Chapter 311: Found
Arik had spent the last twelve minutes staring at a ring.
This was not, objectively, a productive use of imperial time.
The reports waiting across his desk concerned three provincial budgets, the restructuring of Deira’s eastern freight network, and a dispute between two medical foundations Liam had somehow managed to inherit and immediately offend by asking why they required separate administrative buildings.
Arik should have been working.
Instead, he sat behind Goliath’s old imperial desk with one hand resting against a stack of reports and the other holding a narrow band of dark gold between his fingers.
Liam’s engagement ring.
Nine months ago, Arik had placed it on his finger in the back of a heavily warded car in Wrohan while Liam threatened divorce over the possibility of wrinkled sleeves.
Six months ago, after crossing the Gate and finally having enough time to inventory what had survived the chaos, Liam had realized it was gone.
Arik remembered the exact moment.
Liam had been sitting on their bed, sorting through the small number of personal possessions that had crossed with them when he had suddenly stopped.
Then his hand had gone to the finger where the ring should have been.
He had tried to dismiss it.
Arik had not.
The rings had never been official court jewelry. That had been the point.
Arik had commissioned them privately before the engagement because he had wanted something belonging to them before governments, titles, ceremonies, and imperial expectations attached themselves to the promise.
Dark gold for Arik.
Dark gold and crimson for Liam.
Before giving Liam his, Arik had embedded a ward inside the metal.
Nothing intrusive. No tracking formation designed to follow Liam’s movements.
A simple sovereign signature that would answer Arik if the ring were ever lost and he came close enough to search for it.
At the time, it had seemed excessive.
Arik had long since stopped apologizing for being excessive where Liam was concerned.
When they arrived in Nuria, he had quietly ordered the search expanded.
Transit routes.
Medical facilities Liam had passed through unconscious.
The corridors between the Gate and the palace.
Every vehicle used during those first days.
Nothing.
Until this morning.
The ring turned slowly between Arik’s fingers.
The crimson inlay was scratched near one edge.
Otherwise, it was intact.
A knock sounded against the office door before Kamal entered.
He was carrying another stack of wedding documents.
Arik looked at them.
"No."
Kamal continued toward the desk. "You have three months."
"I am aware."
"Rubis appears unconvinced."
"Rubis currently has Liam reviewing flower arrangements according to structural stability."
Kamal stopped.
Arik looked at him.
"He asked whether the suspended installations had emergency load calculations."
Kamal considered that for a moment. "A reasonable question."
"That is what Liam said."
The documents landed beside the provincial reports.
Kamal’s gaze shifted toward the ring.
His expression softened.
"So it is his."
"Yes."
"Where?"
Arik rolled the ring once beneath his thumb.
"Near the old transit level."
That was the part he had been considering for twelve minutes.
Not inside the main chamber.
Not on the route Liam had taken after arriving.
Several levels below it, caught beneath the edge of an old maintenance channel running alongside one of the abandoned ether conduits.
A search team had only found it because Arik’s ward had finally responded when the surrounding shielding was temporarily lowered during inspections.
Kamal frowned. "How did it get there?"
"I don’t know."
Liam had crossed the Gate unconscious.
The ring could have slipped from his finger during the transition.
Ether instability could have thrown it through some secondary channel.
There were several harmless explanations.
Arik disliked all of them.
Mostly because Felix was involved in everything surrounding Liam’s passage through the Gate.
"Does Liam know?"
"No."
Kamal looked faintly surprised.
Arik glanced toward the ring again.
"I wanted to check it first."
That required no further explanation.
The ring had already been through three independent scans.
There was no trace of Felix’s signature beyond the residual contamination expected from something Liam had been wearing while poisoned.
Only Arik’s original ward remained.
And Liam.
A faint trace of saint’s breath still clung stubbornly to the metal after months lost beneath the palace.
Arik’s thumb passed over the crimson inset.
Three months.
That was all that remained until his coronation.
Until the marriage ceremony.
Until Liam stood beside him before the Core and the unfinished collar received its final stone from their combined ether.
Assuming they removed Felix’s contamination first.
That condition had begun looming over the calendar in a way Arik disliked.
Wedding preparations advanced regardless.
Rubis had taken control of Liam’s personal household with frightening efficiency. Kamal had restored the ceremonial offices. Cassian had somehow convinced Liam that institutional budgets were interesting by presenting them as systems requiring optimization.
Even Liam’s modern Nurian had improved enough that provincial representatives had mostly stopped slowing their speech for him.
Everything moved forward.
Except Felix.
Arik closed his fingers around the ring.
Kamal watched him. "You should give it back."
"I will."
"When?"
Arik looked toward the chronometer inset beside the windows.
Liam was due to finish his afternoon language lecture in twenty minutes.
After that, he had a meeting with Rubis regarding wedding staffing, followed by two hours officially reserved for technical work.
Arik had seen the schedule.
He also possessed sovereign authority.
One of its more practical uses was occasionally ignoring schedules.
"Now."
Kamal sighed. "Rubis will complain."
"He can complain to the emperor."
"You are not emperor for another three months."
Arik stood, fastening the lower button of his black formal jacket.
"Then he can complain to the future emperor."
Kamal watched him walk around the desk.
"You appear remarkably comfortable with administration lately."
Arik stopped.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Goliath reacted with immediate disgust.
Arik decided Kamal did not need that information.
"I am leaving."
"That was not a denial."
Arik ignored him.
The ring remained closed in his palm as he left the imperial office.
Nine months ago, Liam had accepted it while sitting in Arik’s lap, threatening divorce before they had even completed their engagement.
Three months from now, they would stand before Nuria together.
Arik had no intention of replacing that first ring with something grander merely because he now possessed an empire.
The court could have its ceremonial jewels.
This one belonged on Liam’s hand.