Bound by the Mark of Lies (BL)-Chapter 373 - 367: War in Donin

The light in Donin Republica was different.

Too pale. Too clean. The type of light that cut through curtains rather than softening them. The kind that didn’t hide anything. It stripped the world bare and watched without blinking.

Hadeon hated it.

He sat in silence, the report spread across the carved surface of his desk, the seal already cracked, the ink still smelling faintly of Imperial-grade parchment.

Six months.

The child was nearly six months along.

Damian Lyon had not only claimed Gabriel von Jaunez, bonded him, and bred him, but had also built an heir behind closed doors while the world gossiped about wedding dates and dress designs.

Not even a whisper of struggle.

Not even a flicker from the shard.

Hadeon’s fingers drummed once against the edge of the page. The pulse of his ether coiled slow and tight beneath his skin, contained, for now. He had waited for this. Had planned for the moment Olivier’s shard would scream through the child the moment life bloomed. That much memory, that much soul, should’ve flared.

But the shard was silent.

And that meant something had gone wrong.

Or worse, something had been undone.

He closed the file slowly. There was no point in reading the rest again.

All the numbers were correct. All the observations were meticulously noted. The child was growing. Healthy. Dominant alpha male. Probably golden-eyed. Recognized by the imperial system as the direct heir of House Lyon.

And Damian, Damian, that arrogant feral bastard, had footed the cost of it all not with treasury accounts or public funds, but with his own. Personal accounts. Private wealth. Old reserves that Hadeon had no idea existed. Centuries of war spoils, land bonds, and buried deals have now been rerouted and spent.

And Damian still had more.

Hadeon leaned back in his chair.

The chair didn’t creak. Nothing in the room did.

Only his mind shifted, needle-point sharp, filing this moment into the ledger of grievances; he was no longer pretending to forgive. Damian had been merely a twenty-year-old child when he ordered for his death. Seventeen years later, he was still alive.

He had an Empire.

He had a mate.

He had a child that was supposed to be a weapon, a vessel, a means of return.

And instead...

Instead, the shard was dormant.

"Why," Hadeon murmured, eyes narrowing. "Why didn’t you awaken?"

He reached out, just slightly, pressing his palm against the edge of the glass bowl resting on the corner of the desk. The shard inside didn’t flare. Didn’t move. It sat there like a coiled ripple trapped in obsidian, dark, smooth. Not dead. Just waiting.

Still humming with the kind of power only a god could handle.

Not Gabriel.

Not even him.

He straightened slowly, spine unfolding like a blade unsheathed, and turned toward the arched window behind his desk. Outside, the Capitol dome shimmered faintly in the artificial twilight. Runes older than memory pulsed through its shell in even intervals, a rhythm meant to inspire awe in lesser men.

He hated it.

Too perfect. Too curated. Too small.

The control panel chimed once.

He didn’t move. Just tilted his head slightly and pulled the feed up on his secondary display. One message, routed through the palace bureau, tagged to Donin’s central trade registry, nothing unexpected at first.

Until the seal flared.

Until he read the word burned into the diplomatic line.

Embargo. Donin was now in embargo from all the empire’s

He stared at it.

He stared at it for a long time.

No explanation. No ceremony. Just the golden mark of the Empire and a single act of war so elegantly veiled it might be mistaken for policy.

Damian.

Of course it was Damian.

The cursed child of the Lyon line. His first son. His legitimate heir. The boy who passed the trial of the Ether Crown and burned an empire down just to rebuild it from ash under a name he refused to erase.

His name.

Lyon.

Hadeon’s jaw ticked once, the movement sharp enough to ache. Damian had never denied the name. No, he’d kept it. Out of spite. Not loyalty to the family older than the Empire itself. So that history would remember not the father who clawed for a throne through blood and spellcraft...

...but the son who took it without asking.

He should’ve been the one. Hadeon. Born stronger. Sharper. The architect behind the downfall of the last imperial line. He had twisted the past heirs, bent the Ether Council, and sowed rot into Olivier’s rule until the old blood cracked under its own weight.

And then Damian had walked through the flames and claimed the Empire as his own.

He was never supposed to pass the trial.

The ether wasn’t supposed to choose him.

And yet, it had.

Hadeon didn’t shout. Didn’t throw anything. He stood still, hands folded behind him like a man reviewing battlefield casualties. Because this was a strike, make no mistake, Damian knew where he was and was punishing the entire country for his presence.

The embargo wouldn’t just sting. It would shatter the already-cracking alliance.

Donin Republica was proud, yes, but only in speeches. In practice, it ran on Empire ports. Empire tech. Empire-certified engineers flown in every quarter to reset their core. Their entire infrastructure was a borrowed spine.

In a month, they’d be rationing purified fuel.

In two, the production facilities would stagger, then stall.

In three, the capital would rot under its own shine, reliant on whatever back-alley black-market trade Aslan Primrose could scrape together, most of which was already owned or influenced by House Lyon loyalists.

And Primrose wasn’t stupid.

Ambitious, yes. Vain, absolutely. But never foolish. If the cost of survival meant switching sides, he’d do it. With a smile. As long as he kept his seat as President, he would bow to Damian, rebrand the pivot as progress, and call it democracy.

Hadeon ground his jaw.

Of course.

Of course the child had timed it.

Announce the heir. Drop the embargo. All in the same breath. While the world toasted champagne and polished silver spoons, Damian carved the throat out of the one nation Hadeon still had sway in.

Hadeon pressed a button on the console; he’d played the game long enough; it was time for him to fight as brutally as Damian.

"Prepare the troops. Take down Aslan." He ordered. If he couldn’t have the Aragon Empire, the Empire of Unified Nations, he could take Donin, then Pais, and keep the rebellious in check and later destroy him and his new little family.

This content is taken from fr𝒆ewebnove(l).com