Chapter 314: Out of Reach
There were apparently two acceptable versions of Liam’s ceremonial clothing.
Arik had already learned this against his will.
"The first follows the older imperial structure more closely," Rubis explained from the opposite side of the imperial desk. A projection hovered between them, showing a long formal coat in pale ivory with dark crimson detailing and narrow gold work concentrated around the collar, shoulders, and cuffs. "The second retains the ceremonial elements but uses the modern cut Lord Liam prefers."
A second image appeared beside it.
Kamal studied both with the gravity of a military assessment.
Arik signed the infrastructure authorization beneath his hand without looking up. "He will choose the second."
Rubis frowned. "You have not seen it."
"I know Liam."
"The first is historically significant."
"He will ask why the fabric is heavier."
Kamal’s mouth shifted slightly.
Rubis looked offended because Arik was almost certainly correct.
"The final fitting for the second option is in thirty minutes," he said. "If His Highness approves the construction, we can begin the embroidery immediately. Narissa is bringing him from the maintenance inspection."
Arik finally looked up.
"Maintenance inspection?"
"The eastern extraction level," Kamal supplied. "The new turbine maintenance program."
That explained why Liam had left breakfast looking almost offensively cheerful.
Arik had heard about the turbines for three consecutive days.
Apparently Nuria possessed a vertical extraction design Liam had never encountered in Wrohan, which meant Arik had received an explanation over dinner involving pressure differentials, rotating stabilization fields, and several increasingly animated comments about whoever had designed the original rotor geometry.
Arik understood perhaps eighty percent.
Goliath understood all of it.
The part of him carrying that older technical instinct had been interested enough that Arik had eventually asked Liam for the schematics.
A mistake.
Liam had looked delighted for the rest of the evening.
Rubis changed the projection to embroidery samples.
Arik leaned back in Goliath’s old chair and let the conversation continue around him.
Three months.
In three months, the Core should have settled sufficiently for the final transition.
The coronation first.
Then the marriage.
An entire empire had begun preparing for both as though Arik had always intended to spend his life in Nuria.
Some days, he almost believed it.
The imperial office no longer felt borrowed. The reports on his desk belonged to problems he recognized. Ministers had stopped looking for Goliath every time Arik disagreed with precedent. He knew which provincial governors exaggerated, which departments required supervision, and which infrastructure proposals Cassian deliberately left on his desk because he knew Arik would enjoy them.
That last realization remained disturbing.
Goliath had hated administration.
Arik had somehow developed preferences regarding it.
His father would have found that hilarious.
The thought arrived with a sharpness that made Arik’s attention drift toward the windows.
Damian.
Gabriel.
Natalie.
Cecil and Frederik.
Orpheo and the twins.
Noah and Maximilian.
His family existed somewhere beyond a Gate that no longer existed on this side.
They did not know whether he was alive.
For months, that had been the hardest part of Nuria’s isolation to accept.
Arik would have accepted five minutes to reach the rest of the world.
Enough to tell Gabriel he was alive.
Enough for Damian to complain that he had managed to inherit another empire.
Enough to know what had happened in Agaron, Wrohan, and the world they had left behind.
He had begun placing more hope than he wanted to admit on the coronation.
The Core responded more strongly every week.
Perhaps once the bond was completed and Nuria recognized him fully as emperor, he would possess enough authority to reach whatever remained of the Gate.
Goliath had created impossible routes before.
Arik might do it again.
His thumb moved automatically over the sovereign mark around his wrist.
Then toward the engagement ring he wore on his own hand.
Liam’s matching ring came to mind.
Arik reached for it without thinking.
He had done it occasionally since returning the ring to Liam—not to track him, regardless of Liam’s accusations, but because the tiny answering signature had become useful when his thoughts were too crowded.
Arik sent the faintest thread of ether toward the ward.
Nothing answered.
His hand stopped on the desk.
Kamal was speaking about the guest hierarchy.
Arik did not hear the rest.
He tried again.
The locating ward was small by design. It was never intended to cross great distances or penetrate heavy shielding. Liam was several levels underground, inside one of the oldest maintenance sections beneath the palace complex.
There were extraction turbines operating nearby.
Thick ether flows.
Layered stone.
Interference was entirely plausible.
Arik knew that.
His body did not care.
The old instincts beneath his own sharpened immediately.
Goliath had survived too long by noticing the moment something ordinary became slightly wrong.
Arik closed his eyes and reached for the bond instead.
Liam was there. Distant. Faint enough that emotion blurred into general presence.
That should have settled him.
It did not.
Rubis stopped speaking.
Kamal noticed first.
"What is it?"
Arik opened his eyes.
"Where exactly is Liam?"
Kamal glanced toward his tablet. "Eastern maintenance level. Sector six. He was inspecting the new ether-extraction program with the engineering team."
"With Narissa?"
"Yes. She was assigned to accompany him directly to the fitting afterward."
"And security?"
"Two palace guards at minimum. More at the level entrances."
Arik reached for Liam’s ring again.
Nothing.
A cold pressure settled behind his ribs.
Kamal studied his face. "You cannot feel him?"
"The bond is there."
That kept his voice level.
"But?"
"The ring is not."
Rubis frowned. "Could the extraction field interfere with the ward?"
"Yes."
Arik stood anyway.
His chair moved backward across the dark floor.
Kamal’s expression tightened. "Your Majesty."
"I know."
There was no alarm.
No evidence of an attack.
Liam was not frightened.
The bond would have told Arik if something had already happened badly enough to cause distress.
Probably.
Yet the part of him that had once been Goliath had gone very quiet.
Arik knew that silence too.
It was the instinct that had preceded ambushes, poisonings, military betrayals, and more than one decision everyone else had initially considered excessive.
He reached for his formal coat draped over the side chair, then abandoned it.
The black shirt and fitted trousers he wore beneath were sufficient.
Rubis looked toward the time. "His fitting—"
"Can wait."
Kamal was already opening the security channel.
Arik headed for the doors.
Perhaps Liam was standing beside an operating turbine, happily arguing with engineers while enough concentrated ether passed through the floor to make a tiny locating ward useless.
Arik hoped so.
He hoped Liam would laugh at him for arriving unnecessarily.
He would accept the teasing.
He would accept the accusation of possessiveness.
He would even accept another lecture about the difference between a locating ward and tracking.
But Arik had learned long ago not to ignore the moment instinct and reason stopped agreeing.
And somewhere beneath the palace, Liam was just far enough away that Arik could still feel him... but not clearly enough to trust it.