Chapter 533: Normal eyes

Arion remained seated for several seconds after Elias finished speaking, partly because the phrase their king continued irritating him on principle and partly because every answer the soldier provided seemed determined to create three additional problems.

"There are many of you still inside," Arion repeated. "And they know I’m here."

"Yes."

"Then what exactly are they expecting?"

Elias looked at him.

Arion waited.

The expression that crossed the former soldier’s face was not confusion so much as disbelief that Arion genuinely required clarification.

"They want to return."

Arion frowned.

"To where?"

"To you."

"That makes no sense."

Elias stared at him.

"I never left."

The silence lasted long enough that Arion became aware of Hendrik shifting somewhere beyond the observation glass.

Elias slowly lowered the empty coffee cup onto the small table beside the medical bed.

Then he gave Arion a look.

Not particularly respectful.

Not remotely subtle.

Arion raised one eyebrow.

"What?"

"You have dedicated military units whose purpose for almost a century has been locating and killing infected creatures before they reach inhabited territory."

Arion said nothing.

Elias continued, apparently deciding diplomacy was no longer useful.

"You have fortified perimeters around the forest, armed patrols, thermal surveillance, attack drones, evacuation protocols, and standing orders that classify anything coming out of those territories as hostile."

Arion considered that.

"Fair."

"You are asking why the knights did not simply come home."

"When phrased that way, I understand the difficulty."

Elias leaned back against the raised medical bed.

"Most of them cannot walk into a checkpoint and introduce themselves."

"No."

"They look worse than I did."

That caught Arion’s attention.

"How much worse?"

"It depends on how long they have been infected, what wounded them, and what their original pheromonal profile was. Some still resemble people from a distance. Others don’t."

Arion thought of the black armor covering Elias’s back, the elongated limbs and claws, the shape that had looked human only because the drone had first reduced him to a thermal outline.

"And they expect me to restore them."

"They hope you can."

"That is different."

Elias nodded.

"Yes."

Arion appreciated that answer.

No assumption that because Dominic had once controlled the infected, Arion automatically understood a biological mechanism no living physician had documented.

"Would they come if I called them?"

Elias hesitated.

"Probably."

"Probably is not sufficient when we are discussing dozens of infected humans."

"No."

"And I am not calling an unknown number of transformed people toward an inhabited perimeter until we know whether they remain stable once restored."

"That would be stupid."

Arion looked at him.

Elias shrugged one shoulder.

"I was a soldier before all this."

"Apparently an opinionated one."

"I had eight years to develop several."

Arion almost smiled.

Behind the glass, someone made a sound suspiciously close to a cough.

Probably Otto.

Arion rested one ankle over the opposite knee and considered the possibilities more carefully.

"We need to verify what you’ve told us, compare it against Dominic’s records, determine whether your physiology remains stable, and establish whether there is any external influence still affecting you."

Elias nodded.

"That makes sense."

"You are remarkably calm about potentially remaining in medical containment."

"I slept in mud, ate things I would prefer not to identify, and spent eight years with a wound reopening inside my body while my hands turned into claws."

He glanced around the climate-controlled medical suite.

"There is coffee here."

Arion accepted the logic.

"Victor will be unbearable."

"I gathered that."

"He is also extremely good."

"I gathered that too."

Arion stood.

The conversation had already lasted considerably longer than Hendrik wanted, and there was enough information now to occupy the intelligence division, medical board, imperial archives, and probably Otto for several weeks.

Elias shifted as though preparing to lie back.

Arion reached the door controls.

"Your family will be contacted once Hendrik confirms their status and we determine how to approach them."

Elias’s expression changed immediately.

"Thank you."

"We will not tell them you are alive until you approve the circumstances."

The tension around Elias’s mouth eased.

"Thank you," he repeated, quieter this time.

Arion touched the door control.

"Wait."

He looked back.

Elias pointed toward his own face.

"Can you get rid of these?"

Arion followed the gesture.

The black eyes.

"You are asking me?"

"Yes."

"I am not an ophthalmologist."

For the first time, Elias looked genuinely amused.

"That has nothing to do with ophthalmology."

Arion folded his arms.

"And what exactly do you believe I can do?"

"Make me look normal."

"You already look normal."

Elias gave him another look.

Arion sighed.

"Aside from the eyes."

"The older knights said controllers could restore appearances completely if they wanted to."

Arion’s expression sharpened.

"The older knights told you that."

"Not in conversation. It is one of those things that survived in the shared memories."

"Dominic did this?"

"Apparently."

Arion looked toward the observation glass.

Victor was undoubtedly having some form of medical crisis on the other side.

Good.

"You understand that I have no idea how."

"You did not know how to fix the rest of me either."

That was unfortunately true.

Arion stepped back toward the bed.

Elias straightened.

"No sudden movements."

"I’m sitting down."

"That was mostly for everyone watching us."

Arion stopped a few feet away and studied his eyes.

The black extended across everything—iris, pupil, sclera—leaving no separation between structures from ordinary observation, although Victor’s earlier scans had confirmed that the eye itself remained anatomically human beneath the pigmentation.

"What color were they?"

"Blue."

Arion nodded once.

Then he tried to determine what, exactly, normal meant.

A blond man in his thirties, tall and lean from military service, with ordinary hands, ordinary skin, an ordinary back, and blue eyes that allowed him to look into a mirror without seeing the forest staring back.

Arion released a controlled breath.

Vetiver spread through the room.

The secondary note followed beneath it almost immediately, darker and faintly metallic, while thin black channels surfaced along Arion’s wrists and disappeared beneath the cuffs of his shirt.

Elias stiffened.

Arion felt him.

Not thoughts this time.

Something biological.

A structure that did not belong where it was.

He focused on the eyes.

"Enough."

The word came quietly.

Elias blinked.

Nothing happened.

Arion frowned.

Then something shifted beneath the black surface.

Elias sucked in a breath.

The darkness retreated slowly from the outer edges first, withdrawing across the sclera like spilled ink being pulled backward, leaving clear white behind it.

Arion did not move.

The black contracted toward the iris.

Color appeared beneath it.

Blue.

Pale at first, then deeper as the last traces of corruption withdrew into the pupil until only the ordinary dark center remained.

Elias blinked again.

Blue irises.

White sclera.

Completely human eyes.

Arion pulled his pheromones back immediately.

The black lines disappeared from his own skin.

For several seconds, Elias did nothing.

Then he turned toward the reflective surface of the dark observation window.

He stared at himself.

His hand rose slowly to his face.

"Oh."

Arion watched him.

Elias blinked once.

Twice.

His eyes remained blue.

Behind the glass, the communication system activated so abruptly that Victor’s voice nearly overlapped Hendrik’s.

"Do not touch anything."

Arion looked toward the ceiling.

Elias laughed.

A real laugh this time, startled and rough from lack of use, while he continued staring at his own reflection.

Arion shook his head.

Apparently he could restore the eyes too.

That was going to make Victor completely intolerable.