Chapter 238: Another World [Win-Win]

Liam surfaced like a drowning man.

He came awake with a violent gasp, lungs dragging in air as if he had been held under black water until the world itself had forgotten him. His hands clawed at silk sheets. His heart slammed against his ribs. For one terrible second, he still felt the Gate around him: golden hands, abyssal dark, pressure digging beneath his skin, and dragging him somewhere no map had ever agreed to hold.

Then there was air. Warm, dry, faintly scented with cedar, amber oil, and flowers he did not recognize.

Liam sat up too quickly.

The room spun.

He nearly collapsed back against the pillows, which were numerous enough to be personally offensive.

A bed.

He was in a bed.

A very large bed, carved from dark wood and draped in heavy fabric embroidered with gold thread. The room around him was vast and unfamiliar, its sand-colored walls painted with old patterns of suns, vines, and geometric symbols that hurt his eyes when he tried to follow them for too long. Tall windows stood open to pale morning light. Beyond them, he heard water, distant bells, and the low hum of a city.

For one unstable moment, Liam wondered if he had finally lost his sanity.

Then a voice spoke.

"Ah, you wake up, Your Majesty."

Liam turned his head so fast his neck protested, his vision blurred, and he was sure his brain moved fast enough to be damaged.

A stranger stood near the foot of the bed.

Young, perhaps in his early twenties, dressed in deep violet and black robes with gold embroidery fine enough to make even Wrohan’s court tailors weep. His dark hair was neatly curled, his hands folded politely before him, and his expression was warm with such professional relief that Liam distrusted him immediately.

"Do not call me that," Liam said, his voice dry and harsh.

The attendant blinked.

Then bowed lower. "Forgive me, Your Majesty. The physicians said you might be disoriented."

Physicians? Majesty?

Silk bed under his fingers.

Ridiculous pillows.

Liam looked down at himself.

He was not wearing his own clothes.

That alone nearly made him violent.

He wore a soft white sleeping robe tied at the waist, light enough to be comfortable and expensive enough to imply either abduction or imperial hospitality, which were increasingly similar categories in his life.

His hand flew to his chest.

The ward was gone.

The physical charm was gone. The place where Marin’s ward usually pulsed was bare beneath the robe, but something faintly blue rested under his skin, as if the Gate had burned its warning into him and left no object to remove.

Wonderful. Liam thought bitterly. Medically alarming, then.

His next thought hit harder.

Arik.

Liam reached for the bond

For one horrifying second, there was nothing.

Then... Gold, a faint and faraway sensation... So far the distance made his stomach twist, but there.

Arik was alive.

Liam exhaled shakily before he could stop himself.

The attendant’s expression softened. "His Imperial Majesty will be told you have woken."

Liam froze.

His Imperial Majesty.

For one absurd, dizzy moment, his mind tried to assemble a version of events that made sense. Had he been taken to Agaron? Had the Gate thrown him forward somehow? Had he married Arik and missed the entire wedding through traumatic unconsciousness? Had they crowned him? Was this some imperial wing Damian had failed to mention because Agaron nobles apparently thought bedroom architecture required intimidation?

If he was in Agaron, where were Damian and Gabriel?

Where was Marin?

Why did nothing smell like Arik?

Liam gripped the sheet. "Am I in Agaron?"

The attendant stared at him politely for a second... then less politely.

"I beg your pardon, Your Majesty?"

"Agaron," Liam repeated, slower. "The Agaron Empire. Crown Prince Arik Lyon. Emperor Damian. Consort Gabriel."

The attendant’s confusion became complete.

"I am sorry," he said carefully. "I have never heard those names."

Liam’s heart stopped being merely anxious and became a technical problem.

"What country am I in?"

The attendant bowed again, but now there was caution beneath the warmth. "Nuria, Your Majesty."

The room went very quiet.

Liam heard only his own breathing.

No. No, that is not possible. Nuria had vanished.

Nuria was a scar across old maps. A historical wound. Ruins, contradictions, fragments, names without places, and a Gate that should not have been able to throw him into a bed with decorative pillows and an attendant calling him Majesty.

Liam swallowed.

"Where in Nuria?"

The attendant looked deeply concerned now. "Deira, Your Majesty. The capital."

Liam’s fingers tightened around the sheet.

Deira.

The lost capital.

The city at the center of vanished Nuria.

He forced the next question out. "And this palace?"

The attendant’s posture straightened with instinctive pride. "The imperial palace, of course."

"Of course," Liam said faintly.

His mind began moving too fast with all the events in the last months.

Liam looked back at the attendant, trying his best to look sane. "Why are you calling me Your Majesty?"

The young man hesitated.

That was answer enough to make Liam’s stomach drop.

"Because of your signature," he said softly. "When the Gate delivered you, the imperial wards recognized you."

"As what?"

The attendant lowered his eyes. "As His Majesty’s mate."

Liam’s blood went cold.

He looked toward the open windows, toward the impossible city beyond them, toward the light falling across silk sheets that should not exist.

"His Majesty," he said, very carefully. "You mean Emperor Goliath."

The attendant’s expression eased with relief, as if at last Liam had remembered something obvious

"Yes, Your Majesty," he said warmly. "Emperor Goliath."

Liam closed his eyes.

For one second, he allowed himself the luxury of not screaming.

Then he opened them again.

"Bring me clothes," he said.

The attendant blinked. "Your Majesty?"

"Clothes. Information. A map. And no physicians until I know whether they are useful or ornamental."

The attendant looked horrified. "The imperial physicians are highly respected."

"That was not an answer."

A shadow crossed the attendant’s face, not anger. Concern.

"You truly remember nothing?"

Liam’s mouth curved without humor.

"I remember plenty," he said. "Unfortunately, none of it appears to be from here."

The distant bells rang again over Deira.

Far away, through the weakened bond, Arik’s presence flared like gold fire pushing through impossible darkness.

Liam turned toward it at once.

The attendant followed his gaze to the empty air, confused.

Liam held his breath.

Arik was coming.

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