Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 238 - 233: No Forgiveness

The imperial hospital wing was bathed in silence—the kind that followed emergency and preceded reckoning.

White ether lights hummed along the upper molding, steady and sharp, casting long shadows across polished floors. The scent of antiseptic hung in the air, crisp and clean enough to cut through blood and memory alike.

Damian swept through the main corridor without a word, his cloak trailing behind him like smoke. The attending staff bowed as he passed, but none spoke. His golden eyes were calm—but too calm. The kind of calm that came after something inside had shattered and frozen into shape again.

Astana stood at the entrance to the restricted ward, a black folder pressed to his chest like a shield.

"Vitals are stable," he reported as he fell into step beside the Emperor. "Callahan’s ether is frayed but holding. He’s unconscious. Likely will remain so until tomorrow. They’ve contained the worst of the backlash."

"George?"

"Holding vigil like a priest at a grave," Astana said, his tone more somber than usual. "Won’t leave his side. Not even to eat."

Damian’s mouth pressed into a line. He said nothing else as they reached the recovery suite.

Through the glass, Callahan looked smaller than any of them remembered. Pale. Hollowed out. But alive. George Claymore sat beside him, his hands tightly wrapped around one of Callahan’s.

Unshaven, disheveled, and more human than Damian had ever seen him.

The door opened with a soft hiss. Damian entered. Alone.

George didn’t look up until the door closed behind him.

"I don’t expect forgiveness," George said quietly.

"Good," Damian replied without missing a beat. "I don’t offer it—it saves us both a headache."

George huffed, a sound that might’ve been a bitter laugh if it weren’t so raw. "Still charming, I see."

"No," Damian said flatly. "Just efficient."

The moment settled like cooled steel between them—sharp, cold, but solid. Forgiveness wasn’t on the table. But survival was. And after everything, that was more than either of them expected to find.

George exhaled, head bowing slightly. His voice came tight. "If you had been me—if it were Callahan locked in that room, and it was Gabriel on the edge of being destroyed... would you have done it? Would you have let it happen, just to keep them breathing?"

Damian didn’t respond immediately.

He stood perfectly still, the folds of his coat unmoving, his golden eyes fixed on the man before him. The question wasn’t simple. It wasn’t rhetorical either. It was a wound, laid bare and waiting to see whether Damian would salt it—or share it.

When he spoke, his voice was quieter than George expected. But no less sharp.

"No," Damian said. "I would’ve killed everyone involved before it came to that."

George gave a bitter, breathless laugh—less at the answer and more at the certainty in it. "Of course you would."

"You had choices taken from you," Damian said, his gaze shifting briefly to Callahan. "I had power. You had hesitation. That’s the difference."

George clenched his jaw. "And it cost Gabriel."

"It cost all of us," Damian corrected. "But that doesn’t make you irrelevant. Or absolved."

George looked down at Callahan’s face, still and pale beneath the soft ether light. "He’ll wake?"

"He’s alive," Damian replied. "Which is more than most men would be after what he carried."

Silence hung again between them.

Then Damian added, with calm precision, "I don’t trust you. But I need you."

George blinked. "That was almost sentimental."

"No," Damian said, his voice cool again. "That was war. I can’t win this with a fractured Empire and a hollow court. Hadeon’s building something underneath us, and your name still holds weight with the noble families who wouldn’t piss on the palace if it caught fire."

"And you think I’ll help you?" George asked, softly now. "After all this?"

Damian met his gaze, unwavering. "I think you want revenge for what they did to Callahan. And I know you’ll do anything to keep Max from bleeding the way we did."

George didn’t deny it.

He just lowered his head again and said, "Then don’t waste him."

Damian turned to leave, the glow of the hallway pressing in behind him. "I won’t."

Then, one glance at Callahan:

"When he wakes," Damian said, his voice low and edged with steel, "tell him the leash is gone. There’s nothing left to hold him now."

He paused at the threshold, golden eyes lingering on the man unconscious beneath ether-fed wires—barely alive, but free.

"And in a few days," he added, quieter but no less lethal, "Patricia will be executed. Publicly."

George’s breath caught.

He was not surprised; he expected retribution. But not that.

"Does Gabriel know?"

"Yes," Damian said simply, not slowing his step. "But not the exact date."

George’s brows furrowed. "You told him it would happen?"

"I did." Damian leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, the weight of his presence settling like a drawn blade. "She moved while you were busy finding a way out from the leash."

His golden eyes flicked back to Callahan’s unmoving form.

"A poster with Elliot and Gabriel," he said, almost absently. "We found it because she was careless enough to give the task to Princess Anya of Pais."

George looked up sharply. "A forged image?"

"Ether-fused," Damian confirmed, voice cold. "Meant to look like Gabriel was played by alphas. A carefully constructed scandal. She planned to circulate it at the Abalone Ball. She had a backup plan with another one with Anya and Gabriel. That got out, but most nobles dismissed it as low-level gossip. Gabriel stood his ground".

George stared at the floor, then at Callahan. "They were trying to shatter him from every angle."

"I tend to believe," Damian said, his voice low and deliberate, "that Hadeon knows something about Gabriel that neither we—nor Gabriel himself—remembers."

George looked up sharply, the weight of the words sinking in. "You think he’s hiding a memory? A secret that deep?"

"I think," Damian continued, "there’s a reason Hadeon didn’t just want him controlled or ruined. He wanted him silenced but also alive."

George’s voice dropped. "You think Gabriel is the key to something. Not just a threat. A trigger."

Damian nodded once. "There’s a gap in the rebellion. A silence in the records. And Gabriel’s past fits it too perfectly. The wrong family. The right timing. Power that doesn’t match his training. He’s missing something. And Hadeon’s doing everything he can to make sure he never finds it."

His gaze lingered on Callahan’s still form for a breath longer, then turned toward the door.

Damian’s eyes glinted like molten gold. "I’ll leave you with him. Today’s incident... will be buried under the excuse that someone poisoned Gabriel’s honey. Expect rumors in the morning. Sharp ones."

George blinked. "Gabriel hates honey."

Damian paused, a humorless smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Exactly."

He stepped out into the corridor, his voice echoing faintly behind him.

"That’s what makes it believable."

And then he was gone, leaving George alone with the man he almost lost and the truth that was only now beginning to emerge.