“No one wants your kind here either,” Heelyn snarls at Sylla recklessly, but Vothe notices Heelyn’s voice wavers as she glances at the tide of spiders closing in.

“Death is always an unwelcome visitor,” Sylla states. Her multi-eyed, frightening stare is mirrored in its strange intensity by Vesper’s, and Vothe can sense Heelyn’s courage shriveling.

Heelyn shoots Trystan a hostile look and leaves with her silent, equally hostile uniformed companions before the spiders can reach her. Sylla and Trystan exchange a glance and Sylla nods to him, then sits back down with Vesper, her spiders scuttling back.

As Heelyn and her cohorts disappear into the Xishlon crowd, Vothe can feel some of Trystan’s control over his lines fracturing, can sense how much Heelyn’s hatred has affected him by the violent turbulence crashing through his lines. Trystan lifts his head and eyes Vothe with blistering resignation.

“Trys...” Vothe says.

Trystan shakes his head. “Don’t,” he insists, lifting his palm, his voice hard.

Vothe grows silent, realizing it’s all too much at the moment, the desire mounting to leap over the table and embrace him. And show him that he belongs here.

That he belongs with me.

Instead, Vothe holds himself back, inwardly cursing all the people who are making Trystan feel like an outcast.

Which used to include you.

He inwardly winces, remembering how he fought against Trystan’s inclusion, bent on hating this grandson of the last Black Witch. Now it’s hard to even look at Trystan without it triggering a pang of want so fierce it threatens to undo him. Because Vothe sees the truth. Trystan Gardner is as decent and courageous and kind as he is staggeringly beautiful. And if his sister is anything like him, then the risk he’s taking to help protect her is well worth it.

Trystan looks over the water, toward the mountains and the Xishlon moon hanging above it all. “I’m scared for Elloren,” he admits. “If they treat me like this...”

Vothe doesn’t have to hear the rest of the sentence.

They’ll treat her far worse. Even if Vang Troi agrees to an alliance, other soldiers might band together to defy orders and kill her.

“She’s with one of the most powerful sorcerers on Erthia right now,” Vothe says in a whisper. “She’s safe. And, like I said, there’s nothing to be done at the moment but wait.”

Trystan keeps his gaze focused on the moon, but Vothe can sense his effect on him in the way Trystan’s water aura is now rippling through his, threads of blue lightning crackling that set Vothe’s skin prickling with a heightened desire to cancel out all the hatred here.

And kiss him.