Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 317 - 312: Two Hours

"Then I fall with you," Damian said simply. "But I’ll carry you first."

"Romantic as always. Let me finish the meeting and we can go back to the rest of the day being ours. We still have it free by protocol."

Damian’s lips curved, not into a full smile, but something softer, something that lived behind closed doors and beneath armor. "I’ll hold you to that."

"You always do," Gabriel replied, pulling back just enough to smooth his hands down Damian’s chest. He paused where the clasp of the robe had once rested, fingers lingering on the bare fabric now. "And don’t even think of following me back into the meeting. You look like war incarnate."

"I am war incarnate."

"Yes," Gabriel said dryly, stepping away, "and I’m still the one they fear more when I raise a brow."

Damian watched him walk back to the table, straight-backed, calm, still haloed by the echo of execution and the certainty of command, and for a moment, just a breath, he let the weight fall from his shoulders.

His consort. His equal. His match in fire and silence both.

"Go," Gabriel said over his shoulder, already picking up the tablet again. "Before Edward catches you loitering and insists on another robe."

Damian didn’t move. "You have two hours to come to our chambers."

Gabriel paused mid-scroll, head tilting just enough to signal he was listening, just enough to let Damian know he was amused.

"Is that a command?" he asked without turning around.

"No," Damian said, his voice low, rough around the edges. "It’s a warning."

Gabriel’s lips curved slowly, almost fondly. "Understantable, now go before nobles find out where you are."

Damian didn’t move for a beat. Just stood there, the shadow of the Emperor still clinging to him like smoke. Then, finally, he turned—slowly, reluctantly—his gloves creaking as he adjusted the fingers. Not because they needed fixing. Because it kept his hands from reaching again.

"Two hours," he repeated, quieter this time. A vow.

Gabriel didn’t answer this time. Just offered him a glance, cool and knowing, before looking back down at the tablet like he hadn’t just made the Emperor retreat with a single line.

The door closed behind Damian, and the silence that followed wasn’t silence at all, it was anticipation, folded neatly between ether threads and the breath Gabriel didn’t know he’d been holding.

—

Damian had never felt anything after executing someone.

The robe was gone, the weight of gold and judgment shrugged off with the ease of a man who had long since stopped pretending to care about the dead. Patricia was ash. Her name would fade from record within a week, her estate already being divided with surgical cruelty. She was just noise. And noise had been dealt with.

What lingered wasn’t guilt.

It was Gabriel’s stillness.

The kind that wasn’t there yesterday—too quiet, too focused, too controlled in a way that made Damian’s spine itch with unease. He had seen that look only a few times before. Once, just before Gabriel stepped into the rebellion’s fire. Another, when he’d agreed to bear the Empire’s future without complaint.

Today, it came after seeing him wearing that damn crown.

Damian changed quickly into a simple shirt, trousers, and shoes. He rolled his sleeves once, fingers tracing the faint welt on his wrist where the crown’s embedded ether had pulsed in response to his blood.

He reached for his coat and didn’t call for Edward.

Marin would be waiting already, he’d ordered the visit discreetly this morning. He didn’t tell Gabriel about it, as he needed confirmation that activating the crown hadn’t burned through a layer of his ether channels.

He paused once by the door, half-turned toward the inner hallway.

Gabriel hadn’t said it aloud, but he remembered something. Damian saw it in the way his hand hovered over the desk and in the way his gaze drifted toward the edge of the light instead of the tablet.

He would ask later.

For now, he needed to make sure that when Gabriel looked at him again, he would still be whole.

—

The hallway outside their chambers was still, guards standing like statues carved from patience and protocol. He wasn’t rushing. Rushing meant nerves. And he, of course, didn’t do nerves.

Except when Gabriel looked at him like that.

That glance. Just a flick of eyes and a subtle shift in posture when he saw him with the crown on his head. As if he wasn’t seeing it for the first time but remembering it. Like the weight of it belonged somewhere in his memory already and not the pleasant kind.

That alone had been enough to make Damian quietly reroute his morning.

He stepped into the south medical wing without knocking. The doors opened without resistance, warded for privacy, yes, but not to keep him out. Inside, the light was annoyingly sterile, and the physician was already waiting, seated like a man who had the gall to think patience was his weapon of choice.

"Your Majesty," Marin said flatly, not bothering to bow. "Punctual. That always ruins my morning." freёwebnoѵel.com

Damian dropped his coat onto the chair beside the door. "You’ll survive."

"Mm," Marin said, drawing out the sound like it tasted of bureaucracy. "Symptoms?"

"No. Just a check. I activated the crown. It responded."

Marin raised an eyebrow as he grabbed the scanner. "Ether pulse?"

"Strong. Didn’t scorch. Just... made itself known," Damian said, watching the scanner flicker to life.

"That’s not unusual," Marin replied as he adjusted the interface. "It could be responding to your bond now that you have a mate."

Damian’s brow lifted slightly. "You sound far too calm about that."

Marin gave him a look. "You’re the one who went and fell in love with a walking ether paradox. I’m just making sure your circulatory system doesn’t implode."

"It won’t."

"Unfortunately for my peace of mind, you are right," Marin muttered, tapping the display again. "But your reading is colder than usual. You’re holding back. Immensely."

Damian didn’t deny it.

Marin didn’t expect him to.

"Which usually means one thing," the physician went on. "You’re worried. Not in the apocalyptic, empire-collapsing way. The personal kind."

Damian’s jaw shifted just slightly. "He remembered something. I saw it."

Marin glanced up. "You sure?"

"Yes." A pause. "He didn’t say anything. But it was in the way he looked at the crown."

"Ah," Marin said, sitting back with a sigh. "So this is a ’let’s not panic but also maybe panic’ situation."

He didn’t bother trying to hide the sarcasm, but his hands moved steadily as he finished logging the readings into the system. The humor faded from his face gradually, like mist pulling back to reveal steadier ground.

"Your mate is stronger than most," he said more quietly, eyes on the screen. "And he’ll talk. He always does when it comes to you."

Damian didn’t respond, but his stillness gave him away. Marin didn’t push.

"You made the best decision you could with the shard," the physician added, tone more measured now. "Anyone else would’ve chosen differently. Would’ve chosen themselves. But you didn’t. You gave him a chance and now you have to give him time."

Damian exhaled, a sound not quite agreement, not quite relief.

"I am giving him time."

Marin looked up, expression dry but not unkind. "Sure. In your Emperor way. Which involves staring silently until people confess their deepest secrets."

A beat passed.

"Ninety minutes," Damian repeated, less like a threat and more like a vow.

Marin smirked faintly. "Then by all means, go pace the hallway in dramatic silence. That always helps."

Damian stood, tugging his coat back on without another word. But there was something in his posture that had shifted, less tension in the shoulders, less fire banked behind his eyes.

The door clicked shut behind him.

And Marin, alone now, leaned back in his chair with a soft exhale. "You always pick the difficult ones," he muttered to the empty room. "But gods help the world, they’re worth it."