Rafael stared at him for a long mont, the sun warm on his skin, the sea whispering behind him, and Gregoris’s words still echoing with that infuriating calm conviction.
Then he scoffed, a sound more breath than laughter.
"You’re unbearable," he said, turning toward the water. "I’m going to float. You can... assess the tide or sothing."
He had taken only a few steps when Gregoris moved. His hand closed around Rafael’s wrist, stopping him. Rafael found himself turned back, drawn into the solid line of Gregoris’s body, the warmth of him cutting through the sea breeze.
For a heartbeat, Gregoris simply held him there.
Rafael felt how his posture softened by a fraction, the rigid edge of the commander easing into sothing more attentive, more... careful.
"You can go in the water," Gregoris said, voice lower now. "In a mont."
Rafael tilted his head up, irritation still there, but threaded with sothing else he couldn’t quite na. "You’re doing this on purpose."
"Yes."
"To make uncomfortable?"
"To keep you from retreating every ti you feel it," Gregoris replied.
Rafael frowned. "Feel what?"
Gregoris’s thumb shifted slightly against the inside of his wrist, right over his pulse, the contact soothing rather than possessive.
"Every ti you want to retaliate, you choose not to," he said quietly. "You keep it contained, turn it inward, and then you remove yourself from the situation, from the room, from yourself. It’s efficient. It’s controlled. And it leaves everything unresolved."
Rafael’s jaw tightened. "That’s how things stay... manageable."
"For others," Gregoris agreed. "Not always for you."
The sea murmured behind them, a soft, constant presence. Gregoris didn’t raise his voice, didn’t crowd him. He simply stayed where he was, close enough that the warmth of him cut through the breeze.
"If you want to be angry, be angry," he went on. "If you want to curse, do it. You don’t have to disappear to make the world easier to handle. You don’t have to make yourself smaller to keep the peace."
Rafael searched his face, as if trying to decide whether this was instruction or permission.
"And if I don’t want to?" he asked.
"Then you float," Gregoris said. "You breathe. You co back when you’re ready. I’m not going anywhere."
His hand eased from Rafael’s wrist, lingering a fraction of a second longer than necessary before dropping away.
"Go," he said softly. "The water’s waiting."
—
Night had settled fully by the ti they left the coast, the road unwinding in long, empty stretches of dark frad by faint silver from the sea and the distant glow of cities that knew nothing about them.
Gregoris drove.
The engine’s hum was low, ether making the pieces glide with unnerving smoothness. Rafael had fallen asleep in the passenger seat soti after the sky had turned indigo, his head tipped slightly toward the window, hair still faintly damp after the shower he took before returning, breathing slow and even. The earlier tension had finally bled out of him, replaced by the deep, unguarded rest of soone who felt, perhaps without fully admitting it, safe enough to let go.
Gregoris kept one eye on the road, the other on the reflection of Rafael in the dark glass.
The communicator at his belt pulsed.
With the sequence of a priority signal, only one person had access to it.
Gregoris didn’t react imdiately. He waited, counting the rhythm of Rafael’s breathing, the slight hitch and settle that ant true sleep, not the light doze of soone half-alert. Only then did he reach up, fingers brushing the small, bone-conduction headset tucked behind his ear. He activated it without sound.
The line opened.
"Am I interrupting?" Damian’s voice ca through, low and familiar, threaded with the faintest note of amusent.
"No," Gregoris replied quietly. "He’s asleep."
A pause. "Good."
Gregoris kept driving, eyes forward, posture unchanged. "This better be worth waking the channel."
"It is," Damian said. "Nothing urgent. I just wanted to confirm you’re still on leave and that the world hasn’t caught fire in your absence."
"It hasn’t," Gregoris answered. "My deputy is competent. Alexander is enjoying the silence. You’re enjoying the novelty of not having in the room."
Damian huffed softly. "...I wouldn’t go that far. But I am pleased you’re taking the ti."
Gregoris’s gaze flicked once more to Rafael’s reflection in the window, to the steady rise and fall of his chest, and to the way sleep had finally claid him without resistance.
"Say what you called for," he said quietly. "You don’t open this channel for small talk."
Damian was silent for half a breath. Then the tone shifted, the Emperor’s voice losing its faint amusent and settling into sothing colder, sharper.
"Delphine is retracting every censorship order she paid for regarding Rafael’s na."
Gregoris’s jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly. "All of them?"
"Yes. Court archives, private registries, sealed social channels, and dia blackouts. The entire web she built to keep his na out of circulation - she’s dismantling it herself."
The road unspooled in front of them, dark and empty. Gregoris kept the wheel steady.
"She wants him visible again," he said.
"She wants him hunted by attention," Damian corrected. "She knows exactly how the capital works. The mont the restrictions lift, the press, the salons, and the gossip networks will swarm. They’ll rediscover him. Speculate. Rewrite him."
"And she’ll claim innocence," Gregoris added, voice flat. "Say she did nothing. That the world simply rembered her son."
"Precisely," Damian replied. "She’s prepared to pay for amplification as well. Newspapers, discreet columns, and rumor channels that pretend to be independent. She’ll make his na unavoidable, then stand back and watch him retreat."
Gregoris’s grip on the steering wheel tightened a fraction.
"One would think that giving a warning would be enough." He paused a fraction. "Do you need her?"
Gregoris’s grip on the steering wheel tightened a fraction.
"One would think that my warning would be enough," he said quietly. Then, after a brief pause, "Do you need her?"
On the other end of the line, Damian was silent for a heartbeat. Not because he hadn’t understood the question, but because he was weighing it with the sa care he weighed declarations of war.
"Not yet," the Emperor replied at last. "She is still useful in the way only ambitious, wounded people can be. Her networks, her money, and her influence in certain circles - they’re inconvenient, but they’re also informative."
Gregoris’s eyes remained on the road, but his attention was sharp. "And when she stops being useful?"
"Then," Damian said evenly, "she becos a liability."
Another pause, heavier this ti.
"She is playing a dangerous ga," Damian continued. "Not against the court. Against her own son. She believes pressure will make him fold back into the shape she designed for him."
"She is wrong," Gregoris said.
"Yes," Damian agreed. "And people who are wrong in that particular way tend to escalate when reality doesn’t comply."
Gregoris glanced once more at Rafael, asleep and unaware, the faintest crease between his brows even in rest.
"She will not be allowed to corner him again," Gregoris said, voice low and absolute.
Damian exhaled softly. "I know. That’s why I’m giving you the ti. Two days. Let him breathe before the noise begins."
"I will."
"And Gregoris?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"If she crosses from manipulation into harm, real harm, you won’t need to ask whether I need her."
The implication was clear.
Gregoris inclined his head slightly, even though Damian couldn’t see it. "Understood."
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