Chapter 240: Found

"I’ve found you."

Arik’s voice came from above him, somehow deeper and different than before.

Liam turned so sharply that he hit Arik’s chin with the top of his head.

Arik hissed, the sound was sharp, offended, and beautifully alive.

Liam froze with one hand still gripping the balcony rail and the other pressed against Arik’s sleeve. "Did I hurt you?"

Arik’s jaw shifted once. His expression remained terrifyingly composed, but his eyes narrowed in the way of a man reassessing whether rescue could include immediate retaliation.

"Yes."

Liam stared at him.

Then, because relief had destroyed the last useful part of his judgment, he laughed.

It came out breathless and shaky.

Arik looked down at him, golden eyes burning, hair wild at his back, the ends lit as if ether had scorched them from within. His frame was larger than Liam knew, sharper and close to something ancient wearing Arik’s bones as memory. He looked like himself, but the ether around him did not feel like a prince’s ether.

It felt like a sovereign’s.

Behind them, Rubis dropped to one knee so quickly his robes whispered against the marble. Every attendant followed him at once, heads bowed low, hands pressed over their hearts.

The palace itself seemed to hold its breath.

"Your Imperial Majesty," Rubis whispered.

Liam went still.

Arik’s arm remained locked around his waist, but his gaze moved past Liam to the kneeling attendants. His expression did not change much, yet Liam felt the shift in him through the bond: pain, recognition, and a sudden violent need not to become a dead emperor in front of strangers.

Liam reached up and touched Arik’s chin, perhaps harder than strictly necessary. "You are bleeding."

"He is bleeding ether, not blood." Mezos said as he was leaning into one of the marble columns.

Kamal came from behind and flicked Mezos. "Be respectful; you are in Nuria now."

Liam looked at them, then at Arik, then at them again. "How?"

Mezos lifted one hand with the exhausted dignity of a man who had been through several architectural crimes in rapid succession. "With great difficulty."

Kamal flicked him again.

Mezos closed his eyes. "With great difficulty, Your Majesty."

Liam stared. "Do not start."

"I was not addressing you," Mezos said.

That was somehow worse.

Arik’s arm tightened around Liam’s waist, not enough to hurt, but enough to remind everyone on the balcony that whatever title they thought they were witnessing, Liam was not available for interpretation.

"I forced the Gate open," Arik said.

Liam’s attention returned to him, and he looked down at his hands properly.

Arik’s fingers were cut deep, but not with ordinary wounds. Gold light leaked through his skin where blood should have gathered, thin cracks running from his knuckles to his wrists like someone had tried to break sunlight under flesh.

Liam’s breath caught.

"You opened it with your hands."

"Yes."

"You opened an ancient spatial Gate with your hands."

"Yes."

"You absolute catastrophic idiot."

Arik’s mouth twitched, but the expression did not last. "It took you."

"That is not an argument. That is emotional damage."

Mezos, still leaning against the column, murmured, "Accurate."

Kamal gave him a look that promised a third flick if he continued.

Liam took Arik’s hand carefully, then froze because he had no idea whether touching ether-bleeding wounds would make things worse. That hesitation hurt more than the sight of the wounds.

Arik noticed.

"It does not hurt," he lied.

"Do not insult me while glowing."

"It hurts less now."

"That is a different lie."

Arik lowered his forehead to Liam’s for one brief second, right there in front of kneeling attendants, a stunned household, Mezos’s sharp eyes, and Kamal’s trembling silence.

"I found you," he said again, quieter.

Liam’s anger broke enough for him to close his eyes and breathe.

"You did," he said.

Behind them, Rubis remained on one knee, head bowed so low Liam was beginning to worry about his neck.

"Everyone stand up," Liam said abruptly.

No one moved.

Liam looked offended. "I said, ’Stand up.’"

Rubis’s voice came carefully from the marble. "Your Majesty, we cannot rise before His Imperial Majesty gives leave."

Liam’s entire face changed.

He turned slowly toward Arik.

Arik, traitor and impossible sovereign, looked as if he might enjoy that under different circumstances.

"Don’t you dare," Liam warned.

"I have not spoken."

"You were thinking loudly."

Arik’s gaze shifted to the attendants. The gold in his eyes burned deeper, and when he spoke, the air listened before the people did.

"Rise."

The attendants rose at once.

Liam hated how effective that was.

He hated more that the palace itself seemed to relax.

Kamal had not moved from the archway. His eyes were still on Deira, on the golden towers and floating bridges and sunlight catching on impossible ether rings. His hand remained against the marble column, but not from weakness alone. He was home again.

"My lord," he said again, and this time his voice barely held.

Arik looked at him.

For one strange second, Liam saw the past touch them both. Kamal, younger once, standing in halls like these. Goliath, not memory then, not myth, but a living emperor who had walked through this palace and belonged to the city spread beneath them.

Then Arik inhaled.

"I am Arik," he said.

Kamal bowed his head. "Yes, Your Highness."

The correction was quiet, but a clear line was drawn in a city that did not know the war was over.

Liam loved him for it.

He would never say that aloud under current diplomatic conditions.

Mezos pushed himself off the column and looked over the balcony. "We crossed behind him before the Gate shut. It closed harder after us. I would not recommend attempting to reopen it from this side until we know where this side is."

"We know where it is," Rubis said, confused. "This is Deira."

Mezos looked at him. "That is not as reassuring as you think."

Rubis’s brows drew together.

Liam rubbed both hands over his face. "Of course. Of course this is happening. Of course Nuria exists in some folded spatial containment beyond the Gate and everyone here thinks I am married to a dead emperor."

Rubis looked alarmed. "Your Majesty is not dead."

"I was not referring to myself."

That did not help poor Rubis.

Arik’s thumb moved once against Liam’s waist. "Breathe."

"I am breathing."

"You are planning to bite someone."

"I am considering options."

Mezos said, "I volunteer Rubis for diplomatic clarification."

Rubis looked horrified.

Kamal said, "No."

Mezos sighed.

Liam looked at Arik again, at his face, at the too-bright gold in his eyes, at the sovereign ether still blazing around him like a storm forced into human shape.

"You are not stable."

"No."

Liam’s hands tightened in Arik’s clothes, forgetting about the banter and focusing on Arik alone. "What did the Gate do to you?"

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