Chapter 163: Chapter 163: Foolish nobles and children (2)

“They are serious,” Gregoris said, voice flat.

And this was somehow worse than if he had sounded angry.

Anger was loud. Anger provided people with something to react to, something to call unreasonable, and something to avoid with practiced smiles and polished lies. This was not anger. This was Gregoris stating a fact.

The air near them shifted, and a few nearby conversations faltered by half a breath, then resumed with the brittle smoothness of nobles pretending they had not heard anything at all.

Max, of course, looked delighted.

“Oh, they’re moving fast,” he murmured, green eyes bright with malicious amusement. “Seven months and two years old and already engaged in rumor. Efficient.”

Adam’s hand settled more firmly at Noah’s back. “Max.”

“I’m not agreeing with them,” Max said, still grinning. “I’m admiring the speed.”

Gabriel adjusted Natalie in his arms with the ease of someone who could hold an infant and dismantle three political factions in the same minute. Natalie had, in the meantime, re-secured Noah’s fingers and was attempting to pull them toward her as if this was now a private acquisition.

“Don’t get too amused, Max. They are talking about Noah too.”

Max’s grin held for exactly one heartbeat more.

Then it vanished.

The change was subtle enough that half the room would miss it if they weren’t looking.

The other half felt it immediately.

Adam did.

Rafael did.

Gregoris’ gaze slid to Max; he was used to this side of Max. The side that reminded everyone that even if it wasn’t public or legally registered, Maximilian Claymore was in fact Damian’s younger brother.

Max turned his head toward Gabriel slowly, green eyes still bright but no longer warm.

“They’re talking about Noah too?” he asked, voice light.

It was a dangerous kind of light.

The sort that made experienced nobles suddenly remember urgent appointments on the opposite side of the hall, and younger ones realize, too late, that gossip was only fun when it involved someone else’s family.

Gabriel met Max’s gaze without blinking.

“Yes,” he said, calm. “Noah, Natalie, and Arik. “Frasner and Lyon, if they want to flatter Crista. Frasner and Claymore, if they want to flatter you. Apparently the Empire has run out of wars, budgets, and succession laws to speculate over, so they’ve moved on to arranging marriages between children who still drool on formalwear.”

Rafael made a small sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t arrived wrapped in disbelief. “Natalie is not drooling,” he said automatically, then glanced down at his daughter.

Natalie, in Gabriel’s arms, blinked up at him with complete innocence and immediately put Noah’s knuckles in her mouth.

Rafael stared.

Gregoris looked down at Natalie, then at Rafael. “She is.”

Rafael’s expression went flat. “Traitor.”

Adam’s shoulders shook once with suppressed laughter, though his hand stayed steady at Noah’s back. Noah, blissfully unaware that he had apparently become a topic of aristocratic strategic planning before he could form a proper sentence, continued staring at Natalie like she was both confusing and deeply important.

Max exhaled through his nose.

“That rumor dies tonight,” he said, still pleasant, still smiling enough that it read as charm from a distance. “Preferably before I start naming people and asking them why they’re discussing my child’s future like he’s a line item in a trade agreement.”

“Mm,” Gabriel murmured. “That would be ideal. Damian already has enough reasons to dislike this guest list.”

At the mention of Damian, several nobles within earshot became intensely interested in their glasses.

Before anyone could answer, a ripple passed through the room from the entrance; heads began to turn in sequence, like a field of flowers bending in a wind that knew exactly where to go.

Then Alexandra appeared.

Her gown carried her husband’s colors, black and blue, elegantly, the fabric cut in that modern, expensive way that made half the older nobles privately disapprove and the younger ones take notes. One hand held the edge of her gloves; the other was occupied by a very small, very determined boy who was walking beside her with the intense concentration of a child committed to the idea that he was managing this situation himself.

Arik.

Two and a half, dark-haired like Damian, already carrying himself with the unsteady confidence of someone who had never in his life doubted he would be caught if he fell.

He took three proud steps, nearly tripped on absolutely nothing, corrected himself with an offended huff, and kept going.

The effect on the room was immediate and catastrophic.

Several nobles visibly melted. Two ladies forgot to breathe for a moment. One duke, who had spent the last ten minutes whispering something poisonous behind a jeweled fan, abruptly looked like he wanted to be seen as a grandfatherly man of family values.

Gabriel’s face changed before he could stop it.

The sharpness remained. The Empress remained. But the line of his mouth softened, and something warmer lit his eyes as Arik spotted him across the distance and froze in place like he had discovered the center of his universe.

“Papa!” Arik announced to the hall at large, voice bright and slightly rough around the edges of the word.

Half the room smiled on instinct.

The other half remembered, all over again, that the child saying ’papa’ in the middle of a diplomatic gathering was the imperial heir, and that one of the most dangerous men in the Empire became irrationally gentle when this particular child held up his arms.

Arik did exactly that now, abandoning dignity without regret.

“Papa! Up!”

Gabriel handed Natalie back to Rafael with a smoothness that suggested he’d done battlefield transfers with less efficiency.

“Hold her,” he said, already moving.

Rafael took Natalie automatically. She made a tiny protesting noise at being removed from her current project – which had apparently been the acquisition of Noah as personal property – but settled when Gregoris’s hand came to her back.

Max watched Alexandra and Arik approach, and some of the dangerous edge left his posture.

“Saved by the prince,” Adam murmured softly.

“Not saved,” Max said, mouth curving again as Arik marched forward with all the gravity of a tiny king. “Interrupted. There’s a difference.”

Alexandra reached them with impeccable composure, as if she had not just crossed a hall full of nobles while escorting a toddler who moved like a storm in formal shoes.

“My apologies,” she said, though she sounded not at all apologetic. Her pale green eyes flicked once over the group, taking in Natalie, Noah, Max’s expression, and the faint tension still hanging in the air. “I was delayed by three women, one viscount, and a countess who attempted to ask whether Arik has shown ’preferences’ yet.”

Max barked out a laugh. “Preferences?”

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