Chapter 84: Chapter 84: Lies

The beast collapsed.

It hit the ground hard enough to shake the ruined square, and the miasma pulsed once, a final spiteful flare that tried to cling to existence… and then it disappeared with a final pulse.

The silence that followed was immediate, the world pausing around them, with wind already entering the contaminated area.

The grey stain in the snow didn’t vanish, but it stopped spreading. The pale fungi that had been unfurling mid-motion sagged as if the strings were cut. The twitching rodents, their bodies contorted under a command that wasn’t theirs, went still one by one.

Kael dragged a harsh breath through his mask. “Target down,” he said, voice raw.

Roric let out a long exhale that sounded like relief and nausea at the same time. “That wasn’t…” He stopped because there weren’t words that didn’t sound pathetic next to what they’d just watched.

Arion stood over the corpse, blade dark against snow. He wiped it once against the beast’s hide, not because it would make it cleaner, but because ritual mattered when you lived in a place that tried to turn you feral.

He lifted his gaze toward the warped buildings, the melted glass, and the blackened trees.

“One,” he said into the comm, calm again.

Kael’s eyes tracked the ruined lanes, scanning for movement that would mean the rest had learned from the first. “And two more,” he answered, grim.

Arion’s grip tightened on the hilt, already preparing himself for the next target.

—

Arion lied.

His mission took more than two hours.

The lunch was over, each of them peeling away one by one like they were summoned by invisible strings, returning to duty with the smooth obedience of people who had been raised inside a system that never truly stopped moving.

Dean stayed behind.

Not because anyone told him to, not because he didn’t have permission to roam, but because there was a particular kind of loneliness that settled in after a room full of warmth emptied too quickly. It didn’t feel like abandonment. It felt like being reminded, sharply, that Alamina was built on response and urgency, and that affection here had to learn to share space with alarms.

Boreas remained, as if the dog had decided the simplest solution to a new mate candidate was constant surveillance.

Minerva had hovered near the door on her way out, eyes sharp, voice light.

“We can show you the east gallery,” she’d offered, like it was a casual thing and not a wing that probably contained at least three historical scandals and one cursed portrait. “Or Tyana can take you to the winter terrace. Ariana will pretend she’s not supervising you.”

Tyana had grinned, already amused. “Come on. We’ll find you something to judge. This palace has a lot of opportunities.”

Dean had smiled and then refused.

“No,” he’d said, polite and firm. “I’m not going to follow you into whatever you were all about to do. You’re not babysitters, and I’m not a child.”

Minerva’s brow had lifted, impressed and slightly annoyed, like Dean had stolen her favorite excuse. “You’re stubborn.”

“I’m Palatine,” Dean had replied, as if that explained the character flaw.

Tyana had laughed and pointed at him. “That’s the first truthful thing you’ve said all day.”

Now the hours crawled.

Dean sat with Boreas stretched across his feet like a living weight. Outside the tall windows, winter pressed pale against the glass, the gardens a clean white that looked innocent until you remembered what lived beyond Alamina’s safe lines.

Arion’s ’two hours’ sat in Dean’s head like a ticking insult.

He wasn’t a child who needed distractions while his parent fought monsters. He could sit still and be rational. He could be the composed fiancé who understood duty and borders and how Alamina’s capital existed close to danger for a reason.

He could.

But he was also nineteen, newly uprooted, and suddenly very aware that the man he was falling for could step into a helicopter and disappear into an emergency like it was an errand.

Dean stared at his phone for a long time.

Boreas watched him with the patient judgment of an animal who had witnessed far worse decisions and survived them.

Dean exhaled through his nose. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Boreas blinked slowly, unimpressed.

Dean stood up because sitting still was starting to feel like a mistake. He dressed properly this time – boots, thick socks, and a warm coat that made him look more like an Alaminian civilian than a Palatine prince-in-law. He wrapped a scarf around his neck out of spite and common sense. Boreas perked up immediately, tail thumping once like he approved of the concept of movement.

Dean clipped the leash on because he wasn’t suicidal.

Not today.

The palace didn’t stop him. Guards nodded. Staff pretended not to see him. The world moved around him like he belonged.

The winter garden paths were cleared, lamps low and discreet, and snowbanks piled like soft walls. Boreas trotted beside him with the easy confidence of a creature that knew every inch of this place and considered it his.

Dean walked until his thoughts stopped clawing. Until worry stopped being loud enough to drown out the birds.

He took his phone out again.

He considered calling Sylvia.

And yet… Dean hesitated, thumb hovering.

Because calling her meant letting someone else into this new, strange, intimate place in his head. It meant admitting that ’I’m fine’ was a lie. It meant admitting he wanted company because waiting was harder than he liked.

He called anyway.

It rang once. Twice.

Then Sylvia answered, and her voice came through bright and awake in that way that made Dean instantly suspicious.

“Dean?” she said. “Are you dying, or are you just bored?”

Dean closed his eyes briefly. “Good morning to you too.”

Sylvia made a pleased sound. “Oh, it’s morning where you are. Look at you, living in an evil ice palace. Did you press any buttons today?”

“No.”

“Did you want to?”

“Yes.”

“Progress,” Sylvia declared. “Where are you?”

“Outside,” Dean said, and started walking again just to have something to do with his feet. “With Boreas.”

There was a pause on Sylvia’s end, like her brain was recalibrating.

“Boreas?”

“Arion’s dog,” Dean said, and the amusement slipped out before he could stop it, because the sentence still didn’t feel real.

Sylvia’s silence lasted exactly one beat too long.

Then she exploded.

“There is a dog,” she said slowly, horrified, “and you didn’t tell me?!”

Dean winced and pulled the phone a fraction away from his ear. Boreas glanced up at the sound, ears flicking, then continued trotting like Sylvia’s outrage was just weather.

“I’ve been busy,” Dean said, because he refused to admit he’d simply forgotten to report the most important development of the century.

“I’m coming. NOW!”

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