The evening sun began to bleed across the white marble, turning the city the color of a fresh bruise.

Julian sat in the high-backed armchair by the fireplace, Lucius perched on the rug beside him, both of them staring at the door.

He had asked for Castor before, and they told him that Castor had returned to his quarters and would not be able to see him for the time being.

Julian thought something had happened, and they were trying to keep him away from seeing Castor, and like he suspected, Lucius told him what had happened.

When Julian was brought back unconscious, Castor had trashed even with his body that wasn’t fully healed, saying the Church was trying to kill the saint.

He had been out of his mind. And for a Pope’s candidate to utter such blasphemous words, his actions were viewed badly.

The council had suggested strict discipline be imposed on him so he remembers his calling, but some others advised against it, since he was looking out for the Saint, after all.

And if they did anything to Castor, who was under the Saint’s care, Julian might put an issue out of it, since he had asked them not to interfere with how he ’handled’ Castor.

As a result, nothing was done to him, but he was locked up in his quarters and has been under heavy surveillance.

Julian could only imagine what that child must be going through, but so long as they didn’t plan to do anything to him, he could visit at a later time.

Right now, he needed to wait for Alaric. He needed to wait for his lover.

​The silence of the suite made it possible for him to piece together his thoughts of the incident, how he had met the Creator of the system, how he had discovered it was a demon after he had fallen from its status as a god. How he had discovered that, not only had the demon created the system, but it had created this world as well.

And now, it plans to destroy it since it was taken from it.

This god of light that currently oversees this world... do they not see what is going on? Do they not see the interference from the demon? Or are they just watching it because there is nothing to be done?

The gods do not care.

Those words suddenly echoed in his head, and it made him wonder.

In the past, he had read a lot of fictional books where the supposed gods that created the world do not do anything when demons attack because they are actually in agreement with it.

To destroy the world and create it from scratch.

This god might not be in agreement with the demon; it might be something sort of like a consolation. Since they took the world from the fallen god that was now a demon, maybe it was better to leave the fate of the world to the demon.

So much of such random speculation filled Julian’s head, and his heart rate increased by the second.

He could never guess what the gods were thinking. Maybe if he met them once, just as he did with the demon, maybe he could at least understand their intentions.

But no matter how he thought about it, meeting a god... that seemed rather impossible.

Well, it would’ve been if this were not a fictional world. If he could meet with a fallen god, a demon, albeit in a void dimension and with whispers, surely it could be the same for a god.

Julian sighed, dropping his hand on his face and dragging it down.

The thoughts were weighing him down, and fear was starting to creep into his heart. Because, despite how much he was thinking and how much he was trying to come up with a reason, the fact that this world was in danger remained.

The demons would surge in all places, slaughter the innocent and even the powerful, until there was nothing left to look at.

And without a plan to stop them, this world, his new home, was done for.

He took in a heavy, shaky breath and released it.

The quiet of the Inner Sanctum persisted until a sudden commotion erupted in the hallway.

​Shouts erupted in the hallway, followed by the sharp ringing of steel and the heavy thud of boots that didn’t care for the ’sanctity’ of the floor.

The heavy doors were quickly slammed back against the stone walls with a violence that made the crystal lamps rattle.

​Alaric stood in the doorway. He was covered in the gray dust of the road, his dark cloak torn at the edges, his hand white-knuckled on the hilt of his sword.

His eyes swept the room with a frantic, lethal energy until they landed on the chair. Until they landed on ’him’.

​"Julian," he breathed. The name sounded like a vow and a threat all at once. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

​He didn’t look at Elian or the guards. He strode across the room in three long steps, but as he reached the chair and leaned down to grab Julian, he stopped dead.

The firelight hit Julian’s face, illuminating the violet corrosion that had almost completely swallowed the blue of his left eye.

​Alaric’s hand hovered in the air, his expression shifting from rage to a sudden, piercing horror.

"What... what have they done to you?"

​Julian didn’t answer with words. He couldn’t. He just looked up, his throat tight, feeling like he was finally seeing the sun after a month in a cellar.

​The horror in Alaric’s face didn’t vanish, but it was suddenly overtaken by something much more desperate. He didn’t care that the people from the church were watching or that Elian was standing right there.

He stepped into Julian’s space and hauled him up out of the chair, his large hands sliding into Julian’s hair to pull him close.

​He crushed Julian against him, a hard, desperate embrace that smelled of horse, cold iron, and the sharp wind of the North.

Julian buried his face in Alaric’s shoulder, his fingers knotting into the dusty fabric of the Duke’s cloak. The cold weight that had been sitting in Julian’s chest—the thoughts of this world’s destruction and the plan to meet god—finally flickered and dimmed.

This was real. This heat... it was one he had craved for more than a month.