Chapter 126: Too Busy to See Him
The Emperor’s study had become a permanent fixture of paperwork and reports over the past several days, ledgers and correspondence piling steadily across his desk as reconstruction efforts, noble council demands, and the ongoing question of the entity’s promised return all competed for his attention at once.
He sat now, quill in hand, reviewing yet another supply requisition for the eastern district’s rebuilding efforts, though his eyes kept drifting from the parchment, unfocused, thoughts wandering somewhere else entirely.
’it’s been four days,’ he thought, setting the quill down slowly, staring at nothing. ’four days since I last saw him properly.’
He’d meant to visit again. Every single morning, he’d told himself he would find the time — an hour, even half an hour, just to sit with Julian the way he had during those long, uncertain weeks of the coma, except this time with Julian actually awake to see him do it. And every single day, something else had demanded his attention instead — a council session, a reconstruction dispute, a fresh wave of correspondence from noble houses growing increasingly impatient for answers he wasn’t yet ready to give.
A soft knock sounded at the door, and his secretary entered, another stack of documents balanced carefully in her arms. "Your Majesty," she said, "the reports on the northern territory’s search efforts. and the council’s formal request regarding Guide Valerian’s appearance."
The Emperor’s jaw tightened slightly at the second item, though he took both stacks with careful, practiced composure. "thank you," he said. "leave them here."
She set the documents down and departed, and the Emperor stared at the growing pile for a long moment, exhaustion pressing heavy behind his eyes.
’I miss him,’ he thought, the admission settling simple and aching in his chest, more honest than anything he’d allowed himself to properly feel in days. ’I miss just sitting beside him. hearing his voice properly, not filtered through secondhand reports from Reid or Jayden about how his recovery’s progressing.’
He thought of the morning Julian had first woken, of the careful, guarded formality Julian had greeted him with before finally cracking into something warmer, more familiar. He thought of the quiet, honest exchange that had followed — Julian’s careful admission that he wasn’t writing the Emperor off, wasn’t promising anything either, simply leaving the door open a fraction wider than it had been before.
’I haven’t even properly thanked him,’ the Emperor thought, guilt threading sharp through the ache in his chest. ’for saving this entire capital. for surviving everything that thing put him through. I’ve been so consumed with managing the aftermath, I haven’t taken a single proper hour to just be present with him, the way he clearly deserves.’
He picked up his quill again, forcing his attention back toward the requisition report, though the words blurred meaningless before his eyes, his mind refusing to fully settle on anything except the growing, uncomfortable distance stretching between duty and desire.
A soft chime sounded from the corner of his desk, the small mechanism indicating another scheduled meeting approaching, and the Emperor let out a slow, frustrated breath, setting the quill down once more.
’later,’ he told himself, the same promise he’d made every day this week. ’I’ll see him later, once this meeting’s finished, once I’ve dealt with the council’s demands properly.’
The meeting dragged on far longer than scheduled, a dispute between two noble houses over reconstruction funds neither side willing to compromise, and by the time it finally concluded, another had already been scheduled in its place — an urgent briefing on the entity’s suspected movements, scouts reporting unusual activity along the northern border that demanded immediate, careful attention.
The Emperor sat through it with divided focus, half his mind tracking the grim, careful analysis being laid out across the map table, the other half circling back, again and again, to the same aching, unresolved thought.
’I could excuse myself,’ he thought, watching the officers debate troop positioning with careful, methodical precision. ’just for an hour. surely this Empire can survive one hour without my direct oversight.’
But every time the thought surfaced, some fresh piece of urgent business demanded his attention instead, pulling him back into the grinding machinery of rule that had consumed every waking hour since Julian’s return.
By the time the briefing finally concluded, evening had fully settled over the palace grounds, and the Emperor found himself facing yet another stack of correspondence requiring his immediate signature before the day’s business could properly close.
He signed the documents mechanically, exhaustion dulling every motion, and by the time he finally, wearily made his way back to his private chambers, the sun had long since set, any hope of visiting Julian properly dissolved entirely into another day lost to duty.
He sat alone in his private study that night, the same way he had months ago, staring out at the darkened palace grounds, the ache of missing Julian sitting heavy and unresolved in his chest.
’this can’t continue,’ he thought, frustration finally cracking through his exhausted composure. ’I command an entire Empire, and I can’t manage even a single hour to see the man I—’
He stopped the thought before it could finish, though the shape of it lingered anyway, unfinished but unmistakable.
’tomorrow,’ he told himself again, firmer this time, something resolute settling behind his exhausted eyes. ’whatever demands the council makes, whatever reports need reviewing — tomorrow, I make the time. properly, this time. I won’t let another day pass without seeing him.’
He rose from his desk, moving toward the window, staring out at the distant, lit windows of the academy’s medical wing, wondering, with quiet, aching longing, whether Julian was awake even now, whether he was thinking of anyone at all in the quiet hours of the evening, or whether the distance the Emperor had allowed to grow between them these past several days had already cost him something he couldn’t easily win back.
’I promised him honesty,’ the Emperor thought, turning the memory of that first, careful conversation over in his mind. ’and instead, I’ve let him sit here for days, recovering, without so much as a single visit from me, while Reid and Jayden and Logan have all clearly made the time.’
The thought settled uncomfortable and sharp in his chest, guilt and longing both tangling together into something he didn’t quite know how to properly resolve, not with an Empire’s worth of responsibility still pressing down on every single hour of his day.
He thought, briefly, of simply walking to the academy right now, duty and propriety abandoned entirely in favor of the ache pulling steady and insistent at his chest. He’d done reckless things before for far less reason — ridden across a battlefield to reach Julian, argued down an entire war room’s worth of caution, personally joined a rescue expedition against every advisor’s careful protest. Surely walking across the palace grounds at a reasonable hour hardly qualified as reckless by comparison.
And yet something held him back even now, some old, ingrained sense of propriety insisting that showing up unannounced, exhausted and disheveled after a day of failed intentions, wasn’t the visit Julian deserved either. He wanted to arrive properly. Rested. Present. Not simply another obligation squeezed reluctantly between council sessions and reconstruction disputes.
’that’s just another excuse,’ he admitted to himself quietly, staring out at the dark. ’and I’ve used far too many of those already this week.’
He remained at the window a long while longer, the ache of missing Julian refusing to fully settle no matter how much duty demanded his attention elsewhere, until finally, reluctantly, he retired for the night, the same unfulfilled promise to visit tomorrow following him into restless, uneasy sleep, one hand pressed briefly against the cool glass as though it might somehow carry the thought across the darkened grounds to wherever Julian rested, awake or asleep, and let him know, even without words, that he was deeply, achingly missed.