Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 288 - 283: Ashes and Authority

He paused.

Then looked at Gabriel. Then back at Damian.

"...You weren’t lying," he said, slightly surprised. "The reroute worked. Ether flow is balanced. Channels are burnt, yes, but stabilizing. No infection. No overload. And no signs of fragmentation."

Gabriel stiffened slightly. "Fragmentation?"

"If he’d lost control during the redirection, his ether core could’ve cracked. Implosion. Shattering. Death. The usual." Marin waved a hand.

Gabriel set his tea down very carefully.

"Why was that not mentioned earlier?"

"I assumed he told you," Marin said.

"I assumed he didn’t do it," Gabriel snapped.

"I assumed you two were smarter than this," Marin said cheerfully. "And here we are."

Damian gave him a narrow look. "Are you enjoying this?"

"I live for this," Marin said. "You’re my most consistent disaster zone."

Gabriel stood and walked over, eyeing the monitor now. "But he’s okay?"

"Annoyingly, yes," Marin replied. "Scars will remain. Sensation will be odd for a while—tingling, phantom shocks, a general sense of glowing from the inside out."

"Perfect," Damian muttered. "Now I match the chandelier I destroyed."

Gabriel leaned in close, inspecting the fresh marks on his arm with an expression that was equal parts concern and exhaustion.

Then, very softly, he said, "Don’t do it again."

Damian looked at him. Not smirking now. Not smug. Just quiet.

"I won’t," he said. "Not without you."

Gabriel exhaled. Slowly. Then, without another word, he rested his forehead lightly against Damian’s shoulder—avoiding the scars.

And Damian, without thinking, wrapped one arm around him.

Marin glanced up once, saw the moment, and looked back at his notes without comment.

Then: "You’re banned from rituals for two weeks. And I’m confiscating your access to ether-paper until further notice."

Damian blinked. "You can’t—"

Marin pulled out a signed imperial override form.

Gabriel smiled faintly. "He can."

Damian glared at the imperial override form like it had personally betrayed him.

"I hate this court."

"You built it," Gabriel reminded him, stepping back just enough to fold his arms—gently, because being angry while pregnant required pacing and a good backrest.

Damian huffed. "That was a mistake."

"You designed the charter," Gabriel continued, unfazed. "You restructured the central authority, drafted the emergency magic protocols, created the council oversight branch—"

"I was younger."

"You were thirty."

"I was naïve."

Marin nodded solemnly as he packed away his instruments. "And now you’re a glowing cautionary tale with a very firm couch sentence and a personal omega enforcer."

"I preferred it when you only insulted me behind my back," Damian muttered.

"I still do," Marin replied. "But you started burning down rooms without warning. That upgraded you to direct commentary."

Gabriel, still watching Damian’s hands—scarred, faintly pulsing, but no longer sparking—tilted his head. "If you hate the court so much, you could always abdicate."

Damian looked at him. "To who, exactly?"

Gabriel raised a brow. "Max would make it... colorful."

Damian blinked. "You’d really let Max run the Empire?"

"No," Gabriel said sweetly. "But I would enjoy watching you panic about it for a solid five minutes."

Marin smirked and jotted something on his clipboard. "Emotional cruelty: stable and present. Patient is recovering normally."

Damian leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. "Can someone just knock me unconscious until the week resets?"

Gabriel rubbed his temple and turned toward Edward, who had just reentered the room carrying a new file and a tray of pain-dulling tea.

"Sedatives?" Gabriel asked.

Edward set down the tray. "Three strengths. With permission."

Damian raised a hand in defeat. "Whatever knocks me out and doesn’t burn my spine."

Gabriel picked up the strongest one, held it out like a peace offering—or a warning.

Damian took it carefully.

"I hate this court," he repeated under his breath.

Gabriel looked at him over the rim of his own cup. "And yet you married it."

Damian drank. Slowly. Begrudgingly.

"Tragic," he said again.

—

Morning came with the subtlety of a battering ram.

Damian blinked once against the sunlight filtering through the tall windows, immediately regretting it. His head ached. His back felt like it had been repaved with gravel. Every muscle in his body buzzed with aftershock tension—and not the good kind. His hands...

He flexed them underwater, slowly. Very slowly.

Still tingling.

Not numb, not quite. Not painful, exactly. Just—wrong. As if something in the wiring had been replaced with live wire and good intentions.

Steam rose lazily from the surface of the bath, wrapping around his shoulders in a veil of false comfort. The marble tub, wide and sunken, had been redrawn with stabilization sigils sometime overnight. No doubt Edward’s doing. Or Gabriel’s.

Damian tilted his head back against the edge of the tub and exhaled.

I’m fine, he told himself. For the seventh time.

The scars on his arms still glowed faintly under the water, pale gold etched into skin like lightning trapped in glass. They pulsed with each heartbeat. The pain was manageable. Nothing he couldn’t handle. Certainly not something he would mention.

He closed his eyes.

And naturally, that’s when the door opened.

He didn’t need to look to know who it was.

The silence was too heavy, the footsteps too careful.

"Don’t," Damian said before the man even finished walking in.

Gregoris paused just inside the threshold, black uniform pressed, expression unreadable. His arms were crossed, eyes sweeping over the steam-filled chamber, pausing—of course—on the barely concealed edge of the thunder-scars rising from beneath the waterline.

"I haven’t said anything yet," he replied calmly.

"I can hear you judging me from here."

"I don’t have to judge you. You’ve already been court-martialed by your mate, your butler, your physician, and two scorch marks on the carpet that will never come out."

Damian groaned and let his head sink lower into the water. "I didn’t ask for a lecture."

"You didn’t have to," Gregoris said. "It’s written all over your face. And your arms. And your slightly scorched ribs, according to Marin."

"I’m alive," Damian muttered.

"Barely. You should be in the infirmary."

Gregoris stepped closer, boots whisper-quiet on the warm tile, posture unshakably composed. "Instead, you’re here. Brooding in a bathtub like a cursed heir in a gothic novel."

Damian lifted one hand just high enough to flick water in his direction.

Gregoris didn’t even blink. "Charming."

"I’m not going to the infirmary," Damian said, voice rough from the tea and the exhaustion and the fact that his entire circulatory system had recently tried to kill him.

Gregoris folded his arms. "You nearly burned your soul out of your body."

"It was temporary."

"It was catastrophic."