CHAPTER 190: CHAPTER 190: TITLES ARE BORING

Uno leaned back in his chair, folding one arm over the other, all casual elegance and bad timing. "Relax," he said, as if Victor’s glare hadn’t just carved cracks into the room. "I’m not staying here. Charming as your hospitality is, I’ve got my eyes elsewhere."

Victor’s jaw tightened. "Where."

"Anna," Uno answered simply, his blue eyes bright with something far too close to amusement. "She’s due any day now, isn’t she? Technically, she should be birthing soon." He twirled a fork between his fingers like a coin, utterly unconcerned with the sudden silence choking the table. "And let’s be honest... whatever comes out of her isn’t going to be normal."

Elias sat a little straighter, tension snapping down his spine. "What do you mean by ’whatever?’"

Uno’s smile widened, careless and sharp. "It’s a coin toss, Elias. Either the child eats its mother’s soul..." he flicked the fork once, letting it catch the firelight, "or it comes out a cadaver. Empty. Hollow. The body has no fate strings, no spark of life, nothing. A curiosity, really."

The air at the table thickened, heavy with the sharp spice of Victor’s pheromones. His crimson gaze narrowed to slits, voice low enough to cut. "You think this is entertainment?"

Uno tilted his head, still grinning. "Of course not. Entertainment is watching you brood, Victor. This..." he tapped the table once with the fork before setting it down, "is curiosity. A mystery. Something that should not exist, existing anyway. Tell me you’re not the least bit interested in how it plays out."

Victor’s arm flexed along the back of Elias’s chair, his thumb brushing the omega’s shoulder like a wordless anchor. "I’m interested in keeping it far from him," he said, steel in every syllable.

Ruo leaned forward suddenly, her glass forgotten, eyes sharp with a different kind of calculation. "He’s not wrong about the anomaly," she said, her voice level but threaded with the edge of a scientist who’d spent too many hours staring at data no one else could see. "I’ve seen something like it before. Not with a child, but with... a subject in the lab. An embryo that should have been viable, but the ether readings were inverted. One moment the strings were present, faint but measurable, and then..." she snapped her fingers, quick and sharp, "gone. Like they’d never been there."

Connor’s chair creaked as he leaned forward. "Gone? As in dead?"

"No," Ruo said, shaking her head. "That was the problem. The body still developed for a time. Reflexes, tissue growth, and even rudimentary brain activity. But without strings... it was like watching something animated, not alive. We destroyed it before it could progress further."

The silence that followed was heavy, filled only by the pop of the fire.

Elias felt a chill crawl up his spine, unease prickling at the back of his neck. "So you’re saying," he muttered, glancing between Uno and Ruo, "that my sister’s child is either going to cannibalize her soul... or be born like that?"

Ruo’s lips pressed into a thin line. "I’m saying it’s possible."

Uno’s grin widened, sharp and bright as ice. "And that’s what makes it fascinating."

Victor’s crimson gaze burned across the table, a low hum of restrained violence vibrating in the air. Elias’s pulse still hadn’t settled, the words eat her soul crawling like ice water under his skin.

Ruo was the one who broke the silence, leaning forward with her chin braced on one hand, studying Uno the way she might a lab specimen. "What I don’t understand," she said slowly, "is how you don’t already know. You’re the god of beginnings. Shouldn’t you have the answers? Why even ask the question?"

Uno’s grin softened, but it didn’t lose its edge. He tapped a fingertip lightly against his glass, the sound sharp in the quiet. "Because," he said, voice almost pleasant, "if I knew everything, there’d be no point to any of it. No stories, no surprises. Just an endless script I’ve already read." His blue eyes gleamed, bright and merciless. "So I blocked that part of myself. Locked it away, leaving just enough sight to see the edges. The rest?" He spread his hands like a man shrugging off responsibility. "The rest I get to watch. To be surprised. Otherwise, eternity is boring."

Ruo blinked at him, incredulous. "You mean to tell me you deliberately handicapped yourself just so you wouldn’t die of boredom?"

Uno’s smile sharpened into something that made Elias’s stomach twist. "Exactly."

Victor exhaled through his teeth, the sound dangerously close to a growl. "You’re impossible."

"And yet," Uno said, raising his glass in a mock toast, "here I am. Still interesting enough that you haven’t killed me."

Elias dragged his hand down his face, staring at the god across the table like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. "So let me get this straight," he said slowly, his voice edged with disbelief. "You blocked your own omniscience, your god-level cheat sheet, because you were bored. And now you’re poking around my family for entertainment?"

Uno didn’t flinch. His grin only curved wider, teeth flashing white against the winter light. "When you put it like that," he said lightly, "it sounds... accurate."

Elias let out a sharp laugh, one without humor. "Accurate? It’s insane. Do you have any idea what you’re playing with?" He jabbed a finger at the table, frustration breaking through the calm he usually wore like armor. "That’s my sister. That’s her child. And you’re sitting there calling it ’fascinating’ like it’s some lab rat you can dissect."

Ruo opened her mouth, then closed it again, her expression torn between agreement and self-preservation. Even Connor, who never shut up, had gone silent. Ashwin’s hand twitched near his weapon, as if that would matter.

Victor’s arm slid along the back of Elias’s chair, not restraining, just a quiet weight. His crimson gaze never left Uno. "Careful," he said, low but not to Elias this time. "You’re talking about what’s mine."

Uno’s blue eyes sparkled, wicked and utterly unbothered. "I am careful. That’s why I’m here instead of tearing the world open to peek inside directly. You should be thanking me for restraint."

Elias stared at him, heat rising in his chest, words tumbling out before he could stop them. "Restraint? If this is your idea of restraint, I’d hate to see what you’re like when you’re actually reckless."

For the first time, Uno’s smile softened, no less sharp, but quieter somehow. "You might, one day," he said. "And you’ll understand why I keep things... interesting."

Elias pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes and groaned. "Gods save me, I’m arguing ethics with the man who built the universe."

"Not man," Uno corrected cheerfully, pouring himself more wine. "Just Uno. Titles are boring."