"Why?"
She pauses then, ladle in hand, and looks at me with that directness that still catches me off-guard. "Because you deserve to remember what it's like to enjoy something. To feel human, or well, like I person I guess."
There’s a pink flush to her cheeks from the stove, her blood in her cheeks making my mouth water. She takes like old magic and sensual secrets between lovers. Not that I’m going to inform her of that fact.
I do not know what to say to her response. So I say nothing.
But I taste everything she makes. And I remember.
It is the cake that breaks something in me.
She has been preparing it all afternoon, a mulled wine cake, she calls it, dense with spices and soaked in sweetness. The scent fills the entire cottage. Cinnamon and cloves and something darker, richer. It smells like...
Like winter festivals. Like the great hall of my father's keep, when I was still human enough to attend such things. Like everything I have forgotten about being alive.
"Try this," she says, cutting a slice and offering it to me. She is practically vibrating with anticipation, like a child presenting a gift.
I take the plate. The fork. These small civilized gestures that Elspeth never bothered with.
The first bite dissolves on my tongue, and I...
I am drowning.
It is not the taste itself. I have been tasting her food for days now, identifying flavors with clinical precision, acknowledging quality the way I once assessed battle formations. Functional. Detached.
But this.
This.
Memories flood back with visceral force. Not the battles. Not the blood. But *before*. The winter I turned sixteen and won my first tournament. My sister laughing as snow fell on her dark hair. The way strawberries tasted in spring, sweet and bright andalive.
I had forgotten. God help me, I had forgotten there were things other than duty and death and the endless gray weight of service.
This is not tasting. This isremembering. This isfeeling.
I set down the fork very carefully, because my hands are shaking.
"Cadeon?" Her voice is soft, concerned. "Are you okay?"
"When did you last taste something?" she asks gently. "Really taste it, not just... identify it?"
"I..." The word sticks. "I don't remember."
The admission catches in my throat. I have been tasting her food for days. Porridge. Bread. Soup. I can tell you the exact proportions of salt and herbs in each dish. I can identify every spice with the precision of someone who once memorized battle maps.
But I had notfeltany of it. Had not let it mean anything beyond sustenance and courtesy.
Until now.
"Oh," she breathes, and when I look up, her eyes are bright with tears she will not shed. "Then I'll just have to fix that, won't I?"
It is not a question. It is a mission statement.
And thus begins her campaign to remind me what it means to be something other than a weapon.
She cooks things I have not tasted in centuries. Roasted meat with herbs I remember from my mother's table. Bread that tastes like harvest festivals. Soup that warms me from the inside despite the cold dead thing I have become.
And I... help.
