"I had better parents this time."

Kamal’s expression changed by half a breath before smoothing again.

Arik saw it anyway. Of course he did.

Kamal had once spent forty years hiding grief behind formal reports and breakfast schedules. Tiny reactions were practically screams with him.

"You remember things," Kamal said carefully.

"Yes."

"How much?"

Arik tilted his head slightly. "Enough to remember you threatening a minister with a serving tray because he interrupted breakfast after a six-day campaign."

For the first time, genuine emotion cracked through Kamal’s composure.

"That was classified."

"You hit him."

"He survived."

"You aimed poorly."

Mezos made a strangled sound somewhere behind them, possibly from trying not to laugh at the image of this elegant, terrifying man assaulting nobility with dining equipment.

Kamal’s eyes remained fixed on Arik now, searching for his master but still wary.

Arik walked slowly farther into the room.

"You don’t believe in reincarnation," he said quietly. "Fair. Personally, I find the entire experience extremely inconvenient."

Kamal watched him in silence.

Arik stopped near the center of the room.

Then, very deliberately, he reached toward the etherline built invisibly into the wall panel beside him.

His fingers brushed the exact hidden trigger beneath the marble.

A soft mechanical click echoed through the room.

One of the old concealed cabinet compartments opened automatically.

Kamal went completely still.

Mezos blinked. "How did you—"

"That compartment," Arik said calmly, "contained emergency brandy because Kamal once claimed ministers became seventy percent less irritating after alcohol."

Kamal finally spoke.

"That was a joke."

"You sounded sincere."

"You drank the entire cabinet during the western siege."

"It was a stressful week."

Silence.

Then Kamal closed his eyes briefly.

When he opened them again, something dangerous had entered his expression.

Hope.

Small enough to kill a man if it shattered again.

"You laugh like him," Kamal said quietly, his eyes softening.

Arik’s own smile faded, and for a second, neither of them spoke.

Then Arik exhaled softly and leaned against the marble table.

"You know," he said, voice gentler now, "this would be much easier if one of you simply hugged me dramatically and spared me the emotional warfare."

Kamal looked horrified.

"Absolutely not."

Arik laughed outright for the first time since entering the room, low and warm and painfully familiar against the old ether-lit silence of the saloon.

Kamal stopped breathing.

The sound hit the room like a ghost stepping out of a grave and deciding to speak.

Mezos looked sharply between them, suddenly understanding that whatever this was had just crossed from resemblance into something far worse.

Or far better.

Kamal’s composure cracked by a fraction.

His fingers tightened once behind his back hard enough that the knuckles briefly whitened beneath dark-golden skin.

Arik saw it immediately.

Kamal had spent over a century mastering control amidst imperial courts, rebellions, poison, and grief. Tiny fractures were catastrophes with him.

"Oh," Arik said softly, the laughter fading from his voice as realization settled in. "That one hurt."

Kamal looked away first.

That alone felt unnatural enough to shake the room.

For decades, perhaps centuries, this man had stood beside emperors and murderers without lowering his gaze.

Now he stared toward the windows because hearing Goliath laugh again had clearly reached into his ribs and twisted.

Arik’s expression softened despite himself.

"You know," he said more quietly, "this would be emotionally easier if you yelled at me instead."

Kamal let out one short breath through his nose.

"You always said that when you were guilty."

"That narrows nothing down."

"It was usually everything."

Mezos made another deeply concerned noise from the corner.

Arik ignored him again and studied Kamal properly now that the first shock had settled.

The steward still carried himself exactly the same way.

Perfect posture.

Controlled breathing.

Hands folded behind his back.

But grief lived inside him now in visible ways it never had in the memories.

In the faint stiffness of his left shoulder, the silver threaded through his hair, and the exhaustion around his eyes that no dominant alpha should have worn at one hundred and forty.

Felix.

The thought entered Arik’s mind like a blade sliding free.

’Not yet,’ he told himself coldly. ’Later.’

Kamal’s gaze finally returned to him.

"You remember more than I expected," the older alpha said carefully.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"How much?"

Arik considered lying.

Then decided Kamal would probably detect it on principle alone.

"I remember enough to know you hated ministers who interrupted breakfast." He tilted his head slightly. "Enough to know you secretly liked Hugo despite pretending otherwise."

Kamal’s jaw tightened faintly.

"And enough," Arik continued more softly, "to remember you carrying Amara out of that corridor while bleeding through your uniform."

Heavy silence covered the room.

Mezos straightened slightly near the wall, understanding instantly that they had crossed into dangerous territory now.

Kamal’s eyes sharpened.

"That memory should not exist inside you."

"It exists inside me because your friend had insisted for me to see it."

The words fell between them with brutal simplicity.

Arik watched the impact land.

The careful distance Kamal had built over decades cracked slightly around the edges.

"You speak like him," Kamal said quietly.

"Because he is me." Arik raised a hand before Kamal could interrupt. "Partially. Technically I’m a mix of his soul and my own personality." His mouth curved faintly. "My point is that I’m a little different now. And not only in good ways."

Kamal stared at him in silence.

Arik could practically see the older alpha trying to organize that sentence into something survivable.

Unfortunately for him, Arik had inherited both Goliath’s emotional catastrophes and Damian’s habit of saying impossible things with complete calm.

"It is strange," Arik admitted more quietly. "Some memories feel like remembering childhood. Others feel like I watched someone drown from inside their body." He looked down briefly at his own hands. "And some things... some things don’t feel separate at all anymore."

Kamal’s gaze followed the movement automatically.

"You are speaking about him like a second man," Kamal said carefully.

"Because for years that’s how I survived it." Arik looked back up. "I was Arik. Goliath was memories, instincts, and fragments. Something buried." His expression darkened slightly. "But the more I remember, the harder it becomes to separate where he ends and I begin."

The room fell quiet again.

Even Mezos stopped pretending not to listen.

Arik leaned his hip lightly against the table behind him.

"I still love different things," he said after a moment. "I was raised differently. I have parents now who would personally commit war crimes over breakfast if something happened to me." His mouth twitched faintly. "I have Liam."

Something softened in his expression at the name before he continued.

"But when I heard Silas cry in those memories..." His voice roughened slightly. "When I saw Seraphina on that floor, or heard you speak..." He exhaled slowly. "That grief was mine too."

Kamal’s jaw tightened hard enough to hurt.

Arik saw the exact moment the steward stopped hearing reincarnation and started hearing loss returned in another shape.

Dangerous.

Painful.

Impossible.

"You remember Lady Seraphina," Kamal said quietly.

"I remember her teaching me how to braid flower crowns badly because Amara threatened my dignity." Arik paused. "I remember Hugo throwing a book at me because I called Lucen judgmental at three days old."

Mezos blinked.

"That child was three days old?"

"He looked offended by taxation already."

A terrible sound escaped Mezos before he buried it under a cough.

Kamal did not laugh, but something in his face broke again anyway.

Arik’s expression softened further.

"And I remember you," he said quietly. "Standing beside me through all of it."

Kamal looked away sharply.

For the first time since entering the room, the steward’s composure genuinely faltered.

Not dramatically.

Kamal would probably rather die twice, but Arik saw the tremor in his breathing.

The way his shoulders stiffened.

The way his eyes closed for one brief second too long.

"Sixty-seven years..." Kamal said at last, voice low and controlled with visible effort. "Do you know how long that feels when you are waiting for ghosts?"

Arik swallowed.

"No," he admitted softly. "But I think I’m beginning to understand."

Silence settled over the saloon again.

Then, because Kamal apparently decided emotional vulnerability had exceeded acceptable limits, he straightened slightly and looked Arik over with renewed scrutiny.

"You still stand incorrectly."

Arik stared at him and laughed again despite himself.

"There he is."