Chapter 342: Return

Chapter 342: Chapter 342: Return

The palace was too quiet without their families in it.

Arik noticed it the morning after the last transport departed, although he would have denied that phrasing if anyone asked.

For more than two weeks, the private wings had been occupied by relatives who ignored schedules, wandered into rooms without requesting permission, argued over breakfast, and treated the imperial residence as though ancient Nurian protocol had been designed primarily for their inconvenience.

Then duty reclaimed all of them.

Damian and Gabriel had Agaron.

Rex had Wrohan.

Max and Noah had responsibilities Arik had deliberately avoided examining too closely because discussing them usually produced another stack of documents.

Enia had extracted a promise from Liam that he would answer her calls, then immediately revised the arrangement and announced she would simply call every day instead.

Liam had accepted with the expression of someone recognizing an inevitable system failure and choosing not to fight it.

By the following afternoon, however, he had already returned to work.

Arik stood inside one of the upper administrative corridors while Kamal approached from the opposite end, a tablet tucked beneath one arm and a long dark coat moving around his boots. The restored palace had become increasingly busy since the borders reopened, but this section remained restricted enough that only guards and senior staff crossed the polished black floor with any regularity.

Through the windows, Deira disappeared into low morning clouds.

"You are looking for Liam," Kamal said.

Arik glanced at him.

"I know where Liam is."

Kamal’s expression suggested that answer had been technically correct and entirely unhelpful.

"He requested authorization for the trial chamber."

Arik stopped walking.

There it was.

He had known this was coming.

Liam had been watching the chamber for months, mentioning it occasionally with deceptive casualness while they dealt with diplomatic recognition, Felix, the Gate, and everything else that had made exploration inconvenient.

Now their families were gone.

The palace had stabilized.

Which meant Liam had apparently decided the universe had finally run out of excuses.

"He asked you?"

"He asked Cassian."

"That is worse."

"Cassian sent him to me."

"Reasonable."

"I sent him to you."

Arik looked at him.

Kamal’s mouth moved faintly.

"I am not becoming responsible for granting your husband access to an ancient trial mechanism connected to Goliath, Enki, and the Gate."

"You are very wise."

"I have survived this long."

Arik resumed walking.

Kamal fell into step beside him.

The trial chamber sat several levels beneath the central palace, beyond the public halls and administrative sectors, sealed behind security fields that had been reinforced twice since Nuria returned. Liam believed the room might contain information about how the Gate had been controlled before Felix interfered with it.

Arik suspected Liam was right.

That was precisely why he disliked the idea.

The Gate had already taken enough liberties with both of them.

"What exactly does he want to do?" Arik asked.

"Observe first."

"That means dismantle something later."

"Almost certainly."

Arik exhaled through his nose.

Kamal continued, "He has been reviewing the chamber records, Enki’s surviving data, and everything recovered from Lab V."

"I know."

"You gave him access."

"That does not mean I enjoy the consequences."

They reached the end of the corridor, where a narrow bridge connected the administrative wing to one of the older palace towers. Morning light filtered through the cloud cover, turning the distant gardens pale silver beneath them.

Arik stopped near the glass.

"If that room can tell us how the Gate was manipulated, I cannot keep him out indefinitely."

Kamal leaned one shoulder against the frame.

"No."

"And Felix wanted Nuria reopened."

"That remains the assumption."

"Which means whatever mechanism forced the Gate may still matter."

Kamal nodded.

Arik hated reasonable conclusions when they led somewhere dangerous.

Especially when Liam reached them first.

"He will not enter alone."

"I assumed that would be your first condition."

"It is."

"And the second?"

"No direct ether contact with anything until we understand what it is."

Kamal raised an eyebrow.

"You expect Liam to agree?"

"No."

"Then why phrase it as a condition?"

"So I can say I tried."

That earned a quiet laugh.

Arik was about to continue when Kamal’s expression shifted.

"There is another matter."

Arik turned toward him.

"Amara is coming."

For a moment, Arik said nothing.

Then his posture straightened.

"When?"

"She crossed into Wrohan airspace this morning and should reach the Nurian corridor within two days, depending on clearance."

Arik stared at him.

Amara. Goliath’s adopted daughter.

Nearly ninety years old now, although Arik’s memories of her belonged partly to another lifetime and partly to the months before the Gate swallowed him.

She had been staying at his estate in Wrohan when everything happened, undergoing treatment for channels damaged by poison severe enough that even Marin had warned recovery would be slow.

"How is she traveling?"

"With medical support."

"Marin?"

"No. He oversaw her for two months after you and Liam disappeared, then transferred her into long-term treatment once the worst damage stabilized."

Arik frowned.

"And after that?"

"Your estate continued supplying everything she required. Rex covered anything the estate could not."

That sounded exactly like Rex.

Arik looked out toward the clouded city.

For more than a year, while he had been trapped beyond the Gate with no way to contact anyone, people outside had continued maintaining pieces of his life because they had refused to accept that he was gone.

Kamal watched him quietly.

"Her channels?"

"Improved significantly. Not restored completely."

"They may never be."

"No."

Arik folded his arms.

"Why now?"

"She asked to come as soon as Nuria reopened."

"That was two months ago."

"She was not medically cleared."

Arik almost smiled.

That also sounded familiar.

"And now she is?"

"Barely enough that Marin stopped objecting in writing."

Arik looked toward him.

"So he is still objecting."

"Extensively."

That was reassuring in its own way.

If Marin had ceased complaining, Arik would have assumed something had gone catastrophically wrong.

Kamal adjusted the tablet beneath his arm.

"She specifically requested to see you before anything else."

Arik’s gaze returned to the distant city.

Unlike everyone else now reconstructing Nuria through archived treaties and fractured history, Amara had carried those memories continuously through the seventy-seven years the Gate forced the rest of the world to forget.

Arik’s attention sharpened.

"The trial chamber waits."

Kamal glanced at him.

"Liam will disagree."

"I know."

"Are you going to tell him that?"

Arik started walking again.

"Yes."