Chapter 212: Loan of dignity

Rex rubbed both hands over his face. "If I start killing bankers before coronation, people will panic."

"If you let bankers keep owning the state after coronation, people will starve," Arik said. "Choose your panic."

"I’m not saying that I won’t kill them... eventually. But in the current situation, I have to borrow money just to pay every worker who did not receive a salary in the last six months." He exhaled, trying to keep his anger under control. "They did not invest in Liam’s projects because there was no money, Arik. Nothing. Every coin was in Canmore or one of their ally banks."

The room went quiet.

Even Mezos did not make a dry comment.

Arik looked away first, not because he was moved by George’s failure, but because Liam’s name had entered the conversation and changed the weight of it.

Liam’s projects.

The Vanguard. The Gate-adjacent research. The infrastructure upgrades Liam had probably fought for with proposals, cost models, revised models, emergency models, and increasingly violent annotations no one with actual power had bothered to fund because the state had already been bled dry.

George had not merely ignored Liam.

He had kept him starved of tools while parasites fed on the country.

Behind Arik’s ribs, Goliath’s disgust turned colder.

Rex watched his face and gave a tired, ugly smile. "Yes. That expression. I had it too."

Mezos’s voice lowered. "How much do you need for salaries?"

Rex laughed once. "Which version? The public minimum, the morally acceptable minimum, or the amount that stops three ministries, two hospitals, and the eastern ether-grid maintenance corps from collapsing in the next month?"

"The last one," Arik said.

Rex named a figure.

Mezos went still.

Arik did not react outwardly, but the silence that followed was answer enough.

Rex spread one hand toward him. "So, unless you want the engagement delayed because Wrohan’s crown decided to conduct mass murder of bankers before the reception, I need liquidity. Not philosophy. Not future executions. Money."

Arik’s eyes narrowed. "You are using Liam’s engagement as leverage."

"I am using reality as leverage." Rex’s mouth twisted. "And yes, your engagement. Because if people see Arik Lyon publicly joining Ravenwood and Armstrong while Rex cannot even pay civil workers, the message becomes less ’new stability’ and more ’beautiful flowers over a financial corpse.’ "

Mezos tilted his head. "That was vivid."

"I have had practice suffering."

Arik looked at the piano.

It remained silent.

Useless, perhaps.

But the conversation it had dragged out of the walls was not.

"You want a loan," Arik said.

"I wanted you to overpay for a piano and let me call it asset recovery."

"Rex."

"Fine. Yes. I need a loan."

"From me."

"From Agaron would be better."

"No."

Rex swore under his breath. "No?"

"No formal state loan before the engagement. Damian will not attach Agaron’s treasury to Wrohan’s rot while the audit is incomplete, and neither will I."

Rex’s jaw worked.

Arik continued, colder now because if he softened, Rex would hear pity, and Rex did not need pity. He needed something he could stand on. "A personal bridge loan from my estate, secured against recoverable state assets after the audit, with emergency salary disbursement monitored by Agaron’s Ether-ledger specialists. No noble intermediaries. No Canmore banks. No ’temporary administrative fees.’ The funds go directly into verified worker accounts, hospital budgets, and energy-grid payroll."

Rex stared at him.

Mezos’s brows rose slightly. "That is very specific."

"I have been listening to all his moaning." Arik said with a tilt of his head to Rex.

Rex’s eyes narrowed. "You had that ready."

"No. I had parts of it ready."

"Because of Liam?"

Arik looked at him.

Rex exhaled. "Of course because of Liam."

"For Liam," Arik said, voice quiet. "And for you."

Rex looked away sharply, as if the second part were more difficult to take than the money.

Mezos, apparently deciding the room had become emotionally unsafe, looked at his comm. "I can draft the structure."

"I hate both of you," Rex muttered.

"No, you don’t," Mezos said.

"I do when you are generous."

"That is a personal flaw," Arik replied.

Rex laughed under his breath, but it broke before becoming anything real. "If I take it, half of Wrohan will say I sold the country to Agaron before I even took the crown." He raised a hand, stopping his odd friends from commenting. "But I do not care what nobles think. They didn’t do anything about the civilians aside from my allies. Honestly... Wrohan’s nobility should burn."

Mezos looked up from his comm.

For once, he did not smile.

"Most of it," he said.

Rex’s jaw tightened. "Most of it."

The correction mattered.

Armstrong had moved before the court understood George was truly dead. Ravenwood had quietly paid people from private reserves when state payments failed. A handful of houses had kept hospitals supplied, roads cleared, and local ether stations running while George signed away pieces of the country to men who already had too much.

Those houses would survive.

The rest?

Rex’s eyes went cold.

"The ones who lent to George knowing exactly what they were doing," he said. "The ones who took energy concessions, land rights, hospital contracts, transport routes, and tax exemptions while civilians waited six months for salaries. The ones who stood in court wearing patriotic colors while feeding from the treasury. They can burn."

Arik studied him, then nodded once. "Good."

Rex laughed without humor. "Good?"

"You are not hesitating because you want mercy for them. You are hesitating because workers need salaries before leeches need graves. That is different."

Mezos’s mouth curved faintly. "Functional priorities. Charming."

"Do not praise me," Rex said. "I am fragile around competence."

"You will adapt."

"I will become worse."

"Also useful."

Rex dragged one hand over his face, forcing the anger back into something sharp enough to use. "Loan first. Salaries first. Hospitals, grid workers, civil clerks, teachers, maintenance teams. Then audit. Then arrests. Then executions."

"Clean evidence," Arik said.

"I know."

"No emotional executions."

Rex looked at him flatly. "You are telling me that?"

"Yes."

"That is rich."

Mezos glanced between them. "Accurate, but rich."

Arik ignored him. "If you kill them because you are angry, they become martyrs for the remaining rot. If you kill them because the ledgers prove they sold the country to themselves, they become a warning."

Rex’s smile returned, thin and ugly. "Then we make them a warning."

Mezos’s projected screen unfolded in pale ether-light. "I will draft the bridge loan structure. Direct disbursement. No Canmore banks. No noble intermediaries. No administrative leakage. We freeze the first layer of accounts before the announcement, quietly."

"Quietly," Rex repeated. "For now."

Arik looked back at the piano, silent beneath the diagnostic glow. "The piano moves today."

Rex sighed. "Yes. Take your stolen antique and your moral superiority."

"I will."

"And if Liam asks, I was generous."

Arik looked at him with sincere pity. "He will know."

Rex cursed softly.

Mezos almost smiled again. "Everyone knows."

Outside the sealed room, Wrohan waited for wages, justice, and a king willing to delay blood only long enough to make it useful.

Inside, Rex stopped pretending he needed permission to burn the leeches.

He only needed money first.

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