Page 19 of Tending the Ache

They are not sufficient. They have never been sufficient. Because his brother is standing in front of him offering to be traded away and genuinely believing it is the best use of his life.

And because saying it once, years late, in the middle of an argument, is not enough to undo decades of a boy working out his own value from what he could produce.

Morgan touches his arm. Gentle. Tentative and familiar all at once, the way he used to reach for Eskil's hand in the dark when he was small and the thunder was loud and the keep felt too big for a boy who had just lost his mother.

"The council thinks it is a good match," Morgan says, and his voice has softened too, the sharp edges filed down by his brother's rawness. "The alliance would be of enormous benefit. The trade routes alone would change our ability to survive the winter. And the Wolfe warriors, if the Jakadi move again—"

"Fuck the council," Eskil snaps.

Morgan's mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. Something sadder than that.

"You can't dismiss the strategic reality because it costs you something personal," Morgan says. "That is not how kings govern."

"I am not governing right now. I am talking to my brother."

The crack in Morgan's composure widens. Eskil sees it, the flash of something raw behind the diplomatic mask, something young and frightened that does not belong in the face of a man who runs a kingdom. It is there and then it is gone, submerged beneath the competence, but Eskil saw it and he will not unsee it.

Morgan is afraid.

Not of the Wolfe chieftain, though he should be. Not of the journey or the danger or the political complexity of it. He is afraid the way people are afraid when they have built themselves entirely out of usefulness and are being offered the ultimate expression of it and cannot find a reason to refuse that does not feel like selfishness.

Eskil's jaw is so tight the muscles in his temples ache. His hands are fists at his sides and the fury is back, not the cold controlled fury of the council chamber but something hotter and more desperate, watching someone he loves walk toward a cliff without the right words to stop him.

Morgan slowly, carefully talks him down.

His voice is calm and rational and everything Eskil's is not, and the rhythm of it, measured and steady, each sentence building on the last, is a technique Morgan has been using since he was old enough to realize that his brother's rage could be managed with patience the way a fire could be managed with bellows. Not extinguished. Redirected. Banked.

"Nothing has to be decided today," Morgan says. "The envoy presented it as an invitation, not an ultimatum, and that distinction matters. It means there is room in it. We can counter. We can propose other terms, and there are half a dozen alliance structures that do not involve a marriage at all." He does not let go of Eskil's arm. "And if he refuses every one of them, then we have learned something about what he actually wants, which we do not currently know."

"I know what he wants."

"You know what he asked for. That is not the same thing, and you taught me the difference."

Eskil lets himself be talked down, because the alternative is doing something destructive and Morgan does not deserve to be the target of it. Eventually the rage banks to something that merely smolders instead of blazes. It sits in his chest steady and hot, and he knows it will not go out.

Morgan seems to sense the shift. He releases Eskil's arm and his posture eases, not fully, not to the slouch he adopts when they are alone and unburdened, but enough to signal that the crisis has passed its peak.

"I've been getting Indrie set up in Valen," Morgan says, and the change of subject is so smooth and so intentional that Eskil can see the seams of it. "The clinic is coming together. He has already seen patients. A mother with a feverish child, the first morning he was open."

Eskil tries not to visibly relax at the mention of Indrie.

He fails.

Something in his shoulders drops. Something in his face eases. It is involuntary, as ungovernable as flinching at a loud sound, and he cannot stop it any more than he can stop the tide. The mention of Indrie's name loosens a bolt somewhere load-bearing, and the relief that passes through him is so immediate and so transparent that he might as well have announced it with trumpets.

Morgan, who sees everything, does not miss it.

His pale eyes sharpen. The faintest crease appears between his brows, not confusion but calculation. He is cataloguing. Filing. Storing this piece of information alongside all the other pieces he has been collecting, and Eskil can practically hear the mechanism of his brother's mind clicking the new data into place.

"I noticed," Morgan says, with studied casualness, "that the clothes Indrie was wearing today belonged to you."

Eskil's expression does not change. "The man didn't exactly come with belongings when I found him. And when he fell overboard he had nothing dry to wear."

"You had a crew of men and women aboard that ship. And the best option was to put him in clothes twice his size?"

"It was what was in my cabin at the time. I didn't overthink it."

Morgan raises both eyebrows. "Oh. So he was in your personal cabin."