Chapter 236: You’re too good for this world

The air in the courtyard seemed to vanish, leaving Julian gasping in a pressure of his own making, his heart hammering and thundering, threatening to break free from the cages of his ribs. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

The heat that had surged from his palm was still tingling in his fingertips, a lingering warmth that felt like a brand of shame.

The child in the mother’s arms wasn’t just breathing; he was stirring, his small hands clutching at the grey wool of his blanket, his eyes fluttering open with a clarity that no mint oil could ever produce.

He looked healthy. Very healthy.

"A miracle..." the mother breathed. She didn’t look at her son first. She looked at Julian, her eyes shining with a terrifying, fanatical light. "The Saint... the Saint has touched him and healed him! The Saint has healed my son!"

She raised her voice so loud, like she wanted the weather to hear her chant and give way for the coming saint. She clutched her child, her eyes teary and her body shivering.

"He has had mercy on my child," she said, a little quieter now.

As if a signal had been given, the wave of movement began. It started with the servants nearest to the steps and rippled outward like a stone dropped in a still pond.

More people came to join the crowd that was already kneeling and burdening Julian.

One by one, the people of the North within the walls of the manor—the rugged, stoic folk Alaric had spent his life protecting—sank their feet into the snow.

Their foreheads pressed against the frozen earth, their murmurs rising in a low, rhythmic drone that drowned out the whistling wind.

"Saint Julian... Grace of the Heavens... Save us..."

"Stop," Julian whispered, his voice cracking. He scrambled backward, but he was still on his knees, and his legs suddenly felt heavy. "Please, stand up. I didn’t—it was the oil. It was just the oil!"

But no one was listening to the scholar. They were worshiping the vessel.

Elian stepped down the stairs, his movements slow and deliberate. He didn’t look like a man who had just witnessed a child’s life being saved; he looked like a landlord coming to collect a debt.

He stopped beside Julian, his presence a cold, silver contrast to the heat still radiating from Julian’s body.

"Do you see now, Saint?" Elian’s voice was a soft, intimate thread meant only for his ears. "You can hide in the Duke’s library for a hundred years, but the Light is not a secret to be kept. It is a command to be followed."

Julian didn’t look at him. He couldn’t. His gaze was locked on Alaric.

The Duke hadn’t moved. He stood at the far end of the courtyard, his hand still resting on the hilt of his sword, but the weapon looked useless now.

His expression on his face was that of a shattered resolve. In that single moment of resonance, Julian had done the one thing Alaric had begged him not to do: he had made himself a target.

He had given the Holy Empire the legal, spiritual, and moral right to claim him.

Alaric finally moved. He walked forward, but it wasn’t the confident stride he usually walked in; it was the heavy, labored movement of a man walking toward a funeral pyre.

The crowd didn’t part for him as easily as before. They were slower to move, their eyes lingering on Julian as if the Duke were merely an obstacle between them and their salvation.

When Alaric finally reached the center of the circle, he didn’t look at Elian. He looked at Julian’s trembling hands.

"Lucien," Julian sobbed, reaching out, but Alaric flinched—just for a fraction of a second.

It was the smallest movement, but it felt like a blade through Julian’s heart. Alaric wasn’t afraid of Julian; how could he? He just... did not like what Julian had become.

"Get inside," Alaric said. His voice was hollow, stripped of the fire and rage that usually defined him. It was the voice of a man who had already lost the war before he could declare it.

"Lucien, listen, I just—"

"Get. Inside."

The Duke turned his gaze to Elian then, and the air between them turned murderous.

"You got what you wanted, Priest. You broke the boy just to see an act. And now, you turned a man’s compassion into a circus act."

"I did nothing, Your Grace," Elian replied, his eyes dancing with a sharp, amber light. "I merely provided the opportunity for the truth to reveal itself. And the truth is that the Saint does not belong to a Duke’s bed or a Northern fortress. He belongs to the world."

Alaric stepped into Elian’s space, his massive frame towering over the silver-haired priest.

"He belongs to himself. And if you think you’re taking him, you’ll find that Northern steel is very real, even if your gods are not."

"Oh, I am not taking him," Elian smiled, a thin, cruel curve of the lips. "I don’t have to. The people will do it for me. Look at them, Your Grace. They won’t let him stay hidden anymore. And the Emperor? When he hears that a Saint is healing the dying in the North? He will send more than twenty guards to collect his ’property’."

"Aurelian will do no such thing unless he wants my knights to invade his Palace." Alaric hissed, and the fire in his eyes said he wasn’t joking. "And as for you... Do not cross me,"

Alaric didn’t say another word. He grabbed Julian by the elbow—not with the gentle possessiveness of a lover, but with the desperate grip of a man clinging to a ledge.

He pulled Julian up from the snow and toward the manor, ignoring the hands of the commoners that reached out to touch Julian’s coat as they passed, as if that would be enough for a miracle.

Once they were inside and the heavy doors were barred, the silence of the manor felt like a tomb. Alaric let go of Julian’s arm and walked toward the fireplace in the Great Hall, staring into the dying embers.

"Lucien, please say something," Julian pleaded, his voice small in the vast room. "I didn’t mean for it to happen. I thought... It was impossible. And I... I just wanted to help the dying child."

"That’s the problem, Julian," Alaric said, not turning around. "You’re too good for this world. And that goodness just gave them the rope they need to hang us both."

He finally turned, and Julian saw tears shimmering in the Duke’s eyes—the first time he had ever seen Alaric truly break.

"They won’t leave now. Not ever. And the next time Elian asks you to go to the Holy Empire... I won’t be able to say no for you. Because if I do, my own people will call me a heretic."