Winfred had chosen Jacques to take the throne and Francis had married Erin.
Somehow neither brother had seen the result as a victory, but regardless of their own feelings about it and what they thought they knew of their father's choice, it had in fact been an act of kindness.
Not for Jacques and Francis.
But for Erin.
Winfred had been fond of her too but had stepped back when he'd realized she had the attention of his sons and while he didn't share the appetites either of them did, the assumption that any affection had disappeared after he'd removed himself was false.
He had spoken to Erin just once about her wishes, when she was a few months shy from her eighteenth birthday and the wedding date.
It spoke to how strong his affection for the girl was, that he didn't ask which son she wanted to marry, but what life she wanted.
And Erin did not want to be queen.
So, she married Francis and Jacques eventually married a young noble woman who gave him five children and was never bothered by the fact that her husband's heart belonged to someone else.
By all accounts, Erin and the Queen got on famously and their friendship had often been the ruse hiding the continuing relationship between Erin and Jacques. Erin had been present at the births of all their children and the Queen had been the first to know of her pregnancy.
The Queen had also been known, rather famously, to put Francis Soliel in his place when she thought he was being too outspoken about his brother.
Naturally, the two of them had not gotten along.
Eirian didn't know enough about her father, and it was unlikely she ever would, to know how he felt about his wife and his brother. He had pursued Erin so desperately that it was without question that he loved her. But he claimed to love his brother too and he was often unkind to him.
Whatever their marriage was like before Eirian came into the world, she'd never know, and the maid's gossip was usually about her father's drinking and her mother and the King.
Whatever she thought of the three of them, she knew her mother had been loved deeply by both men. None of the King's other mistresses had lasted nearly as long, nor been as close to the Queen. And her father, for all his drinking and scheming, was not known for taking other women to his bed. Eirian had been as shocked as the rest of society when he'd finally left his mourning period to marry Brigitta.
But no one had been shocked that the King had not attended the wedding or sent any acknowledgment of any kind.
Jacques had lost the love of his life when he'd won the throne and Francis' only victory over his celebrated older brother had been pyrrhic at best.
Erin Soliel had been a loyal, doting wife during her marriage, the one who had protected Francis from the consequences of many actions, but she had loved Jacques Soliel from the day she'd first met him until she'd taken her last breath in the birthing bed. She just hadn't wanted to be Queen.
And Francis had never been able to escape that fact.
Eirian had been terrified of a marriage like that. It was part of why she hadn't married Philip the first time he'd asked. And while her decision to wait had proven correct at his betrayal, she couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if she'd said yes.
She certainly loved him. And he had loved her.
Wasn't love enough?
The bards and poets all said it was. Love overcame all obstacles according to the great tales.
But if it was so easy for Philip to love another so soon after her and she hadn't even noticed his love fading…
That was as far as she got when she tried to think about it these days. Now that the initial shock and anger had worn away and she was mostly just confused by it all.
Their love doesn't look anything like the devotion Chenzhou and Anna share. Or the fondness with which Marian speaks of her deceased husband.
Not even the silence Yuze maintains about the love that left him behind.
Eirian is certainly not hurt enough to be quiet about her own heartbreak.
Did her heart even break at all?
There was a time when people on the rock thought those with magic were beasts. Monsters without souls and monsters without souls certainly didn't have hearts.
That was thousands of years ago, long before Malbec, but maybe Eirian was a holdover from a by gone era.
Some creature so unfortunate that she was reborn over and over instead of being allowed to die and move onto the world of the dead in peace.
To that place she dreamed of behind the veil.
That night she pours more of her magic into the Camelia. Watches the roots burst out and grow, consuming the miasma that tries to smother them.
It's harder than the last time. Magic has a mind of its own.
It learns.
It adapts.
It survives.
It fights back as Eirian's magic snuffs it out like the flicker of a candle.
There's just so much of it. A never-ending tide that comes again and again and it's enough that Eirian wonders if even she has the reserves to take it.
She's never not had enough magic before. It's always been too much. She has to hold it back to keep it from overwhelming everything.
This miasma is the first enemy Eirian's met that didn't fall under the first wave, so she calls up more of her magic than she ever has before and pushes it at the poison.
And pushes.
And pushes.
Flames start to appear in her mind, the manifestation of her magic as it gets stronger and then the fire starts to consume the darkness, burning everything.
"EIRIAN!"
~ tbc