Chapter 428: Family Matters

Chapter 428: Chapter 428: Family Matters

Two years changed enough that Liam occasionally forgot how strange their life had once felt.

Not the empire.

Nuria would probably always remain strange in ways he had accepted as normal only because he lived inside it.

But the rest had settled.

Agaron no longer felt like somewhere he visited as Arik’s husband. It had become familiar enough that Liam knew which corridor led toward Gabriel’s private workshop, which sitting room Damian preferred in winter, and which balcony Cecil escaped to whenever official dinners became unbearable.

Their visits had become less ceremonial too.

The first year after reopening the Gate, every arrival produced enough household preparation to make Liam feel as though a foreign delegation had landed.

Now Gabriel simply sent messages asking what time they would arrive.

Damian complained if Arik stayed away too long.

Cecil complained if he came too often and then spent half the visit dragging him into conversations about everything he had missed.

The twins were older, louder, and considerably more dangerous to household furnishings.

Orfeo had developed enough sense to stop encouraging them... for a while.

Wrohan worked the other way around.

Enia and Henry came to Deira more often than Liam managed to return to Alexandria, usually accompanied by Mirelle and whatever family members decided an imperial visit counted as an acceptable excuse for a holiday.

Samuel and Ayla had remained in Nuria for another academic year after the first, although neither lived in the palace unless university schedules became inconvenient.

Enia had adapted surprisingly quickly.

Henry still looked vaguely concerned every time imperial guards opened doors for him.

Mirelle had adapted far too well.

Liam suspected she liked being able to frighten younger nobles by knowing more palace gossip than they did.

So when the formal invitation from Rex arrived, Liam read it once and immediately knew they were going.

Arik knew too.

He was sitting across from him in their private morning room, one leg stretched beneath the table while snow melted slowly against the windows outside.

"Rex finally did it," Liam said.

Arik looked up from the reports in front of him.

"Married?"

"Getting married."

"That took long enough."

Liam frowned.

"You are one to talk."

"I married you quickly."

"You chased me through several disasters first."

"Efficient courtship."

"That is not what happened."

Arik smiled and reached for the invitation.

The ceremony would take place in Alexandria in less than three weeks, with enough foreign delegations attending that Wrohan had already requested Nurian confirmation regarding security arrangements.

Liam leaned back.

"We should stay longer."

Arik glanced at him.

"How long?"

"A week. Maybe more."

That got his full attention.

Liam smiled faintly.

"My mother will be there. Henry, Mirelle, probably everyone else. Ayla and Samuel can meet us in Alexandria if their schedules allow it."

"And you miss home."

Liam looked toward the windows.

"I miss them."

There was a difference now.

Wrohan itself had changed too much to remain exactly the home he remembered, and perhaps Liam had changed even more.

Arik understood without making him explain it.

"We stay ten days."

Liam looked back.

"I said a week."

"You were going to ask for more."

"I was considering it."

"So ten."

Liam smiled.

"Fine."

Arik returned to the invitation.

"Rubis will complain."

"Rubis is too busy getting married."

That made Arik look up again.

His expression shifted into immediate satisfaction.

"I fixed that."

Liam stared.

"You threatened Mezos."

"I encouraged progress."

"You told him you would send him to an arctic security station if he and Rubis argued in front of you one more time while pretending they were not together."

Arik folded the invitation.

"It worked."

It had.

The argument in question had happened three months earlier in Arik’s office and concerned Mezos rescheduling a state security inspection after Rubis had already reorganized two ceremonial events around it.

They had spent ten minutes speaking with the overly restrained politeness of two men who were absolutely not having a domestic dispute in front of their emperor.

Arik endured nine of them.

Then he put down his pen.

"If either of you says ’professionally speaking’ one more time, Mezos is being transferred somewhere cold enough that messages take three days to arrive."

Rubis had stared at him.

Mezos asked, "How cold?"

"Extremely."

"That seems excessive."

"So does listening to this."

They announced the engagement six weeks later.

Liam still suspected the timing was coincidental.

Arik did not.

"You cannot take credit for their marriage."

"I can take partial credit."

"You did nothing except threaten geographic separation."

"Motivation."

Liam laughed.

The wedding would happen in Deira early in spring, after the Wrohan trip. Rubis had already produced a schedule so precise that Mezos had apparently been prohibited from changing anything without written approval.

Nobody expected him to obey completely.

The stranger development had been Theron.

Or, more accurately, Theron and Kamal.

Nobody had expected that.

Not even Mezos.

Especially not Mezos.

The first sign had been dinners.

Then walks through the gardens.

Then Kamal began disappearing from palace events suspiciously close to the same time Theron left.

Eventually Mezos walked into Kamal’s private sitting room without knocking and found his father asleep on the sofa with his head in Kamal’s lap.

He had reportedly backed out without speaking.

Then stood in the corridor for several minutes, reconsidering reality.

Liam had only heard the story later because Rubis told him.

Arik, naturally, thought it was hilarious.

"They are happy," Liam said.

"They terrify everyone."

"That too."

Kamal and Theron together had produced something nobody seemed prepared to manage.

Separately, Kamal was patient, dry, and quietly impossible to intimidate.

Theron was disciplined, rigid, and still capable of making Mezos instinctively straighten his shoulders by entering a room.

Together, they had developed the relaxed confidence of two older men who had survived too much to care whether anyone approved of their choices.

At a recent dinner, Theron had corrected a military anecdote Severin told.

Kamal had supported him.

Severin had stared at both of them for nearly ten seconds before deciding the argument was not worth having.

That alone had frightened Arik.

Liam reached for his coffee.

"Mezos is getting married. His father is dating Kamal. Rex is finally getting married. Everyone is becoming domestic."

Arik looked at him.

"We have been married for years."

"Yes."

"We are ahead."

"This is not a competition."

"It could be."

Liam smiled into his cup.

Arik watched him for a moment longer before his expression softened.

Two years had changed them too. Not dramatically. That was perhaps what Liam liked most.

Arik still hovered when he worked too long.

Liam still forgot meals when an engineering problem became interesting.

They still argued over security, schedules, whether Liam needed three coats for winter travel, and whether Arik was allowed to solve administrative inconvenience by declaring himself emperor.

He continued doing that anyway.

Their heats and ruts remained synchronized closely enough that Rubis now blocked several days from both schedules without needing to be told why.

Neither of them spoke about children as an immediate plan.

But the subject no longer felt distant either.

Someday had become something they could imagine without pressure.

Liam looked toward the invitation again.

"Alexandria will be crowded."

"Very."

"Enia will complain we do not visit enough."

"She will be correct."

"Mirelle will interrogate you."

"She always does."

"Rex will probably be unbearable."

"He is getting married. He is allowed one day."

Liam laughed.

Arik reached across the table and caught his hand.

"We should go early."

"How early?"

"Two days before we planned."

Liam raised an eyebrow.

"You want to see my family?"

"I want you to have time with them before the palace fills with foreign delegations."

The answer was simple enough that Liam felt something warm settle beneath his ribs.

He squeezed Arik’s fingers.

"Fine."

Arik smiled.

"Good."

Liam looked at him suspiciously.

"You already told Rubis, didn’t you?"

Arik’s smile widened.

Liam sighed.

Of course he had.