"Send for Severin to secure the palace," Arik ordered. "Lord Liam does not have clearance to approach it within a ten-mile radius."
Liam stopped struggling over his shoulder.
The silence should have warned Arik.
It warned the guards.
By the time the physicians finished confirming that the fragment had not visibly damaged Liam’s mark, channels, or core, Liam had progressed beyond irritation into a cold, concentrated fury that followed them all the way back to the private imperial wing.
Now he paced across the study with his arms folded tightly over his chest.
Arik stood beside the desk, reviewing the preliminary scan results on a suspended display. He had removed his formal coat, but the loss of one layer had done nothing to make him appear less severe.
"You carried me through the palace," Liam said.
"You kept attempting to negotiate your release."
"Because I am an adult."
"Your recent behavior has produced insufficient evidence."
Liam turned so sharply that blue-white ether stirred around his ankles. "Do not."
Arik lifted his gaze from the report.
Liam was not teasing. He was not performing outrage to gain sympathy or attempting to distract Arik with an argument about technical definitions.
He was genuinely angry.
"You do not get to treat me like a disobedient child because you are frightened," Liam said. "You do not get to decide where I can go, confiscate my tools, or order guards to carry me away if I approach something you dislike and then call it protection."
"You concealed foreign ether inside your mark."
"I concealed the knowledge of it."
"That distinction is not helping you."
"It matters to me."
Arik dismissed the display with a hard movement. "You knew something connected to Felix and the Gate was embedded in your body. Instead of informing me or a physician, you took tools and attempted to enter the one palace where it reacted."
"Because that palace may contain the explanation."
"And it may contain the mechanism that put it inside you."
"Exactly."
Arik stared at him. "You say that as though it supports your position."
"It does."
"No, Liam. It supports evacuating the entire district and sending machines inside before any living person crosses the threshold."
"Machines cannot identify everything I can."
"Then you will examine their data."
"That is not the same as examining the system."
"It is considerably safer."
"I do not care."
The words landed harder than either of them expected.
Arik went still.
Liam’s anger did not allow him to withdraw them.
"I do not care about doing this from a safe room while someone else decides what is important enough to show me," he continued. "I do not care about watching through a screen while technicians who do not understand the Gate systems dismantle evidence before I can see it in context. I want to investigate the palace."
Arik crossed the room.
He did not rush, but each step carried enough contained force that the ether lighting dimmed as he passed beneath it.
"You do not care about your safety," he repeated.
"Not more than the investigation."
"I do."
"That does not give you ownership of every decision I make."
"No. The bond, the imperial security protocols, and the fact that you are carrying corrupted sovereign ether give me the authority to stop you from walking into the source of it."
"You have not even taken the oath."
"I do not need a crown to stop my mate from killing himself."
"I am not trying to kill myself."
"You simply do not care whether it happens."
Liam’s jaw tightened. "That is not what I said."
"It is precisely what you said."
"I said the risk is worth accepting."
"You do not know the risk."
"Neither do you."
"That is why we investigate from a distance."
Liam turned away and resumed pacing, too furious to remain still. "Distance destroys context. Remote scanners will identify active conduits, ether density, structural modifications, and whatever substances remain detectable after seventy-two years. They will not tell me what Felix intended, which systems were used together, or why that palace recognized the fragment as transferred authority."
"Then we send you every recording."
"I need to be there."
"No."
Liam spun back toward him. "Stop saying that."
"Stop presenting me with situations in which it is the only reasonable answer."
"You are not being reasonable. You are panicking elegantly."
"And you are being careless with your life because you are bored and angry."
The accusation struck.
Liam’s ether flared.
"I am not doing this because I am bored."
"You began because you were bored."
"I began because every person in this palace has spent days deciding what I may know, where I may go, and what I am permitted to touch."
"You had been capable of using your ether for less than twenty-four hours."
"And everyone immediately behaved as though recovery meant I should sit quietly and be grateful."
"It means your body has only just stopped failing."
"My body is mine."
"Yes," Arik said, his voice suddenly harsher. "And I have watched it poisoned, torn through a Gate, deprived of ether, nearly stripped of its channels, and examined every morning for signs that it might be carrying our child. Forgive me for failing to become casual about the possibility of losing it."
Liam made a sharp, frustrated sound and dragged both hands through his hair. "I refuse to become a decorative consort kept behind a screen because everyone finds my safety more convenient than my competence."
Arik’s expression changed.
"That is what you think I am doing?"
"You banned my ether signature from buildings without telling me. You instructed the household system to reject my requests. You bought a hotel to stop me from leaving our bed. Now you have created a ten-mile exclusion zone around the only evidence we have."
"The hotel was excessive," Arik conceded.
Liam blinked, briefly derailed.
"It is surprising that you admit it, but there is still everything else."
"Eshara—"
"No. Do not use that now." Liam glared at him. "You do not get to soften me with that name every time you refuse to listen."
Arik’s expression tightened, but he inclined his head once.
"Very well. Let us approach this differently." His voice became quieter, though there was nothing gentle in it. "Would you allow me to enter that palace alone?"
Liam frowned. "That is not the same."
"Would you let me approach it knowing its poison might seep through the cracks in my soul?"
The question cut through Liam’s anger so cleanly that, for a moment, he had no answer.
Arik did not allow him time to construct one.
"Would you stand here while I crossed that bridge, knowing Felix designed the building to react to Goliath’s ether? Knowing I am still not whole, that my channels do not exist as they should, and that whatever remains inside those walls once accelerated the destruction of this soul?"
Liam’s jaw tightened.
"I would go with you."
"That was not my question."
"I would not let you enter alone."