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Chenzhou turned to Eirian. "Can your magic…?"

She shook her head. "It worked on you because the miasma had a magical element, and you were on the brink of death. They're breathing on their own. I can't…" If she tried pushing her magic into them there was a good chance, she'd actually stop their hearts. 

Or damage them significantly.

Chenzhou had been…not easy, but doable, because the miasma had been so extensive and Eirian's magic had a clear target that was made of the same thing. Magic could be used to encourage regrowth, such as closing open wounds, but it would take constant magical input for days depending on how bad the wound was. Magic couldn't create something that wasn't there, and Eirian had damn near killed herself when she'd burned out the miasma in Chenzhou and soaked him in her magic to heal, pushing his body to regenerate and grow at an abnormal rate. That was why they'd been unconscious for weeks and Eirian had been skin and bones; her body had been eating itself because magic could help but not feed.

No nutrition in magic, Eirian thought. As much as it was a force of creation, all creation was also destruction.

Disappointment crossed Chenzhou's face, but it was gone between one blink and the next. 

People put a lot of faith in magic, often too much. Eirian had learned that lesson with her own disappointment in her magic. When it had first developed and she'd been over the moons thinking she could do anything and then realizing over the years how limited it was. She could do a lot, it wasn't useless by any means, but she couldn't go around creating kingdoms, raising the dead, or shielding entire cities. All the stuff great wizards did in stories.

None of which was real apparently and hadn't that been crushing to realize.

The City of Illumination was a bunch of liars. Yet another reason not to trust them.

"We need to get them back to the Camelia then." Chenzhou straightened and started looking like a proper Lord Ye. He didn't do it often, something he'd lost during the years of illness, and he was going to have to work to get it back Eirian realized. 

She could help him with that. That was the whole point of a marriage, especially one at their level with the additional responsibility of leading an estate and being part of a ruling family.

It was more of a job than a relationship and that made Eirian feel a bit better about it. About Chenzhou loving someone else and Eirian being what amounted to a stranger in a strange land. She hadn't really considered what she was going to do after they figured out who created the miasma. A part of her still planned to return to Aontacht to help Eric when it came time for him to rule, but even Eric would need his own Queen eventually. And Eirian and Eric couldn't marry for many reasons, not the least of which was that neither of them were interested in one another like that.

Her father had actually brought it up once, but a private conversation with her uncle had followed and he'd never brought it up again.

Eirian could always just take over as Lord Soliel when her father finally died, but that was guaranteed to involve an inheritance fight now. And no matter what, those always turned bloody.

Eirian didn't feel particularly comfortable about possibly killing her baby brother, even though she wanted to strangle his parents most of the time.

"I can send a detachment to take them back, but if anyone else gets hurt…" Li looked worried. 

"We're going to start running out of soldiers very quickly." Lord Zhao broke in. 

"They'll slow us down if we try to care for them here." Chenzhou sighed. "We'll lose just as many people trying to protect them if anything happens." He paused and glanced at Eirian.

It took her by surprise, but the surprise was quickly followed by a rush a pleasure. She'd seen her uncle look to his wife like that at court. Hell, she'd seen him look at her mother like that at luncheons and dinners. Uncle Jacques had been looking for their opinion before he'd made his decision, something he rarely asked other people for.

It made her feel good. Philip and her father had never asked her opinion. 

Well, actually, Philip had, but it had always been a way to get her to do something for him. A manipulation technique he'd picked up from his mother.

The two wounded guards weren't even capable of sitting on their horses by themselves. They need people to move, protect, and monitor them constantly if they stayed at Tira-Lian with them. If the Tribes attacked or the weather turned bad or, gods forbid, Song Ran got loose or Song Rui turned out to be as evil as her sister or one of the dozens of other ghosts in the stories attacked, protecting Kang and Miki would take resources that could cost lives.

"We can send them back to the water hole with a small contingent." Lady Yang said, casting a critical eye over the two injured soldiers.

Eirian glanced at her, but that didn't solve the bigger issue. She turned to Chenzhou. "Send them back to the Camelia. It just a bigger complication if they stay." 

Chenzhou thought for another second before nodding. He turned to Li. "Eirian is right, we can't risk something else happening while we're caring for them. Send as many people as you need to but get them back to the Camelia as quickly as possible. They can send replacements to us."

Li nodded and turned his attention to organizing his people. "Find wood for stretchers, it'll be easier than carrying them to the water hole."

Eirian tuned him out and turned to Finn's friends. She pulled them back as Li's men started assembling wooden planks. "What were you guys doing back here?" 

~ tbc