The Reborn Sovereign of Ruin, Bound by His Star

"And done," Marin said.

He tapped the tablet once, and the scanner released a soft chime. A moment later, the full hologram formed above the low table: Liam’s body rendered in translucent blue-white light, every visible ether path mapped in clean, delicate lines through his wrists, arms, chest, spine, throat, and skull.

Liam stared.

For a few seconds, he seemed to forget there were other people in the room.

Then his red eyes sharpened with a dangerous, deeply familiar glint.

"I need to dissect that thing," he mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else.

"No," Arik said.

"No," Marin said at the same time.

Liam looked offended. "I was talking about the scanner."

"I know, the answer is still no," Arik said. "You promised to leave it alone."

Liam refused to accept that he had promised anything; he was given an offer; he could change his mind. "It is just equipment."

"It is classified Agaronian medical equipment smuggled across a hostile border in pieces because Wrohan cannot be trusted not to hand the schematics to Felix."

Liam looked at the scanner again, visibly more interested. "In pieces?"

Arik closed his eyes.

Marin turned to him. "You walked directly into that."

"I know."

"How many pieces?" Liam asked.

"No," Arik said again.

"Three cases? Four? Was the resonance core separated from the stabilizing ring?"

Marin’s pale eyes brightened despite himself. "Three cases and two trunks. And yes."

Arik opened his eyes and looked at him.

Marin shrugged. "He would have guessed."

"I would have," Liam said, leaning forward.

"You are supposed to be recovering from a significant emotional and medical discovery," Arik said.

"I am."

"You are planning theft."

"I am planning supervised technical appreciation."

"That is theft with manners."

Liam pointed toward the hologram. "That scanner rendered a full passive channel map without induction, without thermal distortion, and without triggering pain. I have professional feelings."

"You may have professional feelings from a distance."

"I dislike distance."

"Yes," Arik said. "I know." 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Marin, who had clearly decided that controlling Liam through denial would only make the situation worse, rotated the hologram with two fingers. "You may inspect the image. Not the machine."

Liam’s offense dimmed by half a degree. "Raw model?"

Marin gave him a deeply insulted look. "Yes. I am keeping my promise, and you will too."

Liam nodded once, accepting that as a valid ethical standard.

Arik felt a strange, sharp ache beneath his ribs.

Liam had gone into the chair braced for pain. Now he was arguing for access to the scan like a man who had found a better battlefield. It should have been funny. It was funny, in the terrible way Liam often was when he turned injury into irritation and fear into technical appetite.

But the hologram remained above the table, beautiful and cruel in its clarity.

His channels were there.

Not whole, perhaps. Not untouched. But there.

Blue-white paths ran through him in a map too intricate to be called weak. The main branches were clean enough that even Arik, who was no physician, could see the old reports had been lies wearing stamps. The damage, where it existed, sat around the junctions, not through the entire structure. Gold interference coiled around conversion points like wire threaded through living roots.

Liam had been told his channels were broken.

They had made him believe pain was proof.

Marin enlarged the central junction at Liam’s sternum and knit his brow in an expression Arik saw only when Gabriel got pregnant with the twins while Damian was actively on contraception.

That was bad. Really, really bad.

Arik turned to Liam to distract him or sent him to shower, anything but to find out what Marin had discovered so fast.

"Don’t you dare," Marin said, his gaze still on the hologram enlarging another section.

Arik went still.

Liam’s eyes moved from the hologram to Arik, slow and sharp. "Don’t he dare what?"

Arik did not answer quickly enough.

That was answer enough.

Liam’s expression flattened. "You were going to distract me."

Marin made a dry sound. "He was going to send you to shower, drink tea, breathe fresh air, or perform some other elegant exile while the adults discussed something ugly."

"I am an adult," Liam said.

"Yes," Marin replied, still looking at the hologram. "Which is why you are staying."

Arik’s jaw tightened. "Marin."

"No." Marin’s voice cut cleanly through the room, old and sharp and utterly without fear. "You brought me here because you wanted truth. Do not become noble now because the truth is looking back."

The scanner hummed softly, and above the table Liam’s channel map rotated in blue-white light. The gold interference threaded through the conversion points at his sternum, wrists, throat, and spine, old and delicate and horrifyingly precise.

Marin pulled Amara’s scan into the left side of the projection.

Then Kamal’s.

Three bodies formed in pale light.

Three different people. Three different histories. Three different patterns of damage.

And then Marin overlaid the channel residues.

Arik felt his blood freeze. Something cold and ancient moved through him so fast that for one impossible second his body seemed to forget heat existed.

The signatures were not identical in scale, but the structure was the same.

The same degradation pattern.

The same residue behavior around conversion points.

The same sickly gold interference clinging to ether pathways where no natural scarring should have formed.

Liam stared at the projection.

Marin’s mouth had gone thin. "There."

Arik could not look away.

’Felix had poisoned Liam too.’

The thought landed first, brutal and simple.

Then the others followed, colder because they were not yet answers, only possibilities cutting themselves open inside him.

Had Felix done it on purpose?

Had Liam been targeted as a child?

Had Felix known exactly what he was doing when he let Canmore physicians call it damage and discipline? Had he actively sabotaged Liam’s channels before Liam ever built the Vanguard, before anyone knew what his mind could become?

Or had Felix lost control long ago and left poison behind like rot, touching everyone close enough to breathe wrong in his shadow?

Did his pheromones poison anyone around him?

Had proximity been enough?

Had every room Felix entered been a quiet weapon?

Arik’s hand closed around the arm of the chair.

The wood cracked.

Marin’s eyes flicked toward it. "Furniture later."

Liam did not react to the crack.

That frightened Arik more than any anger would have.

Liam was too still.

His red eyes were fixed on the three overlays. Amara. Kamal. Himself. The proof did not need dramatic music or accusation. It stood in the air with clinical indifference, and that made it crueler.

"Same damage," Liam said.

His voice was flat.

Marin inhaled once. "Same damage family. Not the same severity, nor the same progression. But yes. The residue signature matches."

Liam nodded once.

As if Marin had confirmed a calculation.

Arik hated that calm, he hated that Liam felt the need to hide his panic from everyone, inclusive of his mate. But Arik was intelligent enough to know that their bond was new and Liam did everything from habit or instinct.

Marin seemed to hate it too, because his tone became harder. "Do not do that."

Liam’s eyes shifted to him. "Do what?"

"Turn into a report."

Liam blinked.

The words hit something. Not enough to break him, but enough for his mouth to tighten.

"I am processing."

"No," Marin said. "You are evacuating."

Arik’s gaze moved to Marin, warning and gratitude colliding so violently he did not know which one reached his face first.

Liam looked at Marin for a long moment.

Then said, "You are very rude."

"Yes. Stay in the room anyway."

"I am in the room."

"Emotionally."

"That is not a medical requirement."

"It is today."

Liam’s fingers curled on the chair.

The scanner had stopped active scanning, but the hologram remained above them, rotating softly, unbothered by the people it was ruining.

Arik forced his voice to work. "How old?"

Marin’s expression sharpened again, all physician now. "The core residue in Liam is old. Older than Amara’s recent reactivation. Older than Kamal’s most severe respiratory deterioration. It has been present for years."

"How many?"

"I will need deeper analysis to estimate with confidence."

"Estimate."