[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega
Chapter 84: The Weight of Inheritance

Chapter 84: Chapter 84: The Weight of Inheritance

Dax pulled the phone away from his ear, staring at the blank screen for a beat too long.

The sharp click of the call ending still echoed in the silence of his private study, cushioned by velvet walls and framed in gold. He stood by the tall windows, overlooking the lush sprawl of the Sahan palace gardens—trimmed, perfect, as artificial as half the people who walked them.

He exhaled through his nose and lowered himself into the nearest armchair, one leg slung over the other with the elegance of a man who knew exactly how far his reach extended.

"So," he murmured aloud, to no one in particular. "Trevor Fitzgeralt finally married. And to him, of all people."

Dax pulled the folder closer, the weight of it more symbolic than physical. Pages worn at the edges, some still faintly scented with southern ink, the kind used in backroom clinics and forged registries. His thumb brushed over Lucas’s name—newly appended, now bearing the full force of House D’Argente behind it—and for a moment, his expression stilled into something unreadable.

He would’ve taken him.

From anyone else, he would have.

But not from Trevor.

Because Trevor Fitzgeralt was not a man who took things lightly. And Dax—more than anyone—knew what it meant to wear a crown that was never meant for you. Knew the ache of inheriting ruin. Knew the violence of making it yours anyway.

They were too alike, carved from mirrored shapes of power: one forged in the slow-burn discipline of northern loyalty, the other in the raw aftermath of betrayal and blood. Trevor had taken his title out of duty, not ambition. Just as Dax had slaughtered his way to the throne of Saha when his brothers bled the kingdom dry with greed and left him the carcass to bury.

He glanced again at the closed folder, at the shadow of a boy now woven into two of the most dangerous legacies in the Empire.

Lucas Oz Kilmer.

Now Lucas D’Argente-Fitzgeralt—and maybe, Dax thought grimly, the only person who might survive it.

Because Trevor didn’t marry out of strategy. Not entirely. There had been something else in his voice during the call. A certainty. A choice. And Lucas, for all his soft-spoken beginnings, had chosen him back.

Dax didn’t know whether to laugh again or prepare for war.

He leaned back in the chair, arms resting on the gilded sides, and let his gaze drift once more toward the gardens below. Somewhere out there, nobles were already whispering. Somewhere deeper, darker, the name Faceless Agatha still curled like a snake beneath the floorboards of Empire.

He had seen it before, how empires pretended their monsters were myths, right up until the myth knocked at the gates.

Trevor had bought time. Lucas had inherited fire.

But the game hadn’t ended. It had only just begun.

Dax closed his eyes briefly, then stood, straightening the shawl across his shoulder. He moved toward the long desk at the far end of the study and rang once for Tyler.

When his steward appeared, silent and precise, Dax didn’t look up from the map on the desk.

"Start preparing the guest wing," he said. "The northern one."

"For House Fitzgeralt?" Tyler asked.

"No," Dax replied, folding the marriage file shut. "For House D’Argente. And bring wine. Something old. Something sharp."

He turned, just as dusk gave way to stars. NovelFire

"We’re going to have company."

—

Back in the office, the silence settled in thick and sudden the moment the door clicked shut behind Trevor.

Lucas sat very still for a moment, the glow of the tablet screen casting soft blue shadows across his features, flickering slightly as the document refreshed. Numbers, names, policies. Staff logs and security rotas. Financial breakdowns and border schedules. Terms like interim budgeting authority and logistical secondary approval blinked up at him like quiet accusations.

He swallowed.

The desk felt bigger now. The room felt sharper.

He’d walked through fire to stand here. He knew that. Mentally, he was older than most and experienced. He remembered being twenty-five. He remembered dying. And in theory, that should’ve made him feel more prepared.

But this—

This wasn’t surviving.

This was governing.

And for all Serathine’s sharp instructions, for all her midnight drills and clipped corrections and patient hours over coffee and financial handbooks, this... was more.

This was real.

Lucas closed the file and leaned back slightly, dragging his hands over his face. The leather of the chair creaked quietly beneath him. He glanced toward the door, toward the warm hum of voices beyond it—Trevor’s voice, quiet, measured, calm—and exhaled.

He wasn’t going to hide it

When Trevor stepped back into the room, Lucas didn’t bother with a smile.

"I looked at the internal finance index for five minutes," he said dryly, "and I’m eighty percent sure I just mentally retired."

Trevor blinked once, then leaned against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest. "That bad?"

Lucas nodded toward the screen. "That’s not finance. That’s a maze. It has footnotes that reference other footnotes. I think one of them is legally sentient."

Trevor chuckled, low and warm, but Lucas’s tone shifted—softer now, quieter.

"I don’t know if I’m the right person for this," he admitted. "I know how to endure things. I know how to survive people like Misty and Christian. I know how to fake poise and say the right thing at a dinner party. But this—" He gestured vaguely to the screen. "This is... generational. Institutional. It’s not just about me."

Trevor pushed off the wall and walked toward him, the sound of his boots a soft rhythm against the floor.

"You don’t have to take it all on," he said gently. "You’re not alone in this."

"I know. But—"

"No." Trevor shook his head, stepping around to the other side of the desk and resting one hand on the back of Lucas’s chair. "You think you do. Because people like us—people who were told from too young an age that our worth was survival—we don’t know how to delegate. We don’t know how to trust. But you don’t need to carry everything."

Lucas glanced up.

Trevor met his gaze steadily. "Windstone will walk you through the logistics. I’ll walk you through anything else. And when neither of us knows what the hell’s going on, we’ll hire someone who does and make them teach us."

Lucas blinked once, the tightness in his chest beginning to ease.

"You’re serious."

Trevor smiled. "I didn’t marry you to watch you drown in paperwork. I married you because I thought we could run an empire and still get out of bed on time."

Lucas gave a low, startled laugh. "You are absurd."

Trevor leaned in slightly, his hand brushing over Lucas’s shoulder with a reassuring squeeze. "And you’re going to be fine."

Lucas looked down at the tablet again, then back at Trevor.

"Okay," he said quietly, a breath slipping loose from his lungs. "But if one more file starts referencing itself in the third person, I’m throwing it out a window."

Trevor’s grin widened. "That’s the spirit."