Chapter 193: A Strained Peace
"Do we only have this much alcohol? Are you joking? Send someone to the market, now!"
Marielle was basically standing in the middle of the Great Hall like a hurricane in a silk corset, pointing dramatically at a group of terrified pages like she was about to declare war on them personally.
"And for the love of the Old Gods, not deer! We’ve had venison for three weeks. I want wild boar!"
Cherion leaned his shoulder against the cold stonework of a nearby archway, watching the chaos unfold with a detached sort of fascination. His head felt like it was stuffed with damp cotton, but he still managed a lazy, crooked half-smile at Marielle going full battlefield general over the party.
The castle had basically been cracked open like a bottle of something strong. The death anniversary of Zarius’s parents had passed a few days ago, leaving behind this weird, heavy silence that everyone had been tiptoeing around like it might explode.
And Zarius himself? Yeah... complicated didn’t even begin to cover it. The Duke wasn’t exactly "fine." He was more like a man stuck in emotional buffering, staring at Cherion with this weird mix of devotion and panic, like his feelings had updated overnight and he hadn’t read the manual.
Cherion had tried his best to distract him. He’d played the fool, the healer, the companion, anything to keep that haunted look out of the Duke’s eyes. But now the distraction had escalated into a full-blown operation: the Victory Party.
This wasn’t some polite gathering of nobles. This was the traditional, massive, roaring celebration held only after a successful subjugation. It was a mirror of the gathering they’d had before the march, but the atmosphere was night and day. Back then, the air had been heavy with the smell of sharpening steel and that weird, quiet tension where everyone looked like they were mentally preparing their last words.
Now? The air smelled like roasting fat, smoke, and way too much meat, and the deafening noise of men who had stared into the abyss and survived to tell the tale.
This was the final check. The last moment of preparation before the gates were thrown open to the soldiers and the local lords.
Technically, he and Marielle were "co-managing" it. Realistically? Cherion was just trying not to die while Marielle ran it like a military campaign with alcohol as ammunition.
Barrels of heavy ale were being rolled across the stone floors with a thunderous thrum-thrum-thrum. Spiked ciders, smelling of cinnamon and fermented rebellion, were being decanted into massive silver containers.
To anyone from the Capital, it probably looked like a riot in progress. To the North, it was a necessary purge. They had survived the subjugation. They had bled in the snow, and now, by God, they were going to get hammered.
"You’re doing it again, Lord Cherion," a voice rumbled nearby.
Cherion blinked, his eyes taking a second to focus on the blur of blue and silver moving toward him. Reiner. And right behind him, looking like a silent, oversized gargoyle, was Ezek.
"Doing what?" Cherion asked. His own voice sounded strangely distant to his ears, like he was speaking from the bottom of a well.
"Thinking too much," Reiner said, coming to a halt and crossing his arms. "You’ve been standing there staring at that barrel of ale for five minutes. Either you’re planning to drink the whole thing yourself, or your brain has finally frozen solid."
Cherion gave a weak smile that felt like it required effort from his soul. "Just impressed, Reiner. I didn’t think Marielle could actually get more aggressive than she was during the march. I was wrong."
Reiner’s chest puffed out just a fraction, a touch of that innate Northern arrogance that Cherion had grown to find almost endearing. "Of course. The North doesn’t do things halfway, Lord Cherion. It’s more real than the Capital parties."
"It’s loud," Ezek added softly, his eyes scanning the room with his usual protective intensity. He noticed a servant struggling with a massive pot near the window and, with a silent nod toward Cherion, moved off to intercept the load before the poor boy’s spine snapped.
Reiner lingered for a moment, his nose wrinkling slightly. "Are you... alright? You look a bit pale."
"I’m fine, Reiner. Seriously. Just wowed by the scale of it all," Cherion assured him, waving a hand dismissively. "Go help Marielle before she starts using the pages as festive decorations."
Reiner snorted, but the alcohol crisis was indeed calling his name. With one last lingering look of suspicion, he left anyway, leaving Cherion alone.
The moment they were gone, Cherion dropped the act.
He exhaled hard and drifted toward a stone pillar in the gallery like it was the only stable thing in the universe. He needed to touch something solid. The world was tilting, just a few degrees, but enough to make his stomach do a slow, nauseating roll.
God, I feel like absolute trash, he thought, pressing his shoulder against the cold pillar.
His limbs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each. His brain was fuzzy, a thick layer of static humming behind his eyes. It was a familiar feeling, though.
He thought back to his "Taco Hell" days. He remembered a Friday night shift, standing over a deep fryer that smelled like old grease and despair. He’d had a 100-degree fever, his throat felt like he’d swallowed a handful of broken glass, and every time he moved, his joints screamed. But he’d stayed. He’d worked the double shift because the rent didn’t care about his white blood cell count. He’d flipped tacos and bagged burritos with a delirious smile because he couldn’t afford to lose the hours.
If I could handle a Friday night rush at Taco Hell while dying of the flu, I can handle a fancy party, he told himself stubbornly. It’s just fatigue. The adrenaline from everything is finally wearing off, that’s all. It would be a damn shame to miss the fun part after doing all the hard work.
Except... it wasn’t just that.
Something else was gnawing at him.
He scanned the room, his eyes darting frantically toward every doorway, every shadow. He was looking for a specific silhouette. He wanted to see Zarius. It wasn’t just a want, it was a desperate, clawing hunger that felt entirely too big for his chest. He wanted to see the Duke’s handsome, stoic face. He wanted to feel that presence that somehow made the rest of the world feel quiet.
But Zarius was nowhere to be found. Word was he’d been buried in reports, coordinating the final troop movements and the transition to the winter schedule. He was busy. He was always busy.
Just one look, Cherion thought, his heart thudding a frantic, uneven rhythm against his ribs. Just to know he’s there.
The heat in his body spiked suddenly, a sharp, white-hot flash that made his knees buckle for a split second. He grabbed the pillar, his knuckles turning a ghostly white against the dark stone. He reached up, touching his forehead with a trembling hand.
His palm felt like a block of ice. His skin felt like a furnace.
"Suck," he hissed under his breath, a small, hysterical laugh bubbling up in his throat. "Okay. So we’ve moved from ’under the weather’ to ’actual fever.’ Fantastic timing, Cherion. Really top-tier planning."
He took a long, shaky breath, trying to force the dizziness back into the corners of his mind. He couldn’t be sick.
He straightened his tunic, pushed himself away from the pillar, and ignored the way the floor seemed to move like the deck of a ship.
"I’m fine," he whispered to the empty air, the words sounding more like a prayer than a statement. "I’m just a little tired. That’s all."