Arik woke with a sharp inhale.

Darkness closed around him first.

For one violent second, his body did not understand where it was. His hand flexed against the sheets, searching for rings that were not there, for ether lines that did not hum beneath imperial marble, and for the old weight of a body that had once carried an empire like a second skeleton.

Then Liam shifted against him.

The present returned in pieces.

The guest suite in the diplomatic palace of Wrohan with rain whispering against the windows and the faint amber lamp left burning near the far wall.

Liam was asleep in his arms, warm and heavy with exhaustion, wearing Arik’s dark pajamas as if he had been placed there by some cruelly generous god. His brown hair brushed Arik’s shoulder, and one hand was caught loosely in the front of Arik’s shirt, fingers curled there with the unconscious determination of someone who had no intention of letting him go.

Saint’s breath filled the room, but not from flowers Goliath commissioned to fill his personal quarters over a century ago.

Liam.

Arik closed his eyes.

The scent was softer now, threaded through sleep and lingering heat, the suppressants keeping the worst of it down but not erasing it completely.

The dream clung to him with too many details to be a dream.

Olivier’s green eyes.

Kamal’s lowered gaze.

The unscarred hands, heavy with rings.

The terrace, the city, the empire breathing under his skin.

’At least I will be alive longer than you.’

Arik’s jaw tightened.

’No. This has to be a memory.’

He had seen some of them before, after the seal broke. Not clear like this. When he was eight, the first memory had torn through him with such violence that Gabriel and Damian had locked the rest away before Goliath’s life could swallow their son whole. They had sealed it, held it back, and later placed the choice in Arik’s hands.

When he was eighteen, Arik had opened it himself.

He had thought he was ready.

He remembered very little of that night except pain. Forty years of Goliath without his ether.

Without his channels.

Without the body that had once answered him like a weapon.

A puppet body. A puppet brain. Fingers that would not obey. A tongue that could not speak the commands an empire had once feared. A mind moving through fog, then through glass, then through fire, rebuilding itself one humiliating inch at a time because revenge required function and Goliath had never allowed even death to make him useless.

Olivier.

Felix.

Hadeon.

Alen.

The names settled coldly in Arik’s chest.

Alen had not been wise enough to retreat. That had been a mistake in the memory.

No, not a mistake.

Goliath had believed it then.

Or wanted to.

Alen had not retired to a village because he understood his limits. He had withdrawn because distance made him look harmless. Because palace money let him buy quiet loyalty. Because he had helped develop the poison that ruined Goliath’s ether channels and shattered the sovereign into something that could still breathe but could no longer rule.

He had left because he intended to take everything.

Arik stared into the darkness.

His arms tightened around Liam before he could stop himself.

Liam made a soft, sleepy sound and pressed closer, nose brushing the hollow of Arik’s throat, following his pheromones even in sleep.

"Arik," he mumbled.

The name sliced through the old memory like a blade through silk.

Arik lowered his face to Liam’s hair.

"I’m here," he whispered.

Liam’s fingers tightened once in his shirt.

"Don’t go."

The omega was barely conscious, but completely devastating to Arik.

Arik closed his eyes, breathing in the saint’s breath until the terrace faded and only Liam remained.

"I won’t."

But sleep did not return.

Arik stayed awake in the dim room, one hand resting at the back of Liam’s head, the other secure around his waist, while the fragment settled into place with all the quiet horror of recovered truth.

Goliath had known Olivier hated him.

He had not known, not then, how long that hatred had already been sharpening its teeth.

And Arik, lying in the dark with Liam asleep against his chest, understood with cold certainty that the memory had surfaced for a reason and there would be more to come.

—

Liam woke slowly in warmth.

It pressed around him from every direction: heavy blankets, steady heat, and the slow rhythm of a heartbeat beneath his ear. For one dangerously peaceful second, he stayed exactly where he was, half-asleep and warm enough that his instincts immediately attempted mutiny.

Then memory returned, and his mind was a lot cleaner than the other day. He was screwed.

Liam’s eyes opened cautiously.

Morning light filtered softly through the curtains, pale gold across the room. The rain had stopped sometime during the night, leaving the windows misted faintly from the lingering cool air outside.

Arik was already awake.

The alpha was propped slightly against the headboard beside him, one arm still wrapped securely around Liam’s waist while the other held a thin tablet angled above the blankets. Etherlight reflected faintly across his face as lines of text moved under his fingers. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Liam stared at him for several silent seconds before his exhausted brain caught up to the fact that he was currently curled halfway across the Crown Prince of Agaron like an emotionally compromised cat.

’Damn it. He is comfortable too.’

Still, Liam was a practical person.

Unfortunately, Enia, Mirelle, and the rest of the family had been infuriatingly efficient in teaching him emotional intelligence and forcing him to accept his own feelings instead of shoving them into a sealed box labeled later and then setting the box on fire.

’So... Fine.’

Liam accepted that he liked Arik. As a man, an alpha and a potential partner.

Horrifying.

Naturally, the appropriate response was to make the alpha suffer.

"Do you ever sleep?" Liam asked.

Arik’s fingers paused over the tablet, then looked down at him, golden eyes calm and faintly amused. "Good morning to you too."

Liam hummed. "I have to tell Mother where I am."

"I think she already knows." Arik said helpfully.

Liam closed his eyes because the alternative was to smack the prince. Then he reached for his comm to see what burned while he was away for a day.

"What the fuck is this?!"