Arik’s gaze moved slowly over Liam’s face, as though searching for the precise point at which observation had become accusation.
"Because desire is not the only consideration."
"It appears to be the only one you have avoided discussing."
"I have discussed it."
"You have discussed military authority, conflicting sovereign systems, territorial obligations, your succession, Cecil’s suitability, the council’s charming preference for coercion, and several theoretical ways the palace might attempt to kill you." Liam tightened his grip around Arik’s wrist. "You have not explained why a man who wants Nuria, believes Agaron would be safe without him, and may need full sovereign authority to reopen the only Gate home is still refusing to take the oath."
Arik’s expression became unreadable.
The light in the room dimmed around them, the thin veins of gold beneath the walls withdrawing until the palace appeared to be holding its breath.
Liam noticed.
"So it is listening."
"It is always listening."
"That is invasive."
"It was built around Goliath’s core."
"And now it is attempting to rebuild itself around yours."
Arik looked down at the hand holding his wrist.
Liam did not release him.
"Tell me."
"You already know."
"I know you are afraid. I do not know which part frightens you enough to keep you standing between two thrones while both empires begin making decisions without you."
Something sharp crossed Arik’s face.
"Do not reduce this to fear."
"I am not reducing it." Liam’s voice softened, though his grip remained firm. "You do not want to uncover more of Goliath’s memories. You do not want his grief—the loss of Hugo and Seraphina, his sons, his empire, and the knowledge that he failed to protect any of them."
The bond recoiled.
Not from Liam, but from the names.
For one terrible instant, grief flooded through it with enough force to steal Liam’s breath. It was not a memory in any orderly sense. There were no clear faces or rooms, only impressions sharpened by loss: the weight of a small sleeping body against a chest, Seraphina laughing somewhere behind him, Hugo’s hand closing around his sleeve, two young voices calling from a corridor that no longer existed.
Then blood.
Silence.
Years of silence.
Arik tore his wrist free and turned away.
The palace gold vanished completely.
Liam remained still, allowing his breathing to settle before he spoke again.
"You have been avoiding the private rooms."
"I entered the suite."
"Once."
"I had no reason to return."
"You have every reason. You simply do not want to discover what else is waiting there."
Arik crossed toward the windows, his movements controlled too carefully to be calm.
"It is not only that." He stared out over the hidden capital. "Goliath used the part of his soul that grieved to shield Nuria. That pain held the empire together after everything else failed."
His hand rose to the glass, though he stopped before touching it.
"It feels like cheating," he said quietly, "to inherit all that power without carrying the pain that paid for it."
Liam watched him for several seconds.
Then he pushed the blanket aside.
Arik turned immediately. "Stay seated."
"I am not crossing the room."
"You were considering it."
"I was considering throwing something at you, but the collar case appears expensive."
Arik’s expression remained grim.
Liam settled back into the chair and folded the blanket over his legs again.
"You do not need to suffer before you are permitted to do the right thing."
"That is not what I said."
"It is precisely what you said, only dressed in sovereign guilt."
Arik’s gaze sharpened.
Liam did not look away.
"Goliath’s grief may have protected Nuria," he continued, "but that does not mean you must experience every moment of it before your protection becomes legitimate. Pain is not a tax you pay to deserve power."
"He paid it."
"Felix made him pay it."
The correction cut through the room.
Arik went still.
Liam leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
"You keep speaking as though Goliath chose suffering as the price of saving his empire. He did not. He was poisoned. His consorts were murdered. His sons were killed. His people were trapped, and his body was dismantled slowly enough that he understood every part of what was happening."
The gold beneath the distant walls flickered once.
"He used what remained," Liam said. "That is not the same as wanting you to inherit the wound."
"You think he would discard it?"
"No."
The answer came too quickly for Arik to misunderstand it.
Liam’s expression softened.
"I do not think Goliath wanted to discard the pain at all."
Arik turned fully toward him.
"Grief is a powerful emotion," Liam continued. "Perhaps one of the strongest. It does not fade simply because the body fails, and it rarely obeys reason. If he needed an anchor powerful enough to shield an entire nation after his death, grief would have been useful."
"Useful," Arik repeated, faintly appalled.
"I am an engineer."
"That does not make grief a component."
"Anything holding a system together is a component."
Arik stared at him.
Liam lifted one shoulder. "A tragic one."
The palace remained quiet, but something moved inside Arik.
The part of him that had once been Goliath stirred beneath his thoughts, not resisting Liam’s conclusion but leaning toward it with an exhausted certainty. There was no desire there to inflict the same agony upon another life, no demand that Arik suffer before taking what had been left for him.
Only purpose.
Goliath had not preserved his grief because he considered pain noble.
He had preserved it because it had been the one force Felix could not poison out of him.
Love had weakened beneath isolation. Hope had been stripped apart year by year. His body had failed. His ether had fractured.
Grief had remained.
Arik’s hand closed slowly over his chest.
Liam noticed. "He agrees with me."
"You cannot know that."
"The bond becomes warmer whenever the part of you that is Goliath approves of something I say."
"That may be irritation."
"It is far too affectionate to be irritation."
A pulse of gold moved once through Arik’s eyes.
Liam raised a brow.
"There."
Arik looked away.
The palace light returned in thin, cautious lines, flowing beneath the walls as though something buried deep in the sovereign system had begun listening again.
Liam continued more quietly.
"Goliath used grief because grief was what he had left. It became fuel. That does not mean he wanted the person who followed him to be broken in exactly the same places."
"He expected himself to return."
"Yes. But perhaps he hoped that whatever returned would be strong enough to carry the result without needing to relive the cause."
"And if the oath returns it anyway?"
"Then we deal with it."
Arik released a dark breath. "You make that sound insultingly simple."
"It will not be simple. But there is a difference between remembering pain and believing you deserved to receive it."
Arik’s gaze moved toward him again.
"You did not betray Nuria," Liam said. "Goliath did not betray Nuria. The people trapped here did not fail because their sovereign was weak."
The gold in the walls sharpened.
"The one who should pay for all of this is Felix."