Chapter Text
Kishiar had never believed in miracles.
He believed in leverage, in timing, and knowing precisely how much weight a fractured vessel could bear before it split beyond recovery. He believed in sacrifice chosen deliberately, not hope handed freely.
And yet–
Kishiar blinked once, somewhat dazed. If his senses were not so acute, he might have dismissed the entire scene as self-indulgent delusion, some dying fantasy in which he was allowed to keep what he had already resolved to lose. But the wind brushed the window screens in soft sighs, the magic stone stove crackled, and the lean weight in his lap rose and fell with each breath against his ribs. Neither dream nor delusion would feel this ordinary.
His core no longer wildly hemorrhaged power. It held steady, contained and reinforced by familiar hands that should not have known how to navigate that ruin. Yuder remained there through it all, the young man who had just forced him into honesty through sheer audacity and that unbearable, infuriatingly beautiful sincerity of his.
He did not think he had ever been defeated so soundly. Part of him, traitorous and tender, was endlessly proud that of course it had been Yuder – stubborn, brilliant, and impossibly captivating even when furious – who managed it. Not his Yuder, if the man’s words were to be believed, and yet the ruthless determination to turn himself into a weapon and drive straight into his enemy’s weak points was so intensely like his chosen successor that being on the receiving end of it stole Kishiar’s breath.
He had latched onto Kishiar’s momentary expression of self-doubt without hesitation and flayed his heart open with disarming ease. Then he dismantled Kishiar’s arguments with logic, cornered him with emotional precision, waited patient and steady through each attempted deflection, and then, cruelest of all, offered him something that felt dangerously like salvation.
Kishiar had been shaken even before the red stone’s poisonous energy had been drawn from his body. Afterward, with his vessel steady in a way he had long ago stopped imagining, the shock became something deeper and more treacherous.
Time was what he had been given. Incomplete, fragile, and perhaps temporary, but enough to shift the board. His carefully arranged sacrifices no longer sat quite where he had left them, the disruption, as always, coming from Yuder.
From the moment Kishiar first saw him practicing beneath starlight, jaw set stubbornly against exhaustion, every plan Kishiar formed for around that dark-haired beauty had fractured in some way. Yuder had a talent for overturning inevitability. For better or for worse.
His mind flickered through strategy, through the truth he had begun to yield and the words the man had allowed to slip out before exhaustion had taken him. But all of that receded – not erased, merely set aside – when the pliant body in his lap went rigid.
Softly blinking eyes sharpened, the warmth against him drawing taut as a hoarse but harsh whisper snapped out, “What was that?”
Ah.
A smile painted on out of habit hid the regretful pang as Yuder, his Yuder again, pulled back abruptly and withdrew his hand from Kishiar’s cheek as though burned. The distance in that movement struck deeply, as did the wariness. Kishiar accepted both without protest.
“I was rather hoping you might enlighten me,” he hummed lightly, though his eyes were already cataloging the details he could not help searching for: Yuder’s pale skin no longer mottled with spreading bruise, his pupils clear, his breathing even, his gaze unmistakably his own. “Do you recall everything, Yuder?”
“Yes.” The response was clipped. Yuder looked at him properly then, gaze moving from the open shirt to the ruined hand with precise, wounded clarity. When he spoke again, the words carried an edge, “Apparently more than you intended me to.”
Ah. That.
For a heartbeat, Kishiar had no answer, his smile thinning by a fraction.
“I deserved that,” he said quietly. “Still, I need your report.”
Violet flickered beneath pitch-black eyes, indignation still burning even as composure was drawn around it. It was unfair, really, how captivating Yuder became when righteous anger lit the edges of all that stubborn restraint.
“Describe the sensation to me.” Kishiar continued, letting command settle over his tone. “Did you glean more from within than our ‘visitor’ shared aloud?” He forced his personal reaction aside with more difficulty than usual, folding the fascination away before it could show. Whatever that intrusion had been – possession, overlap, or awakening – it had occurred within the walls of his headquarters, within the mind of his deputy, and required careful evaluation.
Yuder responded instinctively to the shift, his posture straightening with military precision and slipping back into the immaculate shape of a deputy commander so cleanly it bordered on art – though, to Kishiar’s private and entirely inappropriate satisfaction, he had not yet removed himself from straddling Kishiar’s lap. His voice cooled into the crisp cadence of a report.
“I was fully aware but had no control. It felt akin to being inside a fog. I could sense the other presence, but only as impressions and emotions. No concrete thoughts. The energy resembled that of an Awakener using their power.” A pause. Then, he reluctantly added: “I did not feel any… deceit.”
Oh, he had to struggle not to laugh at his adorable successor. Yuder’s discomfort with the admission was plain despite the precise report cadence. The implication hung heavily between them – that the stranger’s words, including those about their relationship, had not rung false. Kishiar tucked away every moment of the encounter with that visitor, twisting over the expressions, words, and body language like a puzzle to examine later.
“And now?” His voice lowered, the mask dropping almost imperceptibly. “Does anything hurt or feel off? When he manipulated the energy in my hand, did it cause you pain?” That was the true question, everything else was secondary. He didn’t think he could live with himself if his own recovery came at the cost of his deputy, if his weakness had taken even more from the one he wanted to give everything to.
“I’m fine.” Of course he was, the beautifully stubborn creature. Really, he should have expected such an answer from the one who practiced swordsmanship until his hands bled without any change in expression.
That reflexive answer nearly drew a sigh from him, but Yuder’s gaze had already shifted, dropping again to Kishiar’s scarred hand. “But, Commander…”
For a fleeting second, Kishiar considered concealing it and retreating into smooth indifference as he always had. Self-doubt coiled tight in his chest. His decisions had so often resulted in harm for the young man before him. Would this be another?
But he had concealed too much already, and tonight… Tonight he had chosen something different.
So he did not succumb to the instinct. Instead, he gently shifted Yuder off his lap, hands lingering at his hips a heartbeat longer than necessary, memorizing the sensation as though he did not already know it too well, before releasing him. The blush that climbed along Yuder’s ears was a small, shameful comfort.
He stood carefully, testing the flow of energy through his channels. The difference was undeniable: he was tired, drained by unfamiliar exertion, but it was a clean exhaustion, not the suffocating pressure of power spilling through cracks. He felt as he had months ago – before forcing divine power through damaged pathways to mend Yuder’s shattered arms, before fighting the Pethuamet in the West, before grief had hollowed out what remained.
The balance was still fragile, suspended somewhere between safety and collapse. Hope stirred with dangerous force, but Kishiar crushed it without hesitation.
“Describe it,” he ordered again, brushing aside the spiral of thought before it could take root.
Irritation still burned in Yuder’s eyes, but it had begun to sink into something duller. It was a look Kishiar recognized, the same one he had seen every time he evaded a direct question or attempt to reach him. He softened by a fraction, reaching out to brush his bare fingers lightly over the back of Yuder’s clenched fist.
“I’ll answer,” he said quietly. “I’ll hold myself to the same standard with you: I will answer or say that I cannot. No misdirection. But this situation needs analysis first.”
He didn’t waver as Yuder scrutinized him, searching for deception. The distrust still stung, even after Kishiar had already acknowledged its cause. Perhaps especially then. He bore it without protest; it was only the natural consequence of every answer he had stepped around while telling himself he was saving Yuder from drowning in the consequences of his own greed.
At last, Yuder nodded.
Kishiar guided them toward the sofa, feeding another magic stone into the stove before setting water to boil. The domesticity of the act felt strangely intimate, an anchor to the seriousness of what they had begun.
“Even if you were capable of handling it,” he said evenly, settling into the opposite end of the sofa, “we are dealing with unknown power and unstable energy. We need details before we can understand what happened.”
He poured the tea without looking away from Yuder’s face. Yuder pressed his lips together as he sat, color draining from skin that was already too pale. For a moment he looked younger than twenty-one, petulant in a way that made Kishiar’s heart ache.
“There was no pain,” he said at last. “The fog has fully dissipated. It appeared to be the only effect of the suspected Awakener’s ability.” He hesitated only briefly before continuing. “The energy from your hand felt… full. As though my veins were overfilled. There were sparks beneath the skin, but it was bearable.” A fractional pause. “It was a deliberately bearable amount.”
Kishiar allowed the words to settle between them.
Under the soft multicolored flickers of the stove’s light, Yuder’s eyes lifted, dark and fathomless, that subtle violet flickering at the edges. Kishiar examined him carefully as he extended the cup across the low table. His deputy displayed no tremors, no tension beyond what discipline demanded nor any lingering distortion in his aura.
‘A deliberately bearable amount,’ he echoed inwardly. Had their visitor truly moderated himself so precisely? Or had he known exactly what threshold Yuder could endure?
“Your hand,” Kishiar requested quietly, extending his own bare hand across the space between them in open reminder of his promise.
Yuder hesitated for only the briefest moment before placing his darkened hand in Kishiar’s palm.
The contact was immediate and vivid. Warmth, steady and alive, flooded up through his fingers, far more distracting than it had any right to be. Kishiar forced his attention downward, turning Yuder’s hand slightly as he examined the calloused palm, the backs of the knuckles, and the faint residual bruising that lingered without a clear point of entry. Unlike his own injury, there was no concentrated rupture through which foreign energy had pierced.
He pushed back the dark sleeve of the Arcane Legion uniform, tracing the fading discoloration up the wrist. It lightened gradually, dissolving into unblemished skin.
“What about now?” he asked, raising his gaze only after his examination was complete, fingers pressing against the skin to test for a reaction. There was none. “Any sparks? Pressure?”
Dark eyes bored into his own, having completed their own examination of his much darker, ruined hand at the same time. “No, it feels normal.”
“Hm.” Kishiar inclined his head and turned his attention inward.
The improvement within his vessel was undeniable. The chaotic pressure that had once threatened to tear through weakened channels was now subdued, redirected along pathways that, while not whole, were no longer collapsing. He was not restored, nor was he safe, but he was stable.
Carefully, he drew upon divine power and allowed a thin stream of it to spill across Yuder’s hand. There was no point in improvement if he could not at least do this.
“Commander…” Alarm flickered through Yuder’s eyes, followed at once by the unmistakable spark of curiosity at seeing this unknown power used. Kishiar nearly smiled.
“This much is fine,” he assured, a hint of levity brushing his tone even as he monitored each tremor within himself.
The divine current washed over bruised skin. The residual stain receded further, leaving only a trace of shadow near the center of Yuder’s palm. Relief, sudden and almost dizzying, flooded his chest. If his recovery had harmed Yuder–
He did not finish the thought.
They sat in silence as the stain disappeared, Kishiar with relief, Yuder with the kind of still, intent focus that meant he was holding far more behind his silence than he allowed to show. Yuder’s palm still seemed a little darker, but it would not be noticeable without a sharp eye. When Kishiar finally withdrew his power, he did not immediately release Yuder’s hand.
“You will tell me,” he said firmly, crimson gaze locking with black, “if anything feels wrong.”
A flicker of annoyance passed through Yuder’s expression – predictable, indignant at the implication of fragility – but he nodded all the same, stiff, reluctant, and adorable.
Kishiar released him at last, regret and relief intertwined in equal measure. Yuder’s gaze flicked down again, a pointed glance at his hand demanding his own answers. His lips twitched at the obvious impatience. Truly he couldn’t understand those who claimed his deputy was hard to read. They had clearly never even tried.
Kishiar took a measured sip of tea, granting himself a moment to consider how best to explain what he had so long avoided stating plainly. Until now, he had never needed to; those closest to him either already knew or had learned the truth from others.
He set the cup aside and leaned back slightly, gesturing toward his still-bared chest. There had been more than enough time to make himself presentable again, Kishiar had simply noticed Yuder’s gaze drifting there and found the quiet, illicit rush of it far too sweet to deprive either of them.
“You recall the explanation given earlier,” he began lightly. “with the convergence of energies drawn from me. That much was accurate. I possess the power of an Awakener, divine authority by blood, the accumulated aura of a swordsman, and the foundation of a mage.”
Yuder’s eyes widened, disbelief fracturing his composure despite having witnessed the divine power moments ago. “How…?”
Kishiar’s bright smile twisted a little bitterly. “Just pointless power inherited through blood.” He repeated the words their visitor had used to describe Yuder’s mage heritage – and wasn’t that another fascinating piece of the puzzle that was his delightful deputy – with much less composure.
He gave the history as plainly as he could: the First Emperor and Empress, the ducal houses born from their children, centuries of intermarriage designed to preserve and consolidate power, a Crown Prince whose vessel shattered under the strain of his own magnitude. The quiet exiles of those too powerful to survive, granted hollow titles and sent far from the capital to die before thirty.
“Bad breeding,” Kishiar said with a thin smile. “Or excellent, depending on one’s ambition. Until we started to breed monsters.”
He saw the flinch in Yuder’s eyes at the word but did not retract it. Instead, the curve of his mouth sharpened into something vaguely sardonic as he repeated the earlier gesture toward his chest.
“A cracked vessel is a death sentence. I believed I had escaped that fate when I Awakened.” His tone remained light, nearly conversational. “The Red Stone corrected that misconception.”
He described the retrieval mission: the surge of energy, the way it had pierced his hand when he shielded the others, the assassins who struck before he could properly stabilize the damage. The delicate equilibrium snapping beyond repair.
He crossed one leg over the other, fingers lacing loosely atop his knee. The posture was relaxed, as though he were recounting a political inconvenience rather than his own impending expiration.
Across from him, Yuder sat utterly still.
Kishiar watched comprehension dawn behind those dark eyes, swift and precise, questions long deferred aligning into clarity. He had always admired that mind: razor-sharp, merciless in its clarity, far too quick to be safely underestimated. He had admired it enough to want one final, selfish thing before withdrawing from the board… before he had ruined that too.
He gave him the time to think, sipping his tea with crafted patience while inwardly bracing for whatever conclusion Yuder would inevitably reach.
“It’s not irreparable,” Yuder said at last, the words quiet but firm. He glanced down to his own hand, flexing as though testing the memory of sensation. “What he did… can be repeated. We’ll try again.”
It was not phrased as a question; he said it like inevitability bent to him. Kishiar nearly believed it would. Hope surged up so violently it made him lightheaded, and this time it took conscious effort to strangle it down.
“Only when we are certain it is safe,” he replied evenly. Yuder looked up, expression hardening, but Kishiar didn’t budge. “I won’t trade my life for yours.”
The air between them tightened.
Crimson met black in a clash no less intense than the one he had endured earlier from that other version of Yuder – only this time the defiance was younger, more prideful, edged with raw temper barely restrained.
Kishiar held the line.
He had known since childhood that his lifespan would likely be measured in decades rather than generations. He had made peace with that inevitability long before he met the young man who trained beneath starlight until his palms split open. He would not get his hopes up again to dash them against the life of the precious person in front of him. He would not – could not – permit that life to be bartered in exchange for his own. Not after the mistakes already made. Not after the harm already done.
For a long moment, neither yielded.
This time, Yuder’s gaze dipped first. Frustration tightened his mouth before he nodded once, not in agreement, but in acknowledgment of the line Kishiar had drawn.
“You said your enemies would target the Arcane Legion,” Yuder continued, pivoting cleanly. “Which enemies?”
Of course. How very like his successor: practical and efficient, emotion folded away in favor of the next actionable variable. Kishiar could not quite suppress the small curve of amusement that touched his lips.
“The imperial family and the ducal houses maintain the appearance of mutual support,” he said lightly. “In truth, they are competing predators circling the same throne. My continued existence complicates matters. I represent a remnant of the former reign – and, to some, a threat to the legitimacy of the current emperor.” He lifted his teacup again. “It would be faster to list those who are not inclined to see me removed.”
He concluded, shining crimson eyes curving as he looked at his diligent successor mulling over his response, pale body as elegant and still as a statue while his eyes shone with brilliant life, every inch the future he had chosen.
Silence settled once more, heavier this time, as Yuder absorbed the implications.
“The finer points of imperial politics will require more time than we have tonight,” Kishiar continued smoothly. “I will prepare materials for you. We can address it properly later.” Even as he spoke, he was already reorganizing future contingencies in his mind: what Yuder would need to know, whom he would need to meet, how best to introduce him into circles that would rather see him crushed than welcomed.
Yuder nodded, lips pressed thin.
They remained like that for a while, two men seated across from one another, the quiet stretching but not breaking. Kishiar felt the faint brush of suppressed emotion across the connection he had intentionally sealed off long ago: curiosity, resentment, concern, something warmer, quickly smothered. And threaded through it all, the sense of questions carefully held back, not forgotten or forgiven, simply… withheld.
Yuder’s silence was not emptiness but discipline, the kind forged when answers had once been denied too many times. Kishiar recognized it for what it was and accepted the quiet rebuke without flinching.
He did not reach further for the connection.
“You do not need to draw every answer from me tonight,” Kishiar said more gently, leaning forward to rise. “I have already said more than I can retract. There will be other opportunities.”
“Why now?”
The question stopped him mid-motion. Yuder’s posture had not changed, but tension radiated through him: jaw set, fingers knotted in the fabric at his thighs, eyes dark and unyielding, no longer asking for information but demanding sincerity.
Why now.
Kishiar settled back slowly. For a brief, treacherous second, he considered deflecting, offering a polished half-truth and moving on.
As the silence stretched, Yuder’s expression hardened. He had seen that closing door before, the precise moment when Yuder decided an answer would not come and prepared himself to accept yet another evasion without showing the wound it left behind. His face remained almost blank, but his eyes did not. Kishiar had always found them dangerously expressive. Or perhaps he simply paid too much attention.
“I was uncertain,” he said at last. “And I dislike uncertainty.”
That earned him a delightfully flat look.
He allowed a breath of humor to soften the edges. “Calling it fortunate timing would be unsatisfying, I imagine.”
Yuder’s expression made his opinion of that answer perfectly clear.
“It is true, however,” Kishiar continued more quietly. “He arrived just after I had asked you whether I was being cruel.”
A small, stiff nod confirmed that Kishiar had asked that question of Yuder himself, however little he had allowed it to sound like confession at the time.
“Asking that was not… accidental.” His attention lowered to his own hands in a rare show of avoidance. “I was seeking assurance, whether I admitted it or not. I told myself that my chosen strategy was necessary, that hurting you now would prevent greater harm later.” His throat tightened around the next words. “It was not as effortless as I made it appear.”
Yuder did not answer. Perhaps he had none to offer. Perhaps, more fairly, Kishiar had not earned one.
“And then,” he continued, forcing composure back into his tone, “I was presented with an alternative. An option that preserved the Legion, preserved you… and did not require me to disappear quite so quickly.” He lifted one hand in a small, dismissive gesture. “I was weak enough to consider it.”
Yuder’s eyes narrowed slightly. “So, it wasn’t only because of his behavior.”
A laugh escaped him – brighter than he felt, reflexive armor slipping back into place. “Not solely, no.” He let mischief edge his expression, because that was easier than allowing the full weight of the truth to remain exposed. “I did promise honesty,” he added lightly. “Should I confess I am relieved you can’t bully me quite so effectively?”
The look he received was magnificently unimpressed. And yet–
There it was again. That subtle shift in the air, the subtle warmth that only Yuder ever seemed capable of drawing from him, a lightness he had no right to feel and no discipline to suppress completely. He laughed again, softer this time, genuine despite himself.
Gods. He was hopeless.
“Or,” Kishiar added, lowering his voice just enough to shift the air between them, “perhaps I am anticipating the day you can.”
The unimpressed stare did not waver, but the flush that crept unmistakably over the tips of Yuder’s ears was worth the risk.
Yuder rose, regaining composure with visible effort. “I won’t keep you from your rest,” he said evenly. “We’ll speak more tomorrow.”
Kishiar rose with unhurried grace, the motion reminiscent of a great beast lifting itself from repose, betraying nothing of the restless current within.
He meant to let him go.
Instead, before Yuder could turn fully away, Kishiar’s fingers closed lightly around his. The touch was feather-light yet it anchored them both in place.
Yuder turned back, a silent question flickered in the depths of those dark eyes, violet edges catching lamplight like fractured amethyst.
Kishiar held those captivating gems. “Yuder…”
He felt the moment teeter, balanced between wisdom and indulgence, between what he should do and what every fiber of his being desired. Indulgence won.
“May I kiss you?”
That violet at the edges of Yuder’s eyes caught the light as they widened, surprise flashing through his composure. He did not step back, but neither did he lean forward.
“Why…?” he asked quietly. The word held more than curiosity. It held caution and confusion, the lingering fracture of trust that had not yet fully mended, the fresh memory of another presence wearing his face.
Answers cascaded through his mind:
Because I am greedy.
Because I am dying.
Because I have already hurt you and still want this more than air.
Kishiar did not say any of it.
“Is it enough,” he answered instead, voice level despite the heat gathering beneath his ribs, “to say that I want to kiss you?”
It was the most honest statement he had made all evening.
Yuder’s dark eyes gave him back the truth of his own face: desire, unmasked and stripped of its usual brightness. Beneath that mirrored image, Yuder’s usual caution was interrupted by a sharper flicker, dark and almost territorial. Kishiar was far too intoxicated by the implication to look away.
They stood close now, breath mingling in the narrow space between them. Kishiar did not move closer, though every part of him wanted to. He waited.
His vessel had only just steadied. The memory of losing control, of overlapping heat and manifestation and the harm that followed, still burned like acid against his restraint. He would not repeat that mistake. He would not blur consent into hunger.
Yuder studied him for a long, suspended moment – searching, weighing, measuring. Finally, after what felt like an eternity carved from silence, he read whatever he needed to from Kishiar’s eyes – sincerity, desire, restraint, guilt, longing – and gave a barely perceptible nod.
The restraint snapped.
Kishiar was on him before he had even completed the motion, warm lips colliding and igniting a blazing heat. The kiss was not elegant: it was hungry and imperfect and far too fierce for a man who had just vowed caution. He pulled Yuder against him with desperate strength, one hand threading deep into dark hair, fingers curling tight at the nape to angle his head just so. The other arm banded around Yuder’s waist, crushing their bodies together until there was no space left for doubt or distance.
The lips beneath his were hesitant for only a heartbeat: new, unpracticed, tasting faintly of surprise and the ghost of tea from earlier. The realization struck Kishiar with unexpected force – this was not the confident, devastating version of Yuder who had kissed him with the weight and experience of another time, another life. This was the young man who still guarded himself with pride and silence. The one he had hurt. And who had chosen to stay anyway.
The awkwardness grounded him. He preferred it, preferred the small, uncertain press of lips, the faint tremor that ran through Yuder’s frame before curiosity overtook hesitation. When Kishiar brushed his tongue lightly against the seam of Yuder’s mouth, soft lips parted immediately, a tentative motion mimicking his own. Yuder learned quickly, as he did everything, meeting him with growing certainty, tongue sliding against his in slow, exploratory strokes that sent heat pooling low in Kishiar’s gut.
He did not linger in fantasy. This was not a future echo or a polished inevitability. It was here, now, imperfect and fragile and his.
Kishiar tasted warmth and restraint and something dangerously like trust. He greedily stole every breath Yuder offered, pouring all of his desperate longing, guilt, and aching gratitude into the heat of their overlapping mouths. Through the haze he could see the savage joy in his own crimson eyes reflected back in dark ones that never once looked away, even as they fogged over with surprised, unguarded pleasure.
When they finally broke apart, their breath came in harsh, uneven pants. Kishiar kept one hand at Yuder’s waist, fingers splayed wide, while the other slid from dark hair to trace the reddened, kiss-swollen contour of Yuder’s lower lip with reverent lightness. His thumb brushed the plush, damp curve, feeling the faint quiver that lingered there. The gesture was tender yet laced with a possessive joy he knew he should feel ashamed of.
His body refused to obey the command to step away. The heat of Yuder’s mouth still lingered on his tongue, the taste burning like brandy in his veins. Every instinct – every raw, greedy fiber – screamed to close the distance again, to claim more, to drown in the warmth he had been permitted.
He leaned in before he could stop himself.
The next kiss was shorter, a firm press of lips hard enough to bruise faintly, a silent brand of want.
“Go,” he murmured against warm, damp skin, the word rough and reluctant, thumb tightening briefly at Yuder’s waist in what was meant to be a signal of release but felt more like a plea to stay.
He meant to pull back then. He truly did.
Instead his mouth found Yuder’s again almost immediately – gentler this time, slower, a lingering glide of lips that parted just enough for the barest brush of tongue. The contact was soft, exploratory, almost apologetic, yet it carried the same desperate undercurrent. He tasted the faint hitch in Yuder’s breath, felt the subtle lean into him, and the sound that escaped his own throat was low and involuntary, almost pained.
“Rest,” he managed to rasp against those lips.
He tried – gods, he tried – to draw away. His fingers flexed against Yuder’s waist, muscles locking in an effort to create space, but the heat of Yuder’s body, the erratic thrum of his pulse beneath Kishiar’s palm, the memory of that tiny, decisive nod moments earlier, all conspired against him. Restraint frayed like thread pulled too tight.
One more.
Just one more.
He dipped his head again. This time the kiss was barely more than a whisper of lips, soft and trembling, the ghost of pressure that still managed to steal the air from both their lungs. He lingered there longer than he should have, forehead eventually dropping to rest against Yuder’s, breaths mingling in the scant space between them. Crimson eyes squeezed shut for a heartbeat as he fought the tide pulling him under.
Only then, only when the ache in his chest threatened to crack something vital, did he force himself to step back, control reasserting itself at last.
The separation felt like tearing skin, every inch he gained feeling as though it cost him. His hand slid reluctantly from Yuder’s waist, fingers trailing down the sharp line of hip in one slow, lingering caress before falling away entirely, empty and cold. He took one deliberate step backward, then another, forcing space where instinct demanded contact. Cool air rushed into the sudden void where their bodies had been fused, chilling sweat-damp skin and doing nothing to quench the furnace still roaring beneath his ribs.
A small, treacherous part of him felt relieved that he could manage it at all. It was a poor sort of victory, discovering he still possessed the manners of a civilized man.
The realization brought a wave of sharp self-deprecation. Not dragging his successor to bed whenever his mere presence set Kishiar’s blood ablaze should not qualify as an achievement, yet only hours earlier, when his vessel had still been a fractured, leaking ruin, even that much restraint might have been beyond him. The memory of that hunger, mindless and unstoppable, sat heavily in his chest.
Guilt twisted tighter as gratitude followed unbidden, directed toward the mysterious other Yuder – the one who had worn his face, spoken with impossible certainty, and somehow repaired what had been breaking beyond repair. That phantom intervention had granted him this fragile sliver of mastery over himself: enough to pause and wait instead of simply taking. He hated that the gratitude felt earned.
Kishiar exhaled slowly through his nose, forcing the conflicting currents to settle beneath his skin. His vessel was steadier now, stronger, but the cost of that strength still tasted of borrowed time and someone else’s sacrifice.
Yuder remained where he was for a moment, drawing himself back into composure piece by careful piece. Even that small act of control, the need to gather himself, sent a quiet thrill curling through Kishiar’s chest under the guilt.
Yuder bowed his head once in farewell and turned, departing without looking back. Crimson eyes stayed locked on that stunning, retreating form – long lines and disciplined posture concealing far too much heart – until the door closed with a soft, final click.
Only then did the bright, brittle smile fall away.
Kishiar pressed a hand to his chest. The rhythm under his palm was steadier than it had been in months.
Hope was cruel. It demanded payment.
But tonight, it was alive.