Page 86 of Setting the Break

"I'm getting married," Eskil says, into his hair, after a while.

Morgan goes still.

For a moment he honestly does not understand. His head is still full of everything and for one stupid second he thinks his brother means I'm getting married to Bohdi, and very nearly laughs.

Then he understands, and he does not laugh at all.

He pulls back far enough to see his brother's face. Eskil lets him. He is still looking past Morgan's shoulder, at the shelves, at nothing. There is a faint dull color come up along the top of Eskil's cheekbones that Morgan has never seen once in his entire life.

"To Indrie," Morgan says.

"No, to fucking Gunnar. Yes, to Indrie." Eskil huffs out a breath. "Properly. Our way. In the hall, in front of all of them, with Bohdi saying the rites. I asked Bohdi last night. That's how any of this came out. I went to ask him to say the words over us and he stood there and told me he was in love with my brother instead." His mouth goes sideways. "I've had better evenings. I've had worse."

Morgan stares at him.

"Does Indrie know?"

"Not yet."

"Then why are you telling me?"

Eskil finally looks at him.

"Because you're my brother," Eskil says. "Because you're the only family I've got that I didn't have to go out and find. Because I wanted you to hear it from me before you heard it from anybody else in this keep." He pauses. "And because I want your blessing."

Morgan's throat closes entirely.

He has stood beside his brother through a great many things. He stood beside him at their parents' graves, at six years old, not understanding much of any of it except that Eskil's hand was holding his too tightly. He stood beside him at the crowning that same winter, in a coat that did not fit, bored out of his mind. He has stood beside him in council for years, and in the courtyard every time he came home from a war. He has never once in his life been asked to approve of anything Eskil has done.

"Yes," Morgan says. His voice does not hold. "Yes. Of course you have it. You idiot. I would be furious with you if you didn't marry him."

Eskil lets out a breath.

"And you're going to listen to me for a minute," Morgan says, "because I'm only ever going to say this once, and if you interrupt me I'll never say it again, and you'll regret it on your deathbed."

Eskil's eyebrow goes up. He does not interrupt.

"You're the best man I have ever known," Morgan says.

His brother shifts on the edge of the desk.

"You are. I've known a great many men. I've sat across a table from kings and chieftains and every lord in the north, and I have measured every single one of them against you since I was six years old, without meaning to, and every single one has come up short." He swallows. "And then Indrie came off that boat. And somehow he makes you better anyway. I didn't think there was anywhere left for you to go, and he found it. I watched you sit in that council chamber the other day while they called him a traitor to your face, and you didn't put a single one of them through the table. A year ago there'd have been blood on the floor. That's him. That's what he's done to you."

"Morgan."

"I'm not finished." Morgan's voice wobbles and he ignores it. "I have never in my life seen anybody love someone the way you love him. Not our mother and father. Not Dagny and Ingrid. Not anybody. You look at him across a room and you forget there are other people in it. I've watched you do it. The whole keep's watched you do it." He wipes his eyes with the back of his wrist. "And I'm so terribly happy for you."

Eskil looks at him for a long moment.

Then he grunts.

"You're being too gods damned sentimental for nine in the morning," Eskil says.

Morgan's mouth falls open.

"I'm being sentimental? You're the one who came in here and shut the door and sat on my desk to moan at me about not telling you about Bohdi."

Eskil's jaw goes tight. Morgan can hear his teeth.