Page 64 of Fought it Through the Teeth

Eskil is standing with his weight on both feet. Which means either the wound in his side has healed or he's too stubborn to favor it, and knowing his brother it is emphatically the latter. He's wearing his longsword. His hair is braided at his scalp in the warrior's style and his face is a mask of controlled fury and desperate relief, which is what Eskil looks like when he's been sick with worry for weeks and too proud to let anyone say so out loud. The tension in his jaw could shatter glass. The tension in his shoulders could anchor a ship. And his eyes, fixed on Morgan, tracking his approach up the hill, counting injuries from a hundred yards and adding them to a ledger that someone is going to pay for, are blue and bright and burning.

A step behind him, hands clasped in front of him, is Indrie.

The healer is in dark wool and soft leather, his dark hair braided in the Rengaran style that Morgan taught him. He looks different from the man Morgan met at the dock, steadier, more grounded, his small frame carrying a composure that was not there before and that suits him. He's already looking at the way Bohdi is sitting his horse and drawing conclusions. Morgan can see it, the healer's eye, the professional assessment, the rapid triage happening behind those dark eyes. The bad shoulder. The stiffened leg. The way Bohdi is holding his arm and the way the horse is compensating for the uneven weight distribution. Indrie is cataloging it all and his mouth is thinning with displeasure, already planning the lecture.

Bohdi dismounts first. Badly, the leg buckles on landing and he catches himself on the horse's flank and covers it with a shift of weight that would fool anyone who wasn't looking closely. Morgan is looking closely. Indrie is looking closely. Eskil, who misses nothing about the men who serve him, is looking closely.

Bohdi helps Morgan down. His hands find Morgan's waist, the same hands, the same grip, the same gesture that has been repeated a dozen times in the last week, and he lifts him out of the saddle and sets him on the ground and his hands linger at Morgan's waist longer than they need to.

He meets Morgan's eyes and his smile is warm and only for him. Not the performance. The other one, the small, private one, the one that doesn't show teeth and doesn't dazzle and doesn't buy anything from anyone. The one that Bohdi gives to the people he loves, and only to them, and only when he means it.

And Morgan realizes they're going to be okay. He thinks: All right. If I can't have him, at least I know it isn't because he doesn't want me. At least I can have this. At least I get to have him in my life.

It isn't enough. It will never be enough. But it is what there is, and Morgan has spent twenty years learning to build something livable out of what there is, and he can do it again.

Eskil comes down the steps.

He moves fast, not running, but with the ground-eating stride Morgan recognizes from a lifetime of watching his brother cross distances that separate him from the things he loves. His eyes sweep over both of them, and then he is in front of Morgan and his hands are on Morgan's shoulders and he pulls him into an embrace so fierce that Morgan's cracked ribs shriek in protest.

Morgan doesn't care in the slightest.

He gets both arms around his brother and holds on and breathes him in, and feels, for one suspended moment, entirely safe. Not the safety of walls or weapons or distance. The safety of being held by someone who would burn the world to keep you standing, and who has done it before, and who is holding you now with crushing tenderness, having sent you away and counted the hours since.

Eskil's arms are tight around him. His hand is on the back of Morgan's head, cradling it, and his chin is on top of Morgan's hair. Morgan can feel the shudder that runs through his brother's body, one, brief, suppressed immediately, and knows it for what it is: the release of a fear that has been held for weeks.

"You're hurt," Eskil says into his hair. It is not a question.

"It was a rough exit," Morgan says. His voice is muffled against his brother's chest and his ribs are screaming and his eyes are burning and he does not care about any of it. "Bohdi kept me safe."

Eskil releases him. His hands stay on Morgan's shoulders for a moment, steadying, holding, making sure, and then he steps back and turns to Bohdi. He looks at the blood on his clothes and the absence of the axe that has been on Bohdi's back for fourteen years. He reads the story of it, the whole story, or enough of it, in Bohdi's stance and Bohdi's expression and the things Bohdi is not saying, because these two men have known each other long enough that silence carries as much information as speech.

Then Eskil steps forward and grips the back of Bohdi's neck and pulls him in until their foreheads press together.

They stand like that. Eyes closed. Breathing. The two of them, king and second, in the pose that is theirs and has been theirs for longer than Morgan has been alive. Foreheads touching, hands gripping, the bond between them visible and physical and forged in decades of blood and loyalty and mutual, absolute reliance.

"Thank you," Eskil says. Low and fierce and meant only for the two of them.

Bohdi's jaw works. His hand comes up and grips Eskil's shoulder and holds on a beat longer than he should. The look on his face, the look Morgan can see from three feet away, even in profile, even half-hidden by the press of foreheads, is the look of having just brought his king's brother home safe and only now allowing himself to feel the weight of what it cost.

And Morgan stands there.

He stands there and watches the two most important people in his life lean into each other and feels the finality of it settle into his chest. Because this is what Bohdi is protecting. This is the thing he will not gamble. And looking at them now, foreheads together, that bond visible and unshakable, Morgan cannot bring himself to say that Bohdi is wrong.

He cannot say it because he is looking at the proof. The proof is in Eskil's hand on Bohdi's neck and Bohdi's hand on Eskil's shoulder and the way they breathe together, synchronized, their lungs long since trained to the same rhythm. The proof is in the trust, the absolute trust that holds the kingdom up, that holds the army up, that holds Eskil up on the days when the crown is too heavy and the choices are too ugly and the only thing keeping the king of Rengara standing is the man at his side.

If Morgan breaks that, if the revelation of what happened between them on this journey, what is still happening, what Morgan wants to keep happening, fractures the bond between king and second, then the cost is not personal. The cost is structural. The cost is the foundation cracking, and the kingdom that rests on it shifting, and the people who depend on both of them feeling the tremor.

Morgan cannot do that.

He looks at them and he loves them and he cannot do it.

Then Indrie steps forward.

"Looks like my pig-headed brother is on the mend," Morgan says to him.

Indrie's mouth curves, brief and wry. His hand comes up and presses gently against Morgan's ribs, feeling for the damage, and Morgan winces before he can stop himself. Indrie's eyes sharpen.

"I've practically had to tie him to the bed to keep him out of the barracks," Indrie says. "He's been impossible."