The Reborn Sovereign of Ruin, Bound by His Star

There was nothing behind the door.

Arik had checked personally.

Twice.

The maintenance room was barely large enough for six people to stand comfortably inside it. Pale stone formed three walls, while the fourth held old extraction conduits scheduled to be connected to the new monitoring system. The nearest turbine vibrated faintly through the floor, its rotation producing a steady pressure Arik could feel through the soles of his boots.

Nothing about the room explained where Liam had gone.

Arik stood before the rear wall with one hand pressed against the stone.

Sovereign ether spread from his palm.

Gold raced through every existing conduit, penetrated the inactive formations, and searched beneath the floor before returning to him.

Nothing.

No concealed passage.

No spatial distortion.

No residue from a transportation formation.

No Liam.

Behind him, the engineer who had witnessed the incident repeated what Arik had already heard.

"Lord Liam crossed the threshold when Lady Narissa pushed him. The door closed immediately. We reached it within seconds, but the locking formation would not respond. When security opened it, the room was empty."

Arik turned.

His black shirt was still tucked neatly into his formal trousers from the meeting he had abandoned upstairs, but his coat remained somewhere in his office. Golden ether moved visibly beneath the skin of his hands.

The engineer took one involuntary step backward.

Arik ignored it.

"And nobody saw him leave?"

"No, Your Highness."

"There is one entrance."

"Yes."

"And you are telling me my mate disappeared through a solid wall."

Nobody answered.

Probably because there was no answer that would improve his mood.

Severin stood near the doorway while two guards kept Narissa several meters down the corridor. Her wrists were secured now. Arik had not questioned her yet.

He did not trust himself to.

Liam came first.

Always.

Arik closed his eyes and reached through the bond again.

The response was distant but considerably clearer than the useless locating ward in Liam’s ring.

Liam was alive, frustrated, curious and beneath both—

Amusement.

Arik opened his eyes.

Severin had been watching him. "Still no distress?"

"No."

That should have reassured him.

Liam was not afraid. Nothing hurt. There was no terror moving through their bond and no instinctive demand for Arik to find him.

Instead, Liam felt as though someone was withholding information from him.

A very familiar variety of frustration.

Arik knew exactly what Liam felt like when presented with an interesting technical problem and an uncooperative source.

Which meant wherever he was, he was apparently arguing.

That did nothing to explain how he had vanished.

Arik tried the ring again.

Nothing.

His jaw tightened.

The extraction field could interfere with a small locating formation. The turbines nearby pulled enormous amounts of ether through the lower structures, and Liam might be behind several layers of ancient shielding.

Perfectly reasonable.

Goliath did not believe it.

That older part of Arik had been restless since he entered the level.

He stepped away from the wall.

"Shut down this section."

The chief engineer hesitated. "The turbines?"

"Everything you can shut down without destabilizing the extraction network."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Technicians moved immediately.

The deep vibration beneath the floor changed as the nearest turbine began reducing speed.

Arik remained in the doorway.

Seconds passed.

Then a minute.

The bond shifted.

Liam’s amusement sharpened suddenly.

Arik frowned.

"What are you doing?"

Severin glanced toward him.

"I was not speaking to you."

"I assumed."

Another minute passed.

Then the empty room filled with gold.

Arik moved before anyone else registered it.

Light cut vertically through the rear wall, widened, and dissolved the stone into a hazy opening.

A familiar figure appeared inside it.

Dark green overshirt pushed to his elbows. Dark trousers. Long brown hair partly loose around his shoulders from whatever had happened to him.

Liam had barely put one boot onto the maintenance floor when Arik reached him.

He pulled him out of the opening and directly against his chest.

Liam’s breath left him in surprise.

"Arik—"

Arik wrapped both arms around him.

The bond became perfectly clear at contact, Liam’s startled affection flooding through it alongside the lingering frustration and an absurd amount of excitement.

Arik buried one hand in his hair.

"What happened?"

"I have an explanation."

"You disappeared."

"I noticed."

Arik pulled back.

That was when he saw Liam’s eyes.

Gold.

Not a reflection from the fading passage. Not just ether temporarily passing through his irises.

Gold.

The same unmistakable shade Arik saw every morning in the mirror.

His blood went cold.

"No."

Liam blinked.

"You took the Trial."

Understanding crossed his face.

"Oh."

"Liam."

"I didn’t."

Arik caught his jaw, turning his face toward the light as though changing the angle might restore crimson.

It did not.

"You went into the Trial after spending weeks trying to understand it, and you came back with golden eyes."

"I can see how this looks."

"How it looks?"

Liam put both hands around Arik’s wrists before sovereign ether could start flooding the corridor.

"I did not take the Trial."

Arik stared at him.

Liam exhaled.

"Apparently, I’m Enki."

Nothing in that sentence helped.

"Who?"

"The dominant omega who created it."

The corridor went silent.

Even Severin stopped moving.

Liam glanced briefly toward the others before returning his attention to Arik.

"My soul was part of the Trial long before Goliath entered it. That is why Felix managed to get out after abandoning his own attempt. I used him to leave."

Arik’s grip loosened slightly.

Somewhere beneath his own shock, Goliath went utterly still.

Liam continued more quietly.

"The place recognized me because it is mine. I didn’t need to win anything to come back out." His gold eyes met Arik’s. "The being inside told me that now that I have a body again, I can enter and leave when I want."

Arik looked at the wall where the golden opening had already vanished.

Then at Liam.

"Enki."

"Apparently."

Something old shifted through him, a deep recognition that made his chest ache.

Arik pulled Liam into his arms again.

This time Liam went willingly, pressing close and wrapping both arms around his waist.

"You are never disappearing through an unmarked maintenance door again."

Liam rested his forehead against Arik’s chest.

"I think that part was Narissa’s fault."

Arik’s gaze moved past him toward the corridor.

"Yes," he said quietly. "We are going to discuss Narissa."