Page 148 of The Reckoning of Starlight

He forced the growth wider until the Aelfyn fastenings split with a ruinous screech. Vines hooked around the fifth Heart and ripped it from its cradle.

The figure detonated.

Turquoise light seared the chamber white. The cold pressure at the edges of Jassyn’s mind vanished with it, and the sudden emptiness sent the room pitching around him.

As the blaze ebbed, Lykor’s talons slipped from his neck.

Jassyn struck the floor on his hands and knees, choking as his bruised windpipe fought every inhale.

Lykor swayed, eyes unfocused, his claw still held open in the shape of Jassyn’s throat.

“Lykor.” The name barely rasped free.

Crimson fire surfaced through the fading turquoise ice. Lykor blinked, then found him.

Jassyn forced himself upright, the chamber still rolling around him. He caught Lykor’s face with unsteady hands, searching for any lingering threat from the presence.

Lykor’s breathing broke against him, ragged as his own as he lifted a hand to Jassyn’s neck. His fingers skimmed the torn skin with such gentleness that the touch barely registered.

Then his gaze caught on the talon marks at his throat and the bruising already swelling around them. Lykor’s eyes flared, and his arm recoiled.

Jassyn grabbed his wrist and pressed his palm flat over his hammering heart. Lykor tried to step back, but Jassyn tightened his grip before distance could open.

Lykor shook his head, slow disbelief carried in the motion. “I hurt you.”

“It wasn’t you.”

Jassyn could’ve left the rest unspoken. Lykor hadn’t asked, and whatever memory remained seemed to have ended before Jassyn had compelled him.

“The vines couldn’t hold you,” Jassyn whispered. “You tore through every shield. I…” The next words caught against the damage in his throat before he forced them free. “I entered your mind and made you stop.”

Lykor went wraith-still.

Jassyn had no defense left to offer. His pulse battered against Lykor’s fingers while he waited for the revulsion he deserved.

“You’ll do it again,” Lykor said, flat as fact.

Jassyn’s heart stopped. “What?”

“If it happens again. If someone seizes my mind and uses my body to hurt you.” Lykor’s fingers curled into Jassyn’s armor, frost spreading around them. “Shut me away if I become a danger.”

“Lykor—”

“I know what I’m asking,” Lykor growled. “I lived inside Galaeryn’s coercion for a century.” Snow began to fall, the cold of Rimeclaw’s gift deepening until every breath left a white plume. “I would rather endure a cage of your making than find my hands at your throat.”

Jassyn stared at him. “You don’t—”

Lykor’s snarl cracked against the crystal walls, ice racing from his boots across the floor.

“Promise me.”

Refusal rose hot on Jassyn’s tongue. Yet if Lykor were overtaken again, refusing would leave him trapped behind his own eyes while Jassyn mistook inaction for innocence.

“I…promise.”

Lykor searched him, as if testing the vow for weakness. Then he leaned in.

His mouth brushed Jassyn’s, soft and unguarded. Jassyn slid his fingers into Lykor’s hair and drew him closer until the space between them dissolved into warmth.