Chapter 110: Chapter 110: Another 4 a.m. call (Win-Win)
The line clicked faintly, and for a moment there was only the sound of his own breath echoing back at him. Then, soft and muffled through the speaker...
"Dax?"
He hadn’t realized how much he needed that voice until it reached him.
"Dax," Chris mumbled again, low and groggy, "you do realize it’s almost four in the morning again, right?"
Dax’s mouth curved despite the fatigue pressing at his temples. His thumb brushed against the console’s edge, leaving a small smear of ink. "You’re awake."
"I am now." The sound of sheets rustling followed, lazy and half-hearted. "You’ve made this a habit. This is the third time you’ve called me at this ungodly hour. Should I start charging by the hour?"
He let out a quiet laugh, the first real one in hours. "I didn’t mean to wake you."
"You never do," Chris murmured, the drowsiness softening his sarcasm. "And yet here we are. Again."
Dax leaned back in the chair, exhaustion leaking into something gentler. "I needed to hear your voice."
There was a pause, just long enough for him to picture the sleepy frown, the one eyebrow lifting, and the faint pink on Chris’s cheeks he’d try to hide even now.
"Uh-huh," came the eventual reply, dry enough to make Dax smile. "So what happened this time? Another diplomatic dinner gone wrong? An assassination attempt? Or did the palace finally run out of towels?"
That earned a real laugh, low and rough in his throat. "Not this time."
"Oh, good. For a second, I thought you might actually be calling because you missed me."
"I do." The words left him before he could stop them. Silence. Then the smallest breath on the other end, barely audible.
"You could’ve said goodbye, you know."
"I didn’t have time," Dax admitted, flexing his fingers. Ink had dried along the creases of his palm; he rubbed at it absently, the faint grit grounding him. "They pulled me into a council briefing before sunrise."
"I noticed." The irritation in Chris’s tone was tired, not sharp. "One minute I’m being kissed within an inch of my sanity, and the next you’re gone. You didn’t even stay for dinner. Tragic, really."
"I owe you one," Dax said, his voice dropping to something quieter.
"You owe me at least three," Chris countered, a faint smile audible through the line. "Dinner, sleep, and a proper explanation."
"I can manage two out of three."
"Then start talking."
He could hear the faint creak of the mattress as Chris shifted again, probably sitting up now. Dax imagined him in the half-dark, hair ruffled, collar askew, the faint glow of the bedside console painting his face in pale light.
"The Health Ministry," Dax began slowly, eyes flicking to the piles of files scattered across his desk. "And the clergy."
"That sounds promising," Chris said, dry as dust.
"It isn’t," Dax replied. "We found proof of organ trafficking, buried under temple donations and relief funds. The priests used hospitals as trade routes. Patients listed as ’transferred for care’ never came back."
For a long moment, the line went silent except for the faint hum of static.
Chris’s voice, when it returned, was quieter. "That’s... monstrous."
Dax’s thumb pressed against a smear of ink, tracing it absently. "It is."
"So... the issue with the health ministry and organ trafficking is worse than it was three weeks ago?"
Dax exhaled, the breath slow and heavy. "Much worse," he said. His gaze drifted over the open files on the desk: pages stamped with temple seals and signatures written in a priest’s steady hand. "We thought it was isolated to one region. It isn’t. The network stretches across half the capital, maybe farther. They’ve been masking transfers as donations to the Holy Relief Trust for years."
He rubbed at his temple, leaving another faint streak of ink near the edge of his wrist. The motion did nothing to ease the ache. "Three weeks ago, we had hints, missing bodies, inconsistent registers, and money laundering. Now we have the entire scale of it. Whole lists of names that never reached the hospitals they were sent to."
Chris was silent again, but Dax could hear the soft rustle of fabric on the other end, like he’d sat up.
"Gods," Chris murmured. "You mean they’ve been killing people under the pretense of charity?"
Dax’s hand tightened around the pen, the crack of strained metal breaking the quiet. Ink bled onto his thumb, pooling between his fingers. "Not just killing. Selling. Priests, doctors, even clerks. Each one taking a piece. The temples collected the offerings, the ministry legitimized them, and the hospitals handled disposal. Every level fed the next."
"That’s not just corruption," Chris said, his voice low and sharp now, the drowsiness burned away. "That’s a system."
He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, the edge of his collar open, exhaustion pressing in around him like fog. "It’s a relic of the old regime under my brother’s rule and the influence of a Cardinal from Palatine. Trevor will deal with him, while I will burn the old clergy to the ground and raise my own without the public knowing."
"Won’t your opposition use it against you?" Chris asked; he didn’t know much about politics, the subject never interested him, but that seemed like a logical move from Dax’s enemies.
"Do I look like I care?" Dax huffed, a short, brittle sound that didn’t quite hide the calculation behind it. He rubbed his thumb along the dried ink at the base of his palm and watched the dark line smear into a softer gray. "If they try, the public will tear them apart for taking sides with traffickers. The narrative writes itself."
Chris was quiet, considering. "But politics is a knife that cuts both ways," he said finally. "If you burn the old clergy, someone else will harvest the embers. Your opponents will dress themselves in mourning and accuse you of sacrilege, or prudence, or whatever word looks best in the headlines."
"You’re worried for me," Dax said, almost fond.
"I’m worried you’ll make this a crusade and forget that you’re human," Chris replied. "Surviving isn’t the same as resting, Your Majesty." The tease softened the edge of his concern into something more honest.
Dax let the words sit against his ribs. For a moment, he considered arguing about duty, justice, and the fact that men who trafficked in bones and blood deserved no mercy. Instead he pressed his fingers to his temple and thought of the way Chris’s hand had fit in his, the quiet of the palace room after the kiss, and the way sleep had finally fallen like a benediction.
"You’re always blunt when it matters," he said at last, and the tired humor in his voice was almost fond. "I’ll be careful. I can’t promise I won’t burn things down, but I can promise I won’t let it burn me."
"That’s not the same as not burning," Chris said, his voice thin from sleep and twisted between accusation and plea. "You sound like you’re making a vow and also a threat."
"I guess I am," Dax said, and there was a softness in the admission he hardly ever allowed himself. "A vow to fix this. A threat to anyone who thinks they can hide behind a halo."
Chris snorted the faintest laugh. "Poetic. Very kingly."
"You sound tired," Dax said, eyes dropping to the unread messages blinking on his console. "Go back to sleep, Christopher. Save your strength for when I’m actually home and refusing to fetch you coffee."
"You mean when you’re too busy to fetch me coffee," Chris muttered, then added, with the hint of a smile in his voice, "Fine. But you owe me those three things: dinner, sleep, and an explanation. Don’t make me ask Killian to help me hunt you down. He scares me more than any Cardinal."
Dax let out a low, incredulous sound that was almost laughter. "I’ll take that under advisement."
"I’ll be home soon," Dax said, and this time the promise was steadier, forged in the same iron as his orders.
"Bring coffee," Chris whispered, already drifting.