Chapter 172: Chapter 172: The room off the avenue

They moved the discussion from the backstage.

Too many eyes, too much traffic, and too many people pretending not to listen while angling their bodies closer. Max said something low to the handler, and the handler – white-faced with relief at being given a job that wasn’t standing here while two men sharpened knives with their smiles – led them through a side passage of the venue.

The event avenue had been built to host crowds without letting crowds decide what happened.

Wide hallways with polished stone, banners in black and gold hung high enough to be seen but not grabbed, discreet security stations behind decorative panels, and etherlines threaded into the molding like veins: soft, pale glows that made the building feel alive, awake, and slightly predatory. Even here, away from the stage, the bass still lived in the bones of the walls, a fading echo of the concert that refused to fully die.

They stopped at a private room.

Not luxurious in the old-regime way – no obscene chandeliers, no velvet that looked like it had been dyed in blood – but clean and expensive in the new regime’s aesthetic: sharp lines, comfortable chairs, a small bar built into a wall niche, and a warded window that looked out into an internal courtyard lit by winter-white ether lamps.

Max moved as if he belonged in any room the moment he entered it.

Adam moved as if he refused to belong on principle.

“Shower,” Max said, nodding once toward the adjacent washroom, like he was giving a suggestion and expecting it to become reality.

Adam’s smile returned instantly, bright and weaponized. “I was going to,” he said. “But thank you for supervising my hygiene. Really completes the experience.”

Max’s eyes flickered with annoyance, amusement, or perhaps both. “You smell like a stage.”

“I am a stage,” Adam replied, and then disappeared into the washroom before Max could decide which argument to pick.

The door shut.

Steam began to curl under it minutes later, and the sharp scent of soap cut through sweat and adrenaline and the lingering tang of crowded air. Adam took his time on purpose.

Let Max wait.

When Adam came out, it was like a different version of him walked into the room.

Hair towel-dried into rebellious spikes, clean shirt – soft black, plain, no insignia, because he refused to wear anyone’s colors – sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His skin was still warm from the water, cheeks faintly flushed, the post-show glitter of sweat replaced by a cleaner shine.

Max had made himself comfortable in the meantime.

He sat in the armchair nearest the bar, one ankle resting over the opposite knee, suit still immaculate. A glass in his hand caught the light – amber and cold, condensation beading along the crystal. The kind of drink that smelled like money and patience.

Adam’s eyes went straight to the glass.

“You drink like you’re in a painting,” Adam said.

Max raised the glass slightly, not quite a toast. “And you talk like you’re trying to start a fight.”

“I’m not trying,” Adam replied and dropped into the chair opposite him. He leaned back, relaxed in posture only, and let his gaze pin Max with polite suspicion. “I want the truth.”

Max’s expression didn’t change. “You’ll get it.”

Adam waited.

Max took a slow sip, then set the glass down with careful control, as if he was placing an object in a room that might explode.

“You’re going to become a target,” Max said.

Adam blinked once, unimpressed. “I already was. That’s what crowds are. Targets waiting to happen.”

“You were a target tonight,” Max corrected, voice calm. “Because the Empire was still learning if it could let people gather. Because there are still people in the dark that miss the old world.” His green eyes held Adam’s. “But now you’ll be a target tomorrow, and next week, and every time you remind people what they lost and what they could get back.”

Adam’s jaw tightened a fraction. “For singing?”

“For making them feel safe enough to sing with you,” Max said.

Adam leaned forward, elbows on his knees, because sitting back suddenly felt like surrender. “The old regime is dead.”

Max didn’t argue. He simply looked at him, like Adam had stated something a child said to make nightmares manageable.

Adam pressed anyway. “Olivier is dead. Sadar is dead. ” His voice sharpened. “Goliath is also dead, after decades of suffering as regents abused power until the entire system rotted.”

The names tasted like ash even spoken aloud.

For a brief moment, Max’s gaze became distant and weighted, as if those deaths were more than just history: removals that had not solved the equation.

“Yes,” Max said quietly. “They’re dead.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “Then what’s left to resurrect?” He leaned forward a fraction, gaze sharp, refusing to let Max turn this into vague palace poetry. “The Emperor was chosen by ether. There’s no more arguing legitimacy. No more bloodline games. Ether spoke. That should have ended it.”

“It ended the clean arguments,” Max replied. “Not the dirty ones.” His voice stayed even, but the room felt colder around the edges of his words. “The Empire was fractured long before Olivier died. Long before Sadar. And only the last traces of Goliath’s will – his networks, his old oaths, the inertia of fear – kept what was left of it from collapsing completely.”

Adam’s mouth tightened. “So you’re saying the throne wasn’t held by a man. It was held by… momentum.”

Max’s eyes flickered, a brief flash of approval. “Exactly.”

Adam sat back, then, like the chair had suddenly become a bad idea. “But if ether chose Damian—”

“Ether choosing him doesn’t erase hunger,” Max cut in, not harsh, just firm. “It doesn’t erase families that profited. It doesn’t erase officers who built careers on the old structure. It doesn’t erase the fact that people can accept a truth and still hate it.” He paused, then added with quiet bluntness, “Some will never forgive the Emperor for surviving.”

Adam’s jaw flexed. “So what do you want from me?”

Max didn’t look away when he answered, and that was its own kind of violence.

“Your part of duty is to…” He hesitated a fraction, as if weighing whether honesty was worth the fight it would cause. Then he said it anyway, calm and clinical. “Be pretty. Be loud. Keep civilians’ minds off the buried tragedies.”

For a heartbeat, the room went very still.

Adam’s expression didn’t change immediately. The performer’s smile hovered at the edge of his mouth out of habit, as if his face hadn’t yet received the update that the conversation had turned from tense to insulting.

Then the smile vanished.

“Oh,” Adam said softly.

He set his water glass down with care on the low table between them. His fingers released it like he didn’t trust himself to keep holding anything fragile.

“Be pretty,” he repeated, voice still quiet, almost conversational. “That’s what you came back here to tell me.”

Max’s gaze held his, unflinching. “It’s not meant as—”

“As what?” Adam asked, and now the brightness returned to his tone, sharp enough to cut glass. “As a compliment? As an honor? As a patriotic career opportunity for the nation’s decorative civilian?”

Max’s jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly. “As strategy.”

Adam laughed once, short and ugly. “You palace people say ’strategy’ the way other men say ’inevitable.’”

Max’s eyes flicked down, then back up. “You asked for the truth.” He pushed to his feet, the movement smooth and contained, his suit falling back into place like it had never known sweat or smoke or crowds. “And I’m not here to force you into anything.”

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