Chapter 184: The emperor (5)

Goliath closed the case, but his hand remained on top of it.

"I think he could be."

"That is not the same thing."

"No," Goliath agreed. "It is not."

Kamal searched his face, and because he had stood too near Goliath for too many years, he did not soften his words merely because the matter had become intimate.

"He wants the place more than he wants the bond."

Goliath’s gaze turned to him slowly.

Many men would have dropped their eyes.

Kamal did not.

"You really dislike him," Goliath said.

"Yes."

A faint smile touched Goliath’s mouth, but it did not last.

Kamal stepped closer, enough that his voice no longer needed to cross the room. "He was angry."

"He was disappointed."

"No," Kamal said. "He was angry."

Goliath’s expression cooled.

Kamal bowed his head slightly, not in submission, but in acknowledgment that he was walking into dangerous ground and intended to continue anyway.

"Your Majesty, I have seen disappointed omegas leave your presence. I have escorted nobles who wanted more from you than you were willing to give. I have watched ministers discover that their daughters, sons, nephews, cousins, and polished little offerings would not be invited past your threshold merely because they had dressed for sacrifice."

Goliath’s brow lifted. "A poetic morning for you."

"I am serious."

"A terrible habit," Goliath murmured.

"You keep saying that as though it has ever stopped me."

"No. Unfortunately."

Kamal’s stare did not waver. "Felix was not wounded. He was denied."

The words settled heavily between them.

Goliath looked away first as the case under his hand had become more interesting than Kamal’s face.

"He is thirty."

"That is my point."

"And mine." Goliath’s voice remained even. "Thirty is young enough to mistake every delay for insult. Young enough to think desire becomes truth because it has lasted eight years. Young enough to stand in a palace and believe the world has moved slowly only because the Emperor is withholding it from him."

"He is old enough to understand no."

"Understanding and accepting are different skills."

"Then he lacks both."

Goliath laughed softly. "You are merciless."

"I learned from the best."

That earned him a glance.

For a moment, the chamber took on the shape of something familiar and almost gentle, as if anything around Goliath could be described as gentle without lying. Kamal had earned the right to be sharp. He had earned it in night corridors, in assassination attempts, in fevers, and in rooms where men with gentler voices suggested crueler things. He had earned it by placing himself between Goliath and danger often enough that the court had begun calling him mad.

Goliath opened the case again.

The mate’s chain caught the light.

"I have sons. I have consorts I respect. I have obligations already seated beneath my roof, and I have never allowed the court to turn their positions into a battlefield."

"I know."

"Then know this." Goliath’s voice sharpened slightly. "If I were to mark Felix, he would not be another consort made comfortable with jewels and contracts. He would be my only mate."

Kamal’s mouth tightened.

"Exactly," Goliath said. "Do not look at me as if I do not understand the weight of what sits in this case."

"I look at you as someone who understands the weight and is still considering giving it to the wrong man."

The room went cold.

Kamal went still but did not retreat.

The silence stretched long enough that a lesser man might have begun praying.

Goliath’s golden eyes remained on him.

Then, very softly, he said, "You have grown bold beyond repair."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Has age done this to you?"

"Proximity."

Another silence.

Then Goliath huffed a laugh under his breath and closed the case with a quiet click.

Kamal did not relax.

"I will not give it to him today," Goliath said.

"That is not reassuring."

"You are difficult to comfort."

"I do not require comfort. I require you to reconsider."

"I am reconsidering." Goliath lifted the case and carried it toward the inner cabinet set into the wall beside the unfinished portrait. "Not because Felix is unsuitable, but because he is young."

Kamal followed him with his gaze. "Those are not as separate as you think."

"They are to me."

Goliath pressed his hand to the cabinet seal. It opened in layers, revealing a narrow hidden space where imperial documents, personal letters, and objects too private for the royal treasury were kept. He placed the case inside carefully.

"He is moody because he is young," Goliath said. "Impatient because he is young. Furious at distance because he does not yet understand that distance can be protection rather than rejection."

Kamal’s voice was quiet. "And in ten years?"

"In ten years," Goliath said, closing the cabinet, "he will be forty. Still young, by our measure, but old enough to be embarrassed by how much he wanted everything handed to him at thirty."

Kamal said nothing.

Goliath turned back to him.

"He will regret being so moody and impatient," he said. "He will look back on this morning and cringe with the appropriate dignity of a man who survived his own youth."

Kamal’s expression did not change.

"That would be convenient," he said.

"It would be human."

"Felix rarely strikes me as human when denied."

Goliath’s gaze sharpened again, but this time the edge held less warning and more thought.

Kamal saw it and pressed, because he was Kamal and therefore apparently addicted to living dangerously.

"You think time will teach him gratitude. I think time will teach him how to hide resentment more elegantly."

Goliath’s mouth flattened.

"You are determined to dislike him."

"I am determined to keep you alive."

"I am one hundred and forty years old. I have survived worse than an impatient omega."

"Yes," Kamal said. "Usually because you did not let them close enough to learn where you sleep."

For the first time, Goliath did not answer at once.

Outside the chamber, the palace hummed with life. Somewhere beyond the door, Olivier had likely found someone impressionable enough to listen to him complain. Somewhere beneath the eastern wing, Hugo’s son was probably screaming loudly enough to terrify nurses and delight his father. Seraphina’s boy would be sleeping, solemn and round-faced, with tiny fists curled against a blanket embroidered with imperial gold he did not yet understand.

Life went on around Goliath in circles of loyalty, fear, love, ambition, and need.

And Felix waited inside one of those circles, beautiful and furious.

Goliath looked toward the cabinet where the mate’s chain had disappeared.

"He will mature," he said.

Kamal lowered his eyes.

This time, the bow looked like grief.

"As you say, Your Majesty."

Goliath studied him.

"You disagree."

"Yes."

"Yet you will obey."

"Yes."

"That is a dangerous combination."

Kamal lifted his head. "Only if you are wrong."

Goliath’s smile returned, faint and edged. "Then let us both hope I am not."

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