heavy as stone.
Through the fog, he caught Jassyn’s low voice. “I’ll touch your mind if I need you,” he murmured to Fenn. “Keep Vesryn busy. But don’t let him wander far.”
“Quality bonding time. Got it.” Fenn’s voice curled with amusement, his footsteps already fading.
With a twist of his wrist, Jassyn drew on the earth. The foliage from earlier wove a cocoon of living green that sealed the chamber, drowning it in twilight.
Suspended upright in root and moss, Lykor realized this must be what execution felt like—not in the strike, but in the waiting. The silence before the blade.
Breath shallow, his limbs hung heavy, as if draped in sodden cloth. Still, he forced his eyes open, blinking against the blur that gathered like water over drowning eyes.
Jassyn turned toward him, a halo of Essence whirling around his hands. “How do you feel?”
