Chapter 171: Chapter 171: Done.
Arik looked at his watch while descending the marble stairs of the royal palace.
If he took the car now, he would have Liam by his side in half an hour, and then they would still have time for dinner before Arik’s schedule continued with his duties for Agaron.
It was not ideal, but the important parts had been handled.
George was dead.
Ray was detained.
Felix had lost two pieces before lunch.
And Liam was waiting.
’My eshara,’ Arik thought, and something warm moved through his chest, soft enough that it almost did not belong to the day.
He had chosen it for Liam and then promised him he would only say it when they were alone, because Liam was strange about tenderness in public, and Arik had no intention of doing anything that made Liam uncomfortable.
Unfortunately, they were never alone for long.
The thought irritated him more than it should have.
Liam should have been in his rooms by now. Or in Arik’s rooms. Preferably both, because Arik had already begun considering the legal and architectural implications of making every meaningful space belong to them equally. Liam would likely call that excessive while he would pretend he was not pleased.
Arik’s mouth curved faintly.
It was a rare, private expression. One that belonged entirely to the man standing across the city, most likely arguing with a tailor about his practical taste, completely unaware of the bloodline politics that had just shifted continents.
Arik reached the bottom of the sweeping marble stairs, the heavy Wrohan air feeling marginally cleaner now that George Canmore was no longer breathing it. He began walking toward the waiting line of armored Agaron vehicles.
Then, the secure comms unit in his ear clicked open.
Arik did not break his stride. He expected the logistics team to confirm the perimeter or perhaps Stanford to call to announce that Liam had survived the fitting.
"Speak," Arik said mildly.
"Your Highness."
Arik stopped.
It was Stanford. But the cadence of his voice was completely wrong. It was deadened, stripped of its usual calm professionalism and replaced with the rigid, hollow tension of an elite operative reporting a catastrophic breach.
"Felix Canmore has taken Liam."
The faint smile on Arik’s mouth shattered into something carved from absolute zero.
The warmth in his chest, the soft, human thing that had just been thinking the word ’eshara,’ vanished instantly. In its place, a violent, world-ending cold flooded his veins.
"Explain," Arik whispered.
The single word dropped the ambient temperature in the palace courtyard from a nice summer day to freezing winter.
Stanford delivered the report with brutal efficiency. He did not spare himself. He detailed the ambush at the atelier. The localized, invisible poison perimeter. The blood dripping from the assistant’s nose. The direct threat to Enia and Mirelle.
"He demanded an hour, my lord," Stanford said, his voice tightening with barely restrained violence. "Liam stepped into the car to save everyone. They are moving toward the western district. The Shadows are in pursuit, maintaining a two-mile distance to avoid triggering a lethal poison response inside the cabin. We have their real-time trajectory."
To say Arik was angry was a profound misunderstanding of the Agaron royal line.
Crack.
The solid marble beneath Arik’s boots groaned, then fractured. A jagged, white-blue fissure of pure ether exploded outward from his heel, tearing through the pristine stone of the courtyard. The temperature plummeted so violently that the ambient moisture in the air flash-froze, turning into thick, glittering snow that fell only within a ten-foot radius of the prince.
His royal guards, trailing a respectful distance behind, immediately stopped. They did not reach for their weapons. They knew better than to move, to speak, or to even breathe too heavily when Arik’s aura bled into the world like this.
"He wants an hour," Arik said. His voice no longer sounded human. It was a flat, vibrating frequency that sounded like tectonic plates colliding under a glacier.
"Yes, my lord," Stanford replied. "If we push the perimeter, Felix will flood the cabin. Liam..."
"Send me the coordinates," Arik cut him off, his golden eyes flaring with a sickening, brilliant light that promised absolute slaughter. "He does not get an hour. He gets exactly the amount of time it takes me to cross this cursed city."
"Felix’s car route was to the Canmore Manor."
Canmore Manor.
Arik stopped walking toward the armored cars.
"They are parking now," Stanford added, the tension thick in his ear. "Your Highness, the Shadows are still moving into position..."
"Tell them to hold the perimeter," Arik said.
"Our vehicles are still ten minutes out."
"I am not taking a vehicle."
Arik reached up to his collar.
His fingers brushed against the heavy gold owl brooch pinned to his shirt. He kept it for Rex, for the engagement, and for Ray to be properly accused of treason.
It kept him from burning cities down too, but he was done now.
Arik closed his fist over the gold, crushing it.
The metal shrieked as it crumpled in his grip. The intricate ether-wards woven into the gold shattered with a sharp, violent hiss, burning a searing line across his palm. He did not care.
He dropped the ruined pieces of gold onto the frozen marble.
The moment the restraint broke, the world tilted.
The air around him violently warped. Pure, unchained ether flooded his channels, bottomless and terrifying, turning his golden eyes into something blinding and ancient. The pressure of it cracked the stone courtyard in a perfect circle around his shoes.
The Agaron guards instinctively took a step back.
Mezos lowered his head, sinking into the shadows.
They recognized the shift. The man standing there was no longer Prince Arik of Agaron. He was the Sovereign of Ruin, and his restraint was gone.
"I am already there," Arik said to Stanford.
He let the ether consume him.
Space folded. The heavy winter storm that had gathered around him violently collapsed inward, swallowing him whole in a flash of blinding, golden-white light.
With a deafening crack that shattered the remaining glass in the courtyard, Arik vanished.
