Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 305 - 300: The Rhythm Beneath the Power (1)

Damian stilled, golden eyes narrowing as Gabriel crossed the circle’s edge. "You’re not supposed to—"

Gabriel shrugged off his coat in one fluid motion, the fabric whispering as it hit the edge of the ring wall and slipped down. His ring caught the light—imperial gold edged with the Von Jaunez crest—and for a second, the air between them crackled, faint and warm, like the calm before a storm that already knew its name.

"Well," Gabriel said, voice smooth, "Marin did say it’s fine if the spells are lower level. And from what I see, either you can control those just fine... or Max should really train better."

"Hey," Max snapped from behind them, breath still uneven. "I’m bleeding, not deaf."

Gabriel didn’t glance back. "Then be quiet and take notes."

His attention returned to Damian, eyes sharp, unreadable. "I want to see your control over the finer details."

Damian didn’t move for a moment. "You think you can push me in the middle of combat?"

"No," Gabriel replied. "I know I can. The real question is whether you’ll listen."

The ring shimmered faintly around them, responding to their ether signatures like a beast recognizing its masters. Gabriel stepped forward with the ease of a man used to stabilizing ether generators. His fingers flexed once, the faintest shimmer of ether dancing at his knuckles before it vanished.

Damian’s voice dropped. "You shouldn’t be doing this."

"And yet I am." Gabriel tilted his head, his tone like silk over steel. "You said you wanted precision. Prove you haven’t lost it."

Damian studied him for a long, drawn breath—then raised one hand, power coiling in his palm like restrained lightning.

"Gregoris," he said without looking away, "track every pulse from both of us. I want a report on phase resonance and threshold flux."

"Understood," Gregoris replied, sounding far too amused.

Max groaned. "Of course. You two aren’t just going to flirt—you’re going to turn it into a research paper."

Gabriel smiled faintly, the kind of smile that could disarm a diplomat or start a war depending on the lighting. "Max, be useful and get out of my way," he said, already rolling his sleeves with precise, unhurried grace.

The scarf had come off with the coat, and the faint edge of the bond mark at the base of his neck glinted in the wardlight.

Max muttered something under his breath about regret and bad life choices as he dragged himself out of the ring, cradling what would no doubt be a very dramatic bruise across his ribs. "If I die from internal bleeding later, I want it known I died as a witness to your marital foreplay."

Gregoris didn’t even pretend not to laugh this time.

Gabriel stepped into the center of the ring with the kind of composure that made every eye in the room shift toward him. The wards adjusted again—recognizing him, adapting. The thrum beneath the stone deepened just slightly, as though the entire space exhaled in acknowledgment.

Damian hadn’t moved. But something in him had shifted.

The look he gave Gabriel wasn’t that of a ruler facing a courtier, or a general facing an opponent.

It was the look of a man who was already losing—because he wanted to.

Gabriel raised a brow. "What?" he asked, mock-casual. "Afraid of what might happen if I win?"

"You won the moment you stepped in," Damian said, low and honest, and terrifyingly true.

Gabriel only tilted his head, power coiling faintly along his fingertips. "At least put some effort into it, it should be interesting to see how much control you really have over your ether and movements."

"You are playing with fire." Damian said, now amused.

Irina was terrified. "Please tell me I didn’t have a crush on that man just three months ago."

Alexandra didn’t even flinch. She took a sip of tea, eyes fixed on the ring like she was watching a historical event unfold. "You did. You also said he had ’a tragic aura and gorgeous hands.’"

Irina looked personally betrayed. "I was misled by the lighting."

Inside the ring, the air grew sharper—charged not with heat, but precision. Gabriel’s aura didn’t flare. It curled. Refined. Like silk drawn across glass.

Damian stepped forward once, then again, slow and unhurried, until the two of them were close enough to break skin without ether.

"So, do you want me to take it easy?" Damian asked, the corners of his mouth twitching.

Gabriel didn’t answer right away. He simply tilted his head—just slightly, like he was weighing a hypothesis more than a threat—and let his hand drift through the air between them, fingers pulsing with a subtle line of energy.

"I think you should try," he said softly, "and see how that goes."

It wasn’t a taunt. Not really.

It was worse.

Damian’s lips curved into something sharper. "You’re provoking me."

Gabriel’s expression didn’t shift. "I’m evaluating you."

There was a beat of perfect silence, then a jolt—a shock of movement so fast that it split the air between them. Damian moved with that terrifying economy of force, all control and violence stitched into muscle and instinct, but Gabriel met him halfway. His palm swept up, just a half-inch too slow—

And the world snapped.

The echo of ether burst against the ring’s boundary, blunted but not absorbed, the wards flaring in pale warning hues—violet bleeding to red before settling back to gold.

From the bench, Max muttered, "I am never sparring again."

Gabriel had shifted back just enough to avoid a clean hit, though a sharp line of fabric tore across his sleeve, one of Damian’s knuckles had nicked the cuff.

He looked down at it, unimpressed.

"You said you’d try to take it easy," he murmured.

"I am," Damian said, his voice far too even.

Gabriel glanced down at the torn cuff of his sleeve, then back up—slow, deliberate, like he was recalibrating his expectations. His gaze settled on Damian’s face with the same calm curiosity he might reserve for a complicated spell or a particularly irritating noble.

"That was easy?" he asked, one brow lifting. "Should I be worried about what difficult looks like?"

"I can show you," Damian offered, stepping forward again with the kind of unhurried menace that made the air itself feel taut.

"No need," Gabriel said dryly, shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet. "I’m not the one who needs to prove anything."

That earned him a glint of amusement in gold eyes—dark, hungry, fond.

"Then you’re baiting me for fun?"

"I’m baiting you," Gabriel said, letting a soft coil of ether trail down his wrist like smoke, "because you look like you need it."