"Brilliant," Tria says. She hooks her arm through Evran's, presumptuous as though she has known him for years rather than seconds, and begins steering him down the corridor. "We'll start with the library. No, the south garden. No, oh, Arin, should we show him the reading nook first or the embroidery room?"
"The reading nook is quieter," Arin says, falling into step on Evran's other side.
"The embroidery room has better light."
"It's almost evening. The light won't matter."
"Fine. Reading nook first, then the embroidery room tomorrow when the light is better. Evran, do you embroider?"
"I weave," Evran says. "But I would not be opposed to learning."
Tria's eyes go wide. "We could teach you!"
Evran lets himself be pulled along and thinks that he has not felt this light, this easy, this pleasantly overwhelmed in a very long time. The twins are sixteen and full of the fire that comes from being old enough to have opinions and young enough to believe every one of them is revolutionary. Tria is a force of nature, all energy and forward motion, a person who enters a room and rearranges it simply by being present. Arinis her shadow and her counterweight, quiet where she is loud, measured where she is impulsive, and yet there is a steadiness to him that speaks of a different strength, one that holds rather than pushes.
They show him the reading nook first, a windowed alcove on the second floor of the eastern wing, tucked behind a tapestry and outfitted with cushions and a low shelf crammed with books. "This is where I come when Father is being impossible," Tria says, throwing herself onto the cushions. "No one ever finds me here."
"I found you here yesterday," Arin says.
"No one important ever finds me here."
Arin absorbs this insult with the patience of a boy who has been absorbing them for sixteen years and sits down beside Evran on the window ledge. Below, the courtyard is busy with the last activity of the day, retainers and warriors crossing in purposeful patterns.
From the reading nook they move to the embroidery room, empty at this hour, the long tables covered in half-finished work and the walls hung with samples that range from competent to breathtaking. Tria waves a dismissive hand at most of them. "That one's mine. That one's Arin's. That one we don't talk about."
"It was a learning experience," Arin says softly.
"It was a catastrophe."
Then the greenhouses.
The moment they step through the glass-paned doors, Evran understands something about Arin that no amount of conversation could have told him. The air is warm and thick and green-smelling, heavy with moisture and the rich dark scent of growing things. Long wooden tables run the length of the structure, and on them sit pots and trays of every size, bursting with plants in various stages of growth, herbs and vegetables andflowering things Evran does not recognize, their leaves bright and reaching toward the light.
Arin leads him through the rows with a quiet authority that is entirely unlike his usual deference, pointing out species and explaining cultivation methods with an intensity that only surfaces when a person is sharing the thing they love most. His voice is still soft, but it does not falter. He knows every plant by name, knows their needs and their cycles and their temperaments, and when he brushes the leaf of a pale green seedling with his fingertip, the gesture is so tender it makes Evran think of Eira with a pang of recognition that settles bittersweet in his chest.
"These are from the southern valleys," Arin says, pausing at a tray of tiny bright-leafed plants that look wildly out of place in a mountain greenhouse. "They shouldn't survive at this altitude, but if you regulate the temperature and adjust the soil acidity..." He trails off, glancing at Evran. "Sorry. I know this isn't very interesting."
"It is very interesting," Evran says, and means it. "I have a garden back at the Drakkari stronghold. I know exactly what you mean about adjusting for altitude. We had to rework the entire south terrace when the first frost came early."
Arin stares at him, and it is the most direct eye contact he has maintained with anyone all day. "You garden?"
"Religiously," Evran says.
Something shifts in Arin's face. The wariness does not disappear entirely, and Evran suspects it never does, but it eases, loosening by small degrees as trust finds its footing. He begins showing Evran the rest of the greenhouse in earnest, and the questions come faster now, less tentative. What does Evran grow? What is the soil composition in the Drakkari highlands? Has he tried grafting mountain root onto lowland stock?
Evran answers everything, asks questions of his own, and watches a shy boy slowly forget to be shy. The transformation is quiet and gradual and deeply familiar, because Evran remembers what it was to be a young person whose passion was dismissed as unimportant, whose interests were tolerated rather than valued, and the simple act of being taken seriously can unlock a person in ways that nothing else can.
Tria waits by the door with her arms crossed and an expression of fond, theatrical boredom. "Are you two done talking about dirt yet?"
"Soil composition," Arin corrects, without looking at her.
"That's the same thing."
"It is absolutely not."
They argue about this all the way back through the stronghold, and Evran walks between them and feels something bittersweet settle in his chest. He thinks about Eira. He thinks about what it means to find kinship in unexpected places, to recognize the shape of someone's heart by the way they tend to growing things.
The light is failing by the time the twins lead him back toward the main courtyard. The stronghold glows in the dusk, lamplight spilling from windows and doorways, and the banners on the walls have gone dark and still. The air is cooling, carrying the scent of cooking fires and the distant sound of music, someone tuning a lute, the first tentative notes of an evening that has not quite begun.
