CHAPTER 121: CHAPTER 121: PHONE CALL WITH RUO

Elias didn’t linger in Victor’s suite after the door shut. He exhaled once, sharp and deliberate, before turning on his heel and crossing to his own rooms, the ones Victor had outfitted for him without asking.

The desk was waiting as always, neat to the point of insult: his notes in stacks, his pens aligned, and the computer humming softly in standby. And on the corner of the desk lay the phone Ashwin had returned to him yesterday.

Not his real phone, but a clone. The second one, Ashwin had called it in his monotone delivery, droning about mirrored backups, secure channels, and coded encryption layers that Elias hadn’t bothered to listen to. He’d caught maybe three words before tuning him out. He didn’t care about the mechanics, only that the contact list was intact. And Ruo’s name now had a real contact that made her reachable again.

He picked it up, heavier than it should’ve felt, and scrolled until the letters formed her name. Secure lines, Ashwin had said. Traced through shadowed networks. Safe enough, even for someone hunted.

Elias stared at the screen, thumb hovering above the call button, teeth pressing into his lower lip until the taste of copper reminded him he couldn’t stall forever.

He pressed it.

The line rang. Once. Twice.

"Elias?" The voice came through faintly distorted, the connection lagging, but familiar. Too familiar.

His chest tightened, but suspicion was sharper than relief. He wasn’t going to let hope make a fool of him.

"What did ’noodles’ mean," he said flatly, "when you classified an article under it?"

There was a pause. Then the sound of breath catching, and a small laugh cracked in half. "That it was incomprehensible garbage," Ruo said, her voice warm with the ghost of memory. "Dense, twisted, no nutritional value for the brain. I told you reading it would be like eating three-day-old noodles."

"So it’s really you," Elias said, the words leaving him on a sigh he hadn’t meant to release.

"Well, of course," Ruo replied, dry even through the lag of the line. "Didn’t you meet Victor? He’s not the type to waste his time lying. Or shielding someone who isn’t useful to him."

Elias’s jaw tightened. That tone, the unflinching practicality wrapped in humor, was hers. But still. "That’s not exactly comforting."

"It wasn’t meant to be," she said, and he could almost see her half-smile, the one that dared him to argue. "But if you’ve made it this far with him, then maybe you’re more useful than either of us thought."

"He marked me," Elias said, bracing himself for what was going to come.

The line went silent, long enough that Elias thought the connection might have dropped. Then Ruo’s voice came through, sharp and disbelieving, but threaded with too much emotion to be mockery.

"...He what?"

"You heard me."

"No, no, no, don’t you dare say that so casually," Ruo snapped, her words tumbling fast, as if she couldn’t decide whether to shout or strangle someone. "Elias, do you have any idea what you’re saying? You’re telling me that bastard marked you... in my brother’s body?"

Elias winced, though he kept his voice flat. "Technically, he is your brother."

"Don’t you start with semantics," she hissed. "That’s not him. That’s Victor, and I swear to God, if I had his throat within reach..."

"You’d what?" Elias cut in, dry as ever, though the corner of his mouth twitched despite himself. "Kick his ass? He’s not only a God himself, but also six foot nine, Ruo. You’d need a ladder."

"I don’t care if I need a crane," she shot back, voice flaring with heat. "He doesn’t get to put his hands on you, Eli. Not like that. Not with that face. Do you understand how insane this sounds to me?"

Elias leaned back in his chair, balancing the phone between his fingers like it might bite. "Insane is a relative term. You always said my taste was questionable."

"This isn’t taste, Eli; this is suicide in designer clothes," Ruo snapped, then groaned, the sound rough as if she was dragging her hands down her face somewhere on the other end of the line. "Gods, you’re telling me you let him mark you? Victor. Do you even hear yourself?"

"I hear myself," Elias said dryly, though his throat was tighter than he liked. "And I hear you yelling through enough static to fry the connection."

"This isn’t yelling; this is me trying not to throw my phone through the wall." Her voice cracked, raw and close to breaking. "What if something happens to you? The dissidents are after you and Matteo... Eli, Matteo was never the friend you thought he was."

Elias let out a dry huff, more breath than laugh, and tipped his head against the back of the chair. The ceiling stared down at him, clean and unyielding, and his mouth twisted. "Mhmm. Matteo." He let the syllables drag, as though tasting bitterness. "I figured that out the hard way. He wasn’t after me but only after what I can do. Filtering the raw stuff no one else touches. Red ether."

"Red..." Ruo’s voice faltered, then sharpened, brittle as glass. "Eli, that is dangerous. Red ether isn’t just unstable; it’s poison. It corrupts anyone except those bound to Victor. "

"I know." Elias shifted the phone in his hand, thumb brushing the edge as if he could scrape the memory off his skin. "Victor killed Matteo two days ago. And yet yesterday, his body walked again, straight down the sweetest path it could find, right to my family’s house."

There was a sharp inhale on the line, and then Ruo’s fury flared like a spark catching dry tinder. "Those bastards! After they let you on the roads..." Her breath came harsh, then steadied, as though she’d forced herself to inhale through clenched teeth. "Robert told me how they lured you with my disappearance. But you, " she broke off, sharp again, "you chose Victor to ask for help, not Matteo."

Elias pinched the bridge of his nose, lips quirking in a humorless curve. "Matteo knew too much about the dissidents and my parents to ever trust him. He... admitted he’d been watching me since high school. Stalking me." The word tasted sour on his tongue.

Ruo hissed, a sharp intake that turned into silence, her disgust vibrating through the static. "I see." She paused, then her tone shifted, probing. "And how about Victor? I knew he wanted you, but I thought it was the same case as me and Samael. Just agents of his will in exchange for peace."

"He is..." Elias’s gaze flicked toward the mark on his skin, heat prickling there like he could feel her judgment across the distance. "...telling me I’m his soulmate. Touching, isn’t it?"