Chapter 334: Permanent

Chapter 334: Chapter 334: Permanent

The room obeyed.

Liam barely had time to understand what he had said before Arik’s ether broke loose.

Gold flooded the chamber.

Not the controlled sovereign glow Liam had watched spread across Nuria’s hours earlier. This was denser, hotter, and stripped of every restraint Arik normally imposed on himself. It poured from him in waves and struck Liam’s ether hard enough that the platform beneath them shuddered.

Violet answered.

The color spilled from Liam almost violently, threading through the gold instead of resisting it.

The black-glass walls cracked with light.

Arik went still above him.

His forehead pressed against Liam’s shoulder, breath rough against overheated skin, while the ether surrounding them twisted tighter.

Liam felt it everywhere.

The sensation reached somewhere beneath flesh and bone, catching on something that had existed between them since Arik first marked him and had never quite settled correctly afterward.

The incomplete place.

Liam inhaled sharply.

Arik lifted his head.

Their eyes met.

Gold burned through Arik’s irises.

"Do you feel that?"

Liam could only nod.

The core had repaired Arik’s soul.

Liam had understood that intellectually.

Understanding what it meant while Arik’s ether found the damaged edges of their old bond was entirely different.

Something pulled.

Liam’s hand flew to Arik’s chest.

The room disappeared.

For one impossible moment he saw nothing except threads.

Thousands of them.

Gold wound through violet in intricate layers, some old enough that Liam somehow knew they belonged to the first mark, others brilliant and new. Several ended abruptly where Arik’s soul had once been fractured.

Then those broken threads moved.

They reached for him.

Liam’s breath caught.

The connection closed.

A pressure inside his chest eased so suddenly that he realized only then that it had always been there.

Arik made a low, strained sound.

Liam caught his face between both hands.

"Arik."

"I’m here."

The answer came immediately.

The chamber brightened until Liam could no longer distinguish ceiling from walls.

Their ether gathered above them.

At first it resembled mist.

Gold and violet circled one another in increasingly tight spirals, collapsing toward a point no larger than Liam’s fingertip.

The air hummed.

Liam watched despite the exhaustion dragging heavily through every muscle.

"That’s it."

Arik looked upward.

The sphere compressed again.

Light hardened.

Something small dropped.

Arik caught it before it could strike Liam.

The chamber breathed around them, the walls glowing faintly through thousands of illuminated fractures, but the violent pulse of ether had stopped.

Arik opened his hand.

A stone rested against his palm.

Liam forgot every complaint he had made about the ceremony.

It was beautiful.

Both golden and purple colors existed inside it without ever fully blending, thin currents turning through a translucent core like liquid light. When Arik shifted his hand, the colors moved toward each other and separated again.

Liam reached for it.

The instant his fingertip touched the surface, warmth climbed through his hand and settled behind his ribs.

The completed bond answered.

His mouth parted.

"Oh."

Arik watched him instead of the stone.

Liam looked up.

"That is ours."

"Yes."

No craftsman could reproduce it.

Nobody else could carry it.

The stone existed because they did.

Liam curled his fingers around Arik’s hand, trapping the gem between their palms.

For several seconds, neither spoke.

Then Liam smiled.

Small at first.

Arik’s expression changed immediately.

Liam knew that look.

It was the exact expression Arik got whenever Liam accidentally gave him something emotionally devastating.

"We did it," Liam said.

Arik bent and kissed him.

There was nothing hurried about it now.

The chamber no longer seemed intent on tearing every reaction out of them. Its light had settled into a muted glow, gold and violet moving slowly through the glass walls.

Liam kissed Arik back until his exhaustion caught up with him.

Then he let his head fall against the platform.

"Good."

Arik brushed damp hair away from his forehead.

"Good?"

"The stone exists. The mark is complete. The ceremony successfully concluded."

Arik stared at him.

Liam closed his eyes.

"I am going to eat something."

No answer.

"And then sleep."

Still nothing.

Liam opened one eye.

Arik had not moved.

His hair hung disordered around his face, the remaining sovereign gold at the ends almost indistinguishable from the ether still drifting across his shoulders.

There was something distinctly dangerous about his expression.

Liam’s suspicion returned.

"What?"

Arik placed the stone carefully into the shallow ceremonial recess at the edge of the platform.

Then he looked back at Liam.

"We are not finished."

Liam stared.

"The stone formed."

"It did."

"The bond completed."

"Yes."

"The entire purpose of this humiliating ritual has been achieved."

Arik’s mouth curved.

Liam pushed himself onto his elbows.

"Arik."

"My eshara."

"That tone is unacceptable."

Arik leaned over him.

Liam pressed one hand against his chest.

It achieved absolutely nothing.

"You said the ceremony was for completing the bond."

"It was."

"Then we leave."

Arik kissed the corner of his mouth.

Liam turned his face away before he could be distracted.

"No."

Another kiss landed against his cheek.

"Arik."

"The room is sealed until our ether settles."

Liam froze.

Slowly, he looked toward the door.

The doorway through which they had entered was gone.

Black glass covered the entire wall.

Liam stared at it.

Then at Arik.

"You neglected to mention that."

"I may have decided there were enough details upsetting you."

Liam’s expression became murderous.

"Open it."

"I cannot."

"You are the emperor."

"The chamber predates me."

"Command it."

Arik laughed against Liam’s throat.

Liam shoved at his shoulder.

"Do not laugh. How long?"

Arik glanced toward the walls, apparently judging the slow movement of light beneath their surface.

"A while."

Liam narrowed his eyes.

"That is not a unit of time."

"No."

"Minutes?"

Arik did not answer.

Liam’s horror deepened.

"Hours?"

Arik kissed him again.

That was answer enough.

Liam dropped backward with a groan.

"I should have gone to Wrohan..."

Arik’s hand settled at Liam’s waist.

Liam immediately looked at him, then at the vanished door and then toward the newly formed mate stone glowing patiently beside them.

The stone had formed between them.

Exactly as promised.

Unfortunately, Liam had made one critical error in his expectations.

He had assumed Arik would consider that the end of the ceremony.

Arik clearly had other plans.