Chapter 350: Prize

Chapter 350: Chapter 350: Prize

Arik laughed under his breath.

It was not a pleasant sound.

The woman against the wall watched him through Amara’s clear blue eyes while gold slowly brightened in his own, sovereign ether bleeding into the irises until they seemed lit from somewhere beneath the skin.

Felix had always been a piece of work.

That was perhaps the most generous description Arik could manage.

"You know what I find fascinating?" Arik asked.

The smile on Amara’s mouth remained.

"I imagine you are going to tell me."

"You could have had everything."

That disturbed the expression, although only slightly.

Arik loosened his grip around her throat enough to let her breathe normally, but he did not step away.

"You wanted Goliath."

Felix’s borrowed eyes narrowed.

"You wanted his attention, his power, his body, his name beside yours. You could have become his mate and had more authority than almost anyone in the empire simply because he would have trusted you."

"You make that sound easy."

"It would have been easier than murdering half his family."

The smile disappeared.

Arik tilted his head.

"That was always your problem, wasn’t it?"

The gold in his eyes intensified.

"It was never enough to stand beside someone powerful. You needed to know no one stood above you."

Felix said nothing.

Arik could almost see the old obsession now that Goliath’s memories no longer arrived in violent fragments.

Felix had wanted him.

Not with the warmth Liam offered without thought, nor with the fierce loyalty that had made Amara willing to stay away from the father she loved if returning might endanger him.

Felix had wanted possession.

Goliath had been powerful enough to become irresistible and independent enough to become intolerable.

"You never wanted a mate," Arik said. "You wanted a prize."

Amara’s mouth curved again.

"Is that what you tell yourself?"

"No. That is what you spent almost a century proving."

The palace wards stirred around them, responding to the sovereign ether gathering beneath Arik’s skin.

"When Goliath lived, you could hate that people looked at him first. His generals followed him. His family loved him. The empire answered him. Even when you were useful, brilliant, dangerous, whatever description you prefer, you were still standing in his shadow."

Felix’s expression hardened.

Arik smiled.

"And then the Gate closed."

That finally reached him.

The woman’s fingers shifted around Arik’s wrist.

"The world forgot Nuria," Arik continued. "It forgot Goliath. Records survived, but the man himself disappeared from memory so completely that people could look directly at his history and feel nothing."

Felix stared at him.

"For everyone else, perhaps that was mercy."

Arik leaned closer.

"For you, it must have been unbearable."

The borrowed face went still.

Arik understood then just how much Felix must have hated the Gate.

It had not merely hidden the empire he wanted.

It had taken his prize away.

There was no audience left to envy him.

"You spent your entire life trying to become greater than him," Arik murmured. "Then the Gate made the competition meaningless."

A flicker of anger sharpened those blue eyes.

Arik laughed again.

"That hurt."

"Do not flatter yourself."

"I wasn’t."

Arik’s thumb moved against the side of her throat.

"You are remarkably predictable once vanity is involved."

The answer came colder.

"And you believe you are not?"

"I am Damian’s son. Of course I am vain."

That produced a moment of genuine confusion.

Arik smiled.

"The difference is that I do not need to consume an ancient Ether Core to survive being second at something."

Felix stopped smiling.

The corridor fell very quiet.

Arik watched him.

"So it is true."

No response.

"You intend to absorb Agaron’s Core."

Still nothing.

Arik’s smile disappeared.

"Did you genuinely believe that would work?"

The blue eyes sharpened.

"You know very little about what the Core can do."

"I know who guards it."

Felix’s expression changed.

Arik felt a trace of satisfaction.

"Damian."

He said his father’s name without title because none was necessary.

"The current sovereign of Agaron. A dominant alpha with sovereign ether, bonded directly to the Core you apparently intend to swallow."

Arik leaned closer.

"Did you forget the part where he is difficult to kill?"

Felix’s mouth twitched.

"No one is impossible to kill."

"That sounds like something you should stop saying around my family. Your success rate has deteriorated."

A pulse jumped beneath Arik’s fingers.

"Agaron is not Wrohan," Arik continued. "You cannot quietly drain its Core through neglected civilian lines while nobody notices. Damian feels that system. Gabriel watches him. Cecil has inherited enough paranoia from both of them to make breathing suspicious."

He paused.

"And they know you exist."

Felix’s face remained composed, but the ether beneath it shifted.

Arik felt that too.

There was the thread he had been waiting for.

He did not touch it yet. Instead, he smiled.

"So tell me. Was Liam your last resort?"

The reaction came faster this time.

Almost imperceptible, but enough.

Arik’s voice turned softer.

"You tried to put yourself inside him because you needed something capable of reaching places you could not."

Felix’s gaze sharpened.

"Or were you hoping Enki would give you access to the Gate? Nuria? The Core?"

No answer.

Arik’s smile vanished.

"Did you honestly think I would not notice?"

His hand tightened around Amara’s throat again.

"You walked into my palace wearing my daughter’s corpse, asked for her title, her rooms, her authority, and expected me to be grateful because you remembered enough of her childhood to imitate affection."

Something ugly appeared in Felix’s expression.

Arik saw it clearly now.

"You really thought Goliath’s grief would make me stupid."

The words landed harder than shouting would have.

Felix’s eyes narrowed.

Arik laughed once.

"That’s insulting."

Gold flooded the corridor.

This time Arik did not restrain it.

Sovereign ether poured from him in a silent wave, running through the palace wards and back again before folding around the foreign presence buried inside Amara’s ruined channels.

Felix reacted instantly.

The body jerked beneath Arik’s hand.

"There you are."

The foreign ether tried to retreat.

Arik followed it.

He did not search Amara’s memories. Those belonged to her, and whatever remained of his daughter had already been violated enough.

He searched only the thing that did not belong.

The thread Felix had left behind.

It ran through damaged channels like black wire beneath old stone, incredibly thin but still connected to something beyond the body.

Felix tried to sever it.

Arik’s ether closed around it first.

The woman’s eyes widened.

"What are you doing?"

"Finding you."

The gold around them deepened.

For one fractured second, Arik felt distance rather than sight.

A buried ether current moving beneath water.

Then direction.

A location resolving through the tether like a star emerging through cloud.

Felix fought him.

Arik only smiled.

"You should have learned from Liam."

The connection snapped.

Amara’s body sagged against the wall.

Arik caught her before she hit the floor and lowered her carefully onto the polished stone, supporting her head despite the revulsion twisting through him.

The face was still his daughter’s.

Whatever remained inside deserved that much.

Arik straightened.

His gold eyes were still glowing.

Now he knew where Felix’s true body was.

He looked down at Amara one last time.

"Stay with her as long as you like."

His voice was quiet.

"It won’t matter."

Then Arik turned and walked away, leaving Amara’s body behind.

He had found the serpent.