Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 329 - 324: Spite department and memories

The Ministry of Education had been transformed into something between a war zone and a wedding venue—polished floors, reinforced ether seals, freshly printed scrolls, and the distinct stench of collective dread.

Gabriel stood in the central hall, expression calm, posture straight, and mind somewhere between mild fatigue and spiritual disassociation. The main doors were still sealed, keeping the two thousand candidates outside where they couldn’t breathe directly on him. Yet.

Inside, the Department of Spite had begun to wilt.

Alexandra sat sprawled on a bench like a Victorian ghost who’d overdosed on realism. Her coat was off, her heels had been kicked somewhere under the bench, and her last coherent thought had apparently died after the fourth name change request.

"I swear to every celestial entity," she said, not looking up, "if one more noble heir tries to ’sit near the Empress for inspiration,’ I will become inspiration for violence."

Rafael was seated on the floor beside the eastern wall, tie crooked, scrolls spread around him like broken dreams. He looked up at Gabriel with the slow, dulled expression of someone who’d aged three decades in four days. "They asked if I could pass their ’anonymous exam code’ to you. Just in case you wanted to favor the deserving ones."

Julian didn’t answer. He was currently recalibrating the ether-ward validators for the fifth time that morning, and the only sound he’d made in an hour was the quiet, deliberate snapping of his glove seams.

Irina was still standing. Barely. Her braid was crooked, and her coat was wrinkled, but her eyes—those were bright. Murderously so.

"She tried to ask if your scent is part of the exam," Irina muttered, referring to a girl in gold lace outside the glass, "because she wanted to write better under pressure. I will throw someone."

Gabriel, despite the chaos, looked... fine. Calm. A little too calm, considering he hadn’t slept more than five hours in two days. His robe was tailored, hair perfect, bond mark hidden under the usual high collar, and not a single person in the room trusted that stillness.

Because beneath it was Gabriel—pregnant, politically engaged, and weeks away from becoming a living imperial myth.

"Are we allowed to stab someone yet?" Alexandra asked again. "Just one. A small one. Maybe the idiot who showed up in a cape that sparkles when he lies."

"No stabbing," Gabriel said mildly. "Not until they’ve handed in the essay section."

"So we can stab after?"

"Depends on the grammar."

The double doors hissed open just then with a whine of warded ether.

Astana stepped inside, looking like a man who’d been personally chewed on by Christian and paperwork. His collar was tilted, there was ink on his sleeve, and his voice was flat in the way only exhaustion could polish.

"His Majesty sends his warmest congratulations," Astana said, "on your continued survival. And he requests that no one faints, stabs, or sets fire to anyone until at least after the first group is seated."

Julian made a small, wounded sound without turning.

"I’m not stabbing anyone," Rafael said. "But I might cry."

"Same thing," Irina muttered.

Gabriel tilted his head. "Any updates?"

"Yes." Astana flipped a page. "One noble heir tried to bribe the custodial staff to sit near the center. Two attempted to buy the seating chart. And one gifted me a vineyard."

There was a beat of silence.

"You kept it?" Gabriel asked, deadpan.

"No. But I did name a hypothetical rose variety after myself."

"...Self-defense?"

"And stress management."

Gabriel didn’t smile, but he almost did. Almost. "Is the Emperor planning to visit?"

"He said to tell you," Astana replied, monotone, "that he is proud, impressed, and that if anyone looks at you too long, he will consider it an act of war."

"So he’s fine," Gabriel muttered. "Unhinged, but fine."

Julian finally spoke. "Do you know I’ve recalibrated this validator four times because noble ether signatures keep warping the ink?"

"Maybe they’re just trying to write in their mother’s bloodlines," Alexandra offered.

"I hope it stains their scores," Rafael muttered. "Permanently. I was supposed to take the test, not help in organizing it."

Alexandra glanced over at him, her head resting against the wall like she’d accepted death but was still choosing violence. "You’re twenty, Rafael. You’ll survive."

"I won’t," he muttered, dead serious. "I’ve aged. I’ve aged at least a decade. My soul is withered. I tasted nobility-induced entropy this week."

"You tasted Edward’s decaf tea," Irina corrected. "That’s different. That’s just cruelty."

Rafael gestured vaguely to the mountain of scrolls at his side. "Do you know how many letters I had to redact because someone tried to name-drop their third cousin’s second marriage to a distant marquis?"

Julian didn’t look up from the validator. "Seventeen."

"Thirty-nine," Rafael snapped. "Because they tried again in the footer."

Gabriel raised a brow without turning. "You volunteered for this."

"You forced me," Rafael said darkly, "because I spilled wine on Irina’s dress at your tea party and you decided that a new dress and a heartfelt apology weren’t enough."

Gabriel didn’t blink. "They weren’t."

"I said I was sorry," Rafael continued, his voice climbing with the desperation of a man recounting his own downfall. "Twice. I gave her a gift card. I wrote her a poem. I offered to pay for the dry cleaning."

"It was red wine," Irina snapped from across the room, arms crossed, braid frayed, soul fraying. "On imported silk. Mid-toast. In front of Prince Christian.

"It slipped!"

"You slipped!" she hissed. "On polished marble and the weight of your own nervous guilt!"

Julian didn’t even look up. "It was an excellent spill, though. Aesthetically. Very operatic."

Alexandra made a soft, tired noise. "Didn’t it look like she’d been stabbed?"

"I was wearing cream," Irina growled. "And it was my first major event."

"I panicked!"

Gabriel waved a hand, calm as the eye of a storm. "Hence your assignment to the civil exam committee. Character redemption through relentless paperwork."

"You weaponized guilt."

"Yes," Gabriel said softly. "And formatting standards."

Rafael looked at the exam papers in his lap like they’d personally betrayed him. "This is revenge."

"This is talent recruitment," Gabriel corrected, voice smooth as lacquered steel. "Empire-building, merit-based administration, civic renewal—take your pick. All roads lead to the same place."

"Hell?" Rafael muttered.

Gabriel’s gaze flicked over, steady and unimpressed. "The palace."

Julian made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh or a sigh. "Same thing, different wallpaper."

Gabriel turned toward the front of the hall as the ether-wrought clock above them struck with a clear, deliberate chime.

"All right," he said. "Let’s begin this show."

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