Chapter 65: Chapter 65: The Prison of Alamina (1)

The comm pulsed again.

Gregoris remained motionless, albeit with coiled attention, a stillness that preceded violence. Rafael, meanwhile, looked like he might actually pick a fight with the Empire itself. The glare he leveled at the device was so venomous it was almost heroic in its futility.

Gregoris watched him for a moment and, infuriatingly, laughed. Something low and dark, entertained in a way only he could be while half the world was apparently trying to intrude on his night.

“You find this funny?” Rafael demanded, scandalized that anyone was amused when everything was clearly terrible.

“Yes,” Gregoris replied without shame. “You look like you’re about to declare war on technology.”

“I want to declare war on whoever is calling,” Rafael hissed.

Gregoris’s grin sharpened into something that shouldn’t have been allowed to exist in polite company.

“Same,” he said.

The comm pulsed again.

And that was the last second of peace.

Gregoris didn’t answer.

He straightened.

Ether surged through the room in a low, rolling wave that brushed against the walls and rattled the light in the lamp. The air thickened, reality bending for a moment around the decision that had already been made. Shadows crawled up his skin and then fractured, layering across his body, reforming into matte black battle fabric, armor plating catching the light, and weapons snapping into existence at his back and hips like they had simply been waiting for the permission to exist.

The bed smelled like ozone.

The room felt like a war command.

Rafael’s breath caught.

Gregoris was no longer the man who had been demanding kisses two seconds ago.

He was commander. He was a nightmare in human form. He was the reason nations feared Agaron more than they feared war itself.

His eyes flicked once to Rafael.

There was no softness in them.

“I need to go to war,” he said simply.

He took one step back. Ether folded the room around him, swallowing shadow and breath and warmth in the space between heartbeats.

“Don’t leave the mansion.” He ordered and vanished.

The wards reverberated as if something ancient and loyal had just been unchained, and the silence that followed felt heavier than sound.

Rafael stared at the empty space where Gregoris had been, chest tight, heart pounding, feeling stupid for missing him when the heat of his presence hadn’t even fully faded from the sheets.

He dragged in a breath, exhaled carefully, and lay back against the pillows, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“Of course,” he muttered under his breath.

—

Morning came late to Alamina.

Or perhaps it only felt late because the manor refused to acknowledge time the way normal spaces did. Wards hummed quietly beneath the floors, the walls breathed with old power, and every beam of filtered light that slipped through the tall windows seemed carefully curated rather than allowed. T

Rafael had never resented architecture before.

He lay where Gregoris had left him for longer than he meant to, letting silence drip slowly through the room like water from a cracked ceiling. The sheets still held the ghost of heat and ozone, as if the space itself hadn’t quite accepted that its master had left. The air felt wrong without him.

Eventually, Rafael exhaled and decided he’d had enough.

He pushed the covers aside, swung his legs out of bed, and sat there for a moment, feeling the ache of recovery protest quietly before his pride smothered it. The command Gregoris had left behind hovered in the air like a locked door.

’Don’t leave the mansion.’

He hadn’t said, ’don’t move.’ He hadn’t said, ’stay quietly like a well-behaved relic.’

So Rafael stood.

The moment he stepped into the corridor, the manor responded.

Lights softened. Wards shifted, almost like something enormous and unseen turned its head toward him. Somewhere in the distance, footsteps paused, then resumed with the strict cadence of trained staff who understood that pretending not to watch was mandatory.

Rafael ignored it all.

If Gregoris thought he could confine him to a wing like a delicate ornament, he should have picked someone far less curious and significantly more obedient.

He found Peter in the main hallway, just finishing a briefing with two Shadows who were dressed like ordinary attendants and failed at it spectacularly. The butler turned the moment Rafael’s presence reached him, his expression smoothing into something impeccably polite and very slightly resigned.

“Lord Rosenroth,” Peter greeted with a bow that was exactly respectful enough to avoid sarcasm but came dangerously close. “You are awake.”

Rafael arched a brow. “Your observational skills are astounding. I see why he keeps you.”

One of the Shadows coughed quietly into his glove. Peter did not blink.

“His Grace instructed rest,” Peter replied evenly.

“Yes,” Rafael said, with a pleasant smile that did not reach his eyes. “And he also instructed the sun to set and rise every day. The world occasionally refuses to listen. Take me on a tour.”

Peter blinked once.

“A tour,” he repeated.

“Of my prison,” Rafael clarified. “Since your Duke has decided I am to be treated like a priceless artifact under protective custody, I’d at least like to know the extent of my gilded cage. Or shall I begin wandering blindly until the wards electrocute me?”

That earned him the faintest twitch at the corner of Peter’s mouth, which for Peter counted as falling to the floor in shock.

“It would be… inefficient,” Peter admitted carefully, “to allow you to collide with the security system.”

“Then we are in agreement,” Rafael replied. “Walk.”

Peter hesitated for exactly one heartbeat, the length of time it took to consider arguing and realize the futility of it.

“As you wish,” he said, turning smoothly. “Welcome to Alamina Manor. Try not to antagonize the walls.”

“I make no promises.”

They walked.

The manor unfolded around them with vaulted corridors dressed in dark wood and quiet wealth, old stone etched with layered runes, and sunlight filtered through warded glass until it became something softer than brightness and heavier than warmth. Everywhere Rafael looked, he saw a very expensive order.

Gregoris lived here.

Peter narrated in that measured, unhurried tone that sounded like it had been ironed before being spoken.

“This is the eastern wing. Residential. Private quarters. Restricted to Shadows and designated guests.” He paused and glanced at Rafael deliberately. “You are… designated.”

“How affectionate,” Rafael murmured.

They passed tall windows overlooking courtyards lined with marble and quiet gardens that managed to look serene and dangerous at once. Guard rotations moved with such silent coordination that for a moment Rafael wondered whether Gregoris had trained the estate itself to obey.

“And this?” Rafael asked, nodding toward a hallway flanked by carved pillars and guarded by a ward sigil that thrummed low and unfriendly.

Peter’s expression didn’t change. “War corridor. Command rooms. Strategy chambers. Doors you will not open.”

Rafael hummed, unimpressed. “We’ll see.”

“Lord Rosenroth,” Peter said very gently, “please don’t.”

Rafael smiled like a promise.

They continued.

Every room he was shown was beautiful, quiet, curated… and undeniably fortified. Rafael felt watched without being touched, contained without being chained.

By the time Peter finished outlining another section of the manor, Rafael stopped walking.

Peter halted beside him.

Rafael took in the hall, the flawless symmetry, and the weight of protection that hovered over every breath in this place.

“This isn’t a house,” Rafael said softly.

Peter inclined his head. “No, my lord. It is a fortress.”

Rafael let the truth settle, then nodded once, accepting it.

“Good,” he said. “Then if he thinks I’m staying safely tucked away while the world catches fire, he severely underestimates how little I enjoy being shelved.”

Peter sighed quietly, as if his entire morning had just become more complicated.

“Of course you don’t,” he murmured.

Rafael smiled sweetly.

“Now,” he said. “Show me the rest.”

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