The Marquis kept his head down, gritting his teeth so hard he could taste blood from his gums. He was desperate and furious.

In the dark of his own shadow, his eyes were filled with a venomous hate. I will repay this, he thought, his fingers digging into the floor. Julian, because of you... You dare subject your father to this sort of humiliation. You dare use the Duke as a shield to destroy me, even after I raised you. You will pay for this. And as for the Duke, I will see the North burn for this humiliation. I will tell the Emperor that you are a madman.

He kept pleading despite the thoughts swimming in his head.

"I will not go near Julian anymore if that is what you want. I will leave him alone, so please..."

"You’ll leave him alone?" Alaric asked, his voice deathly quiet.

"Yes, Yes, Your Grace. That is correct. I swear on my family name that I will stay away from Julian." he bowed his head even more till his forehead touched the floor. "And I apologize for all the inconveniences I have caused."

The Duke shifted his grip from Maxwell’s shoulder to his forearm, relieving the pain in the young man.

"That was what I wanted to hear." The Duke said, and relief washed over him, thinking he had swayed the Duke, only for him to add. "But do you think an apology fixes the mark you left on my son’s skin?"

This filled him with dread again, and he began to plead.

"Please, Your Grace! Have mercy!" the Marquis wailed, his voice cracking. "He is my only hope! Don’t—"

CRA-ACK.

The sound was sharp and wet, like a thick dry branch snapping in winter.

The Marquis’s head snapped up in horror, his eyes dilated as he watched his son’s mouth open, a silent gasp of shock escaping him before a high-pitched scream tore through the room. His right arm was bent at an impossible, sickening angle at the elbow, the bone completely severed by the Duke’s raw strength.

The Marquis couldn’t believe it. He could see it, but he refused to believe it. His son... foaming at the mouth from pain.

Alaric let go of the limb, letting the man drop limply in pain against his father’s side. He looked down at the Marquis, whose eyes were bulging with terror and disbelief.

"Now we are even for the shoulder," Alaric said, his voice cold and flat. "But if I see another member of the Astrea bloodline near my gates again, I won’t stop at an arm." He turned and started walking out with these last words. "Consider this my act of mercy."

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

The Marquis’s scream ripped through the study, a raw, jagged sound that drowned out his son’s whimpering. He scrambled across the floor, pulling his son into his chest, his hands hovering frantically over the mangled, unnaturally bent arm.

"Physician! Get the physician!" he shrieked, his eyes bulging as he looked toward the door.

But no one moved.

The Butler and the household staff were paralyzed, pinned to the walls of the corridor like insects.

They watched in a state of frozen horror as Duke Alaric strode past them. He didn’t look back. He didn’t even wipe the dust from his gloves. He just moved with the steady, unfazed gait of a man who had simply stepped on a bothersome pest and was now going home.

"Don’t just stand there!" the Marquis yelled again, his voice cracking into a sob of pure rage. "Help him! Get the doctor now!"

The twins—the middle sons who had spent years taunting Julian, mocking him for being kicked out as he left the family home, Castor and Pollux—rushed into the room. They stopped dead on the threshold of the missing door, the color draining from their faces until they were as white as the marble statues in the hall.

They stared at their Elder brother’s mangled limb, then at the blood-red face of their father.

"Father, what... what happened?" Castor stammered, his voice trembling.

"That good-for-nothing..." The Marquis hissed, his breath coming in shallow, venomous pants. He clutched his eldest son tighter, his eyes burning with a murderous light. "How dare he? How dare he send the Duke to do this to his own blood? To his older brother? After I raised him!" He yelled.

He was livid. The humiliation was a physical weight, a burning coal in his gut. He was ready to take Julian’s neck with his own hands. He was ready to tear the North apart—

"That bastard is responsible for this?" Castor asked, unable to understand how something like that could even happen. "How is that possible? He’s good for nothing. He should be dead in the North."

"I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to get into the good grace of the Grand Duke, and now he moves around like his slave," he hissed bitterly. "He definitely got jealous of your brother and used an excuse to get the Duke to come here. Now my poor son is suffering from that wicked child’s schemes." 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"Father, we can’t let this slide," Pollux said, his hatred towards Julian increasing by the second. "We can’t let Julian or the Grand Duke get away with this. This is a violation. We have to press charges."

But the Marquis could not comment on that. Though he had gone to the Duke’s house with a mandate from the Emperor, he had hurt the Duke’s son, and that was already an offense. If they took this to court, he would be gravely charged for his crime since Lucius was still an external member of the royal family, and the Duke would walk away scot free.

He might even incur more of the Duke’s wrath.

He gritted his teeth. They could not press charges.

"First, let’s take your brother to his room. He needs treatment right away."

Two hours later, the Marquis watched as the Marquisette wept by her son’s side, watching him helplessly.

The family physician had finally finished setting the eldest son’s arm. The young man lay pale and delirious under the heavy haze of morphine, his limb encased in a stiff, white binding that looked like a tombstone against his side.

"You have to do something, dear," The Marquisette cried. "We cannot stand for this. How dare that worthless brat do something so despicable? Even after we took him in and raised him." she wept. "I told you he was bad luck. I told you he would become troublesome one day, but you didn’t listen. Now, look where we are."