Chapter 171: His Sickness And The Cure
After breakfast, Lara went in search of Agilus.
She needed answers—specifically about Alaric. A gnawing suspicion had begun to take shape in her mind, rooted in the prince’s strange, erratic behavior. She feared his trauma ran deeper than anyone knew. Something told her that what she’d witnessed was more than grief or stress—it was something fractured. Something broken. She suspected he might be suffering from dissociative identity disorder, or a "split personality."
Alaric was still sleeping in the side room beside the living room. When Lara served him water, she added sleeping powder so he could calm down and rest. The relentless punching had caused his body a lot of stress.
She found Agilus outside, seated beneath the old oak that stood like a sentinel on the left side of the Mendel house. The property was expansive—open fields flanked either side of the house, and the backyard stretched nearly the size of a football field. A few scattered trees offered shade, but the oak tree dominated them all.
Beneath its wide canopy, Jethru had crafted a small haven for the children: a pair of wooden benches with backrests, a sturdy monkey bar, a rope swing, and a table fashioned from a tree stump.
Agilus sat on the bench carelessly, his feet clad in black leather boots resting on the circular table made from a tree stump. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting playful shadows that danced around him, a relaxed smirk gracing his lips.
Lara stood before him, arms crossed, the weight of her concern anchoring her expression. "What’s going on with Alaric?" she asked, her voice steady but tight with unease. "Does he hurt himself often?
The man on the bench sat up straight, the casual ease he had momentarily held vanishing like mist in the morning sun. Lara’s words, piercing and unguarded, caught him off guard. The warm, relaxed smile that had graced his face tightened into a mask of tension, his eyes narrowing slightly as they focused intently on her.
"I only see him did it once. He saw a family of three, a father and a son on his shoulder and the wife walking along with them." Agilus shuddered when he remembered the beating he received after trying to stop Alaric from inflicting self-harm.