"Because I am trying to remain civilized," he said.

Mezos gave Arik the report on Liam, and his gaze dared the prince to keep the idea of being civilized.

Arik accepted the slate.

The device woke beneath his thumb with a sealed Agaronian cipher that could be unlocked by either Arik’s signature or Meros’. Mezos had stripped the file out of every network that might remember being touched. There was no administrative ghost left behind for Felix’s people to sniff out later.

Liam’s formal identification image appeared first.

The image was three years old, perhaps four. His hair was tied back, his red eyes narrowed at the camera with a look of profound boredom that bordered on open hostility. He wore a dark academic coat with the stiff collar of the Capital Registry, and his expression suggested that whoever had taken the photograph had been one comment away from becoming part of a cautionary report.

Arik looked at it for one moment too long.

Then he read.

Subject: Liam Sienna Canmore.

Classification: Dominant Omega - High-Flow Potential.

Specialization: Harmonic Ether-Dynamics / Structural Metaphysics.

Arik scrolled past the academic record, the doctorate earned by twenty, the accelerated placements, the sealed research exemptions, and the nineteen patents Felix had "gifted" to the state with the polished theft only old families dared call patriotism.

Then he landed on the section Gabriel had been most curious about.

"Personal associations," Arik murmured.

"None," Mezos said flatly.

Arik’s thumb paused on the edge of the slate.

Mezos continued, precise enough to be cruel. "No current lovers. No previous lovers confirmed. No long-term companions. No registered heat partner. No private consort arrangement. No repeat intimate visitors through household logs, clinic records, travel patterns, or security shadows."

The silence that followed was very quiet.

Mezos watched Arik’s face with the expression of a man prepared to witness something unfortunate and document it for future caution.

Arik did not smile... yet.

"He spends most of his time between Lab V, the Armstrong wing, and the municipal maintenance tunnels," Mezos went on. "He does not attend social rotations unless forced. He does not accept consort applications. According to internal household logs, he has rejected every introduction Felix attempted over the last five years."

"Every introduction," Arik repeated.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"The stated reasons vary."

Arik looked up.

Mezos’s mouth curved faintly. "The most recent one was that he would rather sleep inside the turbine intake."

Arik laughed.

The sound was low and brief, but it softened something in the room before it sharpened again.

"He has taste."

"He has selective survival instincts," Mezos corrected.

Arik returned to the slate.

The report continued beneath the personal section, stripped of gossip and arranged with the ugly efficiency of intelligence work.

Primary emotional access: Enia Ravenwood. Mirelle Armstrong. Rex of Wrohan. Alexander Smith. Select laboratory staff.

Arik tapped the name of the security guard from Lab V.

"Alexander Smith."

Mezos’s gaze sharpened by a degree. "The security guard."

"The one who gave us the IDs."

"The one who looked like he would have buried Felix in a corridor if Liam asked him to."

"Yes." Arik’s finger remained over the name. "Find out everything about him too."

Mezos did not look surprised. That was one of his better qualities. "Security-wise, or access to Liam?"

"Both," Arik said. "He seems like a man Liam trusts with his work, and for someone that similar to Gabriel, that means Alexander is not merely tolerated. He is trusted. I want him checked for potential betrayal and..." His gaze remained on the name, cold and thoughtful. "If instinct serves me correctly, as security for Liam when he becomes mine."

Mezos’s eyes did not widen, he knew Arik and the warlord inside him too well, but his spine went a fraction straighter.

"When he becomes yours," he repeated. "You are already building a fortress around him before he has even agreed to leave the basement."

"He does not need to agree yet," Arik said, his voice dropping into that low, quiet register that made rank feel like a physical thing. "He needs to remain alive long enough for me to dismantle the cage."

Mezos stared at him.

Arik did not look up from the slate.

"Alexander Smith is a variable I had not accounted for, but he may be a welcome one. A man who guards a genius in a chasm and does not ask foolish questions understands the value of what he protects. Check his accounts, his family ties, his combat record, his service history, and every recorded disciplinary incident. If he is clean, he stays close."

"And if he is compromised?"

Arik’s mouth curved faintly.

The expression had no warmth in it.

"Then Liam receives proof."

Mezos’s brow shifted.

Arik finally looked up. "I did listen to Gabriel."

"For a moment, I was concerned."

"If Alexander is compromised, Liam needs to know before I act. But if the compromise is active and threatens him, we remove the access point first and explain afterward."

"That sounds much more like you."

"It is important to remain recognizable."

Mezos exhaled once, dry and controlled. "I will have Alexander assessed."

Arik returned to the slate, and the next section opened under his thumb.

Medical history.

The file did not dramatize. It laid horror out in clean lines, stripped of the mercy of outrage.

Industrial accidents.

Lab surges.

Stress collapses.

Displacement sickness sensitivity.

Minor burns from ward feedback.

A fracture in the left wrist at nineteen, logged as a fall in the lower mechanical corridor.

Three instances of non-laboratory blunt force trauma filed without official follow-up.

Arik’s gaze moved down the dates.

One injury lined up with a canceled funding request.

Another with a patent transfer.

Another with a family summons was flagged through Ray Canmore’s office, and he knew that some of it might be retaliation and not accidents.

Then the attached images opened.

Arik stopped.

He had seen the bruises on Liam’s face.

Even beneath the makeup and ether creams, even softened by treatment and hidden beneath Liam’s refusal to turn his face the wrong way, Arik had noticed the shadow at the cheekbone, the stiffness near the jaw, and the wrong bloom of pain under skin forced to look presentable.

He had known Felix had struck him. He had not known the severity, or more honestly, he didn’t care at that time to intervene. Liam looked like a man knowing how to defend himself.

The first image loaded under cold medical light.

Liam’s face was turned slightly to the left, hair pulled back from his cheek, expression blank with the kind of exhaustion that came after anger had run out of immediate targets. Without cosmetic masking, the damage looked brutal.

The bruising spread from cheekbone to jaw in a wide, uneven fan of violet, dark red, and blackened swelling. The point of impact sat high along the cheekbone, where the skin had split in a thin crescent beneath the pressure. The lower cheek had swollen enough to distort the line of his face. A darker mark ran close to the corner of his mouth, where the force had driven his teeth into the inner flesh.

The second image showed the opposite angle.

The third was an intraoral scan.

Laceration, inner right cheek: 1.8 cm, shallow-to-moderate depth.

Bleeding controlled before examination.

No tooth fracture detected.

Soft tissue trauma consistent with blunt-force impact transmitted through the outer cheek.

Arik’s thumb went still.