“Well, then I know it’s all gonna be fine, don’t I? Your word is solid as fuck,” he said, grinning at me, injecting levity. For me. He was reading my nervousness well.
Because I knew Norla all too well.
Yes, she’d pledged her support—because she’d had to in order to save face.
But she would ensure I paid for it.
This process could be done privately, where the vibrational resonance of our people would be directed at me and I’d absorb it. But she would make it public. It had seemed initiallythat everyone had gathered due to the weight of this matter, this vote, but I’d been too focused on the results and hoping they were favorable to recognize that she could have had them communicate their responses via other means. I was sure, though, that the general populace—outside of her guards and aides—didn’t realize that was her reasoning. They really had come to support me, to support my strategy.
And my worry about having an audience that consisted of all our people was that during the agony of the process, I might falter, might not be able to hold steady the way they all knew me to.
I couldn’t show weakness. It would undercut everything.
Especially when I was under no illusions that I’d be able to use that power without consequences afterward—Norla and Syde would come for me.
I needed the support of the people to counter that effectively.
“Vax?”
I blinked. “Well. All is well.”
He laid his hand on my shoulder.
But he didn’t just touch me in an act of comfort—I felt his Ifrit heat pushing into me. Not in a harmful way for my Basilisk physiology, but definitely noticeable, nonetheless.
“What was that?”
He snapped his fingers and I felt him invoking anauditory reductionspell around the two of us. “Think of it like a painkiller.”
“Zayn, I know you wish to help me, but I told you no other magic can interfere with this process. That includes you pushing yours into me with some sort of pain-relieving enchantment.”
“It’s not just my magic. I made it so the spell will do its job, but will also be imperceptible to all this Basilisk vibrational resonance essence stuff that’s gonna come at you. It won’t impact it. At all. I promise. I’ve been studying hardcore at LoxleyAcademy for three years, remember? Win was my best friend and all that too before you and icicle came along.”
“I… to hide such a thing…” Our eyes locked, and his sparkled as he saw the realization hit me. “Winter. His death magic.”
“Yep. It can make itself imperceptible if you prepare it that way. And it was. In this.” He held up his worry stone bracelet. “Win imbued a spell in this for emergencies if I ever lost control and started consuming myself with my Ifrit fire. It was a big-time fear I had for a while back when I was all chaos and no calm.”
“Incredible,” I breathed. “You are incredible also.” I grasped his nape and dragged his lips to mine.
Startling us, cheers, whistles, and applause erupted from the crowd.
“Oops,” Zayn said, as we pulled back in our utter surprise.
“It’s all right,” I assured him, knowing he was worried it had undercut me, or some such thing, to have engaged in a public affectionate display.
“Yeah?”
“Yes, my darling little Ifrit.”
He smiled and dropped hisauditory reductionspell, then stroked my bicep.
I was clad in my battle gear as with our arrival yesterday, and Zayn was also in the same outfit he’d come in—a little magic had fixed the damage we’d done to each other’s clothes last night in my Royal Chamber.
A reverberating hum traveled through the room—Norla’s royal call that demanded silence.
It happened swiftly, despite the sheer number of those present. They all knew well that the hum would intensify to the point of acute discomfort if she wasn’t met immediately with obedience. It ran on a Basilisk-specific frequency.
The moment silence settled, and those near the area by the thrones were ushered further back to the first row of conjured seating by the guards, the hum ceased.
