The Reborn Sovereign of Ruin, Bound by His Star

Liam Sienna Canmore.

Arik’s gaze remained on the name for a moment longer than the others.

A memory surfaced with it: old briefings, old factional whispers, old negotiations dressed up as dynastic practicality. Years ago, Rex had been pushed toward an engagement with Liam. It had cost him when he refused. A significant enough portion of his political support had shifted afterward, not toward George, but toward Felix, the Grand Prince, who had stepped into the gap with his usual polished venom and turned the refusal into a lesson in obedience.

Arik lifted his eyes to Rex.

"Why did you refuse to marry him?" he asked. "You lost a good part of your support because of it. Was it worth trading it?"

Rex tilted his head slightly, as if weighing how much to say aloud.

Arik could have found the answer eventually if he chose to send his shadows after it. Rex knew that. They both did.

At last, Rex exhaled once through his nose.

"Felix has two sons," he said. "Cain and Ray."

Noah frowned. "Yes. That much even Wrohan’s tabloids manage to remember."

Rex did not look at him.

"Ray is my half-brother," he said bluntly.

The room went still.

Noah blinked. "Ah."

Mezos lowered the slate in his hand by half an inch. "That," he said carefully, "is not a complication. That is a crime wearing family colors."

"No," Rex said. "It is Wrohan."

Arik said nothing.

Rex’s expression did not change, but something older moved beneath it, disgust worn smooth by repetition.

"My father sits on that throne because Felix put him there," Rex said. He held Arik’s gaze evenly, with the kind of recognition that suggested he understood very well what Arik was and, more importantly, what he had once been. "Wrohan was a much smaller kingdom before Felix. Most of what the country is now exists because he conquered it himself. Nearly ninety percent of the territory we currently call Wrohan was taken, absorbed, or broken under his campaigns."

His mouth thinned.

"That is why the public worships him. To them, he is not merely a grand prince or a political power. He is the man who made the kingdom larger, richer, and feared. The saint who built the modern state with blood and victory, then stepped aside and let a crown sit on someone else’s head."

A pause.

"Any direct move against him risks destabilizing the regime because too much of it is built on his conquests, his myth, and the fear of what happens if that myth cracks." Rex’s voice stayed level. "Felix is not off the throne because he lacked the power to take it. He stays off it because he prefers the dark. A king inherits blame. Felix prefers to inherit everything else."

Arik only hummed at that.

Rex took a sip of his drink, studying him over the rim of the glass. "I assumed you would come to Wrohan and go for him first."

Arik laughed then, low and dark enough that Noah felt it in his spine and immediately disliked every implication of it.

Mozes, leaning near the sideboard with his arms folded, went very still.

"No," Arik said.

The word fell softly, but it carried.

"Felix does not die quickly. He does not die confused. He does not die wondering." Arik’s gold eyes remained on the papers spread across the table, but something older had entered his voice now, something cold, precise, and merciless. "He will know it is me. He will know he failed. And only then will I take his life."

The room went still around him.

Even Rex did not interrupt.

Mozes lowered his gaze for a brief second, the movement small enough to miss unless one knew him well. He knew that tone. Knew what it meant when Arik stopped speaking like a crown prince and started sounding like the thing he had once been.

Arik’s fingers rested lightly beside Liam’s name.

"If Felix had been my mate," he said, almost thoughtfully, "the power he could have held would have been greater than anything he has now. Greater, and it would have lasted far longer than this single life." His mouth curved without warmth. "Instead, he chose treachery and small ambition."

Noah swallowed once and decided silence was the healthiest choice available.

Mozes, however, lifted his eyes again and looked at Arik with the kind of measured attention that suggested he was no longer thinking about Felix alone.

He was thinking about the name under Arik’s hand.

About Liam, the timing, and about the danger that would come across them.

Rex set his glass down with quiet care. "That," he said, "is somehow more cruel."

Arik’s expression did not change.

"Yes."

Noah exhaled slowly, then dragged a hand over his face. "Excellent. So the evening is now a diplomatic incident, a family scandal, a political trap, and a revenge ritual."

"And an engineering hazard," Mozes added dryly.

Noah pointed at him. "Thank you. I knew we were forgetting something cheerful."

Mozes ignored that. His gaze remained on the pages a moment longer before shifting to Rex.

"If Felix is placing Liam in that room," he said, "then it won’t only be because of bloodline or optics. He’ll want Liam to serve more than one function."

Rex nodded once. "He always does."

Mozes looked back at Arik. "Then we need to know whether Liam understands the room he’s being pushed into."

Arik leaned back in his chair and accepted the drink Noah handed him without comment.

"Will he be at the cursed party?" 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Rex gave a short, humorless laugh.

"Yes," he said. "Even if his mother’s family has spent years shielding him from Felix, some obligations can’t be skipped."

Noah dropped into the chair opposite Arik at last, as if pacing had finally failed to improve the situation and sitting down to witness the disaster was the next logical step.

"So Liam is definitely there," he said. "Excellent. I do love certainty when it arrives wrapped in misery."

Mozes ignored him.

"Shielded how well?" he asked Rex.

"Liam?" Rex let out a short laugh. "Liam can shield himself well enough on his own. That’s never been the problem." His mouth thinned. "The problem is that Felix never trusts only one set of hands around something he considers his. If Liam is with Mirelle or his mother tonight, there will still be Canmore eyes on the house, the route, the staff, or all three."

Noah frowned. "That is both unsurprising and deeply irritating."

"It is Felix," Rex said. "He does not lose access merely because someone else has legal custody, emotional loyalty, or basic decency. He just adjusts the distance from which he watches."

Arik said nothing.

Mozes folded his arms. "So Liam is personally difficult to corner, but not unobserved."

"Yes," Rex said. "Exactly."

Noah leaned back in his chair and exhaled. "Wonderful. So he’s competent, angry, being watched, and walking into a reception designed by people who confuse etiquette with predation."

Rex’s mouth twitched faintly. "You understand Wrohan very quickly."

"I resent that about myself."