Chapter 341: The Serpent

Chapter 341: Chapter 341: The Serpent

Liam had been with his family for almost an hour before anyone mentioned Ray.

Considering the people gathered around the small terrace table, that was probably a record.

The eastern gardens stepped down from the palace in broad levels of dark stone and silver-leafed trees, with narrow channels of water running between flower beds that had survived seventy-seven years behind the Gate without ever learning what abandonment meant. Beyond the balustrade, Deira stretched toward the mountains, bright beneath the late afternoon sun.

Enia sat beside Liam with one hand curled around a cup she had forgotten to drink from.

Henry occupied the chair on her other side, his jacket open now that they were away from reception officials, while Mirelle had settled opposite them with her shoes tucked slightly beneath her chair.

Rex stood near the railing.

He had been there for several minutes, looking over the city rather than at any of them.

Liam watched him.

"You can say it."

Rex glanced over his shoulder.

"I wasn’t avoiding it."

"You have inspected the same tower four times."

"That tower is interesting."

"It is a residential transit hub."

Rex sighed and returned to the table.

Mirelle looked between them. "This is about Ray."

Enia’s fingers tightened around her cup.

Liam noticed.

Rex had sent everything the moment Wrohan confirmed the execution records, and Liam had read the file beside Arik in their private office two months earlier.

Ray Canmore had been executed on the same day the Gate opened.

The sentence had been carried out exactly as scheduled.

Liam had stared at the timestamp for a long time.

Then Rex had sent the evidence from Lab V.

Cain’s DNA had been everywhere around the Gate chamber.

Blood, tissue, and microscopic fragments scattered across surfaces around the activation structure as though whatever had happened had not killed him so much as pulled him apart and taken the rest.

Consumed.

That had been the word Liam eventually used.

The Gate had consumed Cain while opening.

Enia finally put her cup down.

"I still hate that those two things happened on the same day."

"So do I," Liam said.

Henry rested his forearm along the table, close enough to Enia that their sleeves touched.

Rex sat opposite Liam.

"It is too precise to ignore."

"I wasn’t ignoring it."

"I know."

Rex had changed little outwardly since arriving, but Liam had already noticed the exhaustion beneath his eyes. Ray had been Liam’s father.

He had also been Rex’s half-brother.

Their family tree had never been particularly interested in simplicity.

Ray had been one of Felix’s children, tied into the same lineage that had connected Rex through George, the former king of Wrohan. Rex had grown up with one history of that family.

Liam had inherited another.

Felix sat at the center of both, like rot inside wood.

Mirelle folded her hands in her lap.

"You and Arik believe Felix arranged both?"

Liam looked toward her.

"We believe the timing was intentional."

"That is not quite the same thing."

"No."

He appreciated that she understood the distinction.

There was evidence, but there was also a large, infuriating space where evidence should have been.

Liam leaned forward slightly.

"Cain was physically at the Gate when it opened. Whatever activation occurred used enough ether to destroy him. Ray was executed elsewhere at almost the exact point the Gate became active."

Enia’s face had gone very still.

"And both were Felix’s sons."

"Yes."

Henry’s expression hardened. "You think he needed them."

Liam nodded.

"Their ether, certainly."

"And their souls?" Mirelle asked.

"That is the part we cannot prove."

Rex looked toward him.

"But you think it."

Liam met his eyes.

"Yes."

The answer settled heavily between them.

A breeze moved through the terrace, stirring Liam’s loose brown hair against the collar of his charcoal jacket. He pushed it back absently, then rested his hand against the table beside the black-gold brooch holding his mate stone.

Gold and violet shifted faintly inside it.

Enia noticed.

Her gaze softened for half a second before returning to his face.

"Why would Felix sacrifice his own children?"

Liam’s expression did not change.

"Because they were useful."

Enia closed her eyes.

Henry’s hand covered hers immediately.

Liam regretted the bluntness only because it hurt her, not because he believed it was wrong.

"He may not have known Ray’s execution would happen that exact day," Henry said.

Rex shook his head.

"No."

Everyone looked at him.

Rex’s expression was cold now.

"Felix knew."

Liam waited.

"The execution schedule was public enough that anyone with hearing would know about it."

"That still isn’t proof," Liam said.

"No. But Felix did not build plans around hope."

That Liam agreed with.

Over the past two months, he and Arik had gone over the sequence repeatedly, usually late at night when the palace had finally become quiet enough for them to think without another ambassador requesting recognition or another ministry discovering that seventy-seven-year-old regulations had become applicable again.

Felix had wanted Nuria back.

That part Liam considered almost certain.

The question was why.

"The Gate kept Nuria hidden," Mirelle said. "Even from memory."

"Yes."

"And Felix found a way to force it open?"

"With Cain inside the activation chamber and Ray dying somewhere else at the same time," Liam said. "That is our working theory."

Enia looked at him sharply.

"Then Ray’s execution was part of the key."

"Possibly."

"Liam."

He held her gaze.

"I won’t tell you it was certain when it isn’t."

His mother exhaled slowly.

Rex leaned back in his chair.

"Two sons."

Liam looked at him.

Rex’s dark expression had become almost unreadable.

"One consumed by the Gate," he continued, "and one executed precisely when the Gate opened."

Henry’s jaw tightened.

"That is not coincidence."

"No," Liam said. "Probably not."

Mirelle looked toward the palace.

"Does Arik know everything Rex sent?"

"Everything."

"And what does he think Felix wanted?"

Liam glanced toward the western wing, where Arik was currently trapped with his own family.

"He thinks Felix wanted Nuria accessible again."

"That seems obvious," Enia said.

"It is."

Liam’s fingers tapped once against the table.

"The problem is what comes after."

Rex watched him.

Liam continued.

"Opening the Gate was not necessarily the objective. It may only have been the first requirement."

Henry frowned. "For what?"

"We don’t know."

That was what bothered Liam.

Felix was not impulsive.

He did not burn two pieces that valuable merely to admire the fire afterward.

If he had spent years preparing identities, routes, research, and whatever mechanism had used Cain and Ray to violate the Gate, then Nuria’s return had served something larger.

Mirelle went pale.

"You think he planned beyond opening it."

"I think assuming he didn’t would be negligent."