Chapter 552: Asair
Chris had barely carried Theodore through the private reception hall when the doors at the opposite end opened again.
Dax entered without an entourage.
He had apparently come directly from work, still dressed in a dark formal suit with the collar of his shirt open beneath the jacket, silver beginning to clearly through the white-blond hair at his temples. His attention found Theo almost immediately, then shifted toward Arion and Dean with the familiar ease of family rather than ceremony.
Matthias stopped walking.
Hunter noticed first.
Arion did a second later, turning just enough to see the former knight standing several paces behind him with one hand still wrapped around the handle of Theodore’s travel case.
Every trace of color had disappeared from Matthias’s face.
Dax approached Chris and glanced toward the baby in his arms.
"So he survived the flight."
"Theo enjoyed it," Dean said.
"That sounds dangerous."
Theodore recognized Dax after a few seconds and rewarded him with a delighted noise, both hands reaching outward.
Dax smiled and took him from Chris with the confidence of someone who had raised children of his own. Theo immediately grabbed a fistful of his jacket and began examining the silver fastening near the collar.
Matthias still had not moved.
Arion looked at him properly now.
"Matthias?"
The man’s brown eyes remained fixed on Dax.
Dax noticed.
His smile faded slightly as he shifted Theodore more securely against his chest.
"Is something wrong?"
Matthias swallowed.
"No."
The answer was useless.
Arion stepped closer to him.
"You look like you’ve seen a ghost."
Matthias finally blinked.
"In a manner of speaking."
Dax’s expression sharpened.
Matthias had spent months reading everything available about the current royal families before traveling anywhere near them. He knew who Dax was, knew the Sahan line, knew Nero’s position, and had seen enough official photographs that nobody expected introductions to be complicated.
Pictures, apparently, had failed badly.
Matthias looked at Dax’s face again, taking in the pale hair, the violet eyes, the structure of his cheekbones and jaw.
"You look exactly like him."
Dax went still.
"Like whom?"
"Asair."
Silence settled through the reception hall.
Chris’s head turned.
Arion’s attention snapped fully toward Matthias.
Dax did not react immediately, but something changed in his expression at the name.
"You knew my grandfather?"
Matthias laughed once under his breath, although there was no humor in it.
"Yes."
Arion stared.
"You never mentioned that."
"You never asked me whether I knew anyone in Saha."
"That would have seemed unnecessarily broad."
"It was."
Matthias finally set the travel case down because his grip on it had become visibly tight.
"Asair visited Dominic several times during my service. Sometimes officially. Sometimes not."
Dax watched him carefully.
"He lived long enough that records from that period still describe him."
"Records are not the same as meeting him."
Matthias’s gaze returned to Dax.
"The eyes are identical."
Dax’s violet eyes narrowed faintly.
"And the hair."
Matthias seemed to be speaking partly to himself now.
"The face is nearly the same too. Older than I remember him at first, but..."
Dax’s mouth curved slightly.
"My grandfather lived a damn long life. You probably remember several versions."
"I do."
That answer carried enough familiarity that even Rowan, who had been directing staff toward the luggage, stopped to listen.
Dax shifted Theo to one arm.
"Asair raised me until I was eighteen."
Before he could ask anything else, hurried footsteps sounded beyond the corridor.
Rowan glanced toward the doorway.
"That will be His Highness."
Nero appeared less than a minute later.
He had clearly abandoned whatever meeting had detained him without waiting for anyone’s permission. His dark formal coat remained unfastened, a tablet was still tucked under one arm, and his long white-blond hair had been pulled into a loose tie that was already coming apart around his shoulders.
His purple eyes found Theodore first.
"There you are."
Matthias made a sound that barely escaped his throat.
Arion turned.
The older man reached for him.
His hand closed around Arion’s forearm with the reflex of someone needing something solid beneath his fingers.
Arion looked down at the grip, then back at Matthias.
The man was staring at Nero.
This reaction was worse.
Dax resembled Asair.
Nero looked as though Asair had walked out of a century-old memory and been made younger, larger, and considerably more dangerous.
The same white-blond coloring.
The same vivid purple eyes.
The same facial structure sharpened by youth.
And Nero’s extraordinary height made the comparison impossible to ignore.
Matthias whispered, "Titan."
Nero stopped.
His attention finally left Theodore.
"What?"
Matthias released Arion slowly.
"Asair was one."
Dax’s gaze sharpened.
Arion looked between them.
"A titan?"
Matthias nodded, still staring at Nero.
"It was what we called men built like him. Rare even then. Asair was enormous compared with everyone around Dominic."
Nero raised one eyebrow.
"I have been called worse things."
Matthias did not appear to hear the joke.
He looked genuinely shaken now, his mind apparently trying to reconcile the man he remembered with the crown prince standing several meters away.
"You look more like him than your father does."
Nero glanced at Dax.
"That seems statistically rude."
Dax ignored him.
Matthias took a slow breath.
"The pictures did not show it."
"They generally fail to communicate that Nero is the size of architecture," Dean said.
Nero smiled.
"Thank you."
"That was not praise."
Theodore heard Nero’s voice and twisted violently in Dax’s arms.
His entire face brightened.
Nero forgot Matthias, Asair, Dominic, and apparently the rest of recorded history.
"My godson."
Dax barely had time to transfer Theo before Nero took him.
Theo squealed.
Nero lifted him against his chest, grinning when the baby immediately seized a handful of his pale hair.
Matthias watched them.
The fear and disbelief gradually left his face, replaced by something more complicated.
Arion leaned slightly toward him.
"You knew Asair well?"
Matthias’s eyes remained on Nero.
"Well enough to know Dominic trusted him."
That alone was interesting.
Then Matthias added quietly, "And well enough to know he would have found this extremely amusing."
Arion looked toward Nero, who was now informing Theodore that his parents had cruelly kept him away for months while Theo attempted to eat his hair.
Dax sighed.
Chris laughed.
For the first time since arriving in Saha, Matthias smiled.
The resemblance was still haunting.