Arik nodded once and entered.
His bedroom was dim, the heavy curtains drawn over the windows, and the ward-light softened to a muted blue glow. It was not a medical room, though Marin had done his best to turn the space around the bed into something close to one. Monitoring arrays glowed discreetly beside the nightstand, seals pulsed under Liam's collarbone, and thin silver lines of diagnostic ether traced his breathing in quiet rhythm.
Liam slept at the center of the bed, pale and still beneath the dark blanket, swallowed slightly by Arik's loose sleeping shirt. The sleeves had been pushed back from his wrists. The collar sat open enough not to disturb Marin's monitoring seal. His breathing remained even, each rise and fall answered by a soft blue pulse from the ward on his chest.
Kamal stood by the window with a book in one hand, reading beneath the muted glow as if this were a quiet evening and not the aftermath of Felix dragging Liam through a half-century-old grave.
