Chapter 199: No hiding anymore

Liam did not ask for the details.

He did not need them. That was enough: Felix, the seal breaking, the poison moving through open ether channels, and the emperor realizing a moment too late that the trap had not been in one object but in the whole arrangement.

"He watched?" Liam asked quietly.

"Long enough to know it worked."

Liam whispered something vicious into Arik’s shirt.

Arik did not ask him to repeat it.

"Then he left," Arik said. "And after that, Goliath’s body became a prison. Every use of ether hurt. Breathing hurt. Existing hurt."

Liam’s hand opened over Arik’s chest and pressed there, right above his heart.

"That is why you hate being trapped," he said.

"Yes," Arik said, his voice barely audible. "And still, I did it to you."

Liam’s fingers curled once against him. "Do not make me comfort you for being correct."

"I would not dare."

"You absolutely would."

"Not tonight."

A silence passed between them, bruised but warmer than before.

"And after the poison?" Liam asked, although his voice had gone smaller.

Arik’s arm tightened around him. "Felix moved against everything Goliath loved."

Liam went still.

"The children were so young," Arik said, his voice almost gone. "Too young even for history to pretend they were political."

Liam’s breathing changed.

"He killed them because Goliath loved them," he whispered.

"Yes."

Liam’s eyes remained closed, but his face tightened with grief and disgust and a kind of tired understanding he did not want to give.

"No wonder you did not know how to tell me," he murmured.

Arik went very still.

Liam’s hand pressed harder against his chest. "That is not forgiveness."

"I can see."

"But I understand why every sentence would have sounded impossible. Felix was not just the man who poisoned Goliath. He turned intimacy into a weapon and murdered the family Goliath had started to believe he could have."

Arik closed his eyes above him.

"Yes."

"And now I am here," Liam said, bitter and exhausted, "his grandson, bonded to you, asking why you did not casually explain that over dinner."

Arik’s arm tightened around him. "I should have told you before he could."

"Yes," Liam whispered. "You should have."

The hurt returned between them, not sharp enough to cut them apart anymore, but still there, heavy and bruised.

Liam breathed slowly against Arik’s chest, listening to the heartbeat beneath his ear until the anger in him stopped thrashing and became something quieter.

Then his brows pulled together.

"But why is there nothing about Nuria or Goliath?" he asked, voice thick with sleep and thought. "Felix would have boasted about it. He would have wanted everyone to know he broke an empire, not just turned himself into the Saint of Wrohan for one small, useless country."

Arik hummed softly, the sound vibrating under Liam’s cheek. "My parents tried to find out as well. We know Agaron, Wrohan, and Pais were once part of Nuria. There are relics, fragments of wards, and old bloodline records, but nothing complete. Nothing that explains why the world remembers so little."

"That does not sound accidental."

"No," Arik said. "It does not."

Liam shifted slightly, and Arik adjusted him at once, careful of Marin’s ward.

"Olivier was part of it," Arik continued. "Goliath’s half-brother. We are almost certain he conspired with Felix or at least benefited from what Felix did. He was Crown Prince of Agaron long after Nuria was already dying. He kept that position until Damian and Gabriel raised the rebellion against him and his people."

Liam opened one eye. "Convenient."

"Very."

"Do you think there is more?"

Arik was quiet for a moment.

"I do not know," he admitted. "That is the problem. I have no memories of anything else. Worse than that, I do not have clear memories of the last ten years of Goliath’s life."

Liam’s fingers tightened faintly in his shirt but didn’t say anything.

"The years when he was manipulating Gabriel and Damian’s lives."

Liam huffed, sleepy, hurt, and somehow still a little amused. "Oh. So there are more victims. Not only me."

Arik’s mouth brushed his hair. "Gabriel would argue that ’victim’ is too generous a word."

"Of course he would. He probably took one look at a centuries-old emperor trying to arrange his life and decided to weaponize the inconvenience."

"That is... unfortunately accurate."

Liam’s mouth twitched against his chest. "I like your mother."

"He likes you too."

"That is because I am charming."

Arik’s breath left him in something almost like laughter, but his hand remained steady over Liam’s back, warm and careful.

Liam’s amusement faded slowly, leaving only exhaustion behind.

"No hiding the missing parts either," he murmured. "Even if all you can say is that you do not know."

"No hiding," Arik said.

"Good."

Liam’s eyes slipped closed again.

Then, softer, "And tomorrow, I want the chart."

"With colors?"

"And a section for things Felix erased."

"That section may be larger than the rest."

"Then make the paper bigger."

Arik held him closer. "As you wish."

"Still angry," Liam whispered. "But less confused."

Arik closed his eyes above him. "That is something."

"For tonight," Liam mumbled, already half gone, "it is enough."

—

Half an hour later, Liam was sleeping in Arik’s arms. His fingers still curled in Arik’s shirt as if some furious part of him refused to trust sleep without anchoring itself first, but his breathing had evened, and Marin’s ward pulsed low and steady beneath Arik’s palm.

Arik did not move.

He barely breathed.

Goliath had settled again at the back of his mind, no longer clawing against memory, no longer a bleeding thing dragged out by Felix’s name and Liam’s questions. He was there like an old shadow near a ruined throne, judging Arik with the exhausted contempt of a man who had watched his reincarnation mishandle a bond with spectacular incompetence.

And yet, beneath the judgment, there was peace.

Not forgiveness.

Goliath, apparently, was no more generous than Liam.

But peace.

Arik lowered his face into Liam’s hair and closed his eyes.

"You are insufferable," he whispered, unsure whether he meant Liam, Goliath, himself, or fate.

The comm on the nightstand lit up.

Arik opened one eye.

Marin’s name glowed across the glass.

A second later, the physician’s voice came through, dry enough to desiccate an entire province. "Your Highness."

Arik did not move. "Marin."

"I assume Liam is asleep."

"Yes."

"Remarkable. I had begun to fear you intended to discuss every traumatic historical revelation in the family archive before allowing my patient to rest."

Arik looked at the comm with the silence of a guilty man choosing dignity too late.

Marin continued, "His ward has pulsed irregularly eleven times in the last hour."

Liam shifted faintly, disturbed by the voice. Arik’s hand moved at once, smoothing over his back, and Liam settled again with a small, irritated sound.

Marin went quiet for a second.

Then, colder, "Was that him?"

"He is sleeping."

"He is sleeping because his body gave up negotiating with both of you."

"He asked."

"He is poisoned, exhausted, emotionally distressed, and stubborn enough to argue with his own lungs. He would ask to inspect a turbine core if it exploded beside him."

"That is true."

"And you, apparently, would carry him there and apologize to the turbine."

Arik glanced down at Liam, whose cheek was pressed against his chest, lashes dark against pale skin.

"I would carry him away from the turbine."

"Progress. Minimal, but noted."

Arik smiled.

Marin sighed through the comm. "No more revelations tonight. If he wakes, water, the bitter tonic on the tray, and silence."

"Understood."

"And if you stress my patient again, I will sedate both of you."

The comm went dark.

Arik stared at it for a moment.

Then Liam, still half asleep, muttered against his chest, "Told you."

Arik froze.

Liam did not open his eyes. His fingers tightened once, weak but possessive.

"Sleep," he mumbled. "Before Marin wins."

Arik looked down at him, something painful and warm breaking open beneath his ribs.

"Yes, Eshara."

Liam made a faint sound that might have been approval.

Arik settled back carefully, one hand over Marin’s ward, the other around Liam, and for the first time that night, allowed his own eyes to close.

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