14. Brett

Rosaline was treating Paris like a lost puppy, so I supposed at least that was proof my whole bloodline was weak to him, not only me. It was just the two of us now, after all, so if we both did it, it was a weakness for the whole family.

Paris was flushed when she led him into the dining room, twisting his fingers together as though he was nervous. What was there to be nervous about, at supper?

Any of a thousand things, I supposed. Manners, and whether those he knew matched our own. I could have told him that unless he chewed with his mouth gaping open and stole food off other people's plates, we were unlikely to be offended. It might be whether the food would be disgusting and he'd have to pretend it wasn't. That was fair, since if he found Rosaline's cooking and our food repellant, I'd lose some respect for him.

We all sat down, the plates already set out, and Paris easily went to the chair Rosaline took him to, inclining his head to me as he sat down. I returned the action and waited for Rosaline to take her seat, then took my own.

Paris was biting his lip.

Rosie leaned in toward Paris, whispering. "The head of the family sits last. It's symbolic. It's because he's made sure to see to his family and guests, made sure we're all here and well and provided for."

Paris's eyes widened, and he turned to look at me as though I were a strange, foreign creature. "That's... I like that. My brother would do that sort of thing too, if he ever managed to make it to family dinner. He was often too busy working."

Rosaline sighed and nodded, her body still angled toward him. For a moment, jealousy stabbed through me, and I wasn't sure who I was jealous of. Rosie had been my only family for years, and as such, had been just mine. I wasn't used to sharing her attention. On the other hand, Paris was...

Beautiful.

I wanted his eyes on me always. Wanted to watch him back.

But both of those things were silly and childish, and if they became friends, it could only be good for everyone, especially Rosaline, who had been lonely these last years with only me for company. I doubted he'd turn her head from her crush on Balthazar, the Owl Chief, but Balthazar couldn't be around to speak to her every day. Not until or unless she took the chance and agreed to visit the Owl Clan long term.

She would eventually, she just wasn't ready yet. Or worse, maybe she thought I wasn't ready for that yet.

It was a sad thought, that my cousin might be putting off her future because I didn't have anyone but her. It would explain why she'd tried so hard to bring Clio into the family, despite her rudeness to everyone in the clan.

And now, here was Paris.

But Paris was only here until he got his treaty, I reminded myself.

Or died, a niggling voice reminded me.

It didn't make sense, looking at him. Sure, he hadn't wanted to carry his heavy trunks, but Rosaline would have been just as likely to bat her eyes and talk me into carrying her things. Not wanting to do hard labor wasn't synonymous with weakness. And Paris didn't look sickly. He was slender, but not waifish or especially pale. Yes, he was pale, but only in the way Rosaline was—the way that said he spent most of his time indoors.

He hadn't been clumsier than any average Nemedan that I'd seen.

He wasn't insufferably rude and insulting, hadn't picked fights with hotheads like Killian or Memnon.

So short of the lot of them being especially susceptible to Avianitis, I didn't understand why visitors from Urial always seemed to die.

My people weren't killers. Paris was healthy enough, and frankly, I had yet to see any reason why he wouldn't get along with everyone. He was nervous, didn't like tents, and seemed surprised to discover that we weren't barbarians who ate raw meat and had no written language. But he had taken it all in stride, at least enough to get along.

Maybe it was him—maybe Paris was just an exceptional member of his people. That wasn't hard to believe.

Paris waited for Rosaline to take her first bite of dinner, and followed suit. Sensible. Smart, even, following the lead of someone who definitely knew the etiquette of the local people.

Unlike Rosaline, on the other hand, he groaned at the first bite. Then his eyes went wide and he flushed even brighter pink and ducked his head, swallowing. "Sorry, sorry, just... this is absolutely delicious. I haven't had a meal in a home in days, and this is—it's just outstanding. So good."

Rosaline beamed at him, and that was it, Paris had a new best friend. I couldn't blame her. Usually she only got to try out her recipes on me, and while I was always complimentary, I didn't think I'd ever been quite so effusive.

"Thank you," she said, brightly, taking another bite of her own. "The carrots are very good this year. I pulled these ones this morning."

For a moment, Paris seemed confused, then he looked down at his plate. "You grew these. That... makes so much sense. That's not really how food works back in Urial. Things are preserved and brought to the capital, grown elsewhere."

"Food always tastes better here at home," I told him. "We send what we produce to other clans, but days of travel in a wagon makes the carrots less sweet. Corn too. Bread is best right out of the oven. Everything is always better right here at home." I reached out and patted Rosaline's hand. "It helps that we have one of the best cooks in Nemeda here at home."

She ducked her head and flushed with pleasure at the comment, smiling at both of us before we continued eating.

Paris was... well, it would have been an understatement to say he was impressed with the food. He exclaimed over everything, asking her for details about how she made it, like he planned to head right into the kitchen and try to recreate it himself. Was that normal, for a lord of Urial to spend time in the kitchen? I had no idea. Our neighbors to the north only rarely bothered to make these overtures of peace, and it had never turned out quite right. They would lie about what they wanted, spy on us, act as though Urial was infinitely better than Nemeda.

But we knew what we had, and we liked it. Our lives were good. We weren't going to change anything because Urial thought itself better than us.

"Do, um, do you send mail?" Paris asked, staring at his empty plate.

Mail? Did he mean like the armor southerners wore, made of tiny chain links?

He held his hands in the air and mimicked the motions of writing. He meant letters.

"We do send letters. Do you want a runner to take letters to Urial? For faster communication, we have pigeons, but they can't carry all that much. We have a team of letter carriers who travel a circuit around Nemeda in a wagon. I have no doubt they'll extend their range to Urial, since you're here. We wouldn't force you to stay here and not communicate with your people. After all, you're here on behalf of them."

It was a strange idea. I wondered how previous diplomats had handled the matter. Surely they had sent letters home. But no one had told me anything about how to handle it, and none of the previous diplomats had been in Hawk lands. Clearly, no one had taken the matter seriously, since I hadn't been given any protocols on how to handle, well, anything. Just had him dumped on my head with a "here's your penance, handle it."

They didn't even expect me to try to make a treaty, I realized.

"What is it your people are looking for, Paris?" I asked, and he almost choked on a potato.

"Um, you mean, in a—a treaty?" He composed himself and sat up, suddenly serious, and looking quite uncomfortable for it. "Well, first of all, we need to get to know your people better. There just hasn't been enough communication between our people. We didn't even know that you were run by—a council, is it? With chiefs? I'm here as much to learn more as anything else."

He considered for a moment, eyes scanning back and forth in front of him, then he gave a nod, confirming, and looked to me.

It was strange to consider, and... complicated matters. I didn't know if his people truly did want to know more about us, but frankly, I wasn't sure my people wanted that. The southerners knew more about us than the northerners, and they were forever attacking. What if telling Urial about us led to the same situation in the north? The Vulture Clan, closest to the border with Urial, was hardly prepared to start fighting a war. They were practically pacifists, who sent the absolute minimum number of people possible to help support the Crane. Fighting a constant war on one border was bad enough.

I wasn't going to tell Paris that, though. Denying someone knowledge only made it more desirable than before. So I nodded thoughtfully and motioned toward my office. "I'm more than happy to discuss what the clans produce and such. We're all quite proud of what we do."

"Some of us with more reason than others," Rosalie added tartly. Paris glanced up at her, and she flushed.

She meant the Eagle, of course. They did... a great many things, all absorbed from other clans. Some hunting, some gathering, some cattle-raising. Very little growing or production of finished products like the cloth and meat and vegetables we sent to the other clans, the wood from the Owl Clan, the honey and mead from the Hummingbird, or the fruit and dry fish from the Duck and Pelican, or the stone for building from the Vulture. They didn't defend our border, since their land wasn't on the border. Sometimes, our clan was unhappy with what they saw as an unfair division of labor, and I couldn't blame them. They all worked very hard.

On the other hand, we had what we needed, so I didn't begrudge anyone else getting what they needed as well. Even if it would be nice if the Eagle Clan helped more.

I was willing to chalk it up to bad leadership and assume that the rest of their people were generally decent and deserved the support of all Nemeda. Orestes was a good man, even if his father wasn't.

Either way, Paris didn't need to be bothered with the fractious, annoying parts of clan life. I smiled at him. "If you're still here come spring, I'm sure we could arrange someone to take you to visit each clan, to get a feel for things."

At that, he cocked his head. "Why spring?"

I blinked in shock, glancing one way, then the other. Rosaline leaned in, looking at him with fascination. Finally, I answered, "Because it's almost winter. It's going to be cold. There—there might even be snow. You have snow in Urial, I'm sure."

He shrugged that off. "Of course we do. But it's not that hard to just put on a coat and travel through it."

Travel through it. Huh.