Chapter 322 - Connecting the dots

Chapter 322: Chapter 322 - Connecting the dots

Dican remained silent for so long that Grandpa Rue eventually began to look uncomfortable.

The old man had only mentioned the purple color because Dican had asked what he remembered. He clearly hadn’t expected such a small detail to affect him this badly.

"Perhaps I was mistaken," Grandpa Rue said after a while. "It was years ago. I only saw it a few times."

Dican shook his head almost immediately.

"No. I don’t think you were."

His voice sounded strange even to himself.

He knew enough about Farian history to understand that purple eyes weren’t something he could simply dismiss. Unusual eye colors existed among Farians, but purple appearing suddenly in someone who had never possessed it naturally was another matter entirely. There were old records connected to Graylings, contamination and substances that could interfere with a Farian’s mind.

He couldn’t remember the details.

That frightened him even more.

Dican rubbed both hands over his face and tried to think. His mind felt clear now, clearer than it had in years, but the clarity only made the missing pieces more obvious.

Five years.

Five entire years of his life were there, yet somehow not there.

He knew he’d lived them. He could recall rooms he’d stayed in and conversations in scattered fragments. He knew Bian was his husband. He knew they’d slept beside each other, eaten together and traveled together. He knew he’d loved him because everyone said so, and because somewhere inside his own memories existed the certainty that Bian had once been the center of his entire world.

But when Dican reached for the actual feeling behind that certainty, there was nothing.

No warmth.

No longing.

Not even the embarrassment he should have felt remembering falling in love.

It was like reading someone else’s life and being told it belonged to him.

His stomach twisted.

"Grandpa."

Lin Rue looked at him cautiously.

"Please don’t tell anyone about my eyes."

The old man’s expression hardened immediately. "Why? Are you still trying to protect Bian?"

"No!"

Dican’s answer came out louder than intended.

Quangya flinched behind Grandpa Rue, and Dican immediately lowered his voice.

"No. I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant."

He took a breath, but it did little to settle the pounding in his chest.

"I don’t know what’s happening. That’s the problem. I don’t remember enough to accuse anyone." Dican swallowed. Even saying the next words made something inside him recoil. "If I’m wrong, then I’m accusing my own mate of doing something horrible to me. But if I’m right..."

He stopped.

He couldn’t finish that sentence.

If he was right, what did that make the last five years?

What did it make his marriage?

What did it make him?

Dican looked down at his hands.

"I need to understand what happened before Bian realizes I’m questioning it."

Grandpa Rue stared at him for a long moment. Some of the anger remained in his face, but there was uncertainty there now too. Eventually, the old man gave a slow nod.

"All right. I won’t say anything."

Relief passed through Dican, although it did nothing to settle his fear.

"Thank you."

He turned to leave, then stopped after only a step.

There was something else he couldn’t walk away without saying.

Dican looked back at Grandpa Rue.

"I don’t remember what I did to you."

The old man’s face tightened.

Dican forced himself to continue.

"I don’t remember standing beside Bian. I don’t remember you being locked away. I don’t remember letting anyone starve you." His throat felt painfully tight. "But you remember it. Quangya remembers being afraid. Whether I remember it or not doesn’t erase what happened."

Lin Rue said nothing.

"I’m sorry."

Dican didn’t ask to be forgiven.

He didn’t think he deserved to.

He simply bowed his head briefly and left.

The moment he was alone in the corridor, his composure began to crack.

Dican walked quickly at first. Then faster.

His thoughts wouldn’t stop.

Purple eyes.

He’d had purple eyes.

When?

How often?

Why couldn’t he remember Grandpa Rue being on his ship?

He remembered Jian from Earth. He remembered fighting with his brother, laughing with him, getting angry with him. He remembered Celaus. He remembered his father. He even remembered Nansich’s face from a meeting five years ago more clearly than he remembered parts of his own marriage.

That made no sense.

By the time Dican reached the royal library, his palms were damp.

The ancient archives occupied an enormous section beneath the palace, filled with physical records old enough that their originals were preserved behind protective fields. Dican had spent plenty of miserable childhood afternoons here with tutors.

He had never imagined he’d return searching for evidence that someone might have tampered with his mind.

"Grayling records," he ordered.

Several sections illuminated.

Too many.

Dican started with biological records. Nothing useful. Then military encounters. Captured specimens. Experimental toxins.

Book after book.

Record after record.

Nothing.

His frustration grew until he could barely concentrate on the words.

"Fuck."

He shoved another useless record aside harder than necessary.

His heart had been racing since he left Grandpa Rue, and now his hands had started trembling too.

Maybe he was wrong.

Maybe he wanted there to be an explanation because the alternative was accepting that he’d somehow become the kind of person who could watch an old man and two children suffer without caring.

That thought made him feel sick.

"Purple eyes," he muttered. "Control. Poison. Grayling sap. Anything."

The archive system responded.

A distant shelf illuminated.

Dican practically ran to it.

The record was ancient. The original text was sealed inside a preservation field, so he activated the translated projection and began reading.

At first it appeared to be another historical account.

Then he found the passage.

A Farian royal had once fallen under the control of a half-Grayling who repeatedly poisoned him using a substance derived from a high-ranking Grayling’s blood and secretions.

Dican’s breathing slowed.

He read further.

The victim initially appeared ill and confused. Over time, however, he developed an intense emotional attachment to the person administering the substance. Contemporary accounts described the attachment as resembling extreme infatuation.

Dican’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table.

The poisoned person became distressed when separated from the administrator. He trusted them above family and previous companions. He obeyed commands he would ordinarily have rejected and could become irrationally aggressive toward anyone perceived as threatening the administrator.

"No..."

Dican whispered it without realizing.

His eyes moved faster.

Memory disturbances.

Erratic behavior.

Purple discoloration of the eyes.

Dican stopped.

His heartbeat slammed painfully against his ribs.

His vision began to blur.

Bian crying and Dican becoming furious on his behalf.

Bian asking for something and Dican agreeing without questioning it.

Bian touching him.

Bian kissing him.

Were those memories?

Or was Dican constructing them because he knew they must have happened?

He couldn’t fucking tell anymore.

His hands were shaking badly now.

Dican forced himself to continue reading.

After the poison was discovered and gradually removed from the royal’s body, his previous personality began returning. However, memories formed during prolonged exposure remained severely fragmented. Some never returned.

Dican abruptly pushed himself away from the table.

The chair scraped loudly across the floor.

For several seconds, he simply stood there breathing.

No.

It couldn’t be that simple.

A centuries-old case didn’t prove anything.

Maybe Grandpa Rue had been mistaken.

Maybe Dican’s memory problems came from something else.

Maybe—

His mind supplied Bian leaning toward him after he’d awakened from the healing chamber.

Dican remembered the instinctive revulsion that had gone through his body when Bian tried to kiss him.

He had backed away before he’d even understood why.

His own husband.

The person he had supposedly adored for years.

Dican pressed a trembling hand against his mouth.

"Did you poison me?"

The question escaped before he could stop it.

Hearing it aloud terrified him.

He shut the record and rushed from the library.

He needed proof.

The healing wing wasn’t far, but the walk felt endless. Dican’s thoughts became worse with every step. By the time he reached the examination room, one of the healers took a single look at him and stood.

"Your Highness? Are you feeling unwell?"

"My blood results."

The healer blinked.

"I want everything you found when I was brought here."

"We haven’t completed—"

"Show me."

The desperation in Dican’s voice silenced him.

A transparent medical display appeared above the examination table. Dican barely understood most of the readings, but the healer enlarged several abnormal results.

"There was a foreign substance in your bloodstream," he explained cautiously. "It appears highly toxic, although the concentration was already quite low when we examined you. Much of it seemed to be breaking down, which has made identification difficult."

Dican stared at him.

The room suddenly felt too small.

"You found something toxic in my blood?"

"Yes."

"How long has it been there?"

"We can’t determine that yet."

"Could it have been there for years?"

The healer hesitated.

"With repeated exposure? Possibly."

Dican’s stomach dropped.

He gripped the edge of the examination table.

"Compare it against Grayling samples."

The healer froze.

So did the two assistants nearby.

"Your Highness..."

"Grayling blood. Secretions. Sap. Toxins. Every sample in the royal medical archive. Compare my blood against all of them."

The head healer’s expression became increasingly serious. "May I ask why you suspect Grayling contamination?"

Dican almost told him.

Then he stopped.

He didn’t know who he could trust yet. If Bian had truly managed to poison a royal prince for years without detection, Dican couldn’t assume he’d done it entirely alone.

"No."

The healer looked surprised.

Dican stepped closer, lowering his voice.

"This examination is now confidential. Nothing leaves this room. No reports are sent to my chambers, and no one is informed that I requested additional testing."

"Not even His Majesty?"

Dican hesitated.

His father.

Celaus.

Jian.

Every instinct told him to run to his family and tell them what he’d discovered.

But he still had no proof.

And if Bian learned that Dican suspected him before he understood what had actually happened, whatever evidence remained could disappear.

"Not yet."

The healer slowly bowed.

"As you command."

"And when you have the results, you bring them directly to me."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Dican finally released the table.

His palm had left a faint smear of sweat against the surface.

As the healers began preparing the comparison, Dican stared at the small sample of golden blood inside the examination unit.

Part of him desperately wanted them to find nothing.

Because if that ancient record matched the substance in his blood, he wouldn’t simply be learning that Bian had poisoned him.

He would have to question every touch, every kiss, every promise and every moment of devotion he’d believed belonged to the last five years of his life.

Worst of all, one question had already lodged itself inside his mind, and Dican was terrified of the answer.

Had he ever loved Bian at all?