"I can't believe it," Mingzhe muttered for the third time.
Eirian rolled her eyes as Chenzhou nodded.
Yuze didn't seem as surprised as the other two, but he also seemed lost in his thoughts. "That must be why she's always hanging around."
Eirian raised an eyebrow and swallowed another mouthful of wine. She wasn't going to say anything until Chenzhou and Mingzhe both nodded, and then she couldn't hold back her scoff.
All three of them looked at her in surprise and confusion.
"Really?" Eirian sighed. "She has feelings for you. I don't know how it's related to whatever she's selling, but that is why she hangs around you all the time."
Yuze blinked. "But I like men."
"I'm aware," Eirian drawled, amused.
"I was married to a man." He added, and Mingzhe and Chenzhou nodded in agreement.
"So I've heard." Despite the somber mood, it was funny watching Yuze try to absorb something he'd willfully missed for so long.
"She knows I was married to Akari."
"I'm pretty sure they met at one point," Chenzhou muttered. "Didn't they?" He trailed off, trying to sort through his memories.
"Not that it matters." Eirian pointed out. "For whatever reason, maybe she thinks you'll change her mind or she'll be the exception, but she definitely has feelings for you."
Yuze paled. "You don't think that's why she…"
"But she never said anything to you?" Chenzhou immediately countered. "If she thinks there's still a chance, why risk betraying the Camelia? She has to know you well enough to know there'd be no chance after."
"She might not believe they are related." Mingzhe pointed out. "Maybe in her mind, they're two completely different, unconnected things."
"Or she's delusional enough to think you're loyalty to the Camelia is weak enough to break if you suddenly realized you were in love with her."
Yuze couldn't completely hide his wince of disgust at the idea. "That's not going to happen." If Yuze were ever foolish enough to try a relationship again, it wouldn't be with Snake.
Or any woman, for that matter.
The thought brought to mind a deep voice and mocking mask, and he flushed.
Fox was due back any hour, depending on how hard he pushed, and Yuze was just as eager to see the man as he was to hear what he'd discovered.
It was strange how just the thought of Fox inspired such a different feeling than the best memory he had of Snake, even though he'd known her longer and, technically, he'd worked far closer with her than he ever did with Fox. They'd even gone undercover together during his early days in the service.
Fox was rather famous among his peers for refusing to work directly with any of them.
Even Yuze had never seen his face, and he needed to not go down that road right now.
He focused back on the others and found Eirian watching him with a knowing look in her eye.
He decided to ignore it because he wasn't going to take teasing from someone who couldn't see their own relationship right in front of them.
Even now, Chenzhou and Mingzhe were so close on either side of her that there was a breath of space between them.
"The timing is concerning," Chenzhou said, turning the conversation back to the bigger issue. "How long has she been selling information? Could it be related to the Bandri suddenly asking for peace?"
"It seems far-fetched that she'd sell something that would scare them into peace after generations of fighting." Mingzhe frowned. "But they seem to be taking significant steps to bring the other tribes in."
"I thought Beng Shai seemed sincere." Chenzhou agreed and seemed a bit upset to think he'd been wrong.
After a moment, Eirian nodded in agreement. "I thought so too, but it doesn't need to be Beng Shai. It might be someone in his inner circle."
"He has a dozen siblings." Yuze sighed. His office was still working on remapping the family, and they'd already found several children they didn't know about and two marriages that provided alliances to more distant tribes.
It had put Yuze on edge, realizing so much had happened without them realizing it. "The timing with the Bandri inside the walls and Beng Shai's peace offer can't be a coincidence."
"His offer might have scared someone? He would have been talking about it with his people long before he brought it to us. Maybe the tribe's not as united as we thought." Mingzhe had a calculating look in his eye. He was one of the best strategists in the Camelia and excelled at spotting an opponent's weakness across the battlefield.
"I thought the Bandri was one of the more tight-knit tribes?" Eirian asked, thinking back to the overwhelming amount of information they'd given her about the dozens of tribes that filled the borderland.
"They are." They were the last tribe Chenzhou would ever expect to have serious infighting. "Fighting over power within the tribe is normal, but the Bandri have always had less of that than most. The last few generations, especially. Instead of following a patriarchal lineage, it's actually been following a matriarchal one through marriages. They've actually been more stable than ever before."
"That's why Beng Shai was such a surprise. It was his older brother who was married to the previous matriarch's cousin. Beng Shai is unmarried." Yuze frowned.
"Maybe that's where the conflict is coming from?" In Eirian's experience, once people had power, they became desperate to keep it.
Mingzhe shook his head. "It still doesn't make sense. The Bandri care about defeating us, about maintaining control over the borderlands, but they can do that without destroying the Camelia. The estate itself is of no value to them."
"Why would they buy intelligence about us then?" Eirian wondered. "Especially when we're not actively at war?" The more she thought about it, the less sense it made.
"They don't forget slights or losses," Chenzhou frowned. "But that is generally in relation to the other clans. For all their insular focus, they are aware that those outside the tribes don't follow the same practices. They don't even consider the wars over the borderlands as part of that. To them, it's simply an outside invasion. They even struggle to take lessons learned in one war into the next one. It's why the Camelia has managed to be successful despite their numbers and terrain advantages."
~ tbc