The crash of the balcony doors and Alaric’s roar had been too loud to ignore. Already, the heavy thud of armored boots echoed from the gallery, and the nobles who were cautiously speculating what was going on outside the balcony door gave way—the Golden Guards were coming.

Julian’s chest heaved, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. He could see the apex of the trap. If Alaric so much as breathed toward his dagger, Aurelian would have his excuse to blame me for the assassination attempt and Alaric was an ’accomplice’ and with no other witness, I would have my head on a spike before the moon reached its peak.

Without giving the Emperor a chance to speak, without allowing that thin, mocking mouth to form the words ’Assassination attempt,’ Julian moved.

He didn’t look at Alaric. He couldn’t. If he looked at the Duke’s devastated face for one second longer, his own resolve would shatter.

Instead, Julian reached down with trembling fingers and scooped his porcelain mask off the stone floor. He stood tall, shielding the Emperor with his own body, and forced his voice to steady into the cool, scholarly tone he had used whenever he was taking a lesson.

"You were saying, Your Majesty, that the gardens are splendid at night, right?"

He slid the mask back onto his face. The porcelain felt like ice against his skin, hiding the tracks of his tears, though his hands were visibly shaking as he adjusted the silk ties.

"Then, for my last moment in the palace, I would definitely like to take a look with you."

His voice was straight and eloquent, a perfect performance for the guards who had just burst onto the balcony with their halberds leveled.

"What do you say?" he added, his voice sounding cheery, but behind the mask, Julian’s face was breaking. Fresh tears rolled down his cheeks, pooling at the chin of the porcelain, but he kept his shoulders square.

He turned his head slightly, his gaze catching the guards, then shifting back to Aurelian. He needed to lock the Emperor into a narrative he couldn’t twist.

"And... the Duke can come with us, right?" Julian asked, his voice tilting with a fragile, forced politeness. "That was why you brought him here as well. So he can witness the beautiful night as well."

The guards hesitated, their eyes darting between the Emperor, the heaving scholar, and the glaring Duke. The tension on the balcony was heavy, but they couldn’t quite understand what was going on, as the conversation didn’t quite match.

"Oh gosh, if you stay quiet any longer than this, Your Majesty, the guards will be put on a spot," Julian pressed, his voice light, almost teasing, though the salt of his tears was stinging beneath his mask. "They don’t know what they’re supposed to do since they don’t understand what’s going on. Shall I tell them what we plan to do, or will you?"

Though as brazen as his words were, Julian’s heart felt like it would burst out any second now. He was giving the Emperor two choices behind his words, one was to accept the lie of a ’peaceful stroll’ or let Julian announce the Emperor’s sordid games to everyone listening. And yes, they were both a threat.

That was why it felt like it was too much. The pressure in this situation, and the Emperor’s unpredictable personality was like a knife pointed at his throat.

Still, it was either this, or let the Emperor have his way and rule the situation.

Aurelian stood still for a long moment. He looked at Julian’s shaking hands, then at the way Julian had positioned himself as a human shield—not out of love for the Throne, but out of a desperate, sacrificial love for the man standing in the doorway.

The Emperor began to laugh. It wasn’t the jagged, spiteful laugh from before; it was slow, appreciative, and deeply unsettling to Julian.

At that moment, he finally understood. He understood why a week of isolation and psychological skinning hadn’t been enough to break Julian. He understood why his brother, a man of iron and war, was currently trembling with a grief so profound it surpassed his rage.

Julian wasn’t a doll to be broken; he was a martyr in the making, and the fire he was walking through was fueled entirely by the Duke.

"You really are full of surprises, Master Astrea," Aurelian murmured, stepping forward until he was right behind Julian, his shadow swallowing the smaller man. "But we shall do just that," Aurelian said, his eyes glinting with a new, dangerous kind of respect. He reached out and tucked a stray dark hair behind the edge of Julian’s mask, his touch almost reverent in its cruelty. "Since Master Astrea is so fond of the night air, let us take a stroll in my garden."

Then, he looked up at the guards who still had their weapons leveled.

"Lower your weapons," he commanded, his voice cold and flat. "I didn’t realize it until now, but my elite guards are far too jumpy tonight. We were simply discussing the beauty of the midnight blooms. It would be a waste to let the moon go to waste, wouldn’t it?"

He turned his gaze past Julian to Alaric, his smile widening into something jagged. "Do join us, brother. It would be a shame to end the night so abruptly when the ’stars’ are aligned so perfectly."

> [Mental Stability: 19% — Status: The Fragile Performance]

Alaric didn’t move at first. His knuckles were white on the hilt of the dagger, his eyes burning holes into the back of Julian’s midnight-blue coat. He saw the shaking of Julian’s hands. He saw the way his lover was bartering his own safety to keep him from laying to waste all of his efforts from this past long week.

Slowly, agonizingly, the Duke let go of his dagger and took his hand out of his coat.

"Alright," he said and Julian gave an inward sigh of relief.

He didn’t want to go with the Emperor alone. He was glad the Duke was coming with them.

The three of them walked away from the whispering ballroom and into the night—a silent, bleeding procession—while the Golden Guards trailed behind like shadows in a graveyard.

The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and night-blooming jasmine, a sweetness that felt like a chokehold to Julian.

He was tired of the jasmine of the palace and wanted to hurry and leave. But he would have to pass through this last hurdle before he can truly be free.

But... now that they were outside, now what?

Julian had not thought that far when he was devising a scheme to get them out of the environment of the ballroom. He simply wanted to get away from the mess of the situation at the time.

He had no plans of admiring the flowers with the Emperor.

But ththeagain, why was the Emperor so silent? It made him uneasy, made him skeptical that he was plottingsomething again.

They reached the edge of the Mirror Pond, where the water was as black as ink. It was the last landmark before reaching for forbidden garden but then, Aurelian stopped walking.

He was still holding Julian by the shoulder, and looked at Alaric, who was forced to stand several paces back by the guards.

"Stay there, Brother," Aurelian commanded, his voice dropping to a low, intimate hum. "I want to have one last private word with our scholar. I’m sure you don’t mind this one last conversation, right? You’ve always been so patient."