A few hours later, Arik was alone in his suite in the small palace Wrohan had prepared for the delegation corps.
He had showered and changed into a collarless cream shirt and soft brown trousers. His black hair had been swept back, still faintly damp at the temples, and the only jewelry on him was a silver watch at his wrist.
zos had returned to his duties.
Noah had gone with him, though not before making two more comnts about Aunt Mirelle that had earned him a warning look from zos and a promise from Arik that he would not be rescued if Liam decided to introduce him as punishnt.
Rex had disappeared as well, already summoned by duty, paperwork, or George failing to perform even the basic theatrical gestures of governance.
And Liam had left the mont the lift doors opened.
He had not looked back.
Arik turned another page.
The docunt resting across his knee was the public issue of the Vanguard Turbine proposal. Not the hidden project. Not the illegal miracle suspended over a raw red chasm beneath Lab V. This was the version Wrohan had allowed to exist in records: clean, limited, officially canceled, and stripped of anything that might suggest its author had looked at a Grade-5 hazard and decided it could be taught manners.
Even diluted, it was genius.
Arik tapped his fingers once against the armrest.
The public proposal described the Vanguard as a supplental ether conversion structure designed to stabilize low-output municipal districts during peak seasonal strain. Sensible words. Harmless words. Words written to pass across desks belonging to n who did not care enough to read beyond the abstract.
But buried under the politeness was Liam.
The arrangent of first-stage intake geotry. The rejection of standard choke-stabilization. The suggestion was that red ether should not be forcibly suppressed, but pressured along its own inclination until it reached a conversion threshold. The absurd, elegant arrogance of that idea.
’Respect the pressure instead of trying to choke it,’ Liam had said.
Arik’s fingers stilled.
Most engineers treated raw red ether like a beast to be caged, starved, and prayed over from a distance. Liam had treated it like a river.
Dangerous, yes.
Lethal if mishandled.
But not evil. It was a force that could be understood if one had enough intelligence, enough discipline, and apparently enough spite to purchase discarded parts through shell accounts because Felix Canmore lacked the imagination to recognize power unless it could kneel.
Arik turned another page.
His comm rang.
He glanced at the display.
Father.
No. Not Damian, but Gabriel. The one that gave birth to him and was like Liam, an engineer before becoming empress.
Arik answered.
The screen blood above the low table in a clean arc of light, and Gabriel’s face appeared with the sa composed elegance that had ruined half the Empire’s enemies before breakfast. His dark hair was neat, his expression mild, and his brown eyes had the terrifying clarity of a man who had already read every page Arik had sent him and decided diplomacy was an optional courtesy.
"Get him to Agaron," Gabriel said.
Arik laughed. It was quiet, brief, and genuine.
"Good evening to you as well."
Gabriel did not blink. "Arik."
"No greeting?"
"I greeted the docunt. It was more urgent."
Arik leaned back in the armchair, the public Vanguard proposal still open across one knee. "You liked it."
"I am furious," Gabriel said.
"That is not a denial."
"It is a civic conversion system built from a discarded red-ether hazard, hidden beneath a country that does not deserve either the machine or the engineer." Gabriel’s voice stayed calm, which ant the fury beneath it was organized and very close to becoming policy. "So yes. I liked it."
Arik’s mouth curved faintly. "He built the operational version."
Gabriel narrowed his eyes and leaned back into his chair. He looked as beautiful as ever.
"You saw it?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"It feeds half the neglected civilian grid. Independently."
Gabriel’s expression cooled into sothing almost beautiful. "Of course it doesn’t. If he had crossed the noble grid, the parasites would have slled revenue."
"That was Liam’s reasoning."
"Liam." Gabriel repeated the na once, as if placing it correctly in his mind. "Lord Liam Canmore. Felix’s grandson?"
"Yes."
"The one with the bruised face?"
Arik smiled as it seed his father had read not only the docunt on the turbine but also the intel about Liam too.
Gabriel’s gaze narrowed slightly. "Ah."
"There is no ’ah.’"
"There is always an ’ah’ when you pause like Damian before ordering soone quietly removed."
Arik looked at the screen. "I did not order anyone removed."
"Yet."
Arik let out a quiet chuckle. "Indeed, not yet."
He leaned back into his chair and placed the docunt neatly on the table. "Rex was with us. Fortunately, he knows almost nothing about engineering. He understood enough to be alard, not enough to understand exactly how impossible the turbine is."
Gabriel’s expression sharpened. "And Liam?"
"Liam understands all of it." Arik’s fingers rested on the closed file. "That is the problem."
"That is never the problem. That is the asset."
"It is both." Arik glanced toward the cracked owl brooch on the table. "I will have him under shadow surveillance for now."
Gabriel did not react with surprise.
He had raised Arik. Surprise was for people who had not spent decades living beside Damian’s possessive instincts and Gabriel’s habit of turning concern into contingency plans.
"Protection or acquisition?" Gabriel asked.
Arik smiled faintly. "Do you want the diplomatic answer?"
"No."
"Both."
Gabriel leaned back. "Good. At least you are honest when cornered by your father."
"I was under the impression you preferred inconvenient truths."
"I prefer useful ones." Gabriel’s gaze flicked down, likely to the copy of the Vanguard proposal still open before him. "And the useful truth is that Felix Canmore has kept a genius close enough to strike and foolishly assud violence would make him smaller."
"It did not."
"No. It made him build under the floor."
Arik’s smile deepened by a fraction. "In a chasm."
Gabriel paused.
Then looked up very slowly. "A chasm."
"Yes."
"The public proposal omitted the chasm."
"It also omitted the raw red vein, the independent civilian grid, the absorption field, and the fact that the Vanguard can confuse Wrohan’s suppression brooches."
Gabriel scoffed elegantly.
Arik enjoyed that for half a second, because very few things made Gabriel visibly reassess a situation.
Then Gabriel said, softly, "Send the private notes."
"I do not have them."
"Get them."
"That may require Liam’s cooperation."
"Then beco charming."
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