Chapter 346: Seven Months

When the energy dissipated, Mark found himself back in the halls of his immense palace, and a wave of relief washed over him from head to toe.

"Finally home..." he murmured.

He recognized instantly the high vaulted ceilings, the polished stone columns, the wide corridors he’d walked through so many times.

Mark walked over to one of the large windows and gazed out at the city.

Night blanketed the elven capital beneath a sky full of stars, and at first glance everything seemed peaceful. But it didn’t take him long to notice something had changed.

The streets were bathed in a light far more intense and widespread than he remembered.

Even at that hour, much of the city remained lit up, as if the entire capital had gained a life of its own during his absence.

Mark frowned slightly, but decided not to dwell on it. He’d have time to find out what had happened later.

There was something far more important right now.

His wives.

He’d been missing for a week, during which they’d surely been worried sick, imagining every possible scenario.

He just wanted to see them, hold them, confirm with his own eyes that they were okay, and make clear to them that he was okay too.

Without wasting any more time, he left the room and started making his way through the palace corridors in search of them.

But he found no one.

The hallways remained completely empty, no guards, no servants, no trace of movement whatsoever.

Though, after thinking about it for a moment, that wasn’t so strange. The position of the moon suggested it was already past midnight.

Everyone was probably asleep.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to keep looking; with a little luck, he’d run into one of his wives sooner or later.

And it was while walking through the dim hallways, eyes sweeping over his surroundings, that he started noticing small changes.

The first thing that caught his attention was the lighting.

Mark stopped and stared at one of those glowing crystals embedded in the wall.

"Where the hell did these come from...?" Mark said, raising an eyebrow.

The hallways he remembered had been lit by torches and candles, with the typical warm, flickering glow of an old castle. But now the entire corridor was bathed in an even, white light that felt much more like the light bulbs from his old world.

And the further he walked, the more changes he noticed.

A couch he didn’t remember, a new tapestry, a decorative statue he’d never seen before, and so on.

Most of them were minor changes, but they were enough for Mark to understand that a lot more had happened during his absence than he’d imagined.

Mark was approaching the meeting hall when the door burst open in front of him.

Aria came out, an enormous stack of papers in her hands, her eyes glued to them, an expression of pure exhaustion on her face.

She muttered to herself, paying no attention to anything around her.

"How did Emilia manage to run the whole kingdom without losing her mind?" she grumbled under her breath. "Sign here, review there, approve this, reject that... this is too much for one person."

Aria let out a heavy sigh.

"But there’s no other way... Emilia needs to take it easy from now on."

She never once looked up. And, as was bound to happen, she walked straight into Mark’s chest.

The papers went flying, scattering across the hallway floor.

"Ow, no, my reports!" she screamed, dropping to her knees to gather them up in a hurry, not even bothering to check who she’d run into. "Can you not watch where the hell you’re going?! Do you have any idea how much work it took to sort all this out?!"

Mark looked down at her, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

"Wow... is this how you welcome your husband back after all this time?" he said, teasing.

Aria froze completely, the documents still in her hands.

That voice was impossible to mistake.

Even surrounded by thousands of people, even after years, even after centuries, she’d always know exactly who it belonged to.

But that was precisely why it was so hard to believe.

She’d imagined this moment countless times, to the point where part of her was afraid it was nothing but an illusion born from her own desperation.

Still, she slowly lifted her gaze.

Mark stood in front of her, watching her with a calm expression, as if he’d never left.

The papers slipped from between her fingers, falling back to the floor, completely forgotten.

"Ma- Master?" she finally managed to whisper, her voice reduced to a trembling thread. "Is... is it really you?"

"In the flesh."

Mark had barely finished answering when Aria threw herself at him.

She hugged him tightly, arms wrapped around his neck, burying her face against his chest, clinging to him as if letting go would mean losing him all over again.

And then she burst into tears.

"Master!" she sobbed against his chest, gripping his clothes. "You’re back... you’re finally back... I... I knew you hadn’t abandoned us..."

The words tumbled out between sobs.

"Where the hell were you this whole time? We looked everywhere for you, but we couldn’t find anything... And I thought... we all thought the worst..."

Mark wrapped his arms around her, returning the embrace, and felt a pang of guilt as he noticed how she trembled against him.

"There, there," he murmured, stroking her hair, trying to calm her down. "I’m so sorry for putting you all through this."

Still, as he held her, something started to bother him.

Aria’s reaction was too intense.

"Although... it’s not like it was that big a deal, right?" he remarked, trying to downplay it. "I wasn’t gone that long."

Aria pulled back just enough to look at him. Her cheeks were still streaked with tears, and her expression slowly shifted from sorrow to confusion.

"Not that big a deal?" she asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, I was only gone for a week."

"Master..." Aria whispered, tears still in her eyes. "You’ve been missing for seven months."

Mark went completely still.

Seven months.

The number made no sense in his head.

To him, everything had happened in just a week. He’d been inside Mary’s dream world recovering his power, talking about the past, enjoying a peace he’d never had before.

But while he lived out that dream, reality had kept moving forward.

While he fucked day and night with Mary, his wives had spent more than half a year thinking that maybe he would never return.

Mark was still completely thrown, too many questions piling up in his head, when someone else appeared in the hallway.

"Aria, mind telling me what all this racket is about?"

The voice carried a clear note of exhaustion, mixed with the irritation of someone who’d just been jolted awake.

"It’s past two in the morning... Keep screaming like that and you’re going to wake up the whole palace—"

Mark turned toward the voice and saw Rose round the corner of the hallway.

She carried a glass of water in her hand, walking with tired steps.

Her hair was completely disheveled, as if she’d just gotten out of bed, and she wore a simple white nightgown.

Around her belly, the fabric hung slightly open, revealing a huge, round bump.

Rose was clearly far along in her pregnancy.

She rubbed one eye with her free hand, still half-asleep, ready to keep scolding Aria for the noise.

But then her eyes met Mark’s.

Seeing him, the glass slipped from her fingers and shattered against the floor in a thousand pieces, water soaking her bare feet.

"...Master," Rose murmured, her eyes filling with tears.