Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 339 - 333: Antidote

There was a brief knock, more habit than request, and then the door opened in full.

Dr. Marin stepped in, flanked by two assistants and a containment specialist, all of them moving with the quiet urgency of people who understood what it meant for the Emperor’s private wing to be breached. Their shoes barely made a sound on the polished marble, their coats still half-fastened, gloves already on, expressions shuttered tight behind years of training and the bone-deep knowledge that this wasn’t just another summons.

All of them paused two steps inside the study and, with synchronized precision, bowed and curtsied low in acknowledgment of their sovereign, not just to Damian, pale, sitting in the armchair with blood on his lips, but to Gabriel, standing beside him like judgment incarnate.

Only once protocol was satisfied did they move.

The containment specialist went for the desk first, lifting the coffee cup with surgical care and placing it inside the sealed case with a hiss of depressurized air. One assistant unrolled the portable ether scanner. The other began opening a fresh trauma kit.

Dr. Marin didn’t speak until he was directly in front of them. His eyes swept from Damian, relaxed, if faintly flushed, to Gabriel, who had not moved from his position but who radiated enough quiet rage that even the air around him seemed to stand still.

"Symptoms?" Marin asked, eyes flicking toward Gabriel.

"Internal bleeding. Trace ether signature. One sip, seven minutes ago," Gabriel answered.

Damian, for his part, simply raised a hand and gave a small, sarcastic wave. "Still alive, for now."

"You’re not helping," Gabriel said, without even looking at him.

"I never said I was."

Marin kneeled beside Damian without further comment and took his wrist gently in hand, checking the pulse, then resting his palm along the side of Damian’s throat. He made no remark, but the furrow in his brow deepened.

He glanced up once. "Open your mouth."

Damian did, and Marin’s gaze sharpened. There was still blood there. A thin sheen clinging to his teeth, the back of his tongue. A faint shimmer in his breath, ether-light, the kind that didn’t glow strong but clung.

The scanner swept once over his chest. And then again.

This time, it hummed louder.

Marin’s expression darkened.

He turned the screen to face Gabriel, and the outline was clear: faint ether clusters, barely visible but undeniably present, lining Damian’s lower trachea and bronchi, then curling, almost delicately, into the stomach lining like vines laid to rot. A slow spread.

"Someone knows what they’re doing with this," Marin said, his voice quieter now, more precise, as he rose and reached into his trauma kit for a sealed vial of antidote, its contents glowing faintly with a green-gold shimmer. "They made it look like a failed attempt. Deliberately. If you’d treated it like a standard poison and waited for symptoms to worsen, if you’d let him rest, passed it off as fatigue or heat, it would have started eroding his muscle tissue within the hour. Painless at first. And then permanent."

Gabriel said nothing. Not immediately.

But his breath caught, just once, and something behind his eyes changed.

He looked down at Damian again, at the way he lounged like this was an inconvenience and not a deliberate attack, blood still drying at the corner of his mouth and his pulse steady beneath skin that, now Gabriel saw it clearly, had gone a touch too pale.

"How long before the damage becomes irreversible?" he asked, voice flat. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

Marin didn’t hesitate. "Another forty minutes, maybe less. Fortunately, he didn’t finish the cup."

"Fortunately," Gabriel echoed, his jaw tightening. "What a generous timeline."

Damian shifted, almost casually, resting an elbow on the armrest and letting his head tilt slightly back.

"Well," he said mildly. "That’s rude."

Gabriel closed his eyes.

Just once.

Then opened them again, sharp and cold. "Can it be flushed?"

"Yes," Marin said. "But not gently."

He tapped the vial twice against the injector’s casing, awakening the ether compound inside. The glow pulsed brighter, alive now, swirling in tight spirals like a storm bottled beneath glass.

Damian glanced at the needle and then at Gabriel, eyes gleaming with that maddening calm he wore too well. "You’re still scowling," he said, voice low, amused. "It’s starting to hurt my feelings."

Gabriel didn’t look at him. "Good."

"This is going to burn," Dr. Marin said, kneeling beside them again. "It has to. I need to purge your channels before it spreads further. You’ll be light-headed, nauseous, and angry. In that order."

Damian raised an eyebrow. "And if I’m already angry?"

"Then you’ll be predictable," Marin replied, and without another word, pressed the injector deep into the vein beneath the collarbone.

The response was immediate.

Damian jerked once, shoulders tense, teeth clenched, as the serum raced through him like a surge of fire under the skin. The glow ignited fast, blooming across his chest and neck, streaking down his arms in lines too bright, too alive, like veins turned to gold.

His breath hitched once, twice, sharp and shallow, but he didn’t cry out.

He wouldn’t.

Gabriel stood utterly still, watching with a focus that could have drilled through stone. His eyes never left Damian’s face, not even when the light flared bright enough to cast shadows across the floor, not even when the scent of activated ether clung to the room like ozone after lightning.

Dr. Marin monitored the scanner with practiced detachment, lips tight as readings shifted line by line.

"Chest stabilizing," he muttered. "Lung filtration at sixty percent. We’re catching it. The poison’s resisting, but it’s losing."

Gabriel let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Damian, for his part, let his head fall back against the chair. His eyes were open but unfocused, his pulse loud enough in Gabriel’s ears that he wasn’t sure if it belonged to him anymore.

"Stomach lining is flushing. Ether traces are thinning. Give it another minute."

Gabriel’s jaw worked once, slowly, before he forced his voice out. "He’s pale."

"It’s a hard flush," Marin said. "If he were anyone else, he’d be unconscious."

Damian gave a low, slurred chuckle, but it didn’t have his usual edge. "Don’t worry. I’m not anyone else."

"No," Gabriel said softly, placing one of his hands over Damian’s, steady, warm. "You’re not."

His fingers curled gently, just enough to anchor Damian’s cooling skin beneath his palm, as if by touch alone he could hold him in place, keep him tethered. The hand beneath his was cold, not dangerous yet, but enough to send another flare of fury rippling just beneath the surface of his calm.

Damian’s lashes lifted slightly, just enough to meet his eyes.

"Gregoris is already roaring in the palace," Damian murmured, his breath catching halfway through the sentence. "Don’t stain your hands for this."

Gabriel didn’t move, but the silence that followed cracked like ice beneath weight.

"Then for what," he asked, voice cold enough to frost the air between them, "if not for you?"

New n𝙤vel chapters are published on f(r)e𝒆webn(o)vel.com