Chapter 326: Countdown
The next two months taught Liam that adulthood contained a fundamental injustice.
The faster he completed boring work, the more boring work people discovered for him to complete.
He had initially approached the problem mathematically.
Wedding approvals, household restructuring, ceremonial instruction, modern Nurian lessons, provincial briefings, public protocol, final reviews for his position after Arik’s coronation—every obligation had a measurable duration.
Therefore, if Liam completed them efficiently, he would create additional hours for the laboratory.
The logic was flawless.
The imperial household responded by becoming more efficient too.
Liam considered this hostile behavior.
"Sign."
He signed.
"Next."
Narissa slid another projection across his desk.
Liam read the first page, checked the technical annex because, unlike the ceremonial language, it actually was important, and signed again.
"Next."
"You should probably pretend to consider these longer."
"I considered it."
"For eleven seconds."
"It was a straightforward allocation."
Narissa looked at the chronometer.
It was barely past ten in the morning.
Liam had already completed a language lesson, approved accommodation assignments for the Wrohan delegation that would eventually attend the wedding once Nuria reopened, reviewed three laboratory procurement requests, and survived forty-three minutes with Rubis discussing ceremonial procession order.
His reward waited three districts away.
Felix’s palace no longer looked like Felix’s palace.
That alone improved Liam’s mood.
Most of the ridiculous wardrobes had been removed. The jewelry remained under imperial inventory until historians decided what possessed actual value. Several ornamental partitions had disappeared entirely.
The eastern wing was now his.
Arik had presented the property transfer with absolutely no acknowledgment that everyone involved had known for weeks.
Liam had kissed him anyway.
Possibly that had encouraged bad behavior.
The old receiving hall became an open technical workspace lined with new black benches and pale projection surfaces. Felix’s pathetic laboratory had been stripped to the walls. Modern ether-spectrum equipment occupied one side, while the opposite side remained deliberately unfinished because Liam had already changed his mind twice about what belonged there.
The underground conduits were the best part.
They supported independent power, isolated experimental fields, and enough shielding that Mezos had called the place exaggerated.
Liam had considered that praise.
Unfortunately, obtaining a laboratory had created a new problem.
He wanted to be inside it.
Constantly.
By the third week, Arik began retrieving him personally.
The first time, Liam had been awake.
The second time, technically, awake.
By the fifth, Arik entered shortly after midnight and found his mate asleep with his head resting on folded arms beside an active simulation.
Arik stopped in the doorway.
Narissa, who had apparently abandoned Liam nearly an hour earlier after receiving assurances that he was "almost finished," had wisely gone home.
The laboratory lights had dimmed automatically around the sleeping occupant. Gold-white projections still floated over the central bench, displaying ether wavelengths Liam had been reconstructing from the Trial.
Arik crossed the polished floor.
Liam did not move.
His hair was tied badly at his nape, though enough had escaped to cover one cheek. He wore charcoal trousers and a soft dark green shirt with the sleeves pushed above his elbows. One hand remained curled around a stylus.
Arik removed it before Liam drew equations on his face in his sleep.
Goliath had wanted an engineer.
Arik was beginning to consider that one of his previous self’s greater failures.
He had apparently fallen in love with the creator of the Trial, involved him in a reincarnation scheme complicated enough to distort several generations of history, and then somehow succeeded in finding the same soul again.
Now Arik barely saw his mate because Liam possessed a laboratory.
His laboratory.
The palace Arik had given him.
Arik stared down at the sleeping man.
"This is somehow your fault."
Goliath, being himself, offered no useful defense.
Liam shifted.
His eyes opened halfway.
Gold, tonight.
"Arik?"
"Yes."
"What time is it?"
"Late enough that I am carrying you home."
"I can walk."
Arik lifted him anyway.
Liam made a small, dissatisfied noise as one arm went automatically around Arik’s shoulders.
"I was working."
"You were unconscious."
"I was thinking horizontally."
"You were drooling on a spectrum analysis."
Liam became more awake.
"I was not."
Arik carried him through the silent laboratory.
"You can examine the evidence tomorrow."
"That is slander."
"Go back to sleep."
Liam did before they reached the transport platform.
Arik cursed Goliath again.
The problem became worse as the ceremony approached.
Liam had discovered motivation.
Every tedious obligation completed before lunch became laboratory time.
He tolerated three-hour political instruction because Narissa promised not to schedule anything after five.
He reviewed ceremonial language because Rubis threatened to enter the laboratory personally if Liam embarrassed the imperial household.
He attended final fittings without escape attempts.
He sat through briefings on provincial precedence, coronation law, public appearances, security routes, diplomatic reception structures, and the enormous collection of legal changes that would activate the moment Nuria ended its isolation.
Then he disappeared into his laboratory.
Arik sometimes joined him there simply to spend time with him.
That worked poorly.
"Come here."
"I am here."
"You are six meters away."
"That is still here."
Arik looked up from the government report he had brought with him.
Liam stood beside a projection wall in comfortable black trousers and a cream sweater, completely absorbed in a new mapping model.
Arik waited.
Nothing.
"Liam."
"One minute."
It was twenty-three.
Arik eventually crossed the room, wrapped both arms around Liam from behind, and rested his chin against his hair.
Liam continued adjusting the model.
"This is interference."
"This is marriage preparation."
"We are not married yet."
"Practice."
That finally earned him a smile.
Liam turned in his arms and kissed him.
Arik decided the laboratory could remain.
The weeks shortened.
The palace changed with them.
Ceremonial banners appeared along the principal galleries. Old imperial halls sealed for generations were opened, restored, and illuminated. The Golden Court began rehearsing a coronation none of them had expected to witness in their lifetime.
The Gate became the center of an entirely different operation.
Engineers worked beside arcanists around the clock.
External communication protocols were prepared for the moment contact became possible. Diplomatic records were updated. Arrival halls that had not received foreign guests in centuries were inspected, reinforced, and staffed.
Wrohan waited on the other side.
Agaron waited.
The rest of the world did not yet know exactly what would happen when Nuria opened again.
Nuria did.
Or at least it intended to look as though it did.
Three weeks before the ceremony, Deira began changing.
Gold appeared everywhere.
The currents beneath the suspended districts strengthened as the Core responded to preparations around the sovereign. Ancient formations woke in sections of the capital that had remained dormant since Goliath’s death. Bridges glowed brighter after sunset. Old imperial symbols appeared beneath streets and walls as systems recognized that the succession was finally approaching completion.
Liam could feel it through Arik.
On the final evening before ceremonial isolation began, Liam stood with Arik on the balcony outside their private rooms.
His final ceremonial clothing waited in the dressing rooms.
Arik’s coronation regalia had been secured in the imperial sanctuary.
The marriage documents were complete.
The Core physicians had finished their examinations.
Below them, Deira burned gold against the dark.
Far beyond the palace, the Gate complex shone brighter than Liam had ever seen it.
Tomorrow, foreign-access systems would begin their final activation sequence.
Soon Arik would be crowned.
Soon they would marry before Nuria.
And after centuries of silence, an empire the world had learned to treat as lost would open its doors again.
Liam slipped his hand into Arik’s.
Arik looked down at him.
Neither needed to say it.
The waiting was almost over.