“I’m quite sure that’s no longer true,” he replies.
Awri chuckles as he turns the corner, and she doesn’t waste a second before writing ‘chocolate’ in her elegant scroll work at the top of the sheet. When Awri makes it through the rest of the stack by early afternoon, I can’t help but marvel at the general’s tactics pertaining to his friend’s planning. Like Awri, the male is obviously a master of the craft of social maneuvering. A fact I tuck away.
Her earlier worry over Kishek never fully leaves her eyes and without a task to occupy her mind it becomes more evident that he is at the forefront of her thoughts. Rubbing her palm against her sternum, she excuses herselfto check on him, giving me free reign of the palace.
Intent on taking the reprieve to bundle a few more satchels of Kishek’s tea, my feet take me to the kitchens. A young human, about my age, with golden curls and dark eyes opens the door. A waft of fragrant herbs and cooked meats churns my stomach and it growls. She chuckles sweetly and invites me in.
Media is exactly as I expect, rhythmic creak following every push of her heel as her chair rocks away from the fire and back again. She doesn’t turn to greet me, but casts her eyes in my direction, nonetheless.
“Glad to see you’ve returned so soon.” She smiles and knocks the leg of the empty chair beside her with her cane. “Come and join me.”
I glide into the seat, tucking my legs beneath the thin fabric of my dress. She makes no effort to hide her thorough inspection of me, her eyes dragging over my body when my stomach growls again.
“Sera, a bowl of stew for our guest, please.”
The young girl is quick to bring a steaming bowl with a fat slice of heavily buttered bread. She dips her head when I thank her, then makes herself busy rolling out a thick sheet of dough on the blocky table sitting in the center of the kitchen.
“Sera is my granddaughter,” Media explains.
“She has your eyes,” I say, blowing on the hot stew.
The woman smiles fondly at the girl and nods in agreement.
“The general tells me you knew Awri and Riesh as children,” I say.
“I did. Not as well behaved as my own children. They’d hardly begun to walk when their mother disappeared beyond the southern border of La’tari. Their father left them in the hands of the king and relinquished his title as general to go in search of her.”
Her eyes fall to the wrinkled hands in her lap, and she turns them over beneath her gaze.
“He never did find her,” she says sadly. “Funny, what events borne by the fates lay outside of our control. The male left to find his mate, the female he’d lived alongside for centuries, and returned instead with a ship full of frail humans, missing a piece of his soul.”
I take a bite of my stew, the robust flavor lost to the bitter tale spillingfrom the woman’s lips.
“He went back for years, so many times, always in search of her. Always returning with a ship full of mortals, desperate to flee the very shores they were born upon.”
She stares off into the fire for a moment, watching the flames lick the sappy logs as they pop in the hearth.
“It took something from him, returning without her all those times. Years of hopeful searching turned bitter, and when it became clear she would never return, all we could do was hope that, for her sake, he was wrong when he assured us that she still lived.”
“Why would you hope that?” I ask.
“It is better than the alternative,” she says.
“What alternative?”
“What the La’tari have always done to the feyn.” Her brow draws down, and she looks at me as if I just asked the most ridiculous question she’s ever heard. “Hold her, break her, and force her to use her gift to aid them.”
I set my bowl of stew aside, my appetite suddenly absent my body. A small ember of rage flickers to light deep inside me. They’d spent a lifetime spewing hateful tales into this woman’s ears and now she believes every lie she’s been fed.
“The La’tari never kept feyn prisoners,” I assure her, “Not even during the war.”
“According to whom? What exactly do you think started the war, child?”
I bristle at being called a child. I might be much younger in years, but it is quickly becoming clear I have more experience on the southern shores and a far greater understanding of how the mortal kings ruled La’tari in the past.
“The war started when the feyn invaded our shores, killing every soul in their path, man, woman, and child.” It takes every bit of my restraint to keep the rising heat from my voice. “All so they could strip the resources from our land and bring them here, to their people.”
“What resources would those be?” she asks.
