Natalie let out a shaky breath, her anger cooling into a cold, hard resolve. "I don’t want that either. I just... I want you to realize that you were mistaken about them, too."

Arik’s hand remained suspended in the air, his fingers twitching slightly. "Wrong about whom?"

"Noah. My fathers, Frederik, your fathers too." Natalie shook her head, a stray tear finally escaping and tracing a path through the dust on her cheek. "You think they see a miracle or a monster. You think they’re following a legend back from the dead. But I’ve watched them, Arik. I’ve watched the way they look at you when the meetings are over and the displays are dark."

She took a small step forward, closing the distance his hesitation had created.

"They know about Goliath. They’ve taken your oaths. But they still treat you like a person," she said, her voice gaining a fierce, quiet strength. "Noah doesn’t follow you because he’s afraid of a ghost; he follows you because he believes in the man you are now. My father doesn’t stay silent out of loyalty for Damian; if he thinks something is stupid or wrong, he has opinions. Frightening ones too. They’ve managed to hold both truths in their heads, Arik. Why didn’t you think I could?"

Arik’s hand finally dropped, but he didn’t pull away. His golden eyes searched hers, the intense, predatory focus of the Arcanist-Emperor softening into something raw.

"Because you were my anchor to the normal world," he whispered. "If you knew, the anchor would be gone. There would be no part of my life left that wasn’t stained by the first one."

"It’s only a stain if you let it be," Natalie countered. She looked at the book resting in his hands and then looked back at him with a weary smile. "You were right about one thing, though. I don’t want to know more. Not now. I don’t want to read about your conquests or the way you manipulated the Core. I would rather not meet Goliath tonight."

She reached up, her own hand covering his where it had fallen by his side. Her grip was warm, solid, and entirely human.

"I just want to be friends with Arik again," she said. "I want to talk about the procurement trails that are giving you a headache. I want to exist in the present with you."

Arik closed his eyes for a moment, a long, shuddering breath escaping him as if he were finally setting down a weight he had carried across lifetimes. When he opened them, the gold was still there, but the distance was gone. He looked, for the first time in a long time, simply like a man who was tired of being alone.

"Arik, I can do," he said, his voice thick.

"Good," Natalie breathed. "Then let’s start there... and you better give me a wedding gift good enough to cover this headache."

Arik’s mouth twisted, not with the careful charm of a prince or the cold amusement of an old emperor, but with the real, boyish regret that Natalie had missed for years.

"A wedding gift," he repeated, the tension in his shoulders finally bleeding away. He looked down at the ancient manuscript, then back at her. "I suppose an empire’s worth of secrets and the personal loyalty of a resurrected warlord aren’t quite enough?"

"That covers the stress of the last hour," Natalie countered, her voice regaining its usual sharp edge, though the warmth behind it was unmistakable. "I’m talking about the last seven years I spent chasing ghosts while you watched me from the sidelines. You owe me something spectacular, Arik. And it has to be from you, not from the treasury."

Arik let out a short, dry laugh, and for a moment, the heavy atmosphere of the office - the ether-blue reports, the branching rot of House Vael, and the shadow of Goliath - seemed to recede into the background.

"I’ll find something," he promised. "Something that even Noah Claymore can’t complain about."

He stepped back toward his desk, but his posture was different now. The ’fortress’ had lowered its drawbridge. He looked at the security panel that held Noah and Gregoris on the other side.

"They’re going to be insufferable once they realize you know," Arik noted, a touch of his usual pragmatism returning. "Noah has been looking like he was walking to the gallows every time he entered this room for three months."

"Good," Natalie said, moving toward the door. She stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder. "He deserves to sweat for a few more days. And as for my father... I’ll deal with him later. For now, we have an actual empire to run, don’t we?"

Arik nodded, his gaze steady. The gold in his eyes remained, but as Natalie observed, he appeared to fully embrace his identity more than he had in months. The choice to be Arik wasn’t just another name but the real person who would live in this empire. The crown prince was surrounded by capable parents, extended family, and friends.

"We do," Arik said. He tapped the desk, and the administrative notification for Noah’s presence flashed again. "Shall we let them back in? Or do you want to let Noah worry for another five minutes?"

Natalie actually smiled. It was a predatory, beautiful thing. "Five minutes? Let’s make it ten. I want to see if he tries to break down the door."

Arik sat back in his chair, leaning his head against the high back. For the first time, he didn’t look like he was preparing for a war. He looked like he was enjoying the company of a friend.

"You really like making them suffer."

"Only when they deserve it," Natalie replied, her tone softening as she watched him. She didn’t miss the way the tension had left his jaw or how the shadows under his eyes seemed less like bruising and more like simple exhaustion. For a moment, the Arcanist-Emperor was gone, and there was just the boy who used to hide in the library with her to escape their tutors.

Arik let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "They deserve it. Noah has been looking at me like I’m a ticking bomb for months. It will be a relief to have him look at me with his usual annoyance instead."

He tapped the edge of the desk, his fingers tracing the rim of the ancient book Natalie had pushed toward him. He didn’t open it. Every word in those pages was etched into his soul, a record of a life he was no longer trying to recreate but trying to overcome.

"You know," Arik said, his voice quiet, "I really did want to tell you. Every time you walked into this office with that look of focused irritation, I had the words ready. But then you’d start talking about the logistics of the border patrols or complaining about the wine at the last gala, and I’d realize... I didn’t want to lose that. I didn’t want to become a historical figure to you."

Natalie felt a pang of guilt. She had been so focused on the lie that she hadn’t considered the loneliness of the truth. To be the only person who remembered a dead world, surrounded by people who had sworn to treat you like a god or a ghost. It was a different kind of prison.

"You won’t," she promised, her voice firm. "You’re too much of a headache for me to ever treat you like a legend, Arik. Legends don’t make me do this much paperwork."

Arik’s eyes flickered, the gold glowing with a warmth that felt genuine. "I suppose that’s the highest compliment I can expect from a Frasner-Rosenroth."

"It’s the only one you’re getting today." She checked the chronometer on the wall. "Eight minutes. He’s probably pacing a hole in the carpet out there."

"Gregoris will be standing perfectly still," Arik noted. "He’ll be calculating how many of my security protocols you managed to bypass to get that book. He’ll be impressed, even if he never says it."

"He’s my father. He’ll be annoyed that I didn’t bypass all of them," Natalie countered.

She walked back toward the desk, leaning against the edge of it, purposefully placing herself between Arik and the glowing holographic displays of the empire’s troubles. For these last two minutes, the world outside could wait.

"So," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "About that wedding gift. I’m thinking of something that requires a massive amount of ether-unstable gemstones. Or maybe a private moon."

Arik smiled, and this time, it reached his eyes completely. "I think I can manage the gemstones. A moon might require a bit more paperwork than even you’re prepared for."

"We’ll see," Natalie teased.

The ten-minute mark hit. The silence of the office felt lighter, the air no longer charged with the threat of a centuries-old secret. Arik stood up, smoothed his uniform, and signaled the door.

"Ready?" he asked.

Natalie squared her shoulders, the manuscript tucked securely under her arm. "Ready. Let’s go see how much Noah has sweated through his expensive suit."