Page 4

CHAPTER 4

LYKOR

L oathing 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.

Lykor released a disbelieving blast of breath. Dreading what fresh horrors his mind would conjure next, he refocused above, eyes tracing the jagged cracks in the ceiling. Galaeryn had chosen Jassyn’s face to wear this time, a new twist to an old torment—a mocking reminder of Lykor’s own folly.

Memories from their chance meeting in the jungle clawed their way up. He’d left Jassyn paralyzed in the stream, facedown to drown.

Necessary, he’d told himself. Jassyn had been a threat—to Aesar, to everyone—capable of wielding the same manipulative power as the king. He wouldn’t regret the choice to end his life.

For one fleeting moment, before betrayal had eviscerated him, Lykor had dared to believe that Jassyn could be his salvation, a hand reaching into the darkness to pull him free. But the elf had turned that trust into a weapon, invading his mind. Splintering that last illusion of hope.

Acceptance constricted around Lykor, his fate sinking its teeth deep. There had never been an escape from the coercion. He was cursed to endure this torment, now suffering under those traitorous amber eyes.

The proximity of the whispering footsteps yanked Lykor back to the present. He clenched his jaw, shoulders twitching as shallow breaths rasped through his nose.

Wearing Jassyn’s face, the king approached the slab where Lykor lay bound like some offering to a deity who reveled in blood and suffering.

“No gloating this time?” Lykor’s words tumbled out—taunting the king his only option for defiance in this endless torment. “Or are we saving that indulgence for later?”

White leather armor dominated his vision, nearly glowing in the dim illumination. “What is this place?” The question, laced with a note of disbelief, was Jassyn’s voice too, his wide eyes sweeping around the chamber.

Lykor jerked as Essence sparked, a cold tremor racing down his ruined spine. His awareness ruthlessly sharpened to a single point, where magic shimmered around Jassyn’s palms.

“It doesn’t matter what face you wear, Galareyn ,” Lykor snarled, wrestling steel into his voice despite the terror winding through him. “The outcome is always the same.” He glared up at the ceiling. “Just get it over with.”

“I…” Jassyn’s voice faltered as Essence coiled around his fingertips. A ribbon reached out almost hesitantly before skimming the chains. “I can free you.”

Rage boiled in Lykor’s veins. Of course this was the new form of torture. A cruel masterpiece of his mind—the promise of freedom dangling just beyond reach, offered by the one in whom he’d once placed his hope.

“I know this isn’t real,” Lykor growled. It couldn’t be. “I killed the face you’re wearing.”

“I would have deserved it,” Jassyn said quietly, his voice carrying a resigned weight. “Hurting you was never my intent.”

Lykor’s gaze snapped to him, chest compressing as he caught that false flicker of emotion deepening Jassyn’s brow. He hated it, wanted to lash out and scorn the excuse of an apology.

But his eyes betrayed him, lingering despite himself. And Lykor loathed himself all the more for being helplessly drawn to the way Jassyn swept dark curls from his face.

A shackle around his wrist cracked, the sound fracturing the silence. The suddenness made Lykor flinch. He considered testing the collar’s limits, gauging how short the leash was. His freed fingers itched to crush the elf’s throat for that unforgivable violation of his mind. But those treacherous amber eyes held him captive—more binding than any chain.

Breaths coming shallow and quick, Lykor fought the impulse to look away. This couldn’t be real. Galaeryn had never entertained mercy, never toyed with the idea of freedom—not even as a cruel game to cultivate hope.

Lykor bared his fangs. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I meant it when I said I would help you.” Jassyn rested a hand on one of the shackles binding Lykor’s ankle. Another resounding crack echoed as the metal shattered.

Lykor remained motionless, tracking the elf as he worked. Chain after chain fell away, clanging to the stone floor as Jassyn moved with methodical purpose from one to another. Essence spiraled around him, weaving through the air. Lykor felt an invisible force settle over him, something that scratched against the walls of his mind.

Unable to endure this new torment any longer, Lykor growled through his teeth, “What do you want me to do? Make a show of bolting for the door so you can haul me back?” He nearly sighed as he stared unseeing at the ceiling. “What more do you want from me, Galaeryn? You’ve already won.”

“He’s won nothing.” Jassyn hesitated, his hands hovering just above Lykor’s neck. “What he’s done to you—to your mind—shouldn’t be called a victory. It’s a crime no one should have to endure.”

Lykor recoiled. Not from the hollow sympathy this figment of his imagination had offered, but from the jarring snap of the collar breaking free from his throat.

He blinked stupidly up at Jassyn, realization dawning. This was his own brain spewing the nonsense he was so desperate to hear—a fragile hope that he clung to because he was too broken to reject it.

“I’m getting you out of here.” Jassyn suddenly clasped Lykor’s claw, pulling him upright to sit.

“Why?” Lykor’s question tore out in a snarl as he wrenched his arm free.

He swiveled to stand, his feet thudding to the floor. Eyeing the chains draped across the room, his gut clenched, half-expecting them to rear up like vipers—striking him down, binding him back to the cursed table.

“I want to make it right.” Jassyn’s voice softened, but an unwavering firmness lay beneath it, a sincerity that made Lykor’s shoulders twitch.

He stiffened as Jassyn reached behind him, a strange release loosening from his spine as the elf dispelled the embedded golden spikes, seemingly with a thought.

“There’s no more coercion snaring your mind,” Jassyn continued. “You’re free of him.”

Lykor’s gaze flicked between Jassyn, the stone slab, and the chains, calculating as a growl built low in his chest. Now was the moment Galaeryn would materialize, emerge laughing from Jassyn’s face, mocking him for daring to entertain this notion of freedom. His lip curled at the mere thought of it. Jassyn slowly raised his hands, retreating a few steps.

Lykor blinked, the room seeming to spin at the edges. Skin prickling, he assessed Jassyn with a fresh wave of uncertainty. The king would never have done that—never would have retreated.

This couldn’t be real. He’d left Jassyn for dead. There was no way this phantom—this trick of the mind—could have freed him from the king’s control.

Despite his denial, a fledgling hope stretched out, testing its wings. Lykor took a hesitant step forward. He flicked his wrist. The door to his prison swung open.

Blinded by the flood of white light, he shielded his eyes, unable to see beyond the threshold. Not daring to breathe, Lykor took another step. When nothing happened, he took another stride closer to freedom, every muscle tensing in preparation for the sting of betrayal he expected to follow.

Every instinct urged him to run, to hurtle himself through the doorway, away from the chamber that had defined his existence. But Lykor resisted, still certain that the moment he crossed that boundary, he’d be dragged back. Back to the table, back to Galaeryn’s face hovering above him, those unnatural silver eyes spinning with madness.

“It’s up to you to walk out that door,” Jassyn said. And then he vanished, a whisper swept away by a breeze.

Heart thrashing in the sudden silence, Lykor stared at the spot Jassyn had vacated. Doubt crept in—none of it made sense.

A surge of urgency pierced the fog of confusion. Lykor released the air trapped in his lungs. He had to know if this was real.

He took another step. Then another, his feet moving of their own accord.

The dungeon receded behind him, the darkness of his mind peeling away as he stepped into the light, never once looking back.

Reorienting himself amid the ruined fortress streets, Lykor blinked, taking in the wraith’s demolished dwellings. He stood in a clan’s wrecked courtyard, the air pulsing with the charged weight of Essence.

Kal, ever the strategist, had herded the wraith to the edges of the plaza, where they lingered like shadows, all eyes fixed on him.

Lykor’s attention snapped to the girl, an irritating blaze in his mind, the bond between them glaringly bright. Concern and relief radiated from her, clinging to him like decay lingering around a corpse. He sneered, detesting her presence and her emotions seeping into his thoughts.

He felt her fumbling along his side of their Well, her clumsy attempts at control scraping against his nerves. She was actually trying to restrict his access to magic. He swatted away her feeble intrusion—he’d address the inconvenience of that connection soon enough.

Fenn stood beside her, tunic discarded but apparently healed. A flicker of unexpected relief kindled at the sight of the lieutenant alive. But he smothered it, unwilling to let such a feeling spark.

Then he noticed Vesryn on the girl’s other side. Instinctively, Lykor flinched, his body tensing in anticipation of coercion, the slithering touch he expected to seize his mind.

But…nothing happened. No sinister fingers reached for him, no whispered commands.

Suspended by disbelief, Lykor scoured the courtyard, hunting for the one supposedly responsible for his release. Jassyn couldn’t possibly be alive. Lykor turned to scan the square, but his own body betrayed him.

He couldn’t move.

Heart thrashing, an icy wave of panic seized his lungs as he struggled against the unexpected restraint. No rending coiled around him and Aesar lay dormant—not grappling for control—his presence still tucked away deep in the recesses of their mind.

This was something else. Something unforgivable.

“Aesar?” Vesryn asked, demanding his attention.

That voice was a familiar echo, but not from Lykor’s memories. His gaze veered back toward the prince. The question of how Vesryn had managed to reach this fortress drifted through his mind, but Lykor dismissed it as unworthy of his focus.

The prince addressed someone beside Lykor, just out of sight. “You can let him go.”

Lykor’s awareness sharpened as he felt the violating magic loosening its grip. The unseen hold unraveled and slipped away, a shiver racing through his bones as control seeped back into his limbs. A single, chilling certainty settled in Lykor’s mind.

Coercion.

Following the trail of Essence, Lykor whirled, latching onto the one true threat among this circle of fools.

Jassyn.

Fierce hatred ricocheted through him, drawing out an animalistic growl. It didn’t matter how this was possible—how he’d survived. The elf who’d freed him from the king’s clutches dared to wield that same vile power, asserting dominance over him. Again.

He bared his fangs, muscles tensing with resolve. Rending wouldn’t suffice. This needed to be brutal. Personal.

Moving before hesitation could take root—before reason could tame his fury—Lykor lunged. His fist became a metallic blur, gauntlet smashing into Jassyn’s face.

The savage blow sent the elf flying backward, collapsing against a wall in an unmoving heap. But there was no time for celebration. He still had something else to destroy and the others needed to be subdued before they could react.

Shadows exploded from Lykor, binding everyone in the courtyard where they stood. He had moments, only moments, especially with the prince already hacking away at his magic.

Lykor’s ears rang, distantly aware of shouts, but his focus homed in on the girl. He stalked toward her, shoving damp hair from his eyes, bristling at the soaked clothes clinging to his skin.

Her eyes widened, perhaps expecting the same fate as Jassyn. But instead, Lykor clamped his hand around her arm. She only managed a gasp as he ravaged their bond.

A thunderous crack tore through his chest, shattering something deep within. The bridge between their Wells fractured as he sundered the connection, freeing himself. It was that easy—a simple choice.

Rage burned Lykor’s lungs, his breaths coming in ragged heaves. Already dismissing the girl, his gaze flicked briefly to Jassyn’s motionless form, blood pooling around his head. He didn’t care.

But he couldn’t stay. The others had allowed Jassyn’s transgression—sanctioned this violation. They wouldn’t stop until Lykor was ground to nothing but dust, a disregarded casualty in their desperate bid to reclaim their precious Aesar.

The ruined courtyard seemed to close in. Suffocating. Imprisoning. He had to escape. Vanish where no one else could follow.

Drawing on the deepest reserves of his power, Lykor stretched his magic to the point of breaking, desperation driving his need to put every possible mile between himself and this place. The air ruptured as a portal ripped open. Without a backward glance, Lykor prowled into the void and disappeared.