Chapter 375: Expensive Children

Chapter 375: Chapter 375: Expensive Children

Arik left for the western training grounds unwillingly.

Liam knew this because his husband managed to communicate personal betrayal through an entire corridor without saying a word.

Damian walked beside him in black and crimson field clothing rather than ceremonial dress, looking far too amused by his eldest son’s resistance, while Gregoris and Cecil followed several steps behind them. Gregoris had already acquired a tablet containing the inspection schedule and appeared entirely prepared to be useful.

Cecil did not.

He was simply delighted that Arik had been forced to join them.

"You could stay," Arik told him as they reached the entrance hall.

Cecil adjusted the silver fastening at his collar.

"I could."

"Then do it."

"No."

Arik narrowed his eyes.

Cecil smiled.

"I want to watch Father make you work."

"This is harassment."

"It is family."

Gregoris glanced between them.

"I was told this was a military inspection."

"It was," Damian said.

"It still is," Arik muttered.

Cecil looked toward Liam, who stood beside Gabriel near the foot of the staircase.

"Keep him."

Liam shook his head.

"I tried."

Arik immediately looked at him.

"You did not."

"I considered saying something."

"That is not trying."

Gabriel laughed and touched Liam lightly at the elbow.

"Go. We will survive without you for several hours."

Arik’s expression suggested that this remained unproven.

Damian finally placed one hand against his son’s back and guided him toward the doors.

"Move."

"I am a foreign sovereign."

"You mentioned that already."

"And yet nobody respects it."

"Correct."

The doors closed behind them.

Liam stared after Arik for several seconds.

Then he heard Cecil laughing somewhere outside.

"He is going to be insufferable when he returns."

Gabriel smiled.

"He was insufferable before he left."

"That is true."

They moved away from the entrance hall together, crossing into one of the private western galleries, where the morning light reached through tall windows facing the gardens. Gabriel had changed after breakfast into a soft dark red shirt and cream trousers, his black hair falling naturally around his face now that the official part of the morning was over.

Liam had expected him to retrieve the engineering notes from dinner.

Instead Gabriel led him toward a smaller sitting room overlooking the inner courtyard, where tea had already been placed beside the windows.

"No diagrams?" Liam asked.

Gabriel looked offended.

"I am capable of discussing things other than ether distribution."

"I did wonder."

"So did Damian, apparently."

Liam laughed and sat in the armchair opposite him.

Gabriel poured tea for both of them before settling back.

"I have been reading the Nurian infrastructure reports you sent me."

Liam raised an eyebrow.

"That sounds dangerously close to engineering."

"It is adjacent."

"Acceptable."

Gabriel smiled.

"What fascinates me is not the individual systems. It is how differently Nuria developed once outside influence disappeared."

Liam understood immediately.

"You mean efficiency."

"Exactly."

Nuria had spent seventy-seven years isolated beneath the Gate, with finite reserves and no possibility of importing additional resources if something failed. Every system had eventually been redesigned around conservation because waste became a threat rather than merely an expense.

Gabriel rested his cup against one knee.

"Agaron had no reason to develop that way. We always had access to additional production capacity, imported materials, and expanded grids. When demand increased, we built something larger."

"Which is why half your infrastructure consumes almost twice what a Nurian equivalent would."

Gabriel sighed.

"Yes, thank you for saying it with such pleasure."

"I am not pleased."

"You are slightly pleased."

"Only intellectually."

"That is still pleased."

Liam smiled into his tea.

Gabriel continued, "Wrohan is even stranger now."

Liam’s expression changed slightly.

That history was considerably less amusing.

Felix had shaped far too much of Wrohan from behind the scenes. Cain and Ray had continued different pieces of the same corrupted inheritance, while George’s reign had preserved enough old political structures that meaningful energy reform had remained nearly impossible.

Now all four men were dead.

Felix would never return.

Cain and Ray had been consumed as part of the Gate opening, and George had left the throne to Rex.

Only then had Wrohan begun treating ether as infrastructure rather than something only for the rich, because Felix was consuming everything.

"Rex has been moving quickly," Liam said. "Faster than anyone expected."

"He inherited a country that had been artificially held back."

"And enough evidence to understand why."

Gabriel nodded.

For a while they watched the courtyard below, where several palace attendants were arranging flowers along the edge of a stone fountain while two Shadows crossed the far colonnade in complete black.

Liam turned his cup slowly between his hands.

Then asked, "Can I ask you something unrelated?"

Gabriel looked at him.

"You may ask me almost anything."

"Children."

Gabriel’s expression softened immediately.

Liam had noticed that reaction before.

Every time Ophelia or Michel entered a room, something in Gabriel changed almost imperceptibly, his attention shifting toward them even when he was in the middle of something else.

"You love having them."

"Very much."

"Even five?"

Gabriel laughed.

"Especially five."

Liam hesitated.

"That sounds exhausting."

"It is."

The immediate answer surprised him.

Gabriel set his cup down.

"Children are noisy, expensive, irrational, frequently sticky for reasons no one can identify, and entirely capable of creating emergencies from objects you believed were physically incapable of becoming dangerous."

Liam smiled.

"That sounded experienced."

"Ophelia once required three physicians because she put a decorative bead into her nose."

Liam stared.

"Why?"

"She was four."

"That explains nothing."

"It explained everything to her."

Liam laughed.

Gabriel relaxed farther into the chair.

"But yes. I love having children."

"Was it difficult?"

Gabriel considered the question more seriously.

"Physically, sometimes. Emotionally, certainly. Practically?" His mouth curved. "Considerably less than it would be for most people."

"Because you are emperors."

"Because we are obscenely wealthy."

Liam blinked.

Gabriel laughed at his expression.

"It is easy to speak romantically about large families when one has cooks, attendants, physicians, tutors, security, several residences, and enough money that choosing between work and childcare is never determined by whether the household can afford food next month."

Liam stared at him for a moment.

"That is unexpectedly realistic."

"I come from Von Jaunez. We have always been realistic about money."

The old family name carried weight even now.

The von Jaunez had remained loyal to Goliath when loyalty became dangerous, staying beside the imperial house even as Felix’s treachery destroyed everything around it. After the Gate closed and Goliath died, the surviving family line had carried its own wealth and holdings forward rather than depending entirely on Agaron’s crown.

Gabriel had never entered his marriage without resources of his own.

"I had money before Damian," he continued. "A great deal of it."

"And Damian?"

Gabriel smiled.

"Damian is catastrophically unstingy."

Liam laughed.

"That is a word."

"It describes him accurately. He will negotiate a military acquisition down to the last percentage point and then discover that one of the children wants something and behave as though budgets were invented for other families."

"Ophelia asking for three horses suddenly makes more sense."

"That is Arik’s fault."

"Everyone says that."

"Because it is."

Liam lowered his cup.

"Does Damian ever tell you no?"

Gabriel looked genuinely thoughtful.

"To me?"

"Yes."

"Occasionally, if what I want is dangerous."

"And otherwise?"

"He asks how much."

Liam laughed again.

Gabriel’s dark brown eyes warmed.

"That does make children easier, Liam. Not easy. Easier. There is a difference."

Liam nodded slowly.

He had been thinking about children more often lately, though not with urgency. For most of his life, imagining a family had meant imagining Felix’s influence reaching into it too, another generation caught inside the same web.

That threat was gone now.

Gabriel seemed to read something in his expression.

"You do not have to decide anything quickly."

"I know."

"And if you and Arik eventually want children, you are in the fortunate position of being able to make the decision because you want them, not because anyone needs an heir tomorrow."

Liam smiled faintly.

"Kamal disagrees."

"Kamal spent decades without an emperor. He is allowed one succession obsession."

"One?"

Gabriel laughed.

"Perhaps several."

Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.

Liam glanced toward the door.

For one irrational second, he expected Arik to have abandoned the training inspection and returned early.

Instead an attendant entered carrying another pot of tea.

Liam sighed.

Gabriel noticed.

"You miss him."

"He has been gone forty minutes."

"Yes."

"That is embarrassing."

"A little."

Liam narrowed his eyes.

Gabriel smiled and poured more tea.

"Do not worry. Damian will return him eventually."

"Useful?"

"Probably."

Liam groaned.

Arik was going to complain for the rest of the day.

He found himself looking forward to it.