Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 293 - 288: Ether punishment

"So what?"

Two words, soft and almost lazy, but they cut through the air like glass.

"I didn’t ask for any of that," Max continued, voice low. "You took me in because you saw a use for me. Because you needed someone to mold, to place on the board. Don’t act like you did it out of kindness."

George’s mouth parted, but no sound came.

"You gave me your name," Max said, voice low but laced with iron, "but never your trust. Never your protection. You made sure the sister you used was out of the way first."

George’s eyes widened, a crack finally spidering across that carefully composed mask. His hand twitched around the glass—tight enough to break it if he weren’t careful.

"What?"

Max didn’t let him breathe.

"Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out?" Max went on, step by slow step toward the desk. "That you pushed her into Hadeon’s arms? You knew exactly what kind of man he was. The bastard doesn’t care who he fucks. Noble blood or not."

George chuckled, brittle and dry. "What are you going to do now? Kill me?"

Max tilted his head, eyes gleaming like cracked glass in the dim light. "Maybe."

He smiled then—slow and cruel. Not because it was funny, but because it finally felt like power in his hands, not someone else’s script.

"Your ex-wife is about to be publicly executed," Max said, voice light as if reading off a guest list. "Your son, poor Elliot, is stuck in Pais nursing a mad princess. And your favorite nephew—me—is here to kill you."

George’s face paled slightly.

"Oh," Max added, as if just remembering. "And Callahan? In pieces. Gregoris really had a grudge. He likes Gabriel."

The silence that followed felt like the breath before a storm.

Max stepped around the desk now, calm, unhurried. "I think you forgot what it meant to matter to people, George. You never mattered to me because you were powerful. You mattered because you could’ve chosen love. Family. Redemption."

He stopped inches away.

"But you didn’t."

George tried to recover, straightening his spine. "So what? You think you’re above it now? You think that bitch Gabriel—"

Max’s hand moved fast.

The sound of the slap cracked through the room like a shot.

George stumbled sideways, blood at the corner of his mouth, stunned.

"I’m still trained like a Shadow," Max said, calm as ever. His hand moved fast and the arcane array lit up across George’s chest in a shimmer of gold and green. "What you did to Gabriel gave me an idea. To let you taste the same medicine Damian took to save him."

"No—" George’s voice barely escaped before the array pulsed, searing through fabric and flesh like a slow-burning brand.

He tried to fight. Of course he did. Reached for ether, twisted toward resistance, but the spell was already rising, coiling up through his spine, anchoring itself into his channel lines.

"Let’s burn some channels," Max murmured, voice devoid of mercy.

The glow from the array intensified, crawling over George’s skin like a second skeleton, engraving every line, every symbol, into muscle and marrow. The scent of ether and burning silk filled the air.

"Stop! Maximilian—!"

But Max didn’t flinch. He didn’t look away.

His green eyes were emotionless.

"You know," he said softly, almost conversational, "if you had just retreated after Hadeon tried to sink his claws into your power, you could’ve lived a long, quiet life with Callahan. Maybe even found peace."

George’s knees hit the floor.

"But you wanted to play both of them," Max went on, stepping just out of reach as George writhed on the floor. "You wanted to dance between fire and empire—and pretend no one would notice your footprints in the ash."

The spell pulsed again. Stronger. A violent shudder ran down George’s spine as the arcane symbols embedded deeper, drawn now like iron filings to a magnetic core—his core. Ether lines. Pain conduits.

Max watched. Still. Steady.

"I’m not going to kill you," he said at last, his voice quiet but thunderous in its certainty. "But you’ll wish I had."

The words hung in the air, heavy as iron.

George’s breath caught in his throat as another wave crashed through him, ether turning against its own vessel. His own power was unraveling him, cell by cell, nerve by nerve. It wouldn’t kill him. But it would leave him broken, his channels cracked, his ability fractured, and his pride shattered.

He couldn’t even scream.

Max made sure of it.

The ward was carved with George’s own ether, twisted, and looped back into itself. A lock and a lash in one. Every flare of resistance only fed the pain.

Max crouched, calm as a surgeon, elbows resting casually on his knees as he watched the once-mighty head of House Claymore convulse on the floor like a glitching puppet.

He raised a brow. "I thought you’d be stronger."

George’s eyes, bloodshot and wide, flicked up in frantic disbelief. Still trying to grasp the fact that Max—not Damian, not Gabriel, not even Callahan—had done this to him.

"Ah," Max added, with exaggerated sympathy. "I forgot. Your precious Olivier is gone."

That earned a reaction. A twitch. A spike of something deeper than pain, rage maybe.

"Well," Max continued, tone almost light, "his soul will be soon enough."

George’s jaw clenched. Tears of fury blurred his vision.

Max leaned in closer, his voice dipping to a near whisper. "The Empire’s wards are feeding on it now."

Another sharp jerk of breath from George.

The realization was setting in. Slowly. Terribly. The soul fragment they had protected, hoarded, and chained inside Gabriel for their future was being consumed by the very thing they’d tried to control.

"You really undermined Damian’s power," Max said, almost gently, like explaining a failed equation to a dying man. "You treated his mate like an incubator... and his child like a vessel."

George’s fingers scraped uselessly against the stone floor, a tremor in his limbs that had nothing to do with the ether unraveling him.

"You’re lucky," Max continued, "that he cares more about being near Gabriel than getting his revenge himself."

The array pulsed again, low and deep, syncing with the rhythm of George’s failing ether. Not enough to kill, but enough to make life unbearable.

His limbs spasmed as the spell rooted itself deeper, burrowing into nerves and channels like a parasite with purpose.

Max stood, calm and unhurried, brushing a bit of dust from his sleeve like he hadn’t just dismantled the man who once dictated the fate of entire provinces.

He looked down one last time, expression unreadable.

"Sleep tight, Uncle. Pray that the ether channels spared are the ones in your lungs."