Chapter 358: All of it.

Chapter 358: Chapter 358: All of it.

Arik’s hand never released Liam’s.

The entire thing lasted perhaps five seconds. Then darkness returned. The throne stood empty.

Arik slowly inhaled.

His shoulders rolled back.

He tilted his head to one side until something in his neck cracked, then to the other, testing a body that suddenly contained something it had apparently been missing since birth.

His eyes opened. Gold. With a faint ring of red burning around the pupils.

Arik smiled.

"Oh."

Liam stared.

Arik looked at his hands, flexed his fingers once, and seemed almost pleased.

"That explains several things."

Felix had backed away from the throne.

His face had gone completely white.

"You couldn’t."

Arik looked at him.

"I just did."

"That body was mine."

The chamber became silent.

Even Liam turned toward Felix.

Arik’s expression shifted into something remarkably close to disbelief.

"Excuse me?"

"I preserved him. I kept him here. I protected what remained when everyone else abandoned—"

"He was me."

Felix stopped.

Arik laughed again.

This time Liam understood the title the universe had apparently assigned this disaster.

Felix had expected grief.

Perhaps rage.

Perhaps Goliath’s corpse to fracture Arik’s sense of himself badly enough that Felix could crawl through whatever emotional opening remained.

Instead, Arik had just absorbed decades-old leftovers like he had discovered a forgotten bank account.

Felix finally looked frightened.

Truly frightened.

His hand left the throne.

"Goliath."

Arik’s face flattened.

"Still doing that?"

Felix crossed toward the glass.

"We can fix this."

Liam almost groaned.

Arik actually looked annoyed.

"Felix."

"You remember now. More than before. You must understand what we were."

"I understand exactly what you were."

"I loved you."

"You murdered my children and consorts. You poisoned me."

Felix’s mouth trembled.

"I was angry."

Arik stared at him.

Liam had rarely seen his husband look so unimpressed.

It was the expression Arik usually reserved for ministers presenting mathematically impossible budgets.

Felix apparently noticed too.

His attention snapped toward Liam.

"You."

Liam’s spine stiffened.

Felix moved closer to the barrier.

"This is because of you."

"Oh, please don’t start."

"You took what belonged—"

Arik lifted one finger.

Felix stopped speaking. Not voluntarily. His mouth continued trying to form words, but no sound emerged.

Arik frowned faintly.

"That is better."

Then the glass disappeared.

Liam stepped back instinctively as the transparent wall dissolved into ether.

Felix stumbled.

Arik released Liam’s hand only long enough to catch Felix by the front of his pale coat and drag him forward.

There was no fight.

That was almost disappointing.

Felix tried to summon ether.

A weak shimmer appeared around his fingers.

Arik looked down at it.

"So little."

Fear entered Felix’s face.

Arik seemed more curious than angry.

"Your own poison really is eating you alive."

"Don’t."

Felix’s voice had returned to that of a weak, trembling voice of an old man.

"Please."

Arik placed two fingers against Felix’s sternum.

Felix froze, his light purple eyes widening.

"Goliath, wait." He tried to beg, but Arik didn’t have the time or the patience to listen anymore.

"My name is Arik."

The gold-red light in Arik’s eyes intensified and pulled.

Felix screamed.

Ether came out of him in thin, sickly strands, pale at first before dark corruption followed through it like rot suspended in water. There was astonishingly little compared with the power Felix had once possessed.

Arik stripped all of it anyway, every usable trace until Felix’s channels would be empty and a permanent pain for the rest of his pathetic life.

The light vanished into Arik’s palm and was crushed there until nothing remained.

Felix collapsed onto his knees, his breathing turned ragged, pale sickly hands closing on his chest.

"No. No, give it back."

Arik looked down.

"You are pathetic."

Felix reached toward Liam.

"Please. Liam, you know what he becomes. You know what Goliath—"

Liam stepped behind Arik’s shoulder before Felix could touch him, as he had no interest in being grabbed.

He had no mercy for the man that made his life a living hell. The man that thought he could control everyone to each of his whims.

Arik looked at Felix’s outstretched hand.

His irritation deepened.

"Do not reach for my husband."

Footsteps sounded through the corridor. Mezos entered first with his ether weapon raised, Severin immediately behind him, both men visibly prepared for battle.

They stopped.

Felix was kneeling on the floor.

Arik stood above him looking inconvenienced.

Liam lifted one shoulder.

Severin lowered his weapon.

"I assume we missed something."

"A little," Liam said.

Mezos looked toward the empty throne and moved his gaze to Arik. Then decided, quite intelligently, not to ask yet.

Arik stepped away from Felix.

"Take him."

Felix’s head snapped upward.

"No."

Mezos crossed the distance without hesitation.

Felix scrambled backward.

"Goliath, please. Please, listen to me."

Arik did not.

"Return him to Nuria under imperial custody."

Mezos seized Felix’s arm.

"Alive?"

"Very."

Felix went pale.

Arik adjusted one cuff, seemingly more bothered by the dust on it than the man begging at his feet.

"And make the arrest public."

Severin’s eyes sharpened, clearly planning to get his payment from Felix’s suffering.

"How public?"

Arik finally looked at Felix.

"All of it."

Felix stopped struggling.

Arik’s voice remained calm.

"His name. His identity. The poisoning of Nuria. Seraphina. Silas. Hugo. Lucen. Amara. The officers under Severin. Kamal. Alan. The Gate. Ray. Cain. Every person, every experiment, every theft of ether, every body he used, every government he infiltrated."

Felix stared at him.

"No."

Arik ignored him.

"Open the archives. Publish the evidence. Let every surviving family know who did it."

Mezos nodded slowly.

"And the charges?"

Arik’s eyes returned to Felix.

"For everything."

The word settled through the mausoleum.

Felix began begging again.

Arik turned away.

Liam fell into step beside him.

Behind them, Mezos and Severin dragged Felix from the chamber he had spent decades building around the body of a man who no longer existed separately from the one walking away.

Liam glanced at Arik.

"You absorbed your corpse."

Arik looked at him.

"That is your conclusion?"

"I need time."

Arik’s mouth curved.

Liam took his hand again.

This time, when their fingers intertwined, Arik’s skin was warmer.

And somewhere beneath it, red ether quietly burned.