Faced with Chenzhou's appeal to their pride and the realization that he suspected all of them, the court of the Camelia had agreed not to leave the estate.
They hadn't been happy about it, but they had agreed.
They'd left in silence, but while they'd nodded respectfully to Eirian, Chenzhou, and Henri, they'd all but ignored Mingzhe.
"It's fine." He'd insisted when they were alone in the chamber.
"It's not," Chenzhou had snapped. "Even when I was dying, they weren't this bold about disobeying me."
"They didn't know you were dying," Mingzhe pointed out, still annoyed about Chenzhou's initial plan.
"Some of them had to suspect it." Henri pointed out, leaning back. "We did."
Chenzhou turned to him in surprise. "You never said anything."
Henri shrugged. "What was there to say? If there was a way to fix it that we could have helped with, you would have asked."
Eirian decided she liked Henri even more. That kind of practicality was hard to find amidst the squabbling and rumor-mongering of the nobility. "It's unlikely the Colfaxes were the only family to suspect that. Maybe that's why they never tried anything else? They figured you were dying, or they knew it, and they were content to wait." A sinking feeling made her queasy. "That means they didn't act until I arrived and stopped the poison."
Yuze slipped inside, closing the door quietly behind. "The sky is filled with sparrows." It was a warning. The court wasn't even out of the main castle, but secret communications were already flying. "I take it you told them they were suspects?"
Chenzhou nodded. "Not all of them looked surprised."
"None of them should be surprised." Yuze snorted. "These kinds of things are always done by the nobility." He offered a weak grin in the face of everything. "No offense."
"Hard to be offended by the truth," Henri muttered.
"Where's Kai Low?" Eirian asked.
"Checking travelers at the gate." The peace accord included Chenzhou opening up direct trade with the tribes, and the first brave few had finally started to arrive. Part of the Tribal Ambassador's responsibility was looking out for the tribesmen and women who came to the Camelia.
Chenzhou groaned. "I need to invite him to the next trade meeting. I keep forgetting." Chenzhou had been running himself into the ground trying to keep the Camelia from fracturing apart as it became clearer and clearer that the nobles were picking sides. He'd collapsed, exhausted in Eirian's rooms next to Brendan the last few nights and only managed a few hours of sleep. The boy couldn't sleep without one of them there, although Marian was confident he would grow out of it once he'd had time to process everything that had happened.
"I'll tell him," Yuze offered and ignored Eirian's smirk. Despite falling into bed with the man again, he wasn't ready to admit that either time had happened, and every time it seemed like Eirian or someone else had figured it out, he wanted to even less. He was a terrible, spiteful person, it seemed, and he wasn't sure if he'd been that way before Akari and Fox, or if it was some terrible culmination of his failed romantic history.
Eirian turned to Mingzhe. "How is your family doing?"
He shrugged. "Good, all things considered. No one wants to fight with my mother, and she's been digging into things, but most of what she's found doesn't justify this kind of response. It's all petty nonsense."
"Some people take petty nonsense very seriously," Yuze warned. "You can never be totally sure how someone is going to react." The unpredictability of human nature was a large focus of intelligence and the most challenging aspect of predicting what was going to happen.
Chenzhou looked thoughtful. "Still, I think it's more likely this is about taking control of the Camelia."
No one argued. They didn't really have evidence leaning either way, other than the fact that the two victims were the two highest-ranking men in the estate.
Eirian wondered if they'd target her if she managed to stop their plans for Mingzhe. Maybe it was time to put a new piece in play. She reached for Mingzhe and took his hand. "I want to talk to your sister."
***
Mingzhe didn't seem very enthusiastic about the idea of his sister marrying Eric. "I won't deny that it is a great honor, and I trust your judgment about your cousin. If you say he will treat her well, I believe you…I just hate to think of her trapped in that viper's nest."
There was a chill in the air as the sun began to set. Eirian tucked herself closer as they crossed the bridge to the neighborhood where the Zhao family resided. They turned left at the end of the bridge; turning right would have taken them to the street with the Yangs, Yins, and several other families. While the Zhao's shared the street with the Colfaxes, Helians, and several other minor families.
The Zhao family had occupied their family home since they'd come to the Camelia hundreds of years before. Back before they'd even been part of the nobility. Chenzhou, on Mingzhe's other side, nodded politely to the guards at the end of the bridge as they bowed, but he two was walking so close there was no way it was platonic.
Uncomfortable, Mingzhe tried to step back from both of them. "You should be more careful." He muttered, but Eirian and Chenzhou just pressed closer, and he sighed. He'd never realized how stubborn the two of them were until this mess had started. Especially Chenzhou, who'd always seemed so quiet and…gentle before. That must have been the poison, Mingzhe now realized. How much had he misunderstood about his lord for all those years?
"Do you think your parents will approve?" Not that Eirian really needed their approval if Yunli agreed. She was old enough to agree to her own marriage contract, though it was rare that adult children among the nobility would do so if it meant conflict with their parents.
Mingzhe snorted as they passed Colfax Manor and approached the Zhao property. "Mother will be thrilled. Father will be thrilled that Mother is thrilled. Zhuli will not be happy. He's very protective."
"He's the youngest, right?" Chenzhou studied the Zhao home. He'd never actually been inside. The impressive manor was draped in vines that had finally started to sprout greenery after all these years. Once it was fully grown out, the black stone and vibrant green would be stunning. Even more so if they were the vines Chenzhou thought, and they would sprout the blood red Camelia flowers the estate was named after. The new growth was showing everywhere, even along the rocky cliffsides leading down to the rapids.
The Camelia flower was unique in its blooming schedule. Small buds with short, dark red petals in winter, the colder the season, the darker. Larger buds with long, bright petals in summer, the hotter the brighter the red. In the hottest years, they were the color of arterial spray. That comparison was the reason they'd been chosen as the symbol for the estate when it had been created.
The Zhao family crest hung on the great gate out front. A shield with a stylized Camelia flower and the head of a horse. The Zhao's had started in the Crimson Army's cavalry.
The gates swung open for them, the Zhao family soldiers bowing as they crossed the threshold.
~ tbc