a silver splendour, a flame

Otabek hadn’t bothered to set up a tent; sheltered under the rocks he merely unpacked his bedroll and stretched out on the ground, looking up at a clearing sky that was beginning to show inklings of stars and moonlight. After a moment, exhausted and strangely emptied of all his fury, Yuri did the same, and swept his white cloak over them both, turning on his side to study the banshee’s profile, lingering on the strong hook of his nose and the clear dark of his eyes.

The startlingly long sweep of his eyelashes against the high arc of his cheekbones.

“Beka?”

“Mm.”

“… I think I can hear your heartbeat.”

Otabek turned his head, then, but didn’t shift, fighting a bone-deep exhaustion that was going to leave him here for hours, recuperating in the dark. “I know.”

After that they slept; sometimes like stones, sometimes fitfully. Yuri awoke to reforming slivers of silver in the back of his thoughts and turned into the hard curve of Otabek’s shoulder. “He’s conscious now,” he said quietly, and then something Viktor thought woke up the hard edges of his fury again, had him mumbling insults as his fingers crept unbidden onto Otabek’s far shoulder and dug in. Otabek, who didn’t open his eyes and who still didn’t move, not really, though nonetheless he had this to say:

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

Viktor who’d jumped in the way of the void for him; Otabek who’d so freely given of himself to save a man who he couldn’t possibly have considered a friend. These realities caught in Yuri’s throat and he gave a half-strangled grunt of agreement, didn’t resist when Otabek pulled him closer and settled his head against the firm slope of his chest. There his heartbeat — a distant, reverberating echo in Yuri’s ears and in the back of his thoughts was steady and slow and real.

All of it was real. Dauntingly so. And here, terribly real also, was the son of the ban side, lover of the night, still giving when he had no obligation or reason to do so.

It was possible to be too tired, too angry, and too grateful to think, all at the same time, but even Yuri knew this: the slope of Otabek’s chin was just there, above his nose, and if he turned his head just so he could kiss its edge, which he did without saying thank you, without admitting to the softer, gentler things at all.

Otabek always just seemed to know.

- - -

Three weeks and one day after Beltane, 1017 II Age

Yuuri woke to a slow sensation of rising and falling, coming out of a lingering dream about sunrise and beaches and the steady in-and-out churn of gentle tides, lapping at his ankles. He was wrapped up in and around something, warm and yet still tired, as though —

Oh.

Viktor must have felt it, the stiffening of his frame, morning’s dawning realization, because he reached down and swept Yuuri’s hair from his eyes with one hand, and with the other he flexed his fingers to deepen the tangle of their hands. “Good morning.”

“Viktor.” Deep relief and deep panic swept through him at the same, exact moment. The one thing, rather like happiness, was the peak of a very high mountain, the sort of place he hadn’t been to in some time, where the view was glorious but the air both very thin and very heady. Then the worry hit; terrible, pressing anxiety because Viktor probably knew everything there was to know about magic. He’d want an explanation for this, for his sudden wholeness, for the way something had flooded through him and brought him back here where — Yuuri didn’t even have to look — he could be examining a halfling with the subtle bow of his smile and a gleam of bemusement that made his blue eyes twice as dangerous.

Viktor did not do that. The mischief in his voice was too marked not to notice, though:

“Comfortable?”

Yuuri groaned.

“I’m never going to live this down. And you’re never going to let it go.”

“No,” Viktor agreed, almost cheerfully. He felt young again, almost, like he was the inexperienced mage traveling all the high roads, working his way around the wheel. Hale, like he wasn’t in the middle of a desert without a water supply in easy reach of his magic. “Such a pessimist, Yuuri,” he teased mildly, turning his head to nose into the halfling’s hair. “You might get to live up to it. Did you ever think of that?”

“… Are you always so insufferable?”

“As a general rule, yes.” Gods, Viktor’s laugh. It was deep and melodic and sparkling, and it had a way of rattling around Yuuri’s chest long after the breath of it had expired. Addictive. That’s what it was. He’d only heard it a few times and every time he wanted more of it; every time it left him hungry. He wiggled, trying with little success to get away from the tangle of their bodies, caught a glimpse of the way Viktor’s mischievous smile gave way to a sudden seriousness, deep as the seas. “The way I see it,” said the prince, not unkindly, “we can lay here like this for a little longer, quite comfortably, I might add, and you can explain yourself in privacy, or you can go outside, where my brother is waiting and where you will quite literally need to commit treason by setting him on fire in order to escape questions.” He hummed and ran his fingers along Yuuri’s side, curled them into the dip of his tunic. “Your choice. I think it starts with your familiar, does it not? The bird that isn’t quite a bird?”

I can’t think when you touch me. That was what Yuuri wanted to say, and some tiny part of his mind, the part firmly positioned against his own undoing, still insisted that he needed to get very far away from Viktor. Viktor with his mesmerizing voice and his heart-shaped smile. Viktor with eyes that were the very definition of blue, as though any appearance of that color anywhere else on earth was a memory of that original sparkling, a gift, an echo.

But it wasn’t what he wanted. What he wanted was this; this easy cradle they made together, and the knot of their hands, and the electric shivers just the idle sweep of Viktor’s hand set off under his skin.

What he wanted was the flawless dance, the brilliant fireworks. So what Yuuri said instead, in spite of himself, against every warning that this ends badly was this:

“She’s a phoenix.”

“A phoenix?” Viktor’s voice plunged into amazement and distantly Yuuri imagined the firebird preening, having caused such wonder and awe from a man who must’ve seen everything already.

“You know them?”

“My mother used to tell stories,” Viktor murmured. “The only familiar that beats death, she said…”

“Not exactly.” It was an uncomfortable reminder, that, and Yuuri turned his head into Viktor’s chest, hid the memory of it by focusing on the nearness of Viktor’s body, the clean lines of muscle, the miracle of him alive and present this morning alone. It was selfish, perhaps; a weakness.

Better than facing an inevitable reality.

“My father said it was all wishful thinking and fairytales, made-up leftovers from the first age.” Viktor added with a derisive snort. Then he said something that surprised Yuuri again, in a voice that was low and tinged with hints of melancholy and regret: “… no wonder you hide it,” he murmured lowly, with a bitter, broken edge to his laugh. “Life … gods, we’d all come to you begging …” Little addicts. Just like the ban side said.Give us more and more life. Give us light until we’re sick on it. Give us no darkness, no shadow. “… We’d come to you at the end of lives wasted and spent and beg you to extend them, and you’d do it because you’re kind and you’d want to help and it’d be such a … such a … such an abuse.” In this version of Viktor’s voice there was darkness and cold, long lonely winters spent too long atop the peak over Mosciren, alone. When he used the next word he almost seemed to be speaking of himself:

“Criminal.”

Yuuri did not like this new twist to Viktor’s voice. It had hard, bitter edges; it was cold as ice and just as fragile. There was a strange shattering there, some history he’d never been let into before. Next to the sparkling brilliance of Viktor’s laugh, all Yuuri knew was that he hated it, wanted to chase it away like the twisted spirits they must’ve been fighting long before he’d come.

You’re wrong about me, he wanted to insist, thinking of days riding across the plains; of feeding magic into the beasts that bore them and into Seung-gil even as the banshee flinched and burned under his grip. Yuuri could be plenty cruel. Do it anyway, Seung-gil had insisted at the end of the first sleepless day, ignoring the scars that crept over his arms, impassive in the face of what must have been extreme pain. Do it anyway or we’re not going to make it in time.

Instead he climbed over Viktor, tightened the lock of their fingers and let his free hand drift under the prince’s chin. Locked their gazes. “Nobody ever says that,” Yuuri said firmly. “Minako warned me. They’ll all think it’s a miracle. Tell me why you’re not angry I haven’t gone out healing every person I see. Tell me why you think that’s fine.”

“Because we brought death onto ourselves and it’s part of the natural order now.” Viktor’s gaze was guarded, almost practiced, and he hated it. He was getting better at seeing it: those moments when Viktor hid behind his title and his heritage because it was easier than revealing anything like his true self. “Why should you do differently?”

“That’s a half answer, Viktor.”

“I have a guardian that grants wishes, Yuuri,” Viktor snapped back, with a fierce and warning flashing of his eyes that reminded Yuuri of the ship, the crashing storm; the tantalizing edge of this dance with danger. “The lucky stag. Catch it and it’ll give you anything you want. Don’t you think I know how dangerous that is? Don’t you think I’ve lived it?”

There they were at the heart of the maelstrom, and all Yuuri could think of to do was to stare down at Viktor’s hard, icy eyes, and then at the sweep of his mouth.

He almost understands.

Winter was a warning, a future that was going to hurt so hard when it finally came crashing, and still: can’t I have this? Can’t I have this one little thing …?

“I would like to kiss you, Viktor.”

Viktor did not respond in words; Viktor sat up and kissed him like a conqueror, all force and fury like the crash of the storm he’d once told to part for him. In that kiss, Yuuri burned away the edges of his anger, and slowly it gave way to gratitude, and at the end of it, Viktor’s subtle smile was back even if it hadn’t yet reached all the way to his eyes.

The second kiss was gentler, and it felt more like a promise. I won’t forget this. Not now. Not ever.

- - -

“Were you attacked on the way here?” Classic Otabek, in the morning, acting as though he hadn’t just spent the night out in plain view with one of the princes curled up against his shoulder. Seung-gil glanced back at him and lifted a brow, incredulous, and then finished sweeping his fingers over the fine, pale scars that were already beginning to fade.

“No,” he said, crisply and coldly. “It was the cost for coming so swiftly.”

“I see,” murmured Otabek carefully, though Seung-gil was reasonably sure he didn’t. Still, there was a calculating gleam in his eye and for a moment he entertained the idea of being relieved to see it. Once, Otabek had been a ranger captain, before he’d gotten the idea to head north, to see the highest of the so-called high elves for himself. Seung-gil had not liked what he’d seen in Hasetsuil, when the soldier part of Otabek seemed replaced with a newer thing, one that gave deference to people whom he owed nothing whatsoever. Softer, he could have argued. This banshee who had seen firsthand the chaos of the cauldron and who had let himself dance, nonetheless, with the children of the aes sidhe. Seung-gil was not nearly so inclined to be forgiving. He let steady disapproval radiate.

Yet Otabek was not discouraged. “You knew the halfling could help?”

“I knew you weren’t really asking for me,” Seung-gil murmured, and he patted one of the dog’s three heads, glared idly at the rising sun. “You knew what I had to offer when you called.”

It was an answer to some question, just not the one Otabek had asked. “Still …” Why him?

“You asked and I brought you what you were looking for because of who you are.” Seung-gil murmured curtly, and just like that, the conversation was over. Don’t disappoint me. “The rest isn’t my story to tell.”

- - -

In the end he’d needed to do something other than sink into the soft warmth that Yuuri offered; Viktor was still cognizant of his responsibilities, of their place here in the middle of the desert, still at least a day’s ride away from the valley of the poles, the last obstacle between his traveling party and the rest of the West. That, too, was going to require a confession Viktor wasn’t yet ready for; admittance and perhaps the relinquishing of a weight he’d carried for too long of a time, a real reminder of it still hidden in the pack he’d carried ever since they left Ast Petyriel.

Besides, Yuri was outside, all boiling impatience, and if Viktor knew Mila at all he doubted she’d be content to stay on watch forever, kept at arms length from her revived prince. When he stepped out of the tent he was unsurprised to see the waiting weasel, standing up on its hind legs; less surprised to feel Yuri’s hands hit his chest in a hard shove, and then felt his brother’s fingers curl.

“You bastard! You nearly died!”

It was an easy instinct for Viktor to wrap his arms around his brother, to sweep him up under the umbrella of his long, silver cloak. Like he was small again, still a child, an innocent. Viktor ignored the mutters of protest and the unsteady breaths, resting his chin atop the golden halo of Yuri’s hair.

Never again on my account, his brother swore, vehemence and brilliance. Don’t you dare. “Promise me, Vitya,” he growled, through the inconvenience of tears in those sharp, peridot eyes. “Never again.”

“I would push you out of danger a thousand times without regret or remorse,” Viktor replied calmly, even as Yuri shook, and thumped his chest, and he let his eyes drift over to Mila, who stood aside, shaking her head. Without a word he held an arm out for her, drew her in against Yuri’s back. Surprise flickered in her gaze for a moment over this strange, affectionate Viktor. Perhaps his near-scrape with death was to blame, had made him more eager to tolerate this closeness when he’d previously held himself aloof. “Where’s Georgi?”

“Sleeping. He took the night watch with the Easterling…”

I’ll go to him soon, Viktor thought, casting another glance around for the lean, dark figure of their banshee guide, propped up under the overhang of stones where they’d evidently made camp. “… Otabek?”

“Mm.”

“Thank you.”

Otabek inclined his head subtly, and then gestured back towards the blond still mostly hidden under the fold of Viktor’s cloak. “Thank your brother,” he murmured instead, gaze as fixed and serious as ever. “He kept you this side of the veil.”

“Who does he have to thank for that, I wonder?” Viktor mused idly, rewarded with another firm and painful thump of Yuri’s fist against his chest, and then the younger prince was squirming out of his arms, putting the pieces of an aloof visage back together one by one. “You hear that, Yura? Beka says we’re even.”

Beka. Viktor had adopted the nickname so easily, and in doing, swept Otabek deeper into their circle, seemingly without a care. Yuri looked at Viktor for a long moment, as though he might suddenly grow another head like the strange dog that followed Seung-gil, and all he received in return was one of those inscrutable heart-shaped smiles and the infuriating, subtle mischief which really did mean he was himself again. Alive. The family link was once again whole. That was what mattered.

At that precise moment, Yuuri stepped out of the tent, and provided a perfect distraction from all of these considerations. “You,” the blonde growled, then, and he pointed to Viktor, the morning’s miracle, standing idly by in the flesh as though he hadn’t been on the very edge of death. In fact, Viktor looked better than restored; the rest of them all looked very much like they’d been traveling through a desert, and Vitya seemed refreshed, as though he’d just risen from Hasetsuil’s mineral springs. “Explain yourself immediately.”

“He’ll do nothing of the sort,” Viktor murmured. Until he’s ready. Before Yuri could simmer on this further, he glanced towards Otabek. “I’d prefer we travel this evening.” Mistakes had been made on the ride out. He’d been overconfident, perhaps; couldn’t pay the same price for his assumptions a second time. “Will it be safe?”

“Nothing is safe here,” the banshee reminded him, and then he closed his eyes, seemed to have the attitude of someone listening to something far away and distant, something none of the rest of them could hear. “Nonetheless. After the battle we’ve just had I imagine it will be mostly uneventful to the valley.”

“Good.” Viktor had learned his lesson about heat; there was a difference between the way Yuuri burned under his fingertips and the unforgiving drain of the sun. They were going to need their strength. With two banshees riding along now he did not begrudge traveling by moonlight. “We leave at sunset.”

- - -

Sand steadily gave way once again to reddish stone as the sunset road wound further west. For some time on the first overnight ride, Otabek’s wyvern held low to the earth, gliding alongside Viktor’s large antelope. They spoke in lowered voices, two tacticians debating the strategy of the last obstacle before the climb into the West. Riding just behind,Yuri studied the foil they made for some time, until his brother gave a curt nod, and Otabek flew up suddenly, floating overhead until his decrease in speed brought him back to Seung-gil, who’d taken rear guard with his giant hellhound.

Soon afterwards the gate to the west rose on the horizon: a large, sandstone arch, the last of its kind on the sunset road. “We camp here tonight,” Viktor said, which explained the decision that had been made well-enough. They’d be crossing the valley in the morning.

They’ll have the advantage before dawn, Mila argued over dinner, an incredibly light affair on their dwindling supplies of Southron bread. Viktor had looked rather pointedly at Otabek and Seung-gil, standing at the edge of the circle of the camp. I like our odds.

Then Otabek had chimed in to agree: it’ll be mid-day when we exit, he pointed out, they may start strong but that endurance will wane.

So take the second half in strength.

The halfling. When they’d made camp, Viktor had made another change in plans: you sleep with me. That, too, was news, and for a moment Yuuri’s eyes narrowed like he might protest or was planning to resist. At nightfall, nonetheless, he’d crept into Vitya’s tent, leaving Yuri outside, where he told Otabek stories about the constellations until they both fell asleep.

Now it was the thin hours just before dawn and they were looking down at the descent into the valley that ran north into the Western kingdom, the last obstacle to safety. Viktor stopped at the mouth of the incline, gesturing Otabek forward, and then slowly they began to make their way: the banshee in the lead, followed by Viktor, Yuri, and then Yuuri. Mila and Georgi closed in behind them, and Seung-gil brought up the rear. The Easterlings carried no weapons. Ridiculous, thought Yuri, but he didn’t have much time to think at all: the downward incline was treacherous, even with the agility of the large desert cat he rode. Otabek had no such worries, gliding all the way to the bottom in a downward plunge with the wyvern that was all brutal, military grace, a perfect reminder of just how dangerous he was, and yet: Otabek’s fingers had dusted feather-light through his hair; when he slept Otabek always lay as still and as calm as the tranquil surface of a windless pond.

Making their way through the valley was a different sort of fight than the one they’d been in before: the revenants here were small, and Seung-gil sent the three-headed hound ahead to chase after them, all growls and yips and barks but no actual magic. Otabek, too, seemed reluctant to hurt these early shadows; seemed to command them away and gave off a subtle air of satisfaction and relief when they crept up the sandstone hills, presumably to begin the long trek back from whence they’d come. This meant swift progress for their first hour, as the sky began to show subtle hints of rose and pink overhead. Dawn was coming soon. A glance backwards showed that Yuuri knew that, too; his weird red bird had gathered, translucent, resting on his shoulder and in a strange way seeming to get more and more real by the minute.

It got harder.

Soon Vitya was shooting silver arrows ahead, warning shots, missing on purpose to give the banshees a chance to try to command the shadows away. The first wraith marked the moment when that strategy was no longer going to work, and before it could engage Otabek in combat at all, Yuri summoned a flare of white light to hit the spirit directly in the chest, and chase it away. The look he received in return was wry, a momentary reminder not to attract attention to himself.

They fought onward. The sun rose and he became aware of flashes of magic all around them; red and gold from the Halfling, whose hands kept pooling with flame. Beka’s shadowy, inky black. Vitya’s silver.

The hound of Seung-gil snapped its teeth and barked but Otabek’s cousin cast no spells. By now Yuri had called the unicorn forward, because as much as the spectres hated it, hated him, they hated the light his familiar cast even more; avoided it at all costs, slunk away simmering when hit. Yet it was also the call for more; more of these bent things to come and wreak vengeance on an ancient enemy.

Vaguely he heard his brother shouting a warning: Mila, look out, but it turned out not to be needed in the slightest: the sun crested over the edge of the hills now and the scarlet bird flew overhead, bringing with it a tail of flame as it swept across three flying spectres, who, licked with tongues flame and a sheen of glittering gold, seemed to catch fully on fire and then turned white, evaporated like mist.

Yuri blinked. Did he just kill a spectre? Three of them?

It was as senseless as Viktor returned back to complete health, had no possible explanation.

Spectres couldn’t be killed.

- - -

Sandstone gave way to granite, which in turn gave way to subtle signs of life: squat, stubborn bushes that had dug into the hills and simply refused to die. It was a sentiment Yuuri might’ve agreed with, if he’d had the time to consider it properly.

They fought steadily onwards, and as sunlight crept overhead and shadows began to recede so, too, were some of the revenants, though Viktor wasn’t satisfied with letting them creep back into hiding holes where they might waylay the next band of travelers; the remainder of the Easterlings due to come west and the Southrons, too. Though he’d begun the morning at full strength, the elven prince looked flushed; his stag translucent and almost invisible in the heat of the day. Otabek and Seung-gil moved more sluggishly and even Yuuri, Yuuri who held every advantage now, felt his hands tremble as he cast off more streaks of golden light.

Seung-gil was the only one who hadn’t used any magic at all, and Yuuri knew perfectly well why.

Surely they had to be close to the end by now. He remembered the fraught Western road well enough from his own trip around the Wheel, but this was different; this felt like every spectre within a reasonable radius of miles had come for them. First it was Yuri, who was far too liberal with the sweeps of white light that he cast, and then Viktor, whose arrows were never wasted, shot surgically and always recovered.

Then they’d noticed him and had come like moths to a flame for whatever it was that the phoenix offered; not death, it could never be death, but whatever it was it was as draining as healing Viktor had been, and there were more of them, all made of that same core of void he’d had to wrestle out of the prince’s aura. Up ahead the valley yawned open, revealing rolling, grassy hills and a stroke of deep, dark green in the distance that marked the buildup of forest.

So close. He did not want to have to face down another dragon, like the one he’d heard Mila talking about with Georgi. Surely they wouldn’t have to, not now, not after all this fighting …

Yuuri heard but barely perceived the rumble of the rocks as though they were alive, saw but did not process the charging swoop of a giant griffin. Magic sparked everywhere: something new, the color of burnished copper; with it a streak of light blue, and like that the last of the revenants were gone, and in front of them were two riders on horseback, who both dismounted immediately.

The griffin landed with an echoing rumble behind Jean-Jacques Leroy, who watched Viktor for a long moment with conflict brimming in his blue eyes, before he bent a knee. Behind him a halfling mage with sandy brown hair and a short beard did the same, his slate-colored eyes fixed on the ground.

“Prince Viktor,” said Jean-Jacques, calmly, though his fingers were clenched, and a subtle resentment still simmered in his eyes: “welcome to the West.”

Viktor stood there looking at them both, trying to school his expression into something neutral and unreadable; thick and impenetrable as the glaciers that reportedly churned steadily on even further to the north of Mosciren, impassible. Yuuri was learning to read the changing tides of his eyes, though; recognized that same sliver of bitterness, of loathing and remorse.

“Stand up, both of you,” Viktor murmured. His stag vanished immediately, and he dismounted to step forward, moving out under a carved sweep of granite that Yuuri recognized as the northern guardian of the valley.

It was over, finished. “We all know I’m not due that sort of deference here.”

- - -

Imbolc, 917 II Age

Was there anything on earth more dangerous than Viktor, wearing one of Hasetsuil’s festive flower crowns, laughing and dancing his way through the processional of guardians with his fully-formed stag? Christophe very much doubted it. Following along with an idle smile, python twisting over his shoulders, he couldn’t help but chuckle at the Northern Prince’s antics.

Who knew we’d be on the wheel at the same time, Viktor had mused, when Christophe had arrived in Ast Petyriel with the serpent draped over his shoulders. It had been easy to ride up from Vaux Romandith to share the story with his oldest friend. They’d grown up together, and though Christophe would never feel the full weight of royalty the way Viktor did, under Lilia and Yakov’s watchful eyes, their long overdue heir, he understood the upcoming pressures of leadership well enough. Shouldn’t have questioned it, I guess, he said next, and he’d leaned forward then to press an absent kiss to the edge of Christophe’s temple. Of course we would be.

The High Prince of the North and the Prince of the West.

Not lost on either of them were the subtle expectations that followed so close a friendship. Sometimes Viktor leaned into it a little too hard, like if he just worked at it enough, he’d wake up one morning content to get things over with, to forge a bond with his friend and so unite the North and the West. It was wholly beyond Christophe to discourage him. There was charm in Viktor’s smile and danger in his kiss and slowly, he too started to think that maybe it was just a matter of time.

Arriving with his familiar in Ast Petyriel, Viktor had wanted to know everything. Non-elemental magic was strange and poorly understood; as near as he could explain it the python had something to do with feelings, gave him little flashes of insight about how his people were feeling. It had been overwhelming at first and then it had given him a boost in confidence, had helped him travel down to the valley of the poles to reassure the people living there, in the borderlands, that the sorts of dangers that sporadically crossed the sunset road were never going to be allowed in their homes.

He felt stronger. Charismatic, someone else had called it, and then among their people the word had stuck. Christophe, the charismatic Western prince. Viktor, the mischievous Northern one.

Everywhere they went was trouble. This was trouble now, Viktor pulling him into the dance they kept trying out, except now that the truth was something magical, staring him in the face, Christophe had a hard time ignoring the difference between the fierce fondness of friendship and the sparking, dangerous thing that ran between Viktor’s parents and had a life of its own.

You’re not going to settle for just this.

Later, long after the festival, with his python curled around Viktor’s arm, and the stag resting its head on Christophe’s knee while he traced a finger over the antlers; incredible, that Viktor could keep it fully formed all the time like this, so early on; lucky, even.

This would be so much easier if you actually loved me, Christophe thought, wished even, because he didn’t love Viktor like that either but it’d be nice to build a stable, steady life; tolerable, and it’d make so many people around them happy. It was a careless thought, all wishful thinking, looking into the calm eyes of Viktor’s water stag as he held it. What a strange combination that was. And yet sometimes, like now, there was something else there; a kind of silvery thing that sparked and lit up which they hadn’t figured out yet and which Viktor himself couldn’t describe.

He felt it wash over them both. Not the wintery water magic Viktor had been showing him all this time. Something different. Something else.

Viktor turned to look at him and the whole world was suddenly different, because that fierce fondness was gone, the brotherly-love of it. He spoke as though Christophe had said the words aloud, and the whole world came crashing down:

“What’s that coming from, Christophe?” His blue eyes were clear, placid as the sea, subtly tinged by a bit of purple Christophe recognized because the python’s magic was purple, because he’d been working so hard to make sure when he used it he wasn’t manipulating anyone. The distance in those irises, the way Viktor kept secrets sometimes, all of it was gone, and more devastatingly so was his playfulness and his mischief. He was too eager to please now, creeping closer, sweeping his lips along Christophe’s cheek:

“Of course I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

Oh, gods. Viktor’s hands brushed over his shoulders, possessive; Viktor’s tongue swept into his mouth.

What have I done?