Chapter 536: Paper Trails

Arion’s office had stopped looking like an office sometime before lunch.

The main desk was still visible beneath two tablets, a half-finished budget report, three folders from the infrastructure ministry, and the remains of a coffee neither he nor Dean could remember making, but almost every other surface had been surrendered to Dominic.

Paper covered the long conference table.

Some of it had been preserved in archival sleeves so carefully that even breathing too close to the edges made Dean feel vaguely criminal, while other documents were later copies produced when the originals became too fragile to handle. Digital records occupied one of the wall displays, arranged beside scanned letters, old medical entries, military reports, household accounts, and several sections of imperial correspondence that had apparently survived a century only because generations of archivists had been too frightened to throw anything away bearing an emperor’s signature.

Dean sat sideways in one of the chairs with one leg tucked beneath him, wearing black trousers and a soft burgundy sweater, while his tablet rested against a stack of twentieth-century tax reports that neither of them had intentionally requested.

Across from him, Arion had somehow maintained enough organization to continue ordinary crown-prince work while simultaneously reading Dominic’s private correspondence.

Dean considered that offensive.

"You are signing infrastructure approvals while reading a dead emperor’s medical records."

Arion did not look up.

"I can do two things."

"You can do too many things. That is why everyone keeps giving you more work."

Arion signed another document.

Dean smiled and returned to the letter in front of him.

Theodore was upstairs with his nannies, which was the only reason either parent had managed more than twenty consecutive minutes of concentration. Dean had checked the nursery camera twice in the last hour anyway, while Arion had checked it four times and then claimed he was merely testing whether the feed was functioning correctly.

Neither had mentioned this hypocrisy.

Boreas occupied most of the rug near the conference table, his enormous body stretched between two chairs while he watched the growing stacks of documents with visible distrust.

Every few minutes he lifted his head, sniffed toward the nearest archive box, and sneezed.

Dean glanced down.

"You don’t approve of history?"

Boreas stared at him.

"He thinks it smells terrible," Arion said.

"It does smell terrible."

The office carried a persistent mixture of polished wood, coffee, leather bindings, and stale paper that had spent decades sealed in climate-controlled storage. Beneath it all remained the faint vetiver of Arion’s pheromones, enough to make the room feel familiar despite the invasion of Dominic’s century.

The door opened without ceremony.

Hunter entered carrying another archival box.

Dean stared at him.

"No."

Hunter stopped.

Arion looked up.

"What is that?"

"Additional household records from Dominic’s private residence."

Dean slowly lowered the document in his hand.

"We already have household records."

"These are from the secondary palace."

"There was a secondary palace?"

Hunter set the box carefully on the remaining clear corner of the table.

"Yes."

Dean looked toward Arion.

"You people have too many buildings."

"That was not my decision."

"You inherited them."

"That does not make me responsible for eighteenth-century architecture."

Hunter removed his gloves and handed Arion a slim folder.

"The archivists also found references to Adrian Smith in the household expenditure records. They thought you would want them separated."

Arion’s attention sharpened immediately.

Dean leaned forward.

"Actual references?"

"Mostly payments, travel authorizations, private security allocations, and medical expenses."

"That is already more useful than another ceremonial dinner menu."

Hunter’s mouth twitched.

There had been many ceremonial dinner menus.

Dominic apparently entertained often enough that Dean now knew which wines had been served at diplomatic receptions one hundred and four years ago, yet nobody had thought to preserve a straightforward explanation of why infected beasts behaved like an unofficial imperial army.

History had priorities.

Hunter glanced toward Boreas.

The dog sniffed the newly arrived box.

Then sneezed directly at it.

Dean pointed.

"He agrees with me."

Hunter left them with the latest problem.

Arion opened the folder.

Dean moved his chair closer without asking, until their shoulders nearly touched and both could read the page.

The first document was disappointingly ordinary.

A payment authorization for alterations to Adrian’s rooms.

The second concerned security staffing.

The third was medical.

Dean’s expression changed.

"Read that again."

Arion already was.

The record was brief, written by one of Dominic’s personal physicians, describing an examination after Adrian had been injured during what the document called a northern containment incident.

No details about the incident itself.

Only the aftermath.

Adrian had suffered extensive pheromonal exposure.

No infection.

No transformation.

Dominic had remained with him for almost fourteen hours.

Dean looked at Arion.

"Alpha?"

"Yes."

"So Elias was right about resistance."

"Possibly."

Dean tapped the line mentioning Dominic.

"Or Dominic did something."

Arion was quiet.

That possibility had already occurred to him.

They continued.

Two pages later, a household note referenced Dominic prohibiting all staff from entering the northern gardens for three days because "the animals remain unsettled."

Dean stopped again.

"The animals."

Arion looked toward the scanned date.

"August."

Of course it was.

He pulled the corresponding military archive onto the wall display.

Dean watched several records align.

A reported beast movement near Roslew.

No civilian casualties.

No military engagement.

The event ended abruptly after the emperor personally traveled north.

No explanation.

Dean leaned back.

"There."

Arion’s eyes remained on the display.

"Maybe."

"You hate certainty."

"I hate pretending speculation is evidence."

"You married the wrong person."

"That became clear years ago."

Dean nudged his shoulder.

Arion smiled faintly.

They spent the next hour moving between ordinary work and Dominic’s paper trail, which somehow made the entire process feel stranger rather than easier. Dean approved two administrative recommendations for an upcoming trade meeting while reading an old letter from Dominic complaining that Adrian refused to remain indoors after an injury. Arion reviewed agricultural allocations while cross-checking military patrol maps from ninety-nine years earlier.

Boreas eventually gave up judging the paper and moved beneath Arion’s desk, where the air apparently offended him less.

Around mid-afternoon, Dean found something that made him stop entirely.

A handwritten note.

A single page tucked between two copied household reports.

The writing was Dominic’s.

Dean read it once.

Then silently passed it to Arion.

The note was short.

’They quiet when I am near, but not because they are cured. I have begun to understand the distinction.’

Below that, another line had been added later.

Adrian believes I should tell the council. He is probably right.

Arion stared at the sentence.

Dean watched him.

"Well."

Arion’s thumb moved slowly along the edge of the archival sleeve.

"So Dominic knew."

"Yes."

"And Adrian wanted it documented."

"Yes."

Dean glanced toward the surrounding piles.

"Which means either Dominic eventually told someone and the record was buried, or he kept postponing it until history became everyone else’s problem."

Arion exhaled through his nose.

"That sounds uncomfortably plausible."

Dean rested one elbow on the table and looked at the mountain of documents still waiting.

"Good news."

Arion gave him a suspicious glance.

"We only have approximately six hundred years of family secrecy left to sort through."

Arion stared at him.

Dean smiled.

Boreas sneezed under the desk.