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When this is all over, what stories will they tell? Sarcean wondered, thinking about the treasonous game The Lady had started and won and the one he willingly participated in.
Sarcean was the foil, the shadows behind the Sun King’s light - a useful juxtaposition, a mystery to solidify the kingdom’s power. It was why he was tolerated for so long, despite the threat he posed to the throne.
The night was deep and warm and bright with stars littered in the sky. Sarcean’s good mood had him musing. It might have been affection, curiosity, a yearning to stretch and know, without his leash, how far can he go? How far would The Lady go with the knowledge she now knew?
It was only a matter of time before the Sun Kingdom imploded anyway. But he nevertheless agreed to The Lady’s plans back then, before he knew the entirety of it all.
She who would be Queen and he, the little spot of darkness who knew everything. When she is Queen, she would kill him. He had already seen the beautiful blade she had sharpened to do the deed. Once bright-eyed and eager, hatred for Sarcean had turned Visander into a creature that will endure. Sarcean didn’t mind. He didn’t have a habit of taking the blame for what people did to themselves.
But tonight, one of their last nights perhaps, he had Anharion in his bed, sprawled, collared, and ethereal.
Anharion, a general of the light, called to power when all he truly wanted was to give it all up —to be challenged and wrestled into a soft, sullied mess until his mind could forget all the fighting, the politics, and just be someone’s best beloved. Sarcean’s best beloved.
“Darling.” Anharion called.
Sarcean abandoned the window and sat on the bed at the summons, back resting on the bed frame and beckoned for Anharion to sit on his lap.
He tucked a strand of sunkissed hair behind Anharion’s ear and felt warmth blossom in his chest as Anharion nuzzled into his hand.
Sweet creature. It was a shame they both had to die.
It was a gambit.
Sarcean felt no compulsion to save the world, no desire to force kingdoms into submission. It was petty, a desire to return a hit, regardless of who would be trampled in the process. An eye for an eye. Pain for pain. A game for a game.
If he could preserve Anharion as he is, the shining jewel that could befall armies, perhaps he would. The least he could do was to ensure Anharion was reborn at the same time as he did so he did not endure decades of lonesomeness on his own. Cruelty came naturally to Sarcean but Anharion had no such tendencies, and deserved no punishment from this sleight of hand. He would be reborn in a place that remembered the old world and old magic and be honored for who he is. Sarcean would weave the strands of time, of souls, of space to do so.
He splayed his left hand on Anharion’s belly, felt the muscles clench as his right hand gripped Anharion’s hip, thumb lightly circling near his pelvis.
“Tell me what you want.”
“You. You. You.” Anharion whispered.
He was wasted as a warrior, Sarcean thought as he plunged two fingers into Anharion’s hole curling them and feeling the warmth give way as it always did. As it always would.
Sarcean kissed him, swallowing his little moans and huffs of air. He smiled into the kiss as he felt Anharion dip into the connection the collar gave them and take in a little of Sarcean’s power.
“Tired already, my sweet?”
Anharion was power personified but his strength was like lightning, impossibly deadly but quick to run out. Sarcean’s power was not explosive but its depths were unfathomable and the collar they had made allowed Anharion to drink from its depths and use the vast reserves of Sarcean’s power. An untrained wearer would lose themselves in the currents of power, mistaking Sarcean’s emotions and desires for their own.
But Anharion was a guardian. Trained for control even if all he wanted was submission. There was no danger there: only power and the electrifying connection, pleasure and promise shooting up on both of their bodies.
He felt Anharion’s hardness grinding into his thigh, wetting his silk robes. He took more oil into his fingers to prepare Anharion and coated his cock with the remains.
He was eager tonight, Sarcean mused.
Anharion sank into him and he pulled the other man towards him, closing his lips on Anharion’s nipples and nibbling, relishing in the spasms it caused in the other’s body.
Sarcean thrust up and deep, then ground into Anharion. He could feel Anharion’s gasps tickling his ear.
“No wonder she wanted you.” Anharion gasped out. “No wonder her champion is obsessed.”
Oh, he was beautiful, thought Sarcean, using the collar to relay his desire and adoration. Anharion choked on a gasp, shivering, eyes glassy.
After all, it wasn’t the first time tonight that they laid together. Sarcean enjoyed it when his lovers were loose-limbed, soft and malleable after several rounds of lovemaking, until they couldn’t think and had fully surrendered to the demands of their flesh.
“Mine.” Sarcean gasped out. The one thing from the Sun Kingdom he wanted and once couldn’t have. Now his. Submitting to his whims. Pleasure was cresting but he tempered it, shallowly fucking into Anharion.
“Yours.”
“I’m sorry it has to be this way.” Sarcean murmured.
“Gloom pillow talk is unlike you, my king.”
Sarcean laughed and relished in the shocked giggle that tumbled out of Anharion as he flipped them over. His dark hair forming a curtain as he continued to fuck into Anharion, losing control of his hips, surrendering into the pleasure, closing his eyes and dreaming what it could’ve been like if they were two ordinary people instead of who they were.
“In a future time, Anharion, we would be happy and at peace.” Sarcean whispered. “I will make sure of it, even if kingdoms fall.”
He wondered if Anharion could hear him, lost as he was in the pleasure, Sarcean hitting the spot that made him weak and speechless.
“Yes, yes, Sarcean please—“
Sarcean allowed the pleasure to take him as it did Anharion. Possessiveness rose like something dark and warm in his chest at the sight of his spend dripping out of the man.
“This time, any future time, Sarcean, I’ll know you and find you.”
Anharion’s face was lit up with something Sarcean cannot name. The gambit was set and the game has begun. A bet that would last eons and befall kingdoms.
Let it, Sarcean thought. He had lost this battle. Perhaps he would win the war. Or perhaps, beside Anharion’s warmth and the promise of endless futures, he already had.