Chapter 234: You can’t do everything alone, Lucien

Alaric’s eyes were bloodshot, the blue irises vibrating with a mix of fury and helplessness.

When he saw Julian standing in the doorway, he simply stood up, his large hands flat on the wood of his desk as if he were trying to keep the entire manor from shaking.

"The Purifier has turned my home into a shrine," Alaric rasped, his voice sounding like gravel being ground together.

Then, he turned to the vassals and waved them off.

They gave the Duke one long, worried look, and one said,

"Your Grace, please think wisely on this."

"I said I know what I am doing," Alaric growled back, his eyes dark, and they left, though Alaric’s words did not give them any sort of comfort.

Once the door slammed shut and the last of the nervous vassals had scurried out, Alaric let out a jagged breath.

He looked at Julian, and for a moment, the iron mask of the Duke slipped, revealing a man who was terrified.

"He sent word to the hamlets before the sun was even up," Alaric said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "He told them the ’Saint’ had awakened and he was in these lands, as if he knew you would revive a dying flower today."

Julian gulped. That seemed to be the case.

"They aren’t here for bread anymore, Julian. They’re here for you." Alaric added.

Julian stepped forward, his heart hammering. Once again, problems were arising because of him, and he felt like he couldn’t do a thing about it.

But not this time. He wanted to help. He wanted to make sure Elian didn’t win.

"I saw them, Lucien. We have to do something. If I go down there as a tutor and a man who has alchemy knowledge—if I show them that I’m just a man using herbs and tinctures—maybe the rumors will—"

"No."

The word was flat yet absolute.

"No?" Julian blinked, confused. "What do you mean, Lucien?"

Alaric rounded the desk and then stopped in front of Julian, grabbing his shoulders. His grip was firm, bordering on frantic, but never hurting.

"You are not going down there," Alaric stated. "You will not set foot in that courtyard. You will not look at them, and you certainly will not touch them."

"But Lucien, they’re suffering!" Julian countered, his voice rising. "The mothers with their children... if I can just help as an alchemist, it will prove Elian is lying about the ’miracle’!"

"It will prove nothing!" Alaric roared, his voice echoing off the stone walls.

His blood was boiling, knowing to what lengths a man could go to get what he wants. Priest or not, the human heart was still the human heart, and greed was boundless.

His gaze immediately softened it, but the intensity remained.

"Julian, listen to me. Desperate people don’t see medicine; they see what they want to see. If you give a child a cup of willow bark and the fever breaks, they won’t thank the bark. They will thank the ’Saint’ who handed it to them. You are handing Elian exactly what he wants."

Julian opened his mouth to argue, but Alaric pressed a thumb to his lips, silencing him.

"I have ruled the North for more than seven years, Julian," Alaric said, his eyes burning with a fierce, protective pride. "In all that time, through blizzards and famines, I did not need a miracle to pacify my people. I have physicians, I have grain, and I have the authority. I will handle the sick. I will handle the disgruntled. And you... You will stay away."

Julian looked at him, feeling a wave of both relief and frustration. His brows knitted together. Yes, Alaric was doing this to protect him, but for how long?

"You can’t do everything alone, Lucien."

"In this, I must," Alaric whispered, his forehead dropping to rest against Julian’s. "We cannot afford any more ’coincidences.’ If you stay in the shadows of this wing, the priest has no stage. If there is no Saint to see, the people will eventually go home to their fires."

Julian sighed, leaning into the Duke’s strength. It seemed like this was the only logical thing to do at this point.

"Fine. I’ll stay. But please... make sure they’re fed. Don’t let them freeze at our gates just to protect me."

"I will handle it," Alaric promised, his voice tight as he pressed a kiss on Julian’s forehead.

But Alaric’s ’handling’ of the situation was exactly what Elian had anticipated.

By the following evening, the lower barracks were full, and the manor was thick with the smell of woodsmoke and sickness.

Alaric stayed in the courtyard until his boots were caked in slush, personally overseeing the distribution of salted meat and heavy wool. He was a wall of muscle and North-steel, standing between the people and the East Wing, where Julian was effectively a prisoner.

Julian, however, couldn’t sit still. The sound of a child’s wet, racking cough drifted up through the floorboards of his room.

It had been like that for two days. And that child’s cough was getting stronger by the minute. He tried to ignore it since the physicians were taking care of them, but there was no improvement, and his heart was aching for the child.

And the worst part was that it wasn’t just a cough. It was a ’White Lung’ fever that took the young in the deep winter.

He had apprehended one physician and gave them the remedy he knew. Whether they gave it to the child or not, he did not know, but there was no improvement.

It is... none of my business. He told himself.

He tried to read. He tried to organize his notes on the Southern trade routes so Zane could hurry and be on his way. There were just far too many guests now, and that peacock wasn’t making matters easier.

Julian’s heart, which had been saddened, fearing that he could not love Alaric properly or prove his love for him, had long since been soothed when Alaric told him,

"If you want to help me so much, if you want to do something for me, then look at trade routes. You’re very knowledgeable, so if you can lighten my load with this, it is more than enough."

Of course, to him who had read almost all the books, he needed to understand the economics and structure of this world; looking over trade routes was as easy as eating pie.

So, he took it up, and that took most of his time when he was not teaching Lucius, having meals with the father and son, or sleeping with Alaric.

It was as if he had taken on the role of the Duchess, and the realization of it made him seem... useful to Alaric.

It was just too bad he could not peacefully do his job and had to be laden at heart once again with, not his love for Alaric, but the cries and coughing of a child he personally knew how to treat.

Then, one day, while he was trying to focus, he heard the commotion.

It wasn’t a riot; it was a surge of movement. He peeked through the heavy curtains.

In the center of the yard, a woman had broken past the guards. She wasn’t an assassin or a rebel; she was a mother, and in her arms was a bundle of grey wool that didn’t move.

She hadn’t gone to Alaric. She was kneeling at the base of the East Wing stairs, screaming for the ’Light’ to come down and save her child.