Chapter 562: Backlash

"He’s alive."

Relief hit Arion hard enough that, for one brief second, everything else disappeared.

Marius was breathing.

Human fingers remained curled into the grass beneath the thermal blanket, his grey eyes wet while Matthias crouched beside him and Victor continued issuing orders to the medical team.

Arion tried to take a step.

The ground shifted beneath him.

At first, he assumed it was simple exhaustion.

Then his vision narrowed.

The trees at the edge of the clearing blurred into dark vertical streaks, Victor’s voice stretched strangely through the communication channel, and the metallic undertone of Arion’s own pheromones became so strong that he could taste it at the back of his throat.

He reached for something that was not there.

"Arion?"

Matthias’s voice sounded distant.

Blackness closed over him before he answered.

—

Hendrik caught him badly.

Not because the man lacked strength, but because nobody had expected the Crown Prince of Alamina to simply collapse without warning.

Arion’s shoulder struck Hendrik’s chest before both men went down, and for several seconds the clearing dissolved into movement.

"Victor!"

"I see him."

"His pulse—"

"Move."

Matthias left Marius immediately.

Elias intercepted him halfway.

"Let them work."

"He just changed Marius."

"I know."

"No, you don’t understand."

Matthias’s face had lost its color.

Across the clearing, black lines were still visible beneath Arion’s skin.

They should have disappeared when he stopped using the ability.

They had not.

Victor dropped beside him, fingers already at Arion’s neck while another medic attached portable monitors.

"Pressure falling."

"Pheromonal output is still increasing."

"Suppress the environment."

"We can’t suppress him."

Victor looked toward Matthias.

"Dean."

Hendrik was already reaching for his phone.

—

Dean arrived at the emergency medical wing less than fifteen minutes after Arion.

He did not remember most of the drive.

Hunter had taken Theodore directly back to the palace with Matthias under guard, while Dean went with a security convoy that had apparently ignored several traffic laws between the Crown Prince residence and the imperial medical center.

Nobody attempted conversation.

Dean entered the restricted treatment corridor still wearing the dark trousers and thin cream sweater he had put on that morning, his hair swept back after abandoning whatever meeting he had been attending when Hendrik called.

Victor met him outside the room.

"What happened?"

"He collapsed immediately after restoring Marius."

Dean’s face tightened.

"Marius?"

"Alive. Stable enough for now."

"Arion."

Victor opened the door.

"He is unconscious, but his cardiovascular readings have stabilized. The problem is his pheromonal system."

Dean stepped inside.

Arion lay beneath a light medical blanket, shirt removed, monitoring leads across his chest and black glandular lines still visible beneath the skin along his throat, shoulders, and arms.

Dean had seen them before.

Never like this.

They were not merely dark.

They looked swollen beneath the skin, as though every channel involved in the corrupted system had been forced open and had forgotten how to close.

Dean crossed the room.

The scent struck him first.

Vetiver buried beneath something metallic and bitter, dense enough that instinct urged him to neutralize it immediately.

So he did.

Mint lemonade spread through the room.

Dean stepped within a meter of the bed and let his field unfold around Arion.

The reaction was instant.

The monitor changed.

Victor turned toward the readings.

Arion inhaled sharply.

Dean froze.

"Arion?"

His husband’s eyelids moved.

Then opened.

Gold eyes found Dean without focusing at first.

Dean leaned closer.

"I’m here."

Arion swallowed.

His voice came out rough.

"More."

Dean stared at him.

"More what?"

"Your pheromones."

Understanding arrived immediately.

Dean strengthened the field.

Mint lemonade filled the small radius around the bed, suppressing everything else until even Arion’s vetiver disappeared beneath it.

The black lines along his throat began to fade.

Victor stepped closer to the monitor.

"Well."

Dean did not look away from Arion.

"You fainted."

"I gathered that."

"You frightened everyone."

Arion closed his eyes briefly as the neutralization settled through him.

"Sorry."

Dean’s hand closed around his wrist.

"You can apologize after somebody explains what happened."

Victor was already doing exactly that in his head.

Dean recognized the expression.

"What?"

Victor looked toward the remaining black channels beneath Arion’s skin.

"We assumed restoration was only an outward function."

Arion opened his eyes again.

Victor continued.

"That he was forcing corrupted tissue to return to a prior human structure, with the target carrying most of the physiological burden."

Dean’s grip tightened slightly.

"But?"

"But the target is not doing it alone."

Victor moved to the display and enlarged the glandular readings taken during Marius’s restoration.

"Look at the timing."

Arion followed with obvious effort.

The first spike corresponded with Marius beginning to transform.

The second with his cardiac instability.

The largest occurred seconds before restoration was complete

Victor pointed toward another line.

"That is Arion."

Dean looked at him.

"The entire time Marius was destabilizing, Arion’s glandular system was compensating."

"Compensating how?"

"We do not know yet. But I think he was taking control of the corrupted structure more directly than he did with the younger knights."

Arion frowned.

"Marius resisted?"

"His infection resisted."

Victor corrected himself immediately.

"Not consciously. His body had existed in that form for more than sixty years. You were forcing a system that considered corruption its normal state to become human again."

"And that affected Arion."

"Yes."

Victor’s gaze shifted toward Dean.

"Your neutralizing field interrupted it."

Dean looked down at Arion.

"So there is backlash."

Victor nodded.

"That is what I believe."

The room became quiet.

Arion rubbed one hand across his face.

Dean slapped it away before he disturbed one of the monitoring leads.

"You are not doing another elder."

Arion looked at him.

"Dean—"

"Not until Victor knows what happened."

"I agree," Victor said.

Arion stared at both of them.

"That alliance is disturbing."

Dean released more pheromones deliberately.

Arion’s expression softened almost immediately despite himself.

The last visible black line faded beneath his collarbone.

Victor watched the monitor.

"Interesting."

Dean turned his head.

"If you say that like he is an experiment again, I will remove you."

Victor ignored him.

"The neutralization is not simply suppressing the pheromone output. It is forcing whatever feedback loop remains connected to the forest to disengage."

Arion went still.

"The forest?"

Victor nodded slowly.

"When you restore them, you may not only be changing one infected body."

His attention moved to the data.

"You may be taking control of the system that is trying to keep them changed."

Dean looked at Arion.

That explained why Marius had nearly broken him when Elias and the younger knights had not.

Age.

Depth of infection.

Resistance accumulated across decades.

Arion closed his eyes again and leaned slightly into Dean’s hand when Dean touched his face.

"No more today," Dean murmured.

Arion gave a tired breath that might have been a laugh.

"I wasn’t planning another one today."

"Good."

Dean strengthened the neutralizing field until there was nothing around them except mint lemonade and the quiet rhythm of Arion’s heartbeat on the monitor.

For once, Arion stopped fighting the rest.