Chapter 319: Welcome Home
The being’s laughter faded into the golden haze.
Liam remained where he was, staring at the figure wearing his face while the last piece of information rearranged everything he thought he understood.
The creator of the Trial had escaped through Felix.
The stranger tilted its head, golden eyes bright.
"Welcome home, Liam."
"No."
The answer came so quickly that amusement flashed across the being’s face again.
Liam folded his arms over his dark green overshirt. His engagement ring pressed against his sleeve, solid and reassuring in a room where almost nothing else seemed obliged to follow physical laws.
"You cannot say something like that and expect me to accept it because the walls are glowing."
"I expected considerably more questions."
"They are coming."
He looked around the chamber instead.
Ancient runes moved through the curved walls in slow vertical streams, appearing and disappearing beneath layers of translucent gold. Somewhere beyond them existed the Core, the Trial, or whatever impossible architecture made both distinctions meaningless.
Liam turned back.
"You’re saying I created this."
"Yes."
"And then somehow left by attaching myself to Felix."
"Yes."
"That still does not explain why."
The being’s smile softened.
"Goliath."
Liam went still.
Of course it was Goliath.
Apparently there were no normal explanations left available to him.
"What about him?"
"How do you think he returned?"
Liam frowned. "His soul was bound to Nuria’s Core. He manipulated causality until Damian and Gabriel produced Arik."
"That created the correct body."
"And the Core preserved the soul."
"Correct."
The being stepped closer, golden ether shifting across its borrowed features.
"But Goliath was not reincarnating inside Nuria. He wanted to reach a child who would be born beyond the Gate, attached to another imperial bloodline and another Core. Preserving a soul and delivering it precisely where it intends to go are not the same problem."
Liam stared at it.
That was... Annoyingly logical.
"He needed help."
"Yes."
"Mine."
"Yours."
A faint ache formed behind Liam’s eyes.
"So my previous self helped Goliath manipulate his reincarnation?"
"You did considerably more than help."
Liam was not sure he wanted that sentence expanded yet.
"Why?"
The being looked almost offended by the question.
"You fell in love with him."
Liam blinked.
Then glanced down at his ring.
Dark gold surrounded his finger, the crimson inlay catching the shifting light.
"With Goliath."
"Yes."
"That seems consistent with my current history of questionable decisions."
The being laughed.
Liam continued before it could become insufferable again.
"And now I am mated to Arik."
"Yes."
"Who is Goliath."
"Was Goliath."
"Same soul."
The being’s grin widened. "You found him twice."
Liam did not immediately answer.
There should probably have been something profound about that.
A rush of recognition.
Memories.
Some ancient emotional certainty connecting a forgotten dominant omega to Goliath and Liam to Arik.
Instead, Liam found himself mostly thinking that apparently even death had failed to cure either of them of terrible judgment.
The being studied him with increasing delight.
"You are taking this remarkably well."
"I’m processing."
"You discovered you are the reincarnation of the creator of the Trial."
"Yes."
"You helped one of history’s most dangerous sovereigns arrange his reincarnation because you loved him."
"Yes."
"And somehow your primary emotion is irritation."
"My primary emotion is that neither of us documented any of this properly."
The being stared.
Liam gestured toward the chamber.
"Look at this."
Gold flowed through the walls in structures sophisticated enough that Liam still could not determine whether the runes were information, machinery, or both.
"I apparently created a system capable of individualized Trials, ether restructuring, Core binding, soul preservation, and interaction with causality."
"Yes."
"Where are the technical records?"
The being began laughing again.
"I’m serious."
"I know."
"That makes your reaction worse."
Liam paced toward the edge of the circular chamber, boots muted against the dark floor.
He had reincarnated.
Fine.
There was already precedent.
He had apparently been born through Felix’s bloodline after hitching a metaphysical ride out of Nuria.
Unpleasant, but survivable.
What offended him was discovering that his previous self had possessed access to technology—or ether science, or whatever terminology applied at this level—and apparently left Liam to rediscover it from fragments.
"Goliath wrote one useless page about his Trial," he muttered. "Apparently I am no better."
Liam groaned and then rubbed his face with his hands. "What do I do now? I take the trial, I return back or I’m blocked here again?"
"Oh, you weren’t blocked here. Felix was only the guaranteed person to carry someone that would meet with Goliath."
Liam’s face flattened. "What if this is my trial? To think I’m someone important and delusional enough to be the Creator?"
"Funny. It would be funny. But it is not a trial. It’s you."
Liam stared at him.
The answer should have felt monumental.
Instead, he found himself looking around the chamber again, at the flowing runes and impossible layers of golden ether, trying to determine which part of the architecture his apparently ancient soul had designed badly enough to make this conversation necessary.
"So this isn’t my Trial."
"No."
"And I’m not delusional."
"Not because of this."
Liam gave him a flat look.
The being smiled.
"Then what exactly am I doing here?"
"Returning."
"To a place I don’t remember."
"You remembered enough to build your way back."
Liam’s fingers tightened around the edge of his overshirt. "Felix built the route."
"Felix thought he did."
That distinction caught immediately.
The being walked toward one of the walls. Runes separated around him, exposing deeper layers of light that twisted through one another like strands in a living circuit.
"He spent decades following fragments you left behind. He believed he was studying Goliath, sovereign ether, and reincarnation." The being glanced back. "Mostly, he was following you."
Liam’s stomach sank.
"That is insulting."
"To whom?"
"Me."
The being laughed.
Liam ignored him and moved closer to the wall. "If I created this, why don’t I remember any of it?"
"Because you left."
"That is not an explanation."
"You wanted a life outside this place. Memory has consequences. Carrying all of this into a new body would have defeated the point."
Liam looked down at his hands.
Twenty-six years.
Enia. Henry. Mirelle. Rex. Mara.
His laboratory.
Arik.
None of that felt like a temporary life borrowed by something ancient.
It was his.
The being seemed to understand the direction of his thoughts.
"You are not less Liam because you existed before Liam."
That, annoyingly, sounded reasonable.
Liam exhaled and looked toward the moving gold.
"Fine."
The being’s brows rose.
"Fine?"
"I apparently reincarnated, failed to leave adequate technical documentation, fell for the same man twice, and accidentally used Felix as transportation." Liam rubbed his forehead. "I can have an existential crisis after I get home."
The being smiled.
"Now you sound familiar."