The days in the Holy City began to speed like water, marked only by the shifting angle of the sun against the white marble.

A full month had passed, and the initial shock of the Holy City had worn down into a dull, repetitive ache in Julian’s spine.

Julian had mastered the art of the ’empty gaze’ during the long morning sermons, and his secret ’medical consultations’ with the pork-eating elders had become a weekly routine that kept Lucius healthy and his own nerves steady.

But the silence from the North had been the hardest part. Because of the heavy censorship of the Holy Empire, letters were slow to arrive and even slower to be cleared by the Purifiers.

Finally, a single envelope arrived. It didn’t have the Duchy’s seal—that would have been intercepted immediately—but Julian knew the handwriting. It was sharp, aggressive, and leaned slightly to the right, as if the pen were trying to cut through the paper.

There was only one person he knew who would fight the paper as though he were wielding a sword.

Julian waited until Lucius was occupied with a puzzle in the corner of their room before he broke the wax seal.

To my Scholar,

The air in the North has grown colder since you left. The hearth in my study feels like it produces no heat at all, and the bed... well, the bed is far too large for one man. I find myself staring at the empty chair across from me during dinner, waiting for a lecture on history that never comes.

I received your letters. All of them. You write of white stone and quiet prayers, but I can read the exhaustion between your lines. Do not let them dim you, Julian. You were not meant to be a statue in their graveyard of a city.

How is Lucius doing? You can tell the child that I miss him, and that I anticipate how much he has grown by the time he returns.

Julian let out a warm smile, a laugh nearly escaping his lips and then he continued reading.

In your letters, you mentioned a ’funny boy’ you’ve befriended. A child who makes you feel at ease.

Let me be clear: I am glad you have an ally. Truly. But do not forget who is waiting for you at the border. I find I have very little patience for ’funny’ distractions when they involve my heart. If he makes you laugh too much, I might have to come down there myself and remind you whose touch actually makes you breathless.

I am counting the weeks, Julian. Every day you are there is a day I am half a man. Stay safe. Stay sharp. And stay mine.

— A

Julian felt a sharp, familiar heat climb his neck as he finished the letter. He could practically hear Alaric’s low, possessive growl in the words.

Even from thousands of kilometers away, the Duke managed to be overwhelmingly jealous and frustratingly charming.

But to be jealous of a child? Pft, I guess some things never change.

He could faintly remember how, on a rare trip into town, a child had rushed up to him and hugged his leg. When he bent down to pay the child, she kissed his cheek and then ran off.

Alaric was jealous and planned to apprehend the child, which was funny at the time, but Julian paid for it dearly when they arrived home that night.

The Duke wouldn’t let him be, he kissed his cheek, sucked on it over and over till Julian’s cheek was swollen. All while pounding his insides so hard that Julian could hardly think.

Julian scratched his nose as his face grew hotter with the memory. Yes, Alaric has always and will always be a jealous possessive partner.

He folded the letter carefully, sliding it into the hidden pocket of his vest, right against his chest. It felt like a spark of fire in a room full of ice.

"Master? Is that from Father?" Lucius asked, looking up from his puzzle.

"Yes," Julian said, his voice a bit thicker than he intended. "He says the North is cold and that he misses us."

"I miss him too," Lucius sighed, resting his chin on his hand. "I want to go home," he pouted. "Everything here is so... still."

Julian walked over and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. "One more month, Lucius. Just one more."

But as Julian looked out the window at the Great Spire, he felt a strange prickle of unease. The ’peace’ of the last month had been too perfect. In his experience, when a city this powerful stayed this quiet for this long, it usually meant they were waiting for the right moment to strike.

The next morning, that peace finally shattered.

It started with a change in the bells. Instead of the rhythmic silver toll for morning prayer, a heavy, iron gong began to ring from the central plaza—a sound Julian had only heard once before, during the first day of his arrival.

The door to their quarters flew open without a knock.

Elian stood there, but he wasn’t wearing his usual serene smile. His silver hair was pulled back tightly, and his eyes were as sharp as flint.

"Saint Julian," Elian said, his voice tight. "We need your help. There has been a ’manifestation’. The Pope requires your Light—immediately."

Julian went rigid, his eyes slightly narrowed. "A manifestation?"

In the texts Julian had studied, he had read of manifestations and their different kinds.

A Manifestation occurred when an individual’s internal reservoir of holy energy became too much for their physical body to contain. It was like a dam bursting; instead of a controlled flow of healing or light, the energy turned inward, rotting into a ’corruption’.

To the Church, it was the ultimate failure of discipline. To Julian, it was a tragedy—a human being literally being unraveled by the very power they were told was a blessing.

Stopping it required a ’Harmonization’. A stronger, more stable source of Light had to be introduced to the chaos, acting as a grounding wire to bleed off the excess energy before it destroyed the host’s soul.

And then the other kind of manifestation had to do with a possession from a demon.

The clash of demonic energy and holy energy was too much for a regular body to handle. They lose their minds and become part demon. But it didn’t seem like it was that kind of manifestation.

"What kind?" Julian asked.