Chapter 470: Chapter 470: Arrivals

The private royal lounge at the airport had been designed to feel calm, exclusive, and impossible to embarrass.

This was optimistic architecture.

At the moment, it contained one twelve-year-old prince built like a controlled incident, one nine-year-old princess with better judgment than most adults, six security men trying not to look like they were guarding a diplomatic summit involving minors, and Hale standing near the window with the expression of a man who had accepted long ago that royal children were simply another category of threat assessment.

Nero was being patient.

This was alarming in itself.

He sat forward in one of the leather lounge chairs, long legs stretched out too far, one foot bouncing, white-blond hair tied back badly because he had refused help and Nayra had refused to fix it afterward on principle.

Nayra sat beside him with far more dignity, back straight, dark hair neat, hands folded over the strap of the small bag she had insisted on bringing herself because, according to her, ’someone has to carry things correctly.’

Hale had heard that and chosen not to react.

Now he stood a little off to the side with two of his men posted at the main entrance and two more near the private corridor leading to the tarmac access point. Nero looked at the clock for what had to be the sixth time in ten minutes.

“They’re late.”

Nayra didn’t look up from the tablet in her lap. “No, they aren’t.”

“They are to me.”

“That’s not how time works.”

“It should be.”

Hale, from his post by the window, said, “Their plane landed seven minutes ago. Customs clearance and secure transfer take time.”

Nero looked at him. “Too much time.”

“Yes,” Hale said. “That is usually how waiting feels.”

Nayra glanced up then, mildly surprised. “That was almost kind.”

Hale looked at her with complete composure. “Do not repeat that.”

Nayra’s mouth moved faintly. “Noted.”

Nero leaned back for all of three seconds before pitching forward again. “Do you think Dean got taller?”

“Yes,” Nayra said.

“He was already weird.”

“Yes.”

“I hope Sebastian didn’t become unbearable.”

Nayra looked at him over the top of the tablet. “He was already unbearable.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No,” she replied. “You implied growth. I’m implying consistency.”

That made one of Hale’s men look sharply away from them, which was the airport-security version of laughing.

Nero noticed immediately. “You can laugh.”

The guard answered without changing expression. “I prefer continued employment, Your Highness.”

Nero considered that. “Fair.”

The lounge doors remained closed.

Outside the long interior windows, airport lights cut clean lines across the tarmac. Aircraft moved in the near distance, service vehicles glided past, and everything smelled faintly like polished surfaces, cold air, and expensive transit.

Nayra set the tablet down at last and looked at her brother properly. “You’re vibrating.”

“I’m sitting.”

“That isn’t the part I meant.”

Nero frowned. “You’re annoying.”

“Yes,” she said calmly. “That’s why I’m useful.”

Hale’s phone vibrated once. He looked down, read the message, and lifted his head. “They’re on the way.”

Nero was on his feet before the sentence had fully landed.

Nayra stood too, though with far more composure. She smoothed the front of her jacket once, then looked at her brother. “Do not tackle anyone.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“That sounded like a lie.”

Nero looked deeply offended. “You think badly of me.”

“Yes.”

That shut him up for two full seconds.

The private corridor doors opened.

A security officer stepped through first, then moved aside.

Sebastian came in first.

At seventeen, he had grown into the kind of height and bearing that made old noble houses look annoyingly successful. Dark hair, composed posture, expensive but understated travel clothes, and the expression of someone who had already spent too many years managing situations created by people he loved and therefore tolerated with effort. He took in the room in one sweep, and his mouth shifted slightly when he saw them.

Behind him came Zion.

Sixteen, sharper at the edges, carrying himself with imperial polish Palatine bred into its heirs whether they wanted it or not. He looked more tired than Sebastian and less inclined to hide it, one hand still holding his phone, his jacket slung over one shoulder with the casual confidence of someone who had grown up under cameras and survived by becoming more unimpressed than they were.

Dean came last.

Which was fitting, because at thirteen Dean still had the unsettling ability to enter a room as if he had been there the whole time and the room had simply lagged behind in understanding that fact.

He was younger than the others but not small, not by any reasonable scale. Blonde hair was falling into his eyes, his expression already alert and a little wary in that clever way of his, as if he expected affection and disaster in equal measure and had no intention of being surprised by either one.

Nero lit up first.

“Finally.”

Dean’s face changed at once, the guarded look cracking into something real. “You say that like I delayed the plane myself.”

“You might have.”

“That’s slander.”

Sebastian stepped fully into the lounge and looked at Nero once from head to foot. “You got bigger.”

Nero straightened immediately. “Yes.”

Nayra folded her arms. “He’s been unbearable about it.”

Zion looked from Nero to Nayra, then toward Hale and the security spread, and said, dry as dust, “Good. I was worried this would be normal.”

“It isn’t?” Dean asked.

“No,” Sebastian said. “This is more.”

Nero crossed the distance first.

Not tackling, to his credit.

But moving fast enough to make Hale visibly ready himself in case adolescent enthusiasm became an incident.

Nero stopped in front of Dean first, grinned, then looked between the three of them with the kind of bright, impossible pleasure he rarely bothered to hide.

“You took too long.”

Sebastian glanced at the clock. “That’s not how airports work.”

“That sounds like an excuse.”

“It is an explanation.”

Dean, meanwhile, was still staring up at Nero with open offense. “You’re too tall.”

Nero looked pleased. “Yes.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Thank you.”

Zion huffed a laugh.

Nayra, coming up beside them at a much more civilized pace, said to Dean, “He’s been like this for months. We’ve all suffered.”

Dean looked at her and brightened immediately. “You got taller too.”

Nayra’s entire face softened by a fraction. “Yes.”

Nero looked between them. “Rude.”

Sebastian put his carry-on down beside one of the chairs and looked at Nayra with more visible warmth than he’d shown anyone else yet. “You look exactly like your father when you’re judging people.”

Nayra considered this. “That sounds correct.”

Zion, dropping into one of the lounge chairs without asking permission because he was the son of an emperor and therefore professionally ruined, looked around at all of them and said, “So this is what we’re doing. Immediate emotional violence.”

“Yes,” Nero said.

Dean pointed at him. “You gesture like your father now.”

Nero froze.

Nayra looked delighted. “I said that.”

Dean turned to her. “See? I’m right.”

“Yes,” she said. “Unfortunately.”

Sebastian looked at Nero one more time, then at Hale. “Has he actually been left in public like this all year?”

Hale answered with complete seriousness. “Not unsupervised.”

That got a real laugh out of Zion, who stretched one arm along the back of the chair and looked at the gathered heirs and disasters around him with the satisfaction of a boy who had escaped his own palace only to land in another one with better entertainment.

Dean dropped his bag and moved closer to Nero. “Come here.”

Nero narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“I need to check if you’re real.”

“That sounds threatening.”

“It is.”

Nero let him come anyway, mostly because confidence had long ago replaced caution in all non-lethal social settings. Dean stopped in front of him, looked up again with visible irritation at the height difference, then gave his shoulder one solid shove.

Nero barely moved.

Dean looked betrayed. “That’s criminal.”

Nero grinned.

Nayra sighed with the weary dignity of someone nine years old and already tired of boys. “We’ve been together for less than three minutes.”

Sebastian looked at her. “And already accurate.”

Zion tipped his head back and closed his eyes briefly. “This is going to be unbearable.”

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