Damian’s amusent vanished instantly.
"Care to explain?" he ordered, his voice shifting into the tone that ant soone’s life was about to end.
Max straightened instinctively, every muscle in his body snapping into readiness, despite the fact he was hundreds of miles away.
"They’re laying groundwork," he said, his voice brisk and professional. "Nothing explosive yet. Whispers through the Comrce Guild. Minor nobles are stirring dissent in the lower ministries. There’s talk of Gabriel being an unstable consort. Whispers about his past."
Silence crackled across the line like the mont before a blade strikes.
Max pressed on.
"When would you lift his contract?"
There was no imdiate answer.
Max briefly believed the call had been dropped, but he could still hear Damian breathing on the other end, steady, deliberate, and lethal.
When Damian finally spoke, his voice was a low growl, stripped of courtly polish.
"When it’s safe."
Max closed his eyes briefly.
Safe.
A aningless word when it ca to Gabriel.
"You know there won’t ever be a ’safe,’ right?" Max said, softer now, almost regretful. "This is not like you. But I shouldn’t press."
Damian didn’t answer, but the silence on the line was answer enough.
Max exhaled slowly, turning his mind back to the more imdiate threat.
"Count Vortalis’s son lit the match with the Comrce Guild," he continued, voice sharpening again. "Most don’t believe him. Gabriel built too much goodwill through his projects — Blue Ether, the Ashmont stations, and the capital restorations."
A faint rustle on the other end, Damian shifting.
Max pressed on.
"They’re trying to turn the guilds against him. Claiming he’s unstable, reckless. But so far? The bastards are hesitant. They rember who oversaw the Ashmont expansion personally. They rember who stabilized Ether output after the flood."
Max allowed himself a small, grim smile.
"They rember a man who got his hands dirty saving their fortunes. Not so spoiled consort playing dress-up."
For a mont, neither of them spoke.
Then Damian’s voice, low and cutting:
"Gabriel doesn’t think about the contract for the mont. I will lift it after the coronation."
Max sat in silence for a beat, feeling the weight behind the words.
Not if.
When.
And not out of rcy.
Damian wasn’t lifting the contract because he wanted Gabriel to be free.
He was lifting it because he knew the Empire needed Gabriel as he truly was — no mory gaps, no limitations, no chains.
Max exhaled slowly, glancing out the window at the endless white landscape blurring past.
"You’re certain he’ll stay," Max said quietly, not as a challenge but as a brother speaking to a man about to gamble everything he loved on a single mont.
"I’m certain," Damian said without hesitation.
A pause, then sothing softer, almost imperceptible:
"Because I’ll never leave him."
Max closed his eyes briefly.
There it was—the terrifying, relentless loyalty that made Damian the most dangerous man alive.
Once, Damian had been betrayed by those closest to him.
This ti, he would burn the world before letting it happen again.
"After the coronation," Damian repeated, voice sharpening back into command. "Once the throne is secured, there’s no one left to challenge him."
Max nodded to himself, the conversation threading itself into a tiline in his mind.
A year.
"So," Max said dryly, leaning his head back against the seat, "should I expect to be worked to the grave another year?"
There was a pause, and Max thought he heard the ghost of a laugh through the receiver.
Rough. Private. Barely there.
"If you survive the coronation," Damian said, his voice smoothing back into its usual lethal calm, "I’ll consider giving you a vacation."
Max snorted.
"Generous. Maybe I’ll even get to die on a beach instead of under a pile of your paperwork."
"You’ll die when I allow it," Damian said, too casually.
Max smiled grimly at the window, the snow slicing sideways across the dark fields.
"You’re terrifying when you’re in a good mood," he muttered.
Another silence — not heavy this ti, but familiar, worn-in like an old blade.
Then Damian’s voice, low and cutting through the distance:
"Stay sharp, Max. They’re not finished yet. They’re just stupid enough to think they have ti."
Max nodded once, feeling the weight settle fully across his shoulders.
"Understood," he said.
And this ti, it wasn’t sarcasm.
It was a soldier’s promise.
The call ended with a final click.
Max tucked the phone into his jacket and straightened his cuffs, breathing out slowly as the car sped toward the temporary camp.
The Empire would dance its little gas for a year, until the coronation finished and Gabriel stood crowned beside Damian and their child safely born.
After that?
Max let his head rest against the seat with a grim smile.
After that, there would be no more masks.
Only judgnt.
—
The call ended with a sharp click.
Damian set the phone down on the polished surface of his imperial desk, the device sliding an inch before coming to rest beside a thick stack of untouched reports.
The office was dim, the heavy winter sky outside the towering windows casting the room in a cold blue light.
The scent of snow drifted faintly through the barely cracked window — the only indulgence Damian allowed himself.
Across the room, Astana stood at attention, silent, immovable.
Waiting.
He knew better than to speak first.
Damian sat still for a long mont, his hands steepled loosely under his chin, golden eyes fixed on the far window where the flags of the Empire snapped violently in the wind.
They were gathering.
The fools.
Weaving their little conspiracies like spiders spinning webs already set on fire.
He could feel it — the mounting tension, the thin ice under every council eting, every polite smile.
They thought the coronation would weaken him.
Tie him down.
Make him vulnerable.
They had no idea.
"Astana," Damian said, finally breaking the heavy silence.
The man straightened slightly, hands behind his back.
"Your Majesty."
Damian’s gaze didn’t shift from the window.
"Inform General Halbrecht to move into second-stage readiness. No visible deploynt yet. Quietly."
Astana bowed his head slightly, already noting the phrasing.
Second-stage readiness was just short of open war.
"At once, sire," he said calmly.
"And," Damian continued, voice sharpening, "increase the personal guard rotation around Gabriel. Mix in the Shadows, but do so discreetly."
Astana hesitated briefly before responding.
He knew what it ant. He knew what it risked.
Still, he nodded without question.
"Of course."
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