Chapter Text
This late at night, the shadows stretched on into eternity. Even the light of the last-burning torches in the garden could not contend with the depth of the darkness held fast at their golden edges. Dawn was still quite a distance away—it felt like an eternity more thereafter, if he allowed himself to consider it—and he was not certain those torches would hold until then. They would fade out eventually, allowing the whole of them to be swallowed into darkness.
Again.
When everything was said and done—words thrown in place of blows, for better or for worse—and it became apparent that, at least for the night, they would be relying on the Lloy’s hospitality, Aranessa had bid him to rest. It was one of the few requests he could not…would not heed from his lady. Rest, after all of this? Preposterous. How was he to rest when he had just witnessed the downfall of his own house? The downfall of House Royce, if he had properly understood everything said between the slashes of his rapier and the shadows of death? There was no time to rest after everything that transpired that night, nor, quite frankly, any desire when every time he closed his eyes all he could see was…
So, instead, Julien found himself back out in the gardens of the Lloy estate keeping watch. In case anything followed, or in case anything new decided to also intrude upon their night. It was easier to have some task other than simply ‘rest.’ It was easier being out here than in an estate where the walls only reminded him that they were not his own. Where the lights cast low inside only reminded him that in another part of town, they were entirely snuffed out. Where the people inside were neither family nor friend, and, at best, where most of them were suspicious of him only a day ago while attending the funeral of a man beloved by them and loathed by him.
It was better he was out here…for everyone involved. The only thing that gave him even a moment’s pause was the siren call of the bottle, a melody humming louder than he had ever heard it before. Yet, oddly, the call of his grief was stronger still. It was such a rarity that it wished not to be soothed in such a way that he could not…or had just enough self-awareness to know better than to deny it. Or, perhaps, it was merely pride. He had already made a fool of himself once in front of these people, there was no need to do it again with drink.
A disgusted scoff escaped him, echoed by a distant birdcall shadowed in the night. His gaze slipped from the torch light down to his own gauntleted hand, the silver glittering weakly in the soft gold hues. His father’s remained in Aranessa’s room, the only proper place he could think of to keep it when he refused to take a space for himself. He had no use for their hospitality, let alone any more of their pity. He’d seen enough of it on all their faces to haunt him for the rest of his days.
Beneath the demi-gauntlet, his fist clenched. The issues he rose when Occtis did much the same were sound, or so Julien believed. They had no way of knowing what the body before them was, if it was even Occtis, and even if it was the boy, then why? How and why was he brought back from the dead? How did no one else see it as suspicious when that was the Tachonis family’s entire calling? Everyone else praised it as a damn miracle when all Julien could see it as was what it was: one more Tachonis back in this world, under the thrall of who knew what, to potentially act for a purpose none of them could comprehend.
Except, that was never the argument closest to his heart, and it became all too obvious in how he yelled. One misspoken sentence and Occtis was apologizing to him. Vaelus and Halandil Fang were regarding him with far too much understanding. And Thaisha, blood-curdling, damnable woman that she was, tried to hug him. And that wasn’t the point he wanted to make, it wasn’t the point he wanted any of them to see. He didn’t want anyone’s pity, least of all theirs.
He had no use for sympathy. What he needed was retribution.
Because the problem was never that the Tachonis boy died (though it was a pity, even he could admit that. Julien himself was the one who noted he got out, and regardless of whether he truly believed that declaration or not, Occtis appeared sincere in his appreciation of it). It wasn’t even that he was alive again (though it was unnatural. Miracle or plan. Great boon or great bait. The answer was still undecided, but neither option brought Julien any comfort). The problem was in everything else.
The problem was that the rest of the Sundered Houses were enacting plans he could just barely comprehend because they were so far behind. The problem was that House Davinos was gone. Annihilated in the night and picked clean based on what the others said. Simply disappeared into the fucking shadows without so much as a hint towards the betrayal they just faced. The problem was that House Royce suffered the same fate. The problem was that the people entrusted to him and his family were dead, his friends were dead, his father fell at the front steps of their estate with his skull ripped from his head—
And Occtis Tachonis was the one who got a bloody miracle.
For what it was worth, Julien Davinos didn’t much believe in miracles. But he couldn’t deny what he saw right in front of his eyes. And as he watched the boy stand up from his death, he couldn’t deny the question that had been ringing hollow in his mind ever since.
Why couldn’t he for once, just once, be the one who received a fucking miracle instead?