11

Eirian spent the night unpacking, using the mindless motion to let her think.

What she knew for sure so far:

The Camelia was being poisoned.

Ye Chenzhou was the source of the poison.

It was too much poison for Ye Chenzhou to have survived without help.

Things she suspected:

It had started before Ye Chenzhou had been born.

There was a wizard involved.

Fixing this was going to be a giant pain, but it was also the most interesting situation she'd been in in years.

And out here she was relatively safe from anything her stepmother or Philip might try.

Not that she was afraid. She just likes to pick the field for her battles and they both had more a homefield advantage than Eirian did at the moment.

She unpacks most of her things herself. Sets them up just the way she likes, it's a bit of thing for her, helps her relax and mentally prepare herself for what's ahead.

She starts thinking about what she needs to have fixed in the room. Nothing's broken broken, just needs some new paint, a better design for the shelving, new bed set, and a deep scrub before she could actually relax in it.

Her books and papers are the one thing she doesn't unpack, just sets the boxes in the library. Too important to risk setting them out before the dust and dirt and probably mold judging by how much dust lays on top of everything.

Eirian's collection of texts is her pride and joy…

Well, next to her blade collection.

Among her books are some of the oldest survival medical and magical texts, including the most complete study of poisons on the rock and suddenly that book is valuable for far more than its beautiful handstitched cover.

Somewhere in there is the answer to what's happening at the Camelia and if she wasn't yawning every other breath and her skin didn't feel like it was crawling underneath the dust and sweat and she had to be up in a couple of hours, she'd tear through the boxes until she found it and read until she had the answer.

As it is, she barely manages to scrub off the dust with a bucket of water before collapsing on the bed, hoping the sheets were actually cleaned sometime in the last month.

Someone shook her awake long before she's ready.

**

Marian Roxley hadn't been born in the Camelia. Like it's new Lady, she'd been bored in the capital of Aontacht, to a lesser branch of the House of Vermeer. Her childhood had been quiet, too low on the totem to be dragged into the drama of high society, but she'd also been too low to secure a position of any value or a husband of any use.

She'd been a spinster by some definition by the time she'd met the man she decided to marry. Nine and twenty when she'd met Colonel Henry Colfax at a luncheon. He'd been twice her age and somehow quieter. He'd been sent to represent the Camelia in a meeting with the King and been sucked into attending the luncheon. She'd found him tucked away in her favorite corner and by the time the luncheon was over she'd agreed to return with him to the Camelia as his wife.

It had taken a while to become love, years really, but she had loved the purpose of her marriage. Henry had risen to become one of the Camelia's top generals before his death and Marian had worked alongside him every day of their marriage, unofficially serving as the first lady of the Camelia. She wasn't always the highest ranked one, but she'd been the only one with any experience in the capital and it turned out serving as the first lady was really just managing a very large, very busy house.

Marian enjoyed the work, keeping everything on schedule, up to date, and in its proper place. She'd written and re-written the protocols for the castle staff over the years, ensured they were as well trained as the soldiers that lived in it. Established the trade relationships that ensured they received every order, sent every delivery on time so they were never short on anything and in a place where she fed three hundred thousand mouths three times a day.

It should have been the responsibility of Ye Chenzhou's mother and then his wife. But his mother had died in childbirth, and even before that, she'd been more concerned with the battlefield abroad than those at home. She'd been a great woman that Marian had only had the chance to know for a short while between her marriage to the then Lord of the Camelia and the birth of Ye Chenzhou.

No one had been expecting such a strong woman to pass away during the birth. Ye Chenzhou's father may as well have died with her and had passed a few years later in battle.

Marian had been the one who had raised Ye Chenzhou. Had seen to his tutors and his tailors. Had argued with the Generals that served as the Camelia's court over how much time was spent playing and how much was spent studying. Had brought in healer after healer in a desperate attempt to find out what ailed him.

She'd been the first one the told when he met Anna and the one who'd had to explain why he had to be so careful with his choice.

A part of her has worried every day since then that he's put off his own happiness because of her advice.

And now, there was this girl…woman.

Eirian Soliel, now Ye. Except it probably wasn't, given that she was so far above the Ye family in the hierarchy of Sorrow.

Ye Chenzhou's hail mary attempt to save the Camelia from its long-awaited doom.

~ tbc