Julian’s grip tightened instinctively on Lucius’s small hand. He didn’t like this.

He looked down at Lucius, searching the boy’s face for the familiar tells—the slight tilt of the head, the way his brows pinched when he was overwhelmed.

But Lucius wasn’t overwhelmed. His eyes were wide, glowing with a dangerous kind of wonder. To a child who lived in a small corner of the world, what they were doing, the chant they were singing, all of it felt like an adventure. And he was thrilled.

He didn’t have his slate to write a request, but he didn’t need it. The way he leaned his weight toward the priests, his fingers tracing a small circle on Julian’s palm, spoke volumes.

Master Julian, can we? I want to know what the ’sun’ feels like.

"Lucius, we were going to the frozen fountain, remember?" Julian said, his voice low, trying to pull the boy’s attention back. "The water looks like glass, and you like staring at your reflection on it, remember?"

He was doing his best to sway the boy, and Elian seemed to have caught on to it.

"The fountain will remain frozen, Saint," Elian intervened, his voice a gentle, melodic chime that seemed to vibrate in the very air. "But the heart... the heart is a different matter. Do you not wish for the boy to feel the light? To know that he is not alone in his silence?"

The jab was hard. Elian was playing on Julian’s guilt, suggesting that by denying the boy this ’spiritual warmth’, Julian was leaving him stranded in a cold, silent void.

"Just one song," Elian whispered, stepping back into the semicircle.

The Purifiers began to hum the chant.

Then, the harmony broke through. It began to rise higher and higher until it felt as though the grey sky might actually crack open.

Lucius let go of Julian’s hand.

He didn’t run away, but he took three slow, mesmerized steps toward the altar. Julian followed, his heart hammering against his ribs.

He felt like he was walking into a trap, but he couldn’t leave the boy to stand among them alone.

As they entered the circle, the priests immediately parted. They didn’t stop singing, but they inclined their heads as Julian passed, their eyes closed in spiritual ecstasy.

Julian stood just behind Lucius, his heart heavy with an instinctual urge to flee, when he felt Lucius tug on his sleeve.

The boy wasn’t looking at the priests anymore. He was pointing toward the base of the small, white marble altar the priests had brought into the yard.

There, tucked into a corner of the frozen stone, was a single, shriveled stem. It was a winter crocus that had tried to bloom too early; its petals were blackened by frost, its neck snapped and limp. It was a tiny, pathetic scrap of death in the middle of all this ’holy’ splendor.

Lucius’s face was a map of pure, childish grief. He hated seeing anything broken. He looked up at Julian, his eyes brimming with a silent plea, and Julian could very well read the question in the downward curve of his lips and the way he touched his own chest: Can we fix it?

Julian let out a soft sigh, his heart melting. He removed his mind from what they were doing there and paid attention to comforting the boy.

"We can’t fix it here, Lucius," Julian whispered, kneeling in the snow beside him. "But we can take it with us. We can put it in a pot of warm soil in the study. Maybe it can sleep and come back when it’s truly spring."

Lucius nodded, excited with that idea, and Julian gave him a smile.

Then, he reached out, his fingers brushing the frozen, brittle stem to pluck it from the corner.

But the moment his skin touched the dead plant, a jolt went through him, and something strange happened.

Under Julian’s fingertips, the black, shriveled petals didn’t just thaw away. They pulsed.

A small glow of pure warm light radiated on the plant, and a vibrant, defiant purple shot through the veins of the flower.

The snapped stem straightened, growing thick and green in a matter of seconds. Before Julian could pull his hand away, the crocus had bloomed into a perfect, dew-covered flower, looking as though it had been plucked from the height of May rather than the depths of a Northern winter.

Lucius gasped, his hands flying to his mouth, his eyes wide with a sudden, joyous light.

But Julian felt a cold spike of horror.

The chanting didn’t stop, but the voices of the priests nearby faltered. Elian, standing only a few feet away, snapped his eyes open. He looked down at the vibrant purple flower tucked between Julian’s trembling fingers and the frozen altar.

The ’Song of the First Light’ reached its final note, and the chant stopped, leaving a silence that felt heavier than the snow itself.

"A miracle," a maidservant whispered from the edge of the circle, her voice trembling. She dropped to her knees, crossing herself. "A miracle in the frost!"

Julian stood up abruptly, pulling Lucius behind him, his hand clenching around the flower as if he could hide the life he had just forced back into it. But it was too late.

The purple petals peeked out between his knuckles, bright and undeniable.

Elian stepped forward, his silver-white hair catching the sun. He didn’t look surprised; he looked like a man watching a prophecy fulfill itself.

"The earth hears you, Saint," Elian breathed, his voice carrying through the quiet courtyard. "Even the dead things recognize the light you carry."

Julian’s heart hammered in his chest.

What just happened? Why did the flower come back to life? And like a criminal, he hid it. He pursed his lips. He didn’t do anything. He knew he hadn’t done anything, and yet, this flower had just handed Elian the ultimate proof to see him as a Saint.

"This... This was a coincidence."

There was no way he was a saint with divine powers. If he were, he would’ve healed himself when a stake had pierced through his thigh.

If he were, he wouldn’t have been so pathetic.

If he were... Lucius wouldn’t have suffered so much from the fever he got when they returned to the North.

He did not believe there was a single ounce of divinity within him. And as for this flower that came back to life... There had to be another explanation for it. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"It was just... the sun," Julian rasped, though his voice lacked any conviction. "It was trapped in the stone. It’s a common phenomenon with certain minerals..."

"Do not lie to the Heavens, Julian," Elian said, his voice soft but firm.

How is it lying when I don’t even know what is going on? Julian thought, speechless.

Elian turned to the crowd of kneeling servants and priests.

"Witness the grace of the North! The Saint has spoken to the winter, and the winter has answered!"

Lucius tugged on Julian’s hand again, his face full of wonder, completely unaware of the political cage that had just snapped shut around them both.