She didn't have a chance to tell Chenzhou and Mingzhe about the letter. When she finally convinced herself to get out of the bath, she was exhausted and ended up falling asleep. She slept through both of them returning and coming to bed and woke in the morning to the unpleasant news that the court had convened and Chenzhou could no longer put off answering to them. They'd rushed through dressing and ate on the walk, though Eirian had refused to give up her plate until Chenzhou had promised to have the kitchen send tea and accompaniments. From the sheer amount he'd ordered, this was going to take hours.
The entire court of the Camelia was already waiting when they arrived, and Mingzhe went in first, per protocol.
Eirian watched Chenzhou square his shoulders before offering her his arm. It was almost like watching him put on armor, but there was none to be found.
"You're nervous." She observed.
He gave her a wane smile. "Is it that obvious?"
"Yes." She frowned and reached over to pluck a loose string off his scarlet robes. "Hide it better."
"Is it that easy?" He asked wryly.
Eirian shrugged. "If you practice, anything is easy."
"I shall endeavor to practice every day," Chenzhou promised, because it was easier than pointing out that not everyone could learn something like that so easily. Some would never be able to learn it at all, but Eirian got a bit weird about failure. Like failure was some personal attack, even if it wasn't her own. She'd softened, certainly, since she'd first arrived at the Camelia. Chenzhou wasn't confident enough to claim it was due to him in any way, but he did hope. Just a little that she had relaxed because she felt more comfortable, more secure in her place at the Camelia and at his side. He had meant it when he told her he had chosen a wife with the intent of leaving her the Camelia when he died, and even though he wasn't planning to die anymore, at least not on purpose or anytime soon, he was still confident in his decision.
He had no doubt Eirian would outlive him. Every time he looked at her, even when she'd been injured and it looked like she was falling to pieces, she had given off a sense of strength that even the Tribes had noticed. Chenzhou had not forgotten the older tribal women who had taken up guard over her while they'd still been out in the borderlands. He doubted Eirian remembered much of it because of the pain and poitions, but Chenzhou had felt pathetically grateful that those women had chosen to stay. That they'd cared enough. There was a certain power women held that nothing else matched. Even in the male-dominated tribes, those familial women held tremendous power over the men in their lives. They might not wield it in daylight, with a few exceptions such as Beng Shan, but Chenzhou had no doubt that even Beng Shai hadn't acted without the council of his mother, grandmother, or wife. In the tribes, those were the women who chose their children's wives, and that wife, interestingly enough, was often a large factor in choosing the next tribal leader.
The only reason Eirian wouldn't fit into the fabric of their society was that she would never allow herself to be contained in the shadows. She was a Soliel. A descendant of light, blessed by the sun itself. It was a crime to stop her from being seen.
Chenzhou's wife was a beautiful, ferocious woman who had saved the world twice in the short time he'd known her. She wouldn't settle for being in the shadows, and Chenzhou would never allow her to be there either. Not after all the sacrifices she'd already made.
Eirian squinted at him. "What are you thinking about now?"
Chenzou smiled. "You."
Eirian blinked, surprised. Despite the way things had been going with them and with Mingzhe, in a great way, they didn't speak of it out loud very often. Mingzhe wasn't comfortable discussing emotions like that, and Chenzhou, while he could, generally needed to ease into it. It had taken him years with Anna, after a truly awful stumbling first proposal.
He wanted to do better with Eirian and Mingzhe. He would do better. His father had written of his love for Chenzhou's mother, but now that he thought about it, he didn't know if those writings had translated to tellings. Had he told her how much he loved her? Chenzhou had no doubt his mother knew he did love her; she'd left behind everything she'd known to go with him, and Chenzhou didn't believe she would have done it for anything less.
But had he told her in the first light of the morning? Had he told her her company was worth a thousand others? That her smile brought more happiness than a thousand victories on the battlefield.
Chenzhou would never know, he realized. They were both long gone from this world, and the requirements of their position left them with few intimate friends, people who might have witnessed such a demonstration. Marian's husband might have, with how close they had worked, but he was dead for seasons too.
"Sometimes you leave me so in awe I have to remind myself that you're real." He said, voice simple and flat in its honesty. There was no extra emotion; his words carried all the meaning needed. "I- I will never be able to fix the way we started, but I have never doubted that you were the best thing I have ever done for this estate. Or for myself."
~ tbc