The legacy of King Spear was a heavy shroud that draped over the Seven, but for Jax, the weight was uniquely fluid. While Christian had been forged in the crushing pressure of earth and Leah had been scorched into obsidian, Jax had been molded by the cold, unrelenting depths.
King Spear had viewed water as a soft element- the element of tears, of oceans that yielded to the wind, of something that could be held but never truly grasped. He hated it. And because he hated it, he sought to turn Jax into something that could drown the world.
By the age of eight, Jax's training didn't take place in the arena or on the battlefield. It took place in the deep, lightless pools beneath the palace.
"Water is not a weapon of impact, Jax," Spear would rumble, his silhouette a dark blotch against the shimmering surface of the water. "It is a weapon of patience. It is the weight of the mountain that a man cannot lift off his chest."
He would force Jax into the deepest part of the pool, chaining his ankles to the stone floor. Jax would thrash, his small lungs screaming for air, his golden eyes wide with the terror of a child who was being murdered by his own king.
"Don't fight the water, boy! Command it!" Spear's voice would echo through the water, distorted and booming. "If you cannot live within it, you do not deserve to breathe above it!"
It was only when Jax's vision began to vignette into black, when his heart slowed to a desperate crawl, that he finally felt the shift. He stopped fighting. He reached out with his mind and spoke to the molecules surrounding him. He forced the oxygen to separate, to feed his blood.
By thirteen, Jax could sit at the bottom of a lake for six hours, reading a book through the distorted lens of the surface, as comfortable as a fish in a stream.
By sixteen, the training moved from survival to subversion. Jax was no longer the one being drowned; he was the one who controlled the breath of others.
Spear had realized that while a fire-wielder could burn a secret out of a man, a water-wielder could make a man beg for the fire. Jax became the Crown's shadow in the dungeons. He didn't use branding irons or racks. He used the very thing a human body was made of.
Jax could flick his wrist and manifest a perfect, shimmering globe of water around a traitor's head. He would watch them claw at the air, their eyes bulging as they inhaled the very liquid that should have sustained life. He would hold them there- at the exact edge of death, before pulling the water back into his palm.
"Tell me," Jax would whisper, his voice melodic and chillingly pleasant. "Is the truth worth another minute under the tide?"
Unlike the others, whose kills were explosions of heat or earth, Jax's work was silent. It was intimate. It was agonizingly slow. He saw the way people broke- the exact moment the spirit shattered.
To cope with the darkness of his work, Jax developed a shell. He became the "obnoxious" one, the goofy, flippant Lycan who cracked jokes at the dinner table and flirted with the palace maids. It was a mask of bubbles over a deep, dark trench.
When the Decree of Succession was issued, Jax didn't search for a mate with his heart. He searched with his head. He found a she-wolf named Kaelith. She was beautiful in a sharp, ambitious way. She didn't love Jax- she loved the fact that Jax was the water of the Seven. She loved the high-collared silks he wore and the prestige of living within the inner sanctum of the Palace.
"We have an arrangement, Jax," Kaelith had said as they sat in her father's manor. "I give you the heir the King demands, and you give me the life I deserve. I won't ask about the blood on your hands, and you won't ask about the coldness in my bed."
"Deal," Jax had replied, flashing his signature, easy-going grin.
They had one son. A boy named Kian.
Kian was the only thing in Jax's life that wasn't a mask. While Spear made him spend his nights in the damp dark of the dungeons, breaking the King's enemies, Jax spent his days in the gardens with his boy. He taught Kian how to swim, how to skip stones, and how to find the beauty in the water that didn't involve drowning. The bond was unbreakable; Jax would have flooded the entire continent to keep a single hair on Kian's head safe.
Kaelith lived to be ninety-seven, passing away peacefully in her sleep. Jax had mourned her with a quiet respect, but there were no tears. He had done his duty. He had raised his son to be a warrior. He had waited.
Now, centuries later, the Palace felt like a different world. Jax stood on a balcony overlooking the training grounds, a small sphere of water dancing between his fingers, weaving through his knuckles like a living thing.
Below him, he could see the results of the recent months.
Christian was walking with Madeline, his massive hand tucked into her smaller one. They looked grounded, solid. Megan and Julian were sparring in the distance, their laughter echoing up the stone walls. Even Leah- the charred, silent Leah, was sitting under a tree with Carys, the witch's red hair a bright flame against Leah's black silks.
Jax let the water sphere splash onto the stone floor. He felt a sharp, jagged itch beneath his skin.
Restlessness.
"It's getting crowded in here, isn't it?"
Jax didn't turn around. He knew the voice. Drew stepped up beside him, his movements rigid and restless. Drew, the youngest of them, looked just as frayed as Jax felt.
"A regular honeymoon suite, Drew," Jax joked, though the humor didn't reach his eyes.
"I can barely walk down the hall without tripping over a mate bond. It's disgusting."
"It's loud," Drew muttered, leaning his elbows on the railing. "I can hear their heartbeats, Jax. They're all... synchronized. It makes my own feel like it's skipping."
Jax looked at his friend. They were the last two. The final holdouts of the Spear era. "We're the leftovers, Drew. The scraps at the bottom of the Moon's bowl."
"Be patient, boys."
Both men jumped slightly as Selene appeared behind them. She didn't make a sound when she moved, her presence like a cooling mist. She looked at them with a gaze that was both motherly and divine.
"Selene," Jax said, falling back into his playful persona. "Come to tell us we're being too grumpy? We're just enjoying the view of everyone else's happiness. It's very inspiring. Makes me want to go join a monastery."
Selene didn't smile at the joke. She stepped between them, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. "I know the wait is long, Jax. I know the water feels stagnant. But the Fates do not weave the threads of the Seven in a hurry. Your mates are coming. They are already on their way, walking paths you cannot see yet."
"Are they coming by boat?" Jax asked, his voice cracking just a fraction. "Because I could really use a change in the tide."
"They will be here soon enough," Selene promised, her purple-and-white eyes glowing. "But remember: when the ocean meets the shore, it isn't always a gentle thing. Prepare yourselves."