“When Mother makes a decision, it’s very hard to sway her from it,” Ellis agreed.
“Maybe the easiest thing to do would be for me to just sit down and talk to her about it in private?” Syrus suggested. “Perhaps she’d be more open to change if she didn’t have the eyes of the court on her?”
“If anything, she’s worse in private,” Ellis said, unusually somber. “She doesn’t have to check her temper when it’s only family.”
“Maybe the easiest thing to do would be to let her win?”
Syrus had been watching his brother, trying to figure out why he’d reacted like that to their mother, but Eiri’s words drew his full attention back to his husband.
“What are you talking about?”
At some point, Eiri had pulled his feet up to rest on the edge of his chair, bringing his knees to his chest. He wrapped his arms around them now, as if he was trying to make himself smaller. Or trying to protect himself.
“I’ve been thinking about it all day, trying to find a solution, and I don’t think there is one,” he murmured. “Your mother, and most of your people, hate me for who I am. She will not compromise with me or allow me to have any semblance of a victory. I can keep fighting it, but nothing is going to change. So… maybe the easiest thing is to stop fighting.”
What the fuck? What had happened in the last few hours to cause such a change in Eiri? Where was the proud, stubborn raider he’d talked to this morning?
“Xan? Ellis? Could you give us a moment?” he asked, never taking his eyes off Eiri. He heard them murmur agreements, saw them leave from the corner of his eye, but he never took his focus off Eiri.
“You didn’t have to send them out,” Eiri protested when the door closed behind the other two.
“What’s going on, Eiri?” Syrus shook his head when he saw that same look in Eiri’s eyes from earlier. “The truth this time. What happened after I left? This isn’t you. You don’t give in just because the problem is complicated.”
“You have no idea if this is who I am or not,” Eiri snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. “You don’t know anything about me!”
“That’s bullshit, Eiri.” Syrus matched his pose, eyes narrowed. No. He refused to go back after they’d made so much progress. “I’ve fought you for years, and I’ve seen how you are. I’ve watched you get backed into a corner, surrounded by half a dozen soldiers, and still manage to get out of it and escape. It always infuriated me how you kept slipping out of every trap you landed in. So don’t sit there and tell me I don’t know you.”
“That’s different! Fighting on a dock isn’t the same thing as defying a queen!”
“It’s different, but it’s still a fight, and I’ve never seen you give up!”
Eiri shoved back in his chair, staggering to his feet and pacing away, putting the length of the room between the two of them. Syrus rose but stayed put when Eiri turned. Rather than the anger he’d expected, Eiri’s eyes held a bleakness that stole his breath.
They’d fought on opposite sides all their lives, driven by a hate that’d separated their people longer than anyone alive could remember. Every time Eiri and his raiders slipped through his fingers, he’d wanted nothing more than to catch him, throw him in prison and let him pay for his crimes. Even then, though… even then, he wouldn’t have wanted to see this defeated look. There was no honor, no pleasure, in defeating an opponent that’d already given up.
“Eiri…”
“Don’t.” He shook his head, taking a step back when Syrus tried to close the distance between them. “There’s no winning this fight, and you know it, so why are we arguing about it? Your mother will never bow to the wishes of raider trash.”
Syrus couldn’t count the number of times he’d lobbed that insult at Canjiri in general, and Eiri specifically. Honestly, it was more unusual to hear Eiri’s people called by their actual name. ‘Raider trash’ was one of the milder insults thrown at them on a daily basis. But now, knowing what he knew now and hearing it from Eiri’s lips, calling himself trash, struck him low in the gut, harder than any physical blow he’d ever taken.
“So you’d rather give up, bury your culture and your identity, than fight for yourself?”
Eiri scowled. “I thought you’d be happy? Isn’t that what you’ve been wanting since the day we met? Wasn’t that the whole reason you’ve been kind to me?”
“We already talked about this. Yes, I was lying to you at first and trying to gain your trust. It wasn’t my finest hour, and I’m not proud of what I did. I admitted I was wrong, though, and I thought we’d moved on from that. Yesterday was real, and I haven’t lied to you since we made peace with each other.”
“You say that, but why should I trust you?” Eiri’s ire fled as abruptly as it’d appeared and he seemed to shrink, wrapping his arms around his slender frame and hunching in on himself. He looked exhausted, pushed to the breaking point and shoved over the edge, leaving him crumpled and beaten.
“I meant it when I said I would earn your trust,” Syrus said. He took a cautious step forward, then another when Eiri didn’t shy away from him. It put them within reach of each other, but he didn’t reach out, sensing it wouldn’t be appreciated at the moment. “Will you please tell me what changed, so I can tryto fix it?”
For a moment, he didn’t think Eiri would respond. He had his eyes on the floor, studying the plain tile like it held all the secrets of the world in its pale gray depths. Patience had never been Syrus’ strong suit, but he waited now and was finally rewarded when Eiri looked up at him, conflicted and exhausted.
“Nothing changed. Not really,” he whispered. “I talked to Kien earlier, and something he said stuck with me. He thinks I’m being foolish for trusting you and forsaking my heritage. He’s the only bit of home I have left and…”
“And hearing him say something like that had to be really hard.” Syrus struggled to keep his voice low and even. He could punch the ambassador for this. The trust he and Eiri had been building was too fragile to withstand any real test, and for Eiri to hear the one person he did fully trust say that would have shattered it.
“I know you said you don’t want me to give up who I am, and maybe I believe it, but you went from hating me to protecting me almost overnight. It’s hard to make myself believe it’s real.”
