Julian was a scholar; he was a man who lived by logic and ink. He didn’t want to be a vessel. He didn’t want his hands to be tools for a god he didn’t know.

Yes, he had faith... but his faith was not to heal the sick or gain whatever eternal life they keep talking about.

He doesn’t even know the doctrine of their religion.

But he did know one thing. It was not the same as any of the religions from his real world.

He wanted to think deeply, maybe search through the books and find records that could help him explain the phenomenon with the flower. Or perhaps, a saying that a priest can heal a sick or dying plant, but it will not manifest right away.

If he finds something like that, he has every reason to point accusing fingers at Elian and his purifiers and claim they set him up.

But he wasn’t allowed the luxury of a long silence or moment of search when a frantic knocking came at his door.

It was the light, hurried tapping of a young maid.

"Master Julian! Master Julian, please!"

Julian stood, his heart dropping into his stomach. He opened the door to find Martha’s youngest assistant, her face pale and her eyes wide with terror.

"What is it? Is it Lucius? Lucien?"

"No, Master," she gasped, clutching her apron. "It’s the gates! The main gates! The Purifier... he’s opened them. He told the guards that you have been ’granted the grace’ and that the doors of the North must be open to those in need. There are dozens of them, Master Julian. People from the village, travelers from the pass... they’re all flooding into the courtyard."

Julian’s body went rigid for a second. What in the world was going on?

He was opening the gates to the people?

Julian wondered, if yes, he opened the gates, how was it that there were already so many flooding in?

It was as if they had been told earlier to gather and come here at this time.

Elian... What does that priest think he’s doing?

Julian picked up his coat,

"Lead the way," he said, and she hurried ahead. He followed with frantic steps, his boots thundering against the stone as he reached the landing of the grand staircase.

Through the massive windows of the hallway, he could see the chaos. The gates, which Alaric had kept strictly guarded, were wide open.

A line of shivering people—men with grey skin, mothers holding limp infants, old men coughing into blood-stained rags—were pouring into the inner yard.

And there, standing in the center of the throng like a shepherd made of moonlight, was Elian.

He was moving among them, but he wasn’t healing them. He was simply touching their foreheads and pointing toward the East Wing—toward Julian’s windows.

"Lucien will kill him," Julian rasped, his eyes darting to the courtyard entrance.

Sure enough, Alaric was already there. He was surrounded by twenty Northern guards, but they did not raise their weapons. After all, these were his people.

While the people of the North did not exactly suffer, there were still those who would occasionally contract a heavy cold that was strong enough to claim their lives.

There were those who could not work in the snow all year round and ended up with frozen spines and hips. There were those who were also too old to work, and their bones had gone cold, waiting to take their last warm breath and turn their flesh cold as well.

Elian had found a way to gather all these people in the Duchy and was leading them inside the Duke’s manor.

Alaric looked like a demon of war, his face purple with rage as he screamed at the Purifiers to stand down, but the people—driven by desperation and the news of the ’Miracle of the Crocus’—were bypassing the soldiers, throwing themselves at the feet of the white-robed priests.

"He’s baiting the blood," Julian realized, his hands clenching at his sides.

If Alaric ordered his guards to forcibly remove the sick and dying, he would be branded a monster by his own people. If he let them stay, he was turning his home into a stage for Julian’s unwanted divinity. The one they didn’t even know was real.

Julian saw Elian look up. The priest’s gaze found him through the glass, and Elian’s lips moved in a silent, reverent prayer.

He didn’t need to speak for Julian to hear the message: The world is at your door, Saint. Will you let them die to keep your peace?

Julian turned and pressed his back against the wall, peeking over the window just slightly, and found Elian walking away.

His heart was racing. Fear... there was this dread creeping in.

He couldn’t heal anyone; he knew that fat. He wasn’t a saint, he knew that fact too well...

So then why was this stage being prepared for him?

The sick, the old, the disabled... They were all there in his courtyard, begging for the miracle to read them as well. Begging for warmth from the ’light’.

This was madness.

Pure, jagged madness, and he could not stand for it. He could not even look at the people and pretend they were not there.

He could not act like none of it was his concern.

His heart, as he looked at the mothers who held their freezing babies while pleading for his mercy, was shattering.

What would they do?

Julian rushed to the Duke’s study, where he was sitting and listening to the complaints of his vassals.

He looked like he was about to blow a gasket, his hands punching the space between his brows, and his other hand clenched on the armrest of his chair, the poor wood cracking at the force of his hold.

Since he could not drive the commoners away in their despair, he would have to help them. There was no way he was letting Elian have his way.

But then, his vassals were complaining about how he had already sent half of the manor’s supplies to the villages and towns that were affected by the recent blizzard.

If he opened more of his rations, the Duke’s manor would have less to feed on.

All this was just a headache... He did not care if he had to starve.

As long as they do not see the ’miracle’ that gives them the right to take Julian away, anything else can happen.

"Lucien," Julian called, and Alaric lifted his head.