Chapter 399: Family

Chapter 399: Chapter 399: Family

"Why are you here?"

The gold-ether replica of Liam looked down at him from the other side of the Trial chamber, its expression carrying exactly enough skepticism to make Liam wonder whether Enki had deliberately designed the thing to be irritating.

Liam sat on the dark floor with his legs crossed, his back resting against the base of one of the enormous pillars surrounding the central platform. Gold ether moved in slow currents beneath the translucent stone around him, casting shifting light over walls that seemed to stretch much farther than the physical dimensions of the chamber should have allowed.

"You know you cannot take any of the technical information out with you."

"I know." Liam adjusted his sleeve over his wrist. "I needed somewhere quiet to think."

The being raised one eyebrow but, for once, did not attempt to challenge that explanation.

Liam appreciated the restraint.

After months of moving between his rooms and the Trial domain whenever he needed access to Enki’s technical knowledge, he had finally understood why that information had been locked here in the first place.

Against every engineering instinct he possessed, Liam agreed with the decision.

The Trial was a disaster of ether manipulation, soul alteration, biological restructuring, and techniques developed by people who had apparently looked at the ordinary limits of existence and decided those were merely inconvenient suggestions. Some of what Enki knew could improve half the systems currently operating across Nuria.

Some of it could also ruin a person permanently if used incorrectly.

Liam did not need all of it inside his head.

He had already accumulated more ancient complications than one reasonable lifetime required.

Unfortunately, none of that was what had driven him into the chamber today.

His siblings were coming.

That should not have been frightening.

Ayla and Samuel were family.

Ayla was an alpha, almost eighteen now, with the same brown hair and red eyes that ran through Enia’s side of the family and had appeared in Liam as well. Samuel was fifteen, lighter-haired than either of them, with pale green eyes inherited from Henry’s family and the kind of restless energy that made him incapable of remaining in one country for long whenever school or training offered an excuse to travel.

Both of them had spent increasing amounts of time outside Wrohan.

Liam was glad for that.

Enia had fought for years to make certain the younger children received freedoms Liam himself had never been allowed, and once Felix’s influence disappeared entirely, there had been nothing left preventing them from studying abroad, traveling, or deciding that home did not have to mean remaining inside the same borders indefinitely.

It was good.

Healthy.

Exactly what Liam wanted for them.

It also meant he barely knew them.

He knew what Ayla complained about through messages, knew Samuel changed interests every few months with absolute conviction that the newest one would become his entire future, and knew both of them sent him photographs at inconvenient hours because neither seemed capable of remembering the time difference.

He knew them through screens.

That was different from having them in Nuria.

Different from showing them his rooms, his work, the palace, Arik, the strange life Liam himself was still learning how to inhabit without expecting everything to collapse underneath him.

The ether replica shifted its weight.

"You are worrying about something you cannot control."

Liam looked up.

"You were doing very well by staying quiet."

"I became bored."

"You are a construct."

"So?"

Liam stared at it.

The thing stared back with his own face.

He disliked that particular feature more every time he visited.

"My siblings knew me before any of this," Liam said eventually.

"Before what?"

Liam gestured around them.

"Nuria. Arik. Enki. The Trial. Becoming Empress Consort. Everything."

The replica considered that.

"And you believe they expect the old version."

"I don’t know what version they expect."

That was the actual problem.

Liam had changed.

Not into Enki.

That distinction had become clear enough that he no longer worried about waking one morning and discovering himself replaced by a dead life.

He was Liam.

But he was not the Liam who had lived under Felix’s shadow either.

He had a mate now.

A husband.

An empire that somehow considered his opinions important enough to restructure ministries around them.

He could leave whenever he wanted.

He could work on what interested him.

He had survived the Gate, Trials, possession attempts, political disasters, and enough medical emergencies to make his file offensively thick.

Even the way he accepted affection had changed.

Three days of heat had made that embarrassingly obvious.

He had discovered that being cared for did not diminish anything about him.

Perhaps that was what unsettled him most.

His siblings would not be meeting the brother they remembered from home.

They would be meeting whoever Liam had become afterward.

The construct lowered itself to sit opposite him, gold ether folding strangely around its knees.

"You are assuming they require you to be something specific."

Liam frowned.

"That was almost useful."

"I am capable of usefulness."

"Rarely."

"Perhaps your family shares your personality."

"Then Arik deserves compensation."

The replica smiled.

Liam leaned his head back against the pillar.

Ayla had been young when Liam’s life began falling apart in ways nobody explained properly to children. Samuel younger still. They had grown up with a brother who was often occupied, often watched, and eventually disappeared behind a Gate nobody understood.

He had missed pieces of them too.

Birthdays.

School changes.

Arguments with Enia.

Their first serious relationships, if either had even told him the truth about those.

Maybe the visit did not need to repair that.

Maybe it only needed to begin from where they were now.

The thought settled more comfortably than anything else had.

Liam pushed himself to his feet.

The replica looked up.

"Finished thinking?"

"For now."

"You could stay."

"My family arrives tomorrow."

"That is not today."

"Arik will notice I have been gone too long."

The construct’s expression became amused.

"He usually does."

Liam ignored that and stepped toward the edge of the central platform.

The Trial domain loosened around him, gold ether drawing inward as the familiar pressure built behind his eyes.

A moment later, the chamber vanished.

Cooler air replaced it.

Liam opened his eyes inside the physical Trial room beneath the palace, where ancient stone walls contained far less gold than the domain itself.

Arik was waiting beside the door.

He leaned against the wall in black trousers and a dark shirt, arms folded loosely across his chest.

"You disappeared."

"I told you where I was going."

"You said you needed twenty minutes."

Liam checked the wall display.

Forty-seven.

"Oh."

Arik pushed away from the wall and approached him.

"Everything all right?"

Liam hesitated, then nodded.

"I was thinking about Ayla and Samuel."

Arik’s expression softened immediately.

"Nervous?"

"A little."

His husband stopped in front of him and settled both hands around his waist.

"They are coming because they want to see you."

"I know."

"You do not need to impress them."

"I know."

"And you certainly do not need to become whoever you were before Nuria."

Liam looked up.

Arik smiled faintly.

"They are your siblings. Let them meet you now."

Liam exhaled.

Apparently even ancient ether constructs and overprotective husbands could occasionally reach the same reasonable conclusion.

He slipped his arms around Arik’s neck.

"They are going to judge you."

"I expect that."

"Ayla especially."

"I survived Damian."

"That confidence is going to hurt you."

Arik laughed and kissed his forehead.

Liam leaned into him for a moment longer before pulling back.

Tomorrow could be awkward.

It could be loud.

It could expose just how much distance years had placed between Liam and the younger siblings he loved without truly knowing anymore.

That was fine.

They had time now.

For once, nobody was keeping him from them.