Chapter 70: A Begrudging Hand
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CW: Explicit language, drug withdrawal, mentions of scars/physical abuse. 


When Jun steps into the Marquis’ room, he’s immediately hit by the stench of sickness. The fireplace is low and a damp cold hangs in the air, clinging to his skin. He sees the thin figure of the man upon his bed, wrapped tightly in his sweat soaked sheets and shivering violently. Despite himself, Jun feels a modicum of sympathy, and so first tends to the fire, stoking it to a respectable blaze.

Soon, there’s a dry heat spreading through the room, and the Marquis’ shivering quietens to a mere tremble.

Jun sets down his Healer’s bag sits on the edge of the bed, visually inspecting his patient. He carefully picks up his delicate wrist and reads his pulse with two fingers.

The Marquis sleeps fitfully, his brows pinched together as if he were in pain, and his cracked lips quivering as he cries out pitifully. His white hair is strewn over his pillows, tangled and damp, and a heavy sheen of sweat glistens upon his skin. His colour is bad and he looks far too gaunt. Clearly, he’d been going weeks without proper meals.

But in truth, now that he is inspecting Korain closely, he can admit that the man is a rare beauty.

Jun's expression darkens as he sets down Korain’s arm. Yes, he shouldn’t be surprised by how attached Rin is to this man. By contrast, Jun feels rough, like a worn piece of wood beside a stunning gem.

This worn piece of wood forces the thought from his mind and throws himself into his work. He starts by giving the Marquis a quick clean, wiping the sweat from his body with a cloth wrung in hot water. This seeps heat into his limbs and eases his trembling.

There are signs of abuse upon Korain’s body when he changes his robes. Old scars that told of repetitive trauma, a pattern of violence recorded upon his fair skin. There’s a deep, enduring pity for the man as he ponders what kind of life he had held before meeting Rin. And indeed, after Rin.

Some of the Marquis’ deplorable behaviour, while never excusable, come from a place that is known and understood. His madness is not just an enigma with no history. There is a narrative, a treacherous path down which Korain had chosen to traverse, and thus ended up here, sickly and wholly dependent on someone who he can barely consider an ally.

Korain stirs just as Jun administers an injection to his antecubital - a concoction of drugs that would ease his pain and soothe his anxieties.

Phoenix eyes flutter open and stare at the Healer in a daze. “Bijan Azar,” he rasps, wincing at the dryness of his throat. “My dear advisor…I hope you gave me something enjoyable…” His lips twitch into a weak smile.

Jun brings a cup of water to the man. “Drink.” He cradles Korain’s nape as he helps him drink, then sets him back down gently once he’s sated.

“I have given you something for the pain,” the Healer explains, setting the cup down on the bedside table. “Your symptoms have worsened overnight. How do you feel?”

“Probably as well as I look.”

“Then you will be back to normal by the morn,” Jun says in a light jest. He strips away the sodden sheets and replaces them with a thick blanket, draping it over his patient’s body with care.

Korain watches him through his dark lashes, lips quirked into a faint smirk. “You are a good man, Bijan.”

“Is that so?” Jun answers mildly as he sits down. He takes that thin wrist into his hand again to read his pulse. Slower. More steady. Seems like the medication is working.

“To treat the fiend who has your lover’s heart. Only a good man could bear to do so.”

Cold golden eyes flit to the Marquis’ face. The little lord’s expression turns stony and the smile he puts on is the same he gives in court. “You do not have his heart. Do you feel any significant pain?”

“My head feels like it’s splitting open. Would he be my Marchioness if I did not have his heart?”

“He is your Marchioness because that is the position you forced upon him. How are your bowel movements?”

“Non-existent. Forced? He chose to be my Marchioness, Bijan. You witnessed this yourself. At any point did I enforce my will upon him?”

“He agreed to marriage when the time is right. While I do regret dashing any man’s dreams, I must ask that you respect my relationship with Rin. Do you feel any dizziness? Difficulty breathing?”

“Yes to both, but not too bad. Tell me, my dear advisor. When exactly is the time right for marriage?”

Jun narrows his gaze and pulses his jaw in irritation. “When we are done with our business here. That will be the right time.” Sure, Rin might not have agreed to this just yet. But Jun feels the impulsive need to sever the bonds between his lover and the Marquis. However petty that may be, he has a difficult time extricating himself from the toxic sludge of jealousy.

“Well. I must offer my congratulations to you both.” The Marquis smiles and claps his hands mutedly. “Perhaps the second time’s the charm, hm?”

The noble furrows his brows in confusion.

“Were you unaware?” Korain clicks his tongue in disappointment. “Oh, Rin. He has always had problems with communication. Ah, but you see. He and I were also promised to wed. And then, during the ceremony, he abruptly left with no explanation whatsoever. Mid-way through my Vows of the Absolute, I was ruthlessly abandoned at the altar.” He grips his heart, expression drawn and pained. A dramatic, suffering sigh draws from his quivering lips. “The wounds I had sustained that day are still as raw as when I received them. Oh, Bijan. Your healing hands can do naught for me here. Even time and space, forces far more powerful than the gods themselves, were unable to ease my suffering.”

The lord’s nails dig bloody crescents into his palms. He turns his back on his patient to obscure his own thunderous expression. “...I want to know.” He throws a glare at Korain, from the corner of his eyes. “Your past with Rin. What you did to him. I want to know everything.”

Korain’s face alights, as if he were a child given a bucket of sweets. He struggles into a sitting position, propping up his shoulder against the headboard. “Surely you could simply ask your dear fiancé. There should be no secrets in matrimony after all.”

“He will not divulge anything,” Jun says, curtly. “And you know well that this is the case.”

“Ah. If he’s not comfortable sharing his past with you, then I don’t know how comfortable I am doing such a thing. Wouldn’t it be akin to betrayal…?”

Jun slams his fist into the headboard. The entire bed judders and a thin crack skitters through the wood.

The glare he sends down to Korain’s shrunken form is rending. Light and shadow fight for purchase upon his seething visage. “Do not make me doubt my faith in you, Marquis. For the sake of the people who need you.”

Korain hums a laugh, lashes drooping low to slice his amused gaze in half. “It is bewildering, truly, how much faith you do have in me.”

“Your goal for the betterment of the Slums is worthy. Necessary even.”

Jun draws his fist back, knuckles reddened and sore, and pushes it down beside the Marquis’ head. The latter’s sweat soaked hair pools into the divot, lapping at the rough hand. Without context, this might appear like an intimate scene between lovers, with the golden eyed lord hunching over the sickly man with nary a foot between their faces.

But a keen eye would see dark rage rolling off the lord’s broad back, like a waterfall violently currenting over the rocky cliff. Dense muscle tenses and pulses for every impulse quashed.

Korain finds himself enchanted by the powerful goldens pinning him to the bed. “You want to tear me from my throne, but you cannot for the sake of the people. Is that what you’re saying, my dear advisor?”

Jun narrows his eyes and snaps his body away. Cold air rushes between them. “Continue assisting the Slummers as you have, Marquis. Do not allow your illness or hubris hinder your own efforts. Too many lives depend on you and the Pack.” He glances at his patient, gaze softened by a degree. “I will help where I can, but again, that is wholly dependent on your actions.”

“And your fiancé's attempt at rekindling our past romance?” A teasing lilt. Phoenix eyes wide in feigned innocence.

Jun, oblivious as he is, walks right into his trap. “...His heart belongs to me,” he says, gutturally. “If another should attempt to steal it, I would do everything within my power to reclaim it.” Goldens flare in silent threat. “Everything.”

The Marquis huffs and relaxes against his pillows. Firelight dances in his dark eyes, turning them into glittering onyx gems. “I like you very much, Bijan Azar,” he coos, stretching out a hand to lightly touch Jun’s sore knuckles. “You are powerful, certain, and intelligent. You are everything my Marchioness is not. It is…rather refreshing.” Fingertips graze lines up the lord’s arm, lingering at his elbow.

Jun twitches his limb away, grimacing. “You will find that Rin possesses all of those qualities. And more.”

“He does not. We both know that. He is as unstable as a wildfire, which is part of his charm of course. But you. You are from a different world altogether, aren’t you, Bijan Azar?”

“...What do you mean to imply?”

“You are untouched, no?”

Jun stiffens, a heat crawling into his cheeks. “That is a personal matter.”

“So you are. I could sense it from the moment I met you. The grime of this world has not yet sullied you.”

“And how could you tell such a thing?”

Korain smiles, absently soft, and it highlights his beauty. It makes Jun uneasy. “You still have hope.”

The little lord frowns and knits his brows. “Many still have hope. Do you not with your endeavours?”

“My hope is hard earned. Yours comes naturally to you, like breathing.”

“How do you tell the difference?”

Korain chuckles and clips the lord’s collar, tugging him close. His fingertips run over the latter's forehead, from temple to temple. Jun stares at him, wide eyed, perplexed. “You do not have any wrinkles.”

“Neither do you,” Jun blurts, blinking rapidly as he draws away. His cheeks burn hotter and he purses his lips in frustration. “You will cease your teasing. It is wholly inappropriate.”

“Inappropriate? I hardly think that word aptly describes me.”

Jun busies himself, pulling out a bag of sweetmeats from his bag. He sets it on the bedside table, easily within reach. “Try to eat if you can. You will only regain your strength faster if you have energy to burn.”

“What do you desire, Bijan Azar? You claim to come from the West but your accent, well, it is barely passable. And you have a strange affinity for this city despite being a newcomer.” He waves away Jun’s response before the latter even opens his mouth. “It matters not what your true identity is, as you have long proven yourself to be a worthy ally to have. However, I would like to at least know of your true intentions. To know a man’s desire is to know the man himself. And it gives me firm reason to put my trust in you.”

Jun turns his back on the man, turning his gaze to the far window instead. A crisp breeze flits through the open hole. Luna is obscured by heavy clouds. “My desire…” he murmurs quietly, almost as if he were speaking to himself. He considers lying at first. Or at least obscuring the truth. But this moment seems to call for honesty.

He glances at the Marquis, austerity weighing his visage. “I want to be able to look in the mirror. And not find myself repugnant.”

Korain doesn’t react, save for a subtle quirk in his lips. “Merci.”

“And you?”

“You know what I desire, my dear advisor.”

Jun knows the man’s dodging his question, but he gives a short nod regardless. “I am curious about one thing however. If you would indulge me in at least that.”

“Go on.”

“Your title. The Marquis. You are not a true Marquis, correct?”

Korain huffs amusedly and gives a wave of his hand. “What Marquis would live in this squalor?”

“Then why…?”

“Not long after I met Rin, we snuck into the High District to do a little ‘shopping’. We happened upon the manor of a Northern Marquis. I do not know his name. But his manor was…beautiful. His life was beautiful.” Korain’s gaze grows distant as he returns to the house in his memories. “And when he confronted us, I saw that he too was beautiful. His disdain. His power. It was palpable. I could almost taste it. Oh, even his insults, all in Feridalis, were so pleasing to hear. We escaped his grasp. But I returned after that. Watching him from a distance. Following him as he went about his business. He was a wealthy entrepreneur with deep connections to the Blue Plains. On evenings, he enjoyed walking his dogs, fine breeds who he would let loose in the Central Gardens and sic on small creatures. Possums, rats, birds. He would watch them hunt and rip into their prize. Ah, his bloodthirst was–”

“Beautiful?” Jun haphazards a guess.

“Indeed.” Korain raises himself higher, until they are face to face. His eyes are heated and a little feverish, from more than just his illness. Hunger is scrawled across his entire face, as if he’d been starved for years. “What is that Northern adage? Clothes maketh the man? I decided to wear the title, the Marquis, until I became him. I will one day emerge from my chrysalis, transformed into the man who lived in that manor.”

“...Where is this Feridalis Marquis now?”

Korain’s expression takes on a wicked edge. A sharp humour that cuts Jun like a whetted blade. “Oh, he’s gone. A burglary gone wrong, or so I heard.” Seeing the look on the little lord’s face, he quickly adds, “And it wasn’t me, if that is what you are thinking. I could never dirty my hands like that.”

“Evidently,” Jun says coldly, remembering Princess bloodying his hands for the Marquis. The uneasy pit in his stomach grows twofold, sucking the very warmth from his flesh. “Thank you for indulging in my curiousity.”

“You are most welcome, mon chéri,” Korain responds musically.

Jun rises to his feet to pack up his things. He pauses halfway through and gives his patient a thoughtful look. “One more thing. Who were you? Before the Marquis?”

Korain lays down, tugging the blanket to his chest. He sighs quietly and watches the Healer from under heavy eyelids, exhaustion settles into his features. His playful demeanour turns somnolent.

There’s a long pause as the man considers his response. And when he finally speaks, Jun has clipped his bag close.

“I was someone like you,” Korain says, his voice barely above a whisper. His expression is difficult to read. “Someone whose hope came as naturally as breathing.”

Jun tightens his grip on his Healer’s bag. “You were ‘unsullied by the world’?”

“Far from it,” Korain hums through a strange smile. “I was an anomaly.”

The Healer nods, thinking of the old scars that litters his patient’s body. He refills the cup of water. “Rest. Send for me if you need anything.”

Korain is left staring at the refilled cup, long after Jun is gone.

***

He sits on the ridgeside stairs as he waits for Rin to return, Hanjuyang before him in her wounded, discordant sprawl. This is the view of his city that he rarely sees with the Slums lapping at his feet and the pristine High District the furthest away, elevated above all. The Hwan Estate, invisible in the night, shimmers every now and then from the errant angling of his head.

He wonders about his father. Wonders if he is sitting at his desk at this late hour, working tirelessly, relentlessly, because really, that is all he has left.

Jun wonders if that will be what he becomes.

“Young master.” A soft voice, barely above a whisper, sounds from the deep shadows behind.

He doesn’t bother turning around. Mira would be too well hidden to be spotted. “Mira.”

“You should be wary of him, young master.”

Jun sighs and rests his elbows upon his knees. He rakes his hands through his hair, tugging lightly on his scalp as he struggles briefly with his emotions.

“Do you believe that he is the best person to preside over this district?” she continues, her quiet voice deafening in the lull of the night. “You will be Governor soon. Why not wait until then? Why entrust everything to this man?”

“Slummers distrust bluebloods. Almost by instinct.” He sees Rin in his memories, white robes falling gently from his skinny form, standing before the window of the guest house with the sunlight blazing around his head like a halo. The power of his rage then, his spite, the words he wielded like a weapon, it is something Jun would never forget. “Despite his shortcomings, the Marquis has the most influence over the Slums. He is the one who can change things from the inside and it is my duty to ensure that it happens.”

“You are wasted here, young master.”

“I am wasted elsewhere,” he shoots back.

There’s a short silence, as tense as a taut bowstring. “...The Lord wishes for you to attend Viscount Escarra’s soiree.”

“I am busy with my work here.”

“He says that it is vital for you to attend as future Governor.”

“How so?”

“He did not specify.”

Jun balls his fists and pushes out a hissing breath. “How long will he attempt to control me? Does he not realise that he has no precedence over me? He has no other heir to consider!”

“How shall I respond to him, young master?”

“Tell him to…to…” How does Rin put it? “Tell him to ‘fuck off’.”

The silence is long. Blank. He can see Mira’s brows rising in his mind’s eye.

Eventually, she finds her voice again. “I shall respond as such then.”

“Very well.”

“...Are you alright?” Her tone holds a rare tenderness. It’s one she used when he was a child and upset or injured. It would, without fail, ease his hurt and give him a sense of security.

For a moment, he doesn’t know how to respond.

Mira slinks out of the shadows to sit by his side, risking exposure to comfort her young charge. She’s dressed in a plain commoner’s outfit, the colours dark and the cut form-fitting yet loose enough to move with ease. Her hair is tied back in a small ponytail, accentuating the sharp lines on her handsome face.

Keen eyes scrutinise him in the dark, aided by the city lights.

“What troubles you?”

Jun instinctively shifts until their arms touch. He takes comfort in her warmth and her steady presence. She, his most trusted advisor and ally.

“At times I feel irrational. Very unlike myself.”

Mira gives a dip of her head, encouraging him to continue.

“Since I met him, it is as though the world wishes us apart. If it were not the divide thrust between us by our blood, greed is the insurmountable barrier that we are yet to overcome.”

“You speak of your…relationship with Rin?”

He nods, jaw pulsing. “We have fought so hard to get to where we are. But he seems so far away, Mira.”

“What does he mean to you?”

“We are promised to wed.” The little lord raises his head, a faint smile dancing upon his lips.

Mira leans back, surprise flitting across her face. “Does the Lord–”

Jun’s smile turns grim. “I did not try to hide my affections for Rin. It may have been naïve in hindsight, but I saw no need to.”

“Then he would know.”

“He has entrapped Rin in retaliation. Tricked him into signing a contract under the guise of hiring him to be his eyes and ears in the Slums. Since when does my father care about the lower districts, Mira?”

The maidservant shifts and glances away.

Jun catches her discomfort. “Mira. You trained him at my father’s behest. Surely you know something?”

“I know as much as you do, young master.”

“Do not lie to me, Mira.”

The austerity of his tone draws her gaze. She sees a glimmer of the first lord in his youngest son. Jun possesses as much of his father as he does his mother.

“Whatever the Lord has planned, it extends far beyond your relationship with a Slummer. That is all I can say.”

Jun’s expression tightens. “But why would he choose Rin? Has he not thousands of willing men under his command? It makes no sense for him to choose Rin outside of vindication.”

“The stars furthest away are often the most significant, young master.” She sweeps her eyes over the city lights. A feverish, flickering blur. “While I commend your efforts here, perhaps your attention would be better sought outside these narrow borders.”

“As narrow as these borders are, Mira, they are mine to oversee. I will leave the war efforts to the Minister of Military Affairs.” He clips the last, expression stony.

The Nix releases a quiet sigh and nimbly jumps to her feet. She makes nary a sound. “Do consider the Lord’s request, young master. This appearance would assist in your endeavours to Governorship, I’m sure.”

Jun doesn’t bother to respond, turning his focus to the city sprawl. As Mira slinks back into the shadows, he casts his eyes upwards.

The sky is crowded with clouds. Not a single star to be seen.

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