Family Business 43 (Patreon)

Family Business
Chapter 43

-VB-

World was coming to an end.

That was what it felt like.

Garen stared down at Lux, whose pretty face was marred with tears, and Marris, who laid in his bed, comatose with pain with poisonous black veins running through his body.

“T-T-They managed to keep him stable,” Lux told him hoarsely.

How long had she been in here?

“How stable is stable? What about … the poison?” he asked, hearing his own voice come out quietly.

“They d-don’t know what the poison is. Marr will live… but just that. They can’t do anything else, and the person who could-”

“Is the person who needs it.”

“Yeah.”

Garen felt his fists clench. Of all of the people, why his brother? Why not one of his soldiers? Why not-? He reined himself in before he began to wish death to other people. No, he had to be positive and optimistic. After all, Marr wouldn’t die from something like this, not when he had so much to accomplish still. The political mastermind that was his younger brother wouldn’t die from something like poison.

“How are you doing?” he asked Lux.

He and Lux were distant. Lux had always been closer to Marr, close enough to elope and marry, and Garen knew that he didn’t help that by being so far away from home most of the time.

Such was the price of duty.

Garen gulped as he slowly sat down. He came without his armor, so the chair didn’t break underneath him.

He reached out and grabbed Marr’s right hand while Lux held his left.

“Hey, Marr.”

Silence.

“I’m… sorry. I should have visited earlier.”

Silence.

What would happen the next time the Black Mist came to the city? Marr’s magicians worked over time to get themselves and the city ready, but the progress was slow by the sheer virtue of their work’s level and size. They also couldn’t rush it lest the magic they depended on failed on them. Each square they covered became a bastion for people. Garen didn’t know much, but he heard rumors about housing crisis, prices, and safety.

Yet the leader of those magicians, who could do so much more, laid poisoned and comatose.

Because Garen was not strong enough to protect him.

He quickly squashed the choking emotion and instead let out a trembling sigh.

“It’ll be alright,” he muttered as he brought Marr’s hand up to his forehead. “It’ll be alright.” He sounded like he was telling himself that.

Click.

He looked up and saw a … bunny eared woman.

“Delilah,” Lux spoke up, and Garen saw his little sister relax.

“Who is she?” Garen asked, curious.

“... Umm, Marr’s mistress?”

Huh?

“Wait, what?” Garen uttered in shock.

“She’s also my friend. She’s considered the unofficial third wife.”

“Oh.” And then he looked down at his comatose brother. “You dog.”

Both Lux and Delilah laughed.

Delilah also brought a baby with her, who was being carried by another … Garen remembered that Marr called these people “vastayans,” the half-spiritual and half-physical race of people from Ionia.

But the woman who came after was a distinctly human woman.

“Is she also one of Marr’s women?” Garen asked with a raised eyebrow.

Lux looked and shook her head. “No, that’s Isha. She’s one of the Freljordians that we helped out from the Freljordian March. She and her parents were one of the refugees, and Marr taught them a new trade. She’s one of Marr’s interns.”

“Interns?”

“Kind of like apprentices but they get paid, somewhat, and do the job mostly for experience for a much shorter time than one would as an apprentice,” Delilah answered for them. “I am nominally in charge of rotating the interns among many of the departments that Duke Jorasmang runs in his city and duchy. Currently, she is here as an intern of Department of the Duke; they basically serve as well-educated servants and secretaries while handling the duke’s orders between other departments.”

“I see.”

What an odd term for what was basically an apprentice, but Garen could also see that there was a degree of flexibility in that standard apprenticeship would not have had.

Delilah, the bunny vastayan, curtsied to him. “It is an honor to meet the Sword of Demacia, Lord Garen. I am Delilah, the Deputy Director of the Department of Vastayan Relations and Department of Immigrantion.”

“That’s … a lot of job for a young mother,” he said while looking at the baby that had to be his third nephew/niece.

“It is,” she sighed as she accepted the baby from the intern. “Would you like to see your niece?”

So a girl.

“...Yes.”

He only met Darren and Emma twice so far, though not for a lack of trying.

He gently took the bundle of cloth from her and held the baby in his arms as Delilah and Lux instructed him. In his arms now was a baby with light brown hair, not quite bunny-like nose on a baby with open blue eyes.

“What’s her name?” he asked.

Delilah smiled sadly. “She… was born only two weeks ago,” she replied. “I was in Jorasmang City, and had been on my way to show my man our fruit but …” she stared at the comatose duke. “It will have to wait.”

Garen’s heart clenched. ‘You better not die, Marr. You have three wives and three children to take care of!’