Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)
Chapter 394 - 388: Cleared

Chapter 394: Chapter 388: Cleared

The door to Marin’s office closed behind him with a soft click, and the corridor beyond felt sharper somehow, cleaner. Gabriel adjusted the fall of his coat as he walked, the subtle weight of the imperial signet pressing against his palm where he’d curled his fingers into a fist.

"Approved," Marin had said, his tone clipped but certain.

"Under supervision," he’d added, as though supervision could contain him.

Gabriel didn’t slow his steps.

The palace’s northern wing opened into wider halls, each one lined with lanterns that pulsed softly with the heartbeat of the wards. Officials passing by bowed low, some murmuring formal greetings, but he didn’t break stride to answer. His dark hair, cropped short and swept back, caught the lamplight with each turn of his head, the faint pallor of recent recovery doing nothing to dull the hard set of his expression.

When he stepped into the lift and pressed his palm to the brass plate etched with the sigil of the Central Ward Command, the ether locks thrummed in recognition. The platform hummed and began its descent, carrying him into the heart of the palace’s defenses.

The Command was quiet when the doors slid open, quiet in the way that only the most dangerous places could be. Ether screens glowed softly over rows of consoles, their light reflecting off polished brass and dark marble. Wardmasters murmured in low tones, glyphs shifting across their tablets, reports filtering in from the borders like distant whispers.

Gabriel crossed the room with deliberate calm, every step measured. A few of the senior wardmasters rose instinctively, bowing their heads. He returned none of it. He went straight for the central dais where the primary glyph array shimmered, a map of the Empire rendered in glowing threads of power.

His hand hovered over the projection. Donin’s borders pulsed faint red, the jagged echo of Hadeon’s occupation still radiating outward.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes, fingers gliding across the brass‑framed keyboard, the soft clack of keys swallowed by the low hum of the ward‑cores. Lines of encrypted code flickered into an auxiliary screen, scrolling fast, precise, each glyph a tether pulling hidden threads into focus.

He had rested. He had recovered, well, mostly. Rest was a luxury when people like Hadeon were putting his work in danger.

Even in the quiet hours of recovery, while Arik slept against his chest and the palace whispered its lullabies, he had been planning.

How to detect Olivier’s shard. How to trace it when dormant, buried in Hadeon’s grip. How to make it sing.

One final keystroke, and the ward map shifted. The red wash over Donin fractured, breaking into filaments as the auxiliary screen fed its pattern into the main array.

A slow green light unfurled across the projection, threads spreading outward like veins through stone, weaving into distant points, trading routes, border wards, and faint residual channels that pulsed as if answering a forgotten call.

Gabriel leaned in slightly, eyes following the light’s path, the faintest edge of a smile tugging at his lips.

"There you are," he murmured under his breath, almost tender, as the shard’s hidden resonance flared against the map, a heartbeat hidden under layers of stone and distance, now revealed.

The room stayed hushed, unaware of the quiet war he had just ignited.

He rested one hand flat against the console, feeling the vibration of the wards through the polished metal, the pulse of power syncing to his own.

"Now," Gabriel whispered, his voice soft as silk and twice as dangerous, "let’s end this."

The glyph threads pulsed again, brighter this time, as the system locked onto the shard’s resonance. A new panel unfolded from the console, etched brass sliding out like the petals of a mechanical flower. Data scrolled over the surface, coordinates, fluctuations, half‑decayed signatures of ether channels long abandoned.

Gabriel’s thumb brushed across a line of numbers, selecting and isolating them, feeding them into a private relay only his clearance allowed. The Imperial Command would see this as routine monitoring. Damian would see it as routine recovery.

No one would see what he had just activated.

A shadow moved at the edge of the chamber. Edward. Of course.

He stepped into the light with the unhurried precision of a man who had been standing there far longer than Gabriel had noticed, hands clasped neatly behind his back, the set of his jaw unreadable.

"You move quickly for someone barely cleared to stand," Edward said quietly. His voice carried no reproach, only observation.

Gabriel didn’t look up from the glowing threads. "I don’t have the luxury of waiting."

Edward’s gaze flicked to the projection, to the green veins creeping like ivy over the map of Donin. A lesser man might have asked questions. Edward did not. He folded his arms instead, immaculate and silent, letting the implication hang.

"You intend to tell him?" he asked at last, meaning Damian without needing to say the name.

Gabriel’s fingers danced across the keys, narrowing the shard’s position to a single quadrant. His reflection stared back at him from the curved glass, eyes sharp, the faint scar of exhaustion hidden under a veneer of control.

"No," Gabriel said. His tone was calm, almost too calm. "Not yet."

Edward’s jaw flexed, the smallest shift, but enough to betray his thoughts. "You’ve just come back from the edge. Do you plan to stand on it again?"

Gabriel’s mouth curved faintly, a shadow of a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. "I plan to make sure my son never has to."

The console hummed as the final coordinates locked, the shard’s resonance marked with a low chime. Gabriel reached for the brass plate, pressing his signet into the reader until the metal warmed beneath his palm, sealing the data under his own authority.

Edward inclined his head slowly, as if to acknowledge a battle he couldn’t stop. "Then may the gods be merciful to whatever stands in your way."

Gabriel’s gaze never left the projection. "Mercy isn’t one of my best qualities."

Edward’s lips curved, not into a smile, but something sharper—an acknowledgment, almost pride in disguise.

"Then it’s a good thing you’re ours," he said quietly.

Gabriel’s fingers hovered over the final confirmation glyph, his expression carved from stillness, his pulse steady despite the surge of power humming beneath his skin.

"I was never anyone else’s," he replied, voice low, almost a whisper, but carrying the weight of an oath.

The console gave a soft chime as he sealed the command, threads of light tightening into a single spear of green cutting across Donin’s projection.

Edward didn’t speak again. He simply stepped back, folding into the shadows at the edge of the chamber, the way only Edward could, lethal in his quiet watch.

Gabriel straightened, eyes narrowing as the coordinates locked in.

"Let’s see how long you last, Hadeon," he murmured, more to the map than to the man behind him, the words soft but edged, a promise dressed as a thought.

The hum of the ether cores deepened, the lights on the walls flickering as if the palace itself had heard and approved.

Gabriel’s hand rested briefly over the center of the projection, over that last shard pulsing faintly green in Hadeon’s territory, and for a moment, the entire room felt alive bracing for what came next.