The Reborn Sovereign of Ruin, Bound by His Star

Arik looked at Liam for several seconds before answering.

Liam knew that silence.

It was the silence of a man calculating exactly how much information could be released without causing a new problem.

Liam pointed his stylus at him.

"Remember what we just established about interrogation."

Arik’s mouth flattened.

"There are two records in Nuria."

Liam’s expression brightened immediately.

"Two complete records?"

"No."

The enthusiasm died with impressive speed.

Arik reached across the table and pulled Liam’s abandoned plate several centimeters closer to him. Liam automatically took another bite while keeping his eyes fixed on Arik.

"One is mine," Arik continued. "Goliath’s, technically. The other belonged to his grandfather."

Liam paused mid-chew.

"Your grandfather."

"Goliath’s grandfather."

"You are Goliath."

"I am aware."

"Then your grandfather."

Arik chose not to engage with that particular argument.

"He was half dragon."

Liam slowly lowered his fork.

Arik saw the reaction and immediately added, "No."

"I haven’t asked anything yet."

"I know what your face looks like when you discover something exploitable."

"My face is perfectly normal."

"Your eyes practically lit up."

Liam reached for the tablet.

"Half dragon how?"

"The biological way."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only one I have."

Liam stared at him in disbelief.

Arik leaned back in his chair, broad shoulders finally losing some of the stiffness accumulated through the day. The last of the Core projection painted gold across the black fabric covering his chest.

"The records are not research documents. Goliath wrote approximately a page. His grandfather wrote less."

Liam looked personally betrayed.

"A page."

"At best."

"About a Trial capable of killing people, permanently altering their ether, binding their souls to a Core and producing control nobody else can replicate."

"Yes."

"And the two people who actually experienced it wrote a page each."

Arik looked almost apologetic.

"My grandfather preferred engineering."

Liam stared.

"And Goliath?"

"Engineering and war."

"That explains far too much."

"It does."

Liam dragged one hand down his face.

"Neither of you thought documentation might be useful?"

"I apparently had other priorities."

"You were running an empire."

"Yes."

"Documentation should have been one of them."

Arik considered that with surprising seriousness.

"I agree."

Liam lowered his hand.

That answer was sufficiently strange to interrupt his irritation.

"You agree?"

Arik glanced at the government reports still stacked on the side console, waiting for him after dinner.

"I have developed a tolerance for administration."

Liam’s mouth twitched.

"A tolerance."

"I might even enjoy parts of it."

Now Liam openly stared.

Arik looked mildly disturbed by his own admission.

"That is worrying."

"It is deeply worrying."

Liam smiled. "Maybe reincarnation damaged you."

"Possibly."

The humor faded when Liam returned to his notes.

"So those two records tell me nothing useful."

"They tell you both survived."

"I already knew that."

"They confirm that the Trial existed in more than one historical period."

"That is barely better."

Arik reached for his glass again. "You asked where the records were. You did not ask whether they were useful."

Liam gave him a look filled with profound offense.

"Interrogation."

Arik smiled.

"There may be someone more useful."

That immediately recovered Liam’s attention.

"Who?"

"Cassian."

The answer surprised him.

"Cassian knows about the Trial?"

"He knew about mine."

Liam leaned closer over the table. "How much?"

"I don’t know."

There it was again.

Liam closed his eyes briefly.

"Arik."

"I genuinely don’t know this time."

"That distinction is becoming difficult to trust."

Arik ignored the accusation.

"Cassian tried to stop Goliath from taking it."

Liam’s stylus stopped.

That was different.

Not an archivist reconstructing events centuries later, but a witness.

"What did he know that made him try to stop you?"

"That I could die."

Liam’s amusement disappeared.

Arik’s tone had remained matter-of-fact, but the words sat differently between them.

"The Trial is not ceremonial," he continued. "Recognition is not guaranteed. Survival is not guaranteed either."

"How often do people die?"

"The records are incomplete."

"Convenient."

"For once, not because of me."

Liam rested his forearms against the table.

"But people have failed and survived."

Arik was quiet for a moment.

"One."

Liam’s eyes sharpened.

"One recorded person?"

"One person we know returned after losing."

"Who?"

"Maximilian."

It took Liam a moment.

Then the family structure aligned in his mind.

"Noah’s father?"

"Yes."

"Damian’s half brother."

Arik nodded.

"And your uncle."

"What happened to him?"

"He survived."

"That was not what I asked."

Arik’s gaze held his.

"Whatever happened inside the Trial, he came back without winning it. No golden eyes. No sovereign binding. No authority over ether comparable to Damian’s."

"And does he remember?"

"I don’t know."

Liam stared at him.

Arik lifted one hand before the interrogation resumed.

"I have never asked him."

"Why?"

Arik leaned back slightly, his expression losing some of its earlier dryness. "Because Max and I have a good relationship, and somehow that has never included interrogating him about the most dangerous experience of his life."

Liam’s brows rose. "You never got curious?"

"Not enough to turn a family conversation into an examination."

Liam’s expression suggested this was another unacceptable failure of documentation.

Then the more practical problem arrived.

"Where is he?"

Arik raised a brow and waited.

It took Liam a second to understand why.

Then he looked at the face of his mate, at the golden eyes that had once belonged to a man born in Nuria and now belonged just as firmly to the Crown Prince of Agaron, and exhaled.

"Agaron."

"Yes."

Liam went still.

Beyond the windows, Deira remained wrapped in darkness and gold, entirely cut off from the world beyond the Gate.

For one brief moment, he had forgotten the inconvenient little detail that Nuria was still isolated from everyone else.

No convenient trip to Agaron.

No visit to Maximilian with a tablet full of increasingly intrusive questions about the one failed Trial a man had actually survived.

Liam rubbed two fingers over his forehead. "Right. Forgot about the isolation thing for a moment."

Arik’s mouth twitched.

"That is extremely inconvenient."

"I thought you might say that."

"And Cassian is here."

"He is."

Liam’s attention shifted immediately toward possibilities.

Arik recognized the look.

"Tomorrow."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You are not going to hunt Cassian through the palace tonight."

"I know where his rooms are."

"That was precisely my concern."

Liam picked up his tablet and began closing the projections.

"Tomorrow, then."

Arik watched him with suspicion that had become entirely justified over the course of their relationship.

"You are taking the Trial records first."

"Yes."

"And you are not attempting anything described in them."

"They contain one page each."

"That does not reassure me."

Liam stood, gathering his tablet and stylus against his chest. His long brown hair had slipped almost entirely over one shoulder during the conversation, and his expression had acquired that distant concentration Arik had learned to distrust.

Two nearly useless records.

One unwilling witness who had tried to stop Goliath.

And one surviving loser trapped on the other side of the Gate.

Liam looked toward Arik.

"Do you think Cassian knows what happened before you entered?"

Arik rose more slowly, collecting his coat from the back of the nearby chair.

"He knows more than the records do."

"How much more?"

"I suppose," Arik said, sliding one arm into his coat, "you will interrogate him and find out."

Liam smiled.