A loud ringing filled Eirian's ears.
What was her father doing at the Camelia?
Why was Brigitta calling herself Eirian's mother?
"Eirian." Chenzhou's voice was low, concerned as he reached over to gently pry her fist open.
She turned to him. "What?"
"Relax," he commanded softly, eyes alite with sympathy. He turned back to the guards. "We'll see them after we've resettled from the journey. They guest hall is perfectly comfortable."
The guards shared another awkward look.
Yuze sighed. "What?"
"Lord and Lady Soliel are in the guest rooms." One admitted.
"They arrived barely an hour ago." The other one added. "When the guard explained you were on your way back, they insisted on waiting in the Great Hall."
"They've refused to move since." The first one growled.
"I should have stayed," Marian murmured, face hard. "Butler can't argue with people of that station. He has no experience with the capital."
"He's also ancient," Yuze muttered, amazed the old man was still alive every time he saw him.
"We're happy to tell them to leave," the first guard insisted. "Head Butler wouldn't let us talk to them. Said it wasn't our responsibility to deal with them."
He'd only been here an hour, and he'd already alienated the common soldiers. That sounded like her father. Knowing him, he was probably sitting on Chenzhou's seat in the great hall. He'd always been terribly petty that way, whenever Uncle Jacques did it to him, he immediately turned around and did it to someone else.
"Go back and tell them we will see them at dinner and not a moment before." Chenzhou instructed, hand warm on top of Eirian's.
The guards nodded eagerly.
Eirian rolled her shoulders, forcing some of the tension to leave her. "And tell them if they refuse the guest hall they can wait outside. Those are their only options."
The two guards sped off, probably more excited then was appropriate, but Eirian couldn't exactly reprimand them without being a giant hypocrite.
"We'll go in through the lower stable entrance." Li decided when everyone else stayed silent. "There's a servants entrance to the main castle."
An hour later Eirian was dropping her saddlebags on the floor of her rooms and wondering if it was too early for wine.
"Dinner will be served late," Marian picked up the saddlebags and carried them into the bedroom to unpack. "You have four hours before you need to prepare."
Eirian groaned. "I'll be in the bath. Send for a bottle of wine." She stripped off her clothes and threw open the doors to the balcony. The tub was full, the water clear and clean and probably cold, but Eirian let her magic flow and it warmed as she stepped in. "Plum wine!" She sank under without waiting for a response.
It took a few minutes for the steaming water to leech the tension of the day from her muscles. By the time she came up for air, there was a dramatic stone tray with a red glass pitcher in a bucket of ice and a matching glass.
Her travel robes were also missing from the floor where she'd left them, but nothing had been laid out for tonight. When Marian came back to help her dress, she'd question the older woman about what was going on with Chenzhou and Anna.
Then she'd deal with her father.
Then she'd get back to dealing with whoever was trying to destroy the Camelia.
Then she'd deal with Lord Zhao.
Then she'd help Eric.
Then she'd figure out where she was going to go.
The list was getting longer and longer.
These problems didn't exist in the world of her dreams, she thought as she sank back under the water. There was nothing there but magic and a longing so painful it made her bones ache.
"We have to go." He'd said and looked so terribly sad as he did.
The back of Eirian's shoulders burned, and she rose from the water with a gasp.
Hurling herself out of the tub, she just managed to avoid knocking over the plum wine, as she sprinted to the full-size mirror in her room.
She pulled her dripping hair to the side, twisted to look over her shoulder and her breath caught in her throat.
It wasn't complete. It was still red and swollen in places, but there, carving its way across her back were the inky black beginnings of a mark.
Eirian nearly wrenched her neck attempting to see look closer. Starting at the very edge of her left deltoid, twisted whorls and lines that looked like the edges of flower petals reaching out and then fading in and out of what resembled clouds as it moved towards her spine.
It was only a few inches across and just slightly shorter in height, but she could make out Ardain and a red camelia flower and something that almost looked like the pendant Chenzhou had worn.
It would grow, she realized.
That's what marks made by magic did. They were rare, so rare, and most of them didn't really matter. Marked for death or marked for magic, they appeared and never changed.
But there was one that changed alongside the one who bore it. That wrote their perils and challenges and failures into their skin so they could never forget.
A Defender's Mark.
It's more fairytale than anything else. A few mentions in a few more obscure magical texts and legends.
There hasn't been a Defender in centuries. Not officially anyway. There were rumors, of course, a few fools that always claimed to be more important than they were, but no one that could prove it.
The prophet in the Wasteland, who'd saved an entire civilization from destruction?
Ceres had become a god.
Malbec had changed the Rock's understanding of freedom.
What the hell was Eirian supposed to do?
~ tbc