When the Camelia finally came into view in the late afternoon of the fourteenth day, Eirian insisted on stopping at the same overlook she'd stopped at on her first journey to the Camelia.
Brendan was riding with Chenzhou at that point, excitedly pointing at every tree and rock they passed and making noises that Min assured them were the early stages of speech.
Eirian didn't quite believe her, but Chenzhou seemed to and was carefully sounding out the proper names to everything as they went along.
Eirian had been too distracted by dwelling on her dream to participate. She'd woken up just as Death arrived, which coincidentally had been the moment Eirian had decided to plunge through the veil to get a glance of the dragons, so she was twice as pissed off.
No answers and no dragons.
It put her in a mood all morning.
But the sight of the Camelia bathed in late afternoon sun did help. There was green creeping around the corners now. Plants sprouting to life for the first time in decades amid the black stone and shale.
The dead aura that had surrounded it the first time Eirian had seen it was gone. Now it almost looked like something at the beginning of a fairytale with the great red banners gently undulating in the wind.
Chenzhou brightened at the sight of it and excitedly began telling Brendan about the estate, while Min, Sam, and their children gathered around to listen.
Eirian let the chatter wash over her with the wind and fading sunlight and found a peace she'd hadn't felt before. A spark of excitement lit in her belly, a joy at returning that she'd never felt at the Soliel Estate in Aontacht.
***
Mingzhe had been nothing but nerves since he'd woken that morning.
Well, truth be told, he'd been nothing but nerves since his soldiers had missed their report a week ago, but it was much worse this morning. Eirian and Chenzhou were returning today.
With the boy.
Brendan.
Eirian's little brother, who was now, for all intents and purposes, their son. Mingzhe's younger brother had children.
A child. A little girl, a year older than Brendan, but she was the only child in the immediate Zhao family, and their mother, the girl's grandmother, barely allowed her out of the main estate without an entire guard. Mingzhe hadn't interacted with her much, too busy as head of the family, and honestly…what the hell did he know about small children?
He'd been so nervous the first time he'd held her, he'd nearly dropped her, and his brother had, rightly so, not allowed him to hold her alone for many months.
He should have made more time for her, then at least he'd know something.
His only comfort was that Eirian and Chenzhou had written of their own concerns about raising the child. Chenzhou's worries echoed Mingzhe's own, a lack of experience and time, while Eirian's were a bit more extensive since she wasn't patient or maternal and hadn't made much progress teaching an adult, Mingzhe and he was pointedly not taking that as an insult, anything.
His magic was simply shy.
Not like Eirian's, which was terribly pushy and domineering and, honestly, terrified him a bit.
He'd asked his sister-in-law to purchase a few gifts for Brendan, so at least he wouldn't show up empty-handed. She'd even wrapped them in a nice basket that he carried carefully to the Main Hall.
Yuze was already there, and probably still fretting over Fox being gone. Mingzhe felt a small kernel of relief that he wasn't the most clueless person in the room when it came to romance. Yuze was still convinced Fox was nothing more than a subordinate, and Mingzhe had literally caught them napping together in Yuze's office the day before Fox left.
No spy willingly slept in the same room as someone they didn't trust and trust to a spy, according to Mingzhe's mother, was the same as love to a normal person.
Yuze eyed the basket in his arms and the unnecessarily nice robes Mignzhe had taken an hour to choose that morning. "What's that?"
Embarassed, Mingzhe jostled the basket. "Nothing. Just a gift…to help the child settle in."
Yuze peered closer. "Wow, sucking up already?"
Mingzhe growled.
"Relax, gifts have been arriving all morning." Yuze shook his head, annoyed. "I don't know how the hell everyone heard, but it's made the rounds."
"All the senior families have ties to the capital. News that the heir to the throne took in a child is important news." Mignzhe pointed out.
"Apparently." Yuze drawled, looking him over again.
Mingzhe scowled and hissed. "Like you didn't get him something."
Yuze smirked. "A custom knife."
Mingzhe stared at him, horrified but not surprised at all. "Well, at least mine are age-appropriate."
"A knife is age-appropriate! It's a starter blade to prepare for a sword once he's big enough."
"How…logical," Mingzhe stated. "I'm sure Chenzhou and Eirian will appreciate you giving him a gift he can maim himself with."
Yuze looked conflicted for a moment, then relaxed. "I'll bet you all the gold I have that Eirian had a sword by the time she was his age."
Wisely, Mingzhe did not take that bet, because it wouldn't have surprised him at all, and he wasn't going to bankrupt his family over something so obvious.
His mother and siblings would never let him live it down.
And he was absolutely certain Eirian had been swinging a sword in the cradle. Her father clearly hadn't cared enough to make sure she wasn't.
He was not taking that bet.
Yuze smirked.
Thankfully, Eirian and Chenzhou arrived before he could goad Mingzhe into taking the bet.
Most of the court had shown up to welcome them back and get a look at Brendan, who entered in Chenzhou's arms.
He was a tiny, male version of Eirian with wide grey eyes that darted around trying to take everything in all at once. He kept twisting around in Chenzhou's arms, nearly squirming out of them completely a couple of times and leaving Chenzhou scrambling to catch him before he fell.
Eirian looked terribly amused every time, and the three of them together made an attractive family.
~ tbc