Chapter 28: The Tour II
Chapter 28: The Tour II
The dining hall was beautiful.
Black marble ran like a river through the floor, flecked with veins of something that glowed faintly when you weren’t looking directly at it. The table—long and proud—stretched down the center, polished to a mirror sheen.
Heavy chairs, each carved with perfection, lined the table. At the far end, a dais held a seat carved in a shape I could only describe as throne-adjacent—a chair that spoke of authority without silly flourishes.
Tapestries draped along the walls depicted feasts rendered in thread: banquets with platters of things I didn’t recognize (and a few things I was certain had watched other things be eaten).
The lighting was a soft, faceted red-gold that made even ordinary bread look like a treasure. It was neat and yes, it could house a thousand people, but it was still beautiful.
Marrok gestured toward the full length of the room. "This is the dining hall. It has no other name."
I chuckled at that.
Versha wandered to the nearest tapestry and stroked the embroidered thread like a connoisseur. "See the panel there—our Lord once silenced an assembly with a single, well-placed apology. It is still studied by those who practice remorse."
I did not understand what she meant, but I nodded because I didn’t want to go through that much trouble trying to understand it.
From the dining hall, we went to the kitchens.
How come everything about this place was beautiful? The dining hall was beautiful and now this... it was a kitchen for fuck’s sake. A kitchen, but it was beautiful and perfectly arranged too.
There were massive, vaulted ceilings, rows of pots from which scents rose like thought-bubbles. Stone ovens lined one wall, their mouths yawning with ember-glow. Long tables bustled with preparation: dough being turned, herbs being minced with rhythmic efficiency, trays of something steaming until their steam fogged the air into small clouds of delicious menace.
I thought I’d see something like human bodies or maybe blood being cooked here, but it was the exact opposite. And I’m not even going to lie— from what I could perceive... I wanted a taste.
Marrok’s chest puffed out the faintest bit as he introduced the head of this beehive of heat and delicious scents. "This is Chef Kethra."
Kethra turned, wiping her palms on a towel that steamed like a small cloud. She was built like someone who could lift an oven door with one hand and still hand you the perfect slice of pie with the other.
"What kind of... um..." I gestured in her direction.
"She’s a flame demon. Part of the lesser ones, but a very good cook," Marrok said.
Rin nodded. "I don’t eat food like this, but I’m tempted to have a taste whenever Kethra cooks."
"I make shiny foods for you to eat," Kethra said with an eye-roll.
"I never said you didn’t," Rin said with a smile.
"This is our queen, the Lord’s wife," Versha introduced me to Kethra, whose flame-colored hair released a puff of smoke.
"Oh my," Kethra said as she approached me.
I took the time to study her. Her skin was black with the warm undertones of ember, hair that curled like little tongues of smoke, and eyes that glowed the faintest orange when she smiled. There was a dusting of flour on her cheek that she wore like a badge of honor.
"It’s nice to meet you, Your Highness," Kethra said.
"My lady suits her better," Versha said with pride.
"Yes... yes it does."
"She told me I did good," Rin informed Kethra.
Kethra’s eyes narrowed as she turned to Rin, then back to me. She did it two more times, then her eyes lit up like she’d just thought of the best idea.
"Would you like to have a taste of what is cooking?" Kethra asked me.
"Yes, can I?" I asked her.
"Of course you can."
She turned to the stove, took a spoon that was shaped like a person’s finger bone, then took a little serving and passed it to me.
I gave the spoon a look. It just looked like someone’s bone, but I couldn’t be sure.
"Is this a person’s bone?" I asked her.
Kethra gasped. "I would never feed you food from a person’s bone. This is a spoon designed this way..."
That was enough for me. I sipped what she gave me and holy!
The soup hit my tongue and I just—
"What did you use in making this?" I asked her.
"Pear. The soup was simmered pear, star anise and a syrup reduction along with twilight flower, then some other ingredients," she told me.
"Wow! It’s really good," I told her.
Kethra’s eyes glinted. "So I can take it to mean that I did good? That we are doing good work here?" she asked me.
"Excellent work. This is really good. I can’t wait for dinner now," I told her honestly.
Kethra grinned, and maybe if I had paid more attention, I would have seen the way she whispered to Rin that Rin wasn’t the only one I had praised now. Or maybe I would have noticed that Marrok and Versha were disgruntled by the fact that I had told Kethra she did good.
We toured storerooms where jars were aligned with the care of monks; larders where meat hung and was attended like an honored guest; and the spice room, which smelled like every market I’d only ever glimpsed in dreams. Kethra explained the role of each area with the proud, fierce love of someone who tended flame and memory. She told me which spices to use, which stews to serve after losing a battle, and which pastries soothed a negotiator’s raw edges.
When we left the kitchens, my hands still carried the ghost of warm spice. I felt oddly grounded, as if a small, domestic ritual could anchor me against the enormous—terrifying—rigidity of this place.
The tour wound on—library, music room, the armory (a terrible, gleaming place that made me imagine being armed and immediately regret everything), then the observatory with its glass that bent starlight into deliberate poems. Each room was also described with such care—who used it, who had once loved it, and why a certain chair would always be set aside for those who needed to be mollified.
Throughout the walk, I realized something: Versha liked to enthrall with the narrative; Rin supplied the practicalities like a surgeon; and Marrok—steady Marrok—was the spine, the story’s measured cadence. Each time they finished a short lecture on window placement or tapestry provenance, they turned to me with that glint in their eyes: a look that said, Did that please you? Was that proper?
When at last we wound back up to the private floor, my brain pleasantly fuzzy with food smells and information, I looked at the three of them and felt a small, warm ember of something that was not quite fondness but dangerously close.
"So... my lady... do you think that perhaps we did well?" Versha asked me.
It was only at that moment that I realized why they would turn to me every time they finished explaining what went on in a place they showed me.
"You all did good," I told them.
Marrok’s wings spread a bit and Versha spun a tiny web, while Rin turned into a raven and then back just like she did the first time.
"Um... my lady?" Marrok called out to me.
"Yes?"
"Your assistant will be here tomorrow. He was out on a mission," he told me.
Again, I did not understand why I needed an assistant, but I nodded.
"Do send Vaelory to my room when she wakes up," I told him.
He nodded, and with that, I walked back to my room— or at least, I thought it was my room. If I had been paying attention, I would have noticed that the door was different.