Chapter 339: Favorite

Chapter 339: Chapter 339: Favorite

By the time the first hour of the family visit had passed, Liam had been successfully stolen by his own relatives.

Arik had allowed it.

Enia had taken Liam toward the eastern gardens with Mirelle, Henry, and Rex, apparently under the impression that being reunited after more than a year entitled them to several uninterrupted hours.

Arik had objected only once.

Liam had kissed his cheek, informed him he would survive, and left.

Now Arik sat around a low table in one of the western private salons with his parents, Max, and Noah, discovering that family reunions became substantially less relaxing when everyone involved understood international law.

The salon opened onto a shaded terrace overlooking Deira. Afternoon light crossed the pale floor in long geometric bands, warming the dark wood table and the untouched tray of pastries someone had placed between them.

Gabriel had claimed the chair beside Arik.

Damian sat opposite.

Max had settled elegantly near the end of the table with coffee in one hand, looking entirely too comfortable for someone currently discussing the geopolitical consequences of his nephew accidentally inheriting an empire.

Noah had abandoned his formal coat across the back of his chair and was examining a Nurian diplomatic tablet.

"This is absurd," Noah said.

Arik leaned back. "You will need to be more specific."

"You were Crown Prince of Agaron."

"I remember."

"You disappeared."

"Yes."

"You returned as Emperor of Nuria."

"Technically, I did not return."

Noah looked up from the tablet.

"That distinction is exactly the problem."

Max took a sip of coffee. "I think the problem is that Damian spent almost thirty years preparing one son to inherit Agaron, only for the universe to assign him a different empire."

Damian’s expression remained flat.

"I have noticed."

Gabriel reached for one of the pastries.

"I warned you this might happen."

Damian looked at him.

"You warned me he would be difficult."

"That too."

Arik glanced between them.

Noah lowered the tablet.

Max smiled.

Gabriel broke the pastry neatly in half.

"You were born with sovereign gold eyes. We knew exactly whose soul you carried before the physicians finished cleaning you."

Arik’s mouth twitched.

He had heard the story before.

Many times.

Arik had been Goliath reborn.

His parents had known from the beginning.

What none of them had known was what that would eventually demand from him.

Max rested one elbow against the chair.

"To be fair, knowing your infant nephew is the reincarnation of an ancient sovereign does not necessarily prepare you for him disappearing through a Gate and returning with the sovereign territory attached."

"That was not in any of the historical records," Gabriel said.

"I checked," Damian added.

Noah stared at him.

"You checked whether Goliath had previously stolen an empire?"

"I checked everything concerning Goliath."

That sounded considerably more like Damian.

The humor faded when Noah pushed the tablet toward the center of the table.

"Sixteen governments have already submitted requests concerning old treaties."

"Twenty-three," Arik corrected.

Noah stared at him.

"Seven arrived this morning."

Max’s eyebrows rose. "They remembered quickly."

That was the strange part.

For approximately seventy-seven years, Nuria had not merely been inaccessible.

It had been difficult to remember.

The Gate had done more than isolate the empire. It had pushed Nuria out of active memory, leaving historical records scattered through archives where people read the words without truly questioning what had happened to the country they described.

Treaties remained filed away.

Trade agreements existed.

Maps showed pieces of territory that no modern government could properly explain.

Then the Gate opened.

Nuria returned.

And the world remembered.

Old maritime agreements. Trade privileges. Military guarantees. Research accords. Transit rights.

One government had already produced a treaty signed ninety-one years earlier and attempted to argue that Nuria still owed preferential mineral access under terms negotiated by a diplomat whose grandchildren were now elderly.

Arik had declined. Politely.

Liam had read the extraction provisions afterward and declined again with considerably more detail.

"Most of them will fail," Arik said. "The treaties were written for political conditions that no longer exist."

Damian nodded. "Some will still be legally inconvenient."

"They already are."

"And some states will argue that Nuria’s disappearance suspended the agreements rather than terminating them."

"That argument appeared yesterday."

Gabriel looked between them.

"You sound disturbingly pleased."

Arik glanced at his mother. "I am not pleased."

"You have your father’s expression."

"That explains nothing."

"It explains everything."

Max smiled into his cup.

Damian ignored both of them and studied the documents arranged across the table.

"What is Nuria’s position on Agaron’s agreements?"

Arik’s expression changed.

Noah noticed immediately.

"Oh, this should be good."

"Agaron’s agreements are being reviewed separately."

Max set down his coffee.

"Separately."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Arik looked at him.

Max smiled pleasantly.

Arik refused to reward him.

Noah did it for him.

"Because Agaron is the favorite."

Gabriel laughed.

Damian’s gaze remained fixed on Arik.

"A sovereign should avoid favorites."

"You taught me that."

"And yet?"

"Agaron is still the favorite."

That finally made Damian’s mouth move.

Max leaned back. "International diplomacy will be delighted."

"They do not need to be delighted."

Noah picked up the tablet again. "You understand that several governments are already accusing Nuria of preferential treatment."

"They are correct."

Gabriel turned toward him.

"Arik."

"What?"

"You are normally supposed to deny that."

"Why?"

"Because until recently you were Agaron’s crown prince."

"Exactly."

Gabriel stared at him.

Arik continued calmly.

"Agaron maintained records concerning Nuria when other countries forgot why those records mattered. Agaron continued studying the Gate. Agaron supported every attempt to determine what happened to us."

He paused.

"And Agaron never treated Goliath as mythology."

That mattered more than most governments would ever understand.

Damian and Gabriel had raised him knowing exactly whose soul lived inside him.

They had never treated Goliath as something possessing their son or waiting to replace him.

Goliath had been Arik.

Arik had been their child.

Both truths had existed together from the day his eyes opened.

Damian’s gaze sharpened slightly.

"And?"

Arik looked directly at his father.

"And my family is there."

The room quieted.

There were strategic reasons for favoring Agaron.

Compatible infrastructure. Established military cooperation. Reliable institutions. Decades of Gate research. Historical records are far more complete than those preserved elsewhere.

All of that was true.

None of it was the entire truth.

Gabriel reached across the table and laid his hand over Arik’s wrist.

"You know, when you were born, I thought knowing about Goliath was the difficult part."

Arik looked at him.

Gabriel’s dark brown eyes moved briefly toward the city outside.

"We knew what you were almost immediately. We simply assumed we would have years to understand what that meant."

"You had twenty-eight."

"Apparently insufficient."

Arik smiled faintly.

Gabriel’s thumb moved over his wrist.

"We always knew Nuria might matter to you one day."

Arik went still.

"We did not know it would take you from Agaron."

Arik looked toward the terrace.

Deira stretched through the mountains beyond it, ancient towers threaded with newly restored transit lines, ether structures glowing faintly beneath modern glass.

"No," he said. "Neither did I."

Damian spoke from across the table.

"But it did."

Arik met his father’s eyes.

"Yes."

"And you are staying."

It was not a question.

"Nuria needs its emperor."

Damian nodded.

There was no argument in his face.

He had raised Arik to understand precisely what sovereignty meant. He could hardly ask his son to abandon millions of people simply because the crown involved was not the one Damian had expected him to inherit.

Gabriel squeezed Arik’s wrist.

"And Liam?"

Arik’s gaze shifted automatically toward the gardens where his husband had disappeared with his family.

"He belongs here."

Gabriel smiled slightly.

"So do you."

Arik looked back at him.

His mother continued before he could answer.

"We knew you were Goliath from the moment you opened those ridiculous gold eyes. Perhaps we should have expected that eventually some ancient empire would come looking for you."

Max lifted his coffee.

"I personally blame Damian."

Damian looked at him.

"How?"

"You contributed the gold eyes."

"They are sovereign eyes."

"Still your fault."

Noah laughed.

Arik shook his head.

"The Gate did not exactly come looking for me."

Max raised an eyebrow. "You entered it and emerged nearly a head taller, bound to an imperial core, married, and in possession of Nuria."

"When you phrase it that way—"

"There is another way?"

"No."

Damian picked up the tablet Noah had abandoned.

"You know Cecil will come to see you after we return to Agaron?"

He asked it with a bright smile. On Damian, that expression meant trouble.

Arik narrowed his eyes.

"What did he do?"

"Nothing."

"Father."

Gabriel looked suspiciously interested in his pastry.

Max was already smiling.

Noah leaned back to enjoy whatever was coming.

Damian scrolled casually through the tablet.

"He merely has several things he would like to discuss with his beloved elder brother."

"That sentence contained a threat."

"I heard none."

"What things?"

Damian finally looked up.

"The crown."

Arik stared at him.

Max covered his mouth with his coffee cup.

Damian continued pleasantly.

"Apparently becoming Crown Prince in your stead has given Cecil several new opinions about you."