The Reborn Sovereign of Ruin, Bound by His Star

He had heard the rumors, of course. Everyone had. Half of Wrohan treated foreign empires as gossip with better uniforms, and Agaron - old Agaron, impossible Agaron, the one people still spoke about with lowered voices whenever ether did something inconveniently mythical - had always collected the strangest stories.

Its emperors were chosen by ether.

Liam had assumed it was a metaphor.

A political fairy tale turned into state propaganda. A dramatic explanation for the stability of dynasties. This is what old empires invented when they needed peasants to look at a bloodline and call it destiny rather than administration.

But Arik stood in the marked zone with gold light climbing his skin like reverence, and for the first time Liam understood how such a lie could survive long enough to become history.

Because it had never been a lie at all.

Arik’s eyes shone.

Not merely gold, as they had before, not the striking metallic shade Liam had already noticed too often for his own comfort, but brighter. Deeper. As if the ether flooding into him had awakened something behind the color itself. The gold caught the turbine’s light and answered it. For one impossible second, it looked less like reflection and more like memory.

Noah went silent.

Mezos’s posture changed first, his shoulders settling into something sharper, older, and instinctive. Respect, Liam realized with a small jolt.

Rex glanced between them all with growing suspicion. "Why does everyone suddenly look like they’ve walked into a cathedral?"

No one answered him.

Below them, the turbine roared, but even that sound seemed to curve around Arik rather than challenge him. The red ether surging through the intake should have looked violent. Under his presence, it looked obedient. Blue compressed through the rings. White flashed across the bridge. Gold gathered on his hands, his throat, and the line of his jaw.

Arik inhaled once, and the ether went to him.

Liam’s fingers tightened over the edge of the console hard enough to hurt. He barely noticed.

Arik was not simply compatible with ether.

He understood it at a level that made the turbine, Liam’s turbine, respond as if it had been spoken to in its own language.

Liam’s mouth went dry.

Oh, he thought, with a flash of irritated, unwilling recognition. ’The bastard is a genius.’

He didn’t like it, because Liam could dismiss arrogance. He could dismiss royalty. He could dismiss political hunger, alpha confidence, and the frankly offensive shape of Arik’s shoulders under a coat that probably cost more than three of Liam’s emergency pumps.

He could not dismiss competence.

Especially not competence that made the Vanguard sing.

"Is that enough?" Liam asked sharply.

The question cracked through the moment like a thrown tool.

Arik opened his eyes.

The gold had not entirely faded.

Liam looked at the console instead; his treacherous soul couldn’t take it.

Mezos answered first. "Yes."

Noah flexed his hand, testing the weight of ether moving through channels that had been half-starved since the brooches were pinned on them. "Enough to function, not enough to be comfortable. Which is, apparently, Wrohan hospitality."

Rex gave him a dry look. "You are standing above an illegal turbine in a hidden chasm while being allowed to bypass a state suppression device."

Noah smiled. "And yet I remain uncomfortable."

Mezos stepped toward Arik, his gaze flicking once over him. "No visible rebound."

Arik finally left the marked area.

The field around him dimmed with visible reluctance.

Liam chose not to acknowledge that because there were only so many spiritual inconveniences one man could survive before lunch.

He shut down the absorption sequence and dragged the schematic aside. "Good. Then we are done."

Noah looked genuinely disappointed. "Already?"

"Yes. This is a lab, not a spa."

"It felt a little like a spa."

"It is a chasm over raw red ether."

"A dangerous spa."

"Noah," Mezos said.

Noah lifted both hands. "I am done."

Liam reached beneath the console and opened the temporary access panel linked to the Lab V visitor IDs Alexander had issued earlier. Four white badge signatures appeared on the screen, each one marked for restricted movement only.

"The IDs Alex gave you will work for repeat entry," Liam said. "Not everywhere. Lab V access, mechanical corridor, lower lift, and the marked route to this chamber. Nothing else."

Rex’s eyes narrowed. "You already added repeat permissions?"

"I added conditional repeat permissions."

"That sounds worse."

"It is better. Conditional means I can revoke them."

Noah looked down at his badge with sudden concern. "How easily?"

"With joy."

Mezos tucked his own badge more securely into his coat. "And the rest of the delegation?"

"They can come only if necessary, and only with someone who knows the lab for the first visit," Liam said. "After that, Alex will be here every time I am not."

Noah’s brows lifted. "That sounds like supervision."

"It is supervision."

"For us?"

"For the machines," Liam said.

Rex closed his eyes briefly. "Somehow, that is worse."

"I do not trust any of you," Liam added, with the calm finality of a man stating an established safety protocol. "You absorb ether like starving nobles at a buffet; you ask suspiciously polite questions, and one of you made the Vanguard behave like it recognized royal authority."

Arik’s gaze settled on him.

Liam pointed at him without looking. "Especially you."

Noah looked delighted. "That felt personal."

"It is. Now please, leave, or you will come with me to Aunt Mirelle."

Noah’s delight faltered.

Rex turned his head slowly. "That was a threat."

"It was a logistical warning."

Mezos studied Liam with renewed interest. "Who is Aunt Mirelle?"

"No," Rex said at once.

Noah’s curiosity returned with suicidal speed. "That sounded like an important no."

"It is," Rex said. "Respect it."

Liam shut the access panel with a sharp click. "Aunt Mirelle is the reason I still occasionally remember food is not an optional engineering concept. She is also the only person in Wrohan who can make three department heads, two council clerks, and one retired general apologize before soup."

Noah blinked. "I want to meet her."

"You absolutely do not."

"I think I do."

"You think many things that shorten your life."

Arik’s gaze shifted to Liam. "You are afraid of her."

Liam turned, offended. "I am not afraid of Aunt Mirelle."

Rex made a sound.

Liam ignored him and walked to the elevator. "I’m afraid of my mother, Enia. She throws punches and is not happy that I have a bruised face and left the manor without telling her."

Arik followed him, the gold in his eyes finally settling into a low, simmering glow. He didn’t miss Liam’s shoulders, which were tense, defensive, and vibrating with the energy that usually preceded a meltdown or a miracle.

"Your mother," Arik said, his voice a smooth, low-frequency hum that seemed to vibrate against Liam’s spine. "The woman in the wine-red velvet. The one who looked ready to dismantle the palace piece by piece when she saw your face."

Liam reached the elevator and hit the call button with a violence that made the brass panel groan. "She doesn’t just dismantle, Your Highness. She excavates. If she finds out I’ve been down here playing with red-grade ether with the Agaron delegation, she won’t just yell at Felix. She’ll declare a blood feud and put me under house arrest until I’m fifty."

The lift arrived with a polite chime.

Its doors opened.

Four brass circles glowed faintly on the floor, each one marking the acceptable standing position for one body, one weight distribution, and one sensible person.

Unfortunately, no one present qualified.

Liam stepped toward it first.

Rex caught the back of his coat.