"No," Amara said softly. "Felix is planning to devour the Ether Core from Agaron."

For a moment, Arik wondered if he had lost his mind.

Or his hearing.

Or if he was having some delayed reaction to having several lifetimes shoved through his skull in a diplomatic waiting room.

He shook his head once, the way a man might try to clear blurred vision.

No.

Amara was still there.

Old. Nearly blind now from the milky film over her pale irises. Her hands were trembling in her lap, and the lines in her face were too deep for a dominant omega who should have had centuries left in her bones.

Arik laughed.

Because there was no other appropriate response to that level of insanity.

The sound came out low at first. Then sharper. Colder. It filled the small waiting room and made the ether lamps flicker once along the walls.

Amara did not smile.

She only watched him.

"Of course," Arik said, dragging one hand down his face while still laughing under his breath. "Of course that is his plan. Wrohan is no longer enough, so now the rotting parasite wants to crawl into Agaron and bite into the one thing older than every empire currently pretending to matter."

The Ether Core.

The Ether Core was Nuria’s heart and, for the last three decades, Agaron’s too.

The place where the ether of ancient trials gathered, where victors and their mates returned after death before rebirth found them again. Souls folded into power. Memory dissolved into light. A reservoir that was not merely energy but inheritance, blood, history, oath, and grave.

And Felix wanted to devour it.

Arik laughed again.

This time, there was no humor left.

"He is even more insane than I thought."

Amara’s expression tightened. "He is desperate."

"No." Arik’s eyes lifted to hers, gold and merciless. "Desperation implies the world denied him something he needed. Felix has been feeding on cities to avoid paying the price for his own poison. That is not desperation. That is entitlement with a corpse’s appetite."

He rose from his chair. "Mezos," Arik ordered, and the shadow from the corner of the room had morphed into the chief of Arik’s security, long red hair, and blue eyes narrowing at the man that ordered him just a few hours earlier to not leave Liam alone.

Mezos kept his complaints to himself at the sight of the old woman.

"Your Highness."

Arik did not waste time pretending to be calm.

"Take Lady Amara to the south wing."

Mezos’s gaze moved to the old woman again, sharper this time, reassessing her with the kind of lethal attention he usually reserved for weapons, poisons, and diplomats who smiled too much.

"Lady Amara," he repeated.

Amara’s mouth curved faintly. "I have not been called that by a red-haired boy in a very long time."

Mezos did not react.

A point in his favor.

Arik continued, "Secure rooms. Agaronian guards only. No Wrohan staff. No royal palace attendants. No one enters without your clearance or mine."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"And send for Kamal."

Amara went still.

Mezos looked at Arik.

The name meant nothing to him, but the weight behind it did. Mezos was too experienced not to hear history when it entered a room wearing one syllable.

"Alive?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Location?"

Arik’s gaze moved to Amara.

She held his eyes for a moment, then exhaled.

"I will give it to him."

Mezos’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he nodded, already preparing mentally the perfect men to carry the order quietly.

"For the moment, the two of you are enough," Arik said. "If your words are true, then we will see about the others. If they even want to meet us."

Amara’s expression shifted faintly at that.

Not surprised.

Approval, perhaps, or... grief.

Arik looked toward the door, and his voice cooled.

"As for Felix and his family... we are still following our original plan." 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Mezos’s mouth curved almost imperceptibly.

That was answer enough.

Arik opened the door. "I will inform Gabriel and Damian about the Core."

Amara inhaled softly.

"The Emperor and Empress of Agaron?"

"My parents," Arik said, voice clear and unyielding.

Then, after a beat, his eyes returned to hers.

"And the current guardians of Nuria’s heart."

That struck her.

For the first time, Amara looked shaken by something other than memory.

Arik did not soften the truth.

"They need to know Felix is reaching for it and prepare accordingly," he said. "I may have pieces of Goliath’s soul. I may be him. But I was reborn, Amara, and now I am someone’s son too."

Amara went very still.

"Damian is the current guardian of the Core," Arik continued, voice steady. "I am here for revenge, yes. I will not pretend otherwise. But if Felix thinks he can shove Damian aside from his own duty and put his rotten hands on what Agaron protects, then I would like to see him try."

Mezos’s gaze sharpened.

Amara lowered her eyes, understanding too well what Arik was saying.

"You really are both." Amara breathed out slowly.

"No," Arik said. "I am myself. That happens to be inconvenient for everyone involved."

A faint, broken smile touched her mouth.

Mezos stepped closer to her. "Lady Amara, the south wing is ready."

Arik gave one final order before he left.

"If Kamal refuses to come, tell him he is being irritating."

Amara’s smile deepened with something almost painful. "That may convince him more than any proof."

"Good."

Arik turned toward the door.

"Your Highness," Mezos said.

Arik paused.

"Lord Liam is still asleep. The suite remains secure."

The tension in Arik’s shoulders eased by a fraction.

"Keep it that way."

Then he left Amara and Mezos behind.

The corridor outside felt too bright, polished, and modern for the blood that was still drying in his memory. Wrohan’s diplomatic palace hummed around him with embedded ether lines and gold-lit glass walls, all of it elegant enough to hide the rot underneath.

Arik walked quickly as every step pulled him back toward the only living thing that felt real enough to anchor him.

Liam.

By the time Arik reached the suite, the shadows at the door straightened without speaking. He crossed the sitting room, past the abandoned reports, the half-dimmed projection screens, and the blanket Liam had left on the sofa, and went directly into the bedroom.

Liam was still asleep.

Curled on his side beneath the blankets, one hand tucked under his cheek, brown hair messy across his forehead. The restricted ether systems book lay open on the bedside table, abandoned mid-page where the suppressants had finally won.

Arik stopped beside the bed.

For several seconds, he only watched him breathe.

Saint’s breath lingered softly in the room.

Arik closed his eyes. He wanted, just for one impossible moment, to believe all of it had been a nightmare.

But Liam shifted faintly, brows drawing together as if sensing him even through sleep.

Arik went to shower to scrub the lingering memory of blood and rot from the back of his mind.