“I look forward to it.” Eiri bowed and Syrus belatedly followed suit, then hustled the two of them away from the dais before anyone else could speak.
“Will Xan and Ellis be alright?” Eiri murmured, glancing back over his shoulder to where the other two were now speaking to the queen. For once, Ellis stood up straight, not slouching to hide his height as he usually did. That strange look was back in the queen’s eyes when she looked at him, but it was likely nothing.
“They’ll be fine. She likely thinks I coerced both of them into this, especially Ellis.”
“He’s an adult. He can make his own decisions.”
Syrus shrugged, finally finding a spot near the refreshments that allowed a modicum of privacy. People still stared at them, a few not even pretending to hide it, but at least they had a little space. “Ellis is the baby of the family. My mother didn’t want to have more children after Corrine, but ten years later, Ellis happened. Having such a large age gap between her oldest and youngest wasn’t her plan, and there’s little my mother hates more than a ruined plan. Ellis spent more time with nurses and nannies than the rest of us, and I think she forgets that he’s an adult now.”
Eiri frowned, glancing over at Ellis, now free of their mother and doing his best to put distance between himself and Xan. “Did you spend time with him while he was growing up?” He looked up at Syrus. “Did any of you?”
“I was almost sixteen when he was born. The last thing I wanted to do was take care of a baby, and by the time he wasold enough to walk and talk, I was already assigned to a regiment and focused on working my way up the ranks,” he shrugged. “Ellis is fine. I promise. Right now, we need to focus on getting through tonight.”
“If you say so…” Still, Eiri shot another glance at Ellis before taking a breath and squaring his shoulders. “How long do we have to stay?”
“At least until after Neliah and her husband have their first dance and hand out desserts. It’s bad form to leave a birthday celebration before we properly celebrate the subject of the party.” He peered around the room, spotting Neliah and her husband Karlin sitting at a small table just to the right of the raised dais. When guests had first started arriving, she would have been up there with their parents, but her hosting duties were done now.
“Is that her?” Eiri asked, following his gaze. “She doesn’t look like she’s getting up anytime soon.”
“Probably not. We’re going to be stuck here a while.”
“At least you left us near the wine.”
Syrus laughed, drawing a few curious gazes. Good. Let them see him interacting with his husband properly. “I wouldn’t recommend getting drunk, but a few glasses couldn’t hurt.”
“Trust me, I’d rather go swimming in a hurricane than lose even a little bit of control when I’m surrounded by sharks like this,” Eiri muttered.
Syrus snagged two glasses of a crisp white wine from the table, handing one to Eiri. “This one isn’t strong, but it will help make this night a bit more tolerable.”
Eiri took a sip, his eyes lighting up when he tasted it. “I’ve had this one before, a few years ago. I didn’t think I’d ever have it again.”
“Really?” Syrus took a small drink, getting a hint of apple and honey. “The Carlow vineyard is very particular about whothey sell their wine to. They’re snobs of the highest degree, and no one with less standing than a duke can usually get a cask.”
Eiri snorted, taking another sip. “I could be an emperor and they’d refuse me service the second they saw my face.” He said it so simply, like it was just a fact of life that everyone would refuse him service because of where he came from. Syrus hated that he was probably right.
“So how did you…” He shook his head when the obvious answer came to him. “You stole it in a raid, didn’t you?”
“To be fair, that wasn’t the goal. There was a cask of it hidden in a barrel of grain, so no, I didn’t steal the wine. I stole the grain, and the wine just happened to be in there. They were probably hiding it to avoid import taxes, in all honesty.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” Syrus pointed out. “You still stole it.”
“If the owner wanted it that badly, they should have found a better hiding spot for it,” Eiri shrugged without a trace of remorse.
“Or you could have chosen not to steal.” Syrus held up a hand when Eiri’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not trying to start a fight.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“I promise, even if I did want to pick a fight, I wouldn’t do it here. We need to be a united front, remember?” He waited until Eiri lowered his hackles before breathing a sigh of relief.
“If you didn’t want to pick a fight, why bring it up at all?” Eiri asked. He took another drink of wine, eyes never leaving Syrus.
“Maybe I’m just trying to understand,” he admitted. “I know farming on your island is nearly impossible, but why turn to stealing instead of trade? The mineral deposits from the volcano were enough to get my mother to agree to this marriage, so why not use them for barter?”
Eiri gave him an inscrutable look, brow furrowed as he studied Syrus over the rim of his wineglass. The silence stretched, beginning to grow brittle, until finally Eiri just let out a breath.
“If only it was that simple” he said. “Now is hardly the time to tell that story, though. Ask me again when we have some privacy, though, and I’ll tell you.”
It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but Syrus didn’t push his luck further. “I will,” he agreed. He hadn’t meant to wander down that path, but now that he’d asked, he found he genuinely wanted to know. His entire career as a soldier had been spent dealing with raiders and even before that, he’d grown up hearing his mother ranting about the Canjiri stealing from every port city and raging at how they always evaded capture.
