Gregoris felt the exhaustion settle deep into his bones, the kind that no amount of ether stimulation could fully burn away. Across from him, Damian looked much the same, shoulders tight, expression stripped down to function, eyes too sharp for a man who hadn't slept properly in days.
Hadeon remained elusive, slipping through Donin's infrastructure like a rat through steel walls, leaving burned supply lines and empty command posts behind him. They hadn't caught him yet. That failure lingered, sharp and irritating, but it wasn't the objective anymore.
For now, Donin was withdrawing its support. That was the win. Hadeon would have to run again, stripped of resources and allies, forced back into the shadows where he belonged.
Gregoris arrived back at the palace with the residue of Donin still clinging to him, dust in the seams of his coat, ether burn humming low under his skin, and exhaustion settled so deep it had stopped announcing itself.
The palace gates recognized him immediately. Security parted without comment. What Gregoris felt instead was the quiet shift of anticipation, the familiar tightening in his chest that had nothing to do with combat and everything to do with what waited inside.
He expected resistance.
He expected doors closed a fraction too fast, guards suddenly remembering protocol, and corridors that smelled faintly of avoidance. He expected Rafael to vanish into administrative sanctuaries or to greet him with that polite, razor-edged civility that usually preceded provocation.
What he did not expect was… paperwork.
Rafael was exactly where he had always been allowed to be found: in the secondary imperial office, buried under files, sleeves rolled to the forearms, tablet propped against a stack of seating charts like a fragile truce. Ether-powered screens glowed softly at his sides, blinking reminders and unresolved disputes. His hair was slightly out of place, his expression drawn tight with focus.
—
Rafael did not look up when Gregoris entered.
He was mid-annotation, stylus moving in quick strokes across the tablet, lips moving soundlessly as he recalculated guest placement for the third time. A junior clerk hovered at a respectful distance, then quietly decided this was not a good moment and retreated.
Gregoris stopped two steps from the desk.
For a moment, he simply watched. The familiar cadence of Rafael at work, focused, relentless, and entirely unafraid of the machinery of power around him, cut through the exhaustion more effectively than rest ever had.
"You did not miss me," Gregoris said at last, voice low, almost dry. "Two weeks, and not even a barricade."
Rafael hummed absently, still not looking up. "You were late returning reports. Page twelve was missing an annex."
Gregoris blinked.
Then he moved closer, bracing one hand on the desk, leaning over the carefully ordered chaos. His shadow fell across the tablet. "That is not an answer."
That was when Rafael finally looked up.
There was no flinch. No sharp intake of breath. No instinctive retreat. Just tired eyes, faintly irritated, assessing him like a variable that had finally returned to the equation.
"You smell like Donin," Rafael said. "And burnt ether. Stand still."
Before Gregoris could process that instruction, Rafael leaned forward and pressed a brief, soft kiss to his lips. A brush of contact so gentle it barely registered as real.
Then Rafael pulled back, already turning to his tablet again.
"You were expected," he added calmly. "I simply assumed you'd arrive when you were done not dying."
Gregoris straightened slowly.
The kiss landed far heavier than any blow he had taken in Donin. It slipped past armor, past discipline, straight into the hollow exhaustion he had been carrying like a second spine.
He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Gregoris stayed where he was, one hand still braced on the desk, as if moving too quickly might break whatever fragile, unreal thing had just happened.
"You kissed me," he said finally.
Rafael didn't look up again. He zoomed in on the seating chart, dragged two names apart with decisive irritation, and annotated a note about aisle clearance. "You returned," he replied. "It seemed appropriate."
"That is not how most people mark a successful military campaign," Gregoris said.
"I am not most people," Rafael said calmly. "And you have blood on your collar."
Gregoris glanced down automatically. There was, in fact, a faint smear he'd missed. When he looked back up, Rafael was already reaching for a tissue from the side of the desk, moving with the same efficiency he applied to everything else.
"Hold still," Rafael said again, tone clipped but not unkind.
Gregoris obeyed without thinking, which would have disturbed him more if he'd had the energy to examine it. Rafael wiped the stain away with brisk movements, fingers warm, impersonal, and utterly unafraid.
"You didn't provoke me," Gregoris observed quietly.
"No," Rafael agreed. "I don't have the bandwidth."
A pause stretched between them, filled only by the low hum of ether-powered equipment and the distant echo of palace movement. Gregoris watched him, this time not as a target or a challenge, but as a man who had been waiting without making a spectacle of it.
"You expected resistance," Rafael added, eyes still on his screen.
"Yes," Gregoris said.
"You expected avoidance."
"Yes."
Rafael finally sighed, the sound small and tired. "I had three nobles threaten to boycott the Coming of Age Ball before noon. One of them attempted to bribe Irina with gemstones shaped like fruit. You are… comparatively manageable."
That earned a quiet laugh from Gregoris, rough around the edges. "That may be the first time anyone has described me that way."
Rafael glanced at him again, expression softening just a fraction. "Don't misunderstand me. I am still deciding what to do with you."
Gregoris hummed. "Should I kill the nobles so that you have more time to think about it?"
Rafael did not even look up this time.
"No," he said flatly. "That would create paperwork."
Gregoris blinked, then laughed again, low and surprised, the sound of a man briefly forgetting he was dangerous. "I could make it look like an accident."
"You always do," Rafael replied, scrolling. "And then I spend three weeks untangling jurisdictional nonsense because no one can prove anything but everyone knows it was you."
Gregoris leaned back in the chair, studying him with renewed interest. "You've thought about this."
"I have worked for this Empire long enough to recognize patterns," Rafael said. "You are one of them."
"That's flattering," Gregoris said dryly.
"It isn't," Rafael corrected. "It's an assessment."
A pause settled between them, heavier now, but not uncomfortable.
Gregoris tilted his head. "So. What are you deciding?"
Rafael's stylus slowed, then stopped. He rested it against the tablet and finally met Gregoris's gaze fully. "Whether you are a distraction," he said carefully, "or a variable I can account for."
Gregoris's smile shifted. "And if I'm the second?"
"Then," Rafael said, voice calm but deliberate, "you will have to learn restraint."
Gregoris raised a brow. "That sounds unpleasant."
"It is," Rafael agreed. "For people who are used to taking."
Gregoris leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, eyes steady. "And what do you get, if I learn?"
Rafael considered him for a long moment, then said simply, "Time."
Gregoris nodded once, as if that settled something fundamental. "Then I won't kill the nobles."
Rafael resumed working. "How generous of you."