Chapter 103 A Welcome Ambush

I had been in ambushes before. Traps laid precisely, and with great care, to give every advantage to the one who springs it. Often, in the latter half of my reign, they had used my oldest hunger to set them. Some tome thought long lost. Some [Class], newly discovered. A weapon or a relic too dangerous for mortal hands.

Often, I had known the trap long before I ever stepped in it. It had not mattered. No power worth gaining had ever come without its risk. Nothing worth taking had ever gone unguarded. I had walked into yet another of these ambushes, and for once, I did not know what to do with it.

Corin and Edda rose from the table first. Edda stepped forward and gestured at the table. "Well? Sit, come on."

Corin followed half a step behind. Unlike the girl, he bowed deeply at the waist. "Please, Your Maj- err-" he seemed to remember my instruction only partway through, "please, have a seat."

Alisa sat behind them. Her chin was raised. She looked better than when I had seen her last, as though she had finally been given the sleep so long denied her. "Well?" she said. "Is my rival scared of some food?"

Ash stepped in next to me, and she took my hand before I could answer. She was leading me to the table, and I let her. Perhaps I should have offered more resistance. Perhaps I should have said one thing or another. I was simply too confused to do either.

I sat at the table, in a mess hall that was otherwise empty -empty even of the cooks, who surely had to be here at all for the place to remain open. Ash sat next to me, and closer than the sitting required. On the table in front of me were plates. I counted at least a dozen of them. Only a few held things I had seen before. Only one held a thing I had ever eaten, on that night of the festival.

Solara let out a small chirp. She flew from Ash's head and landed elegantly on the table. She landed in front of some kind of strange meat. I could recognize that it was meat, cooked until it was brown, and dripping with something I could only guess at.

The whole of it was far bigger than the baby phoenix, even at her new size. Her beak opened wide, and then wider still, far wider than anything should have allowed. It took no great mind to know what she had planned. Ash hurriedly reached out and cupped her in her hands. "Hey, Sol, relax," she whispered. "Let everyone sit down first."

The baby phoenix closed her beak, turned around, and regarded her. She let out a chirp. Then another. Both of them were soft chirps. It seemed the Hero had somehow made her see reason.

"Oh, thank the Divine," I heard Edda breathe. "Was she going to eat the whole Bramblehen?"

"Sure as hell looked like she was," Ren said, stepping forward and taking the seat opposite me. Edda sat next to her, and Corin sat next to Edda. Alisa took the place on Ash's other side. "Wouldn't surprise me if she did, either."

I found my voice. "What is this?" I demanded, taking in the whole of the table with a sweep of my arm.

There were scents, many of them. All of them warring to be smelled first. Roasting meat of several kinds, warm bread of three kinds and a sharp spice over everything. My mouth did not water. If some small moisture gathered there regardless, it was a reflex of the body, and no reflection at all upon its Queen.

I expected Ren or Edda to answer. Perhaps Alisa, if this was some ploy of hers. Instead, it was Corin who spoke. "This- well, you are leaving soon, aren't you?" the boy said. "So we thought it would be a good idea to have something like this before you go. A little party."

A party. I knew the meaning of the word. That meaning matched nothing of what this was.

"Lys," Ash said, bumping her shoulder into mine. "They wanted to do a nice thing for us before we left. That's what they mean."

I looked at her, and then at the three sitting in front of me. Ren's face was faintly red, and she was staring off to the left. To the left, where there was a wall and nothing else. Edda was watching me with an expression that was oddly bright, for her. Corin's expression was the only one I knew well, for I had seen it before. I had seen it in men who had laid tribute before me, and waited for my judgment.

I looked back down at the food. I reached for one of the many dishes. It was bread, though it did not smell as Martha's bread had, nor like anything else I had eaten at this Academy. It had been sliced into several pieces, and the edges of all the pieces were golden, and something glittered on the surface. I brought it to my lips and took a single bite. Bread was supposed to be soft, and yet chewy. One had to work at it with their teeth. This bread melted in my mouth, and the taste of it was strange.

It was full. Far fuller than bread ought to be. And there was something sharp to it, a dozen tiny stings that danced across my tongue. I swallowed, and the taste lingered. I took another bite, one far bigger than the one before it. I looked up. Everyone was watching me. Even Solara, who had craned her neck. What they were waiting for, I did not know.

"This is ade-" My mouth closed. I took a breath. "What is this?" I asked.

Corin answered. "It's a specialty of our village," he said. "We call it garlic bread."

Garlic bread. So they had gone beyond mere 'bread', then. Perhaps this was like the Classes, and [Bread] had now evolved into [Garlic Bread]. I nodded slowly, and set the piece down. "It tastes like the sun, trapped inside one of these loaves," I said.

The three of them looked at each other. "Does-" Ren said. "Does that mean she likes it?"

"It does," Ash said beside me, warmly.

The three of them smiled, even Ren. That was not what I had meant to say. But it was not so dissimilar that I would argue.

After that, we ate. And there was much to eat. Dishes whose names even I had difficulty pronouncing, and whose many tastes I had known neither in this life nor the last. Curiosity had always been my sharpest hunger. Perhaps hunger itself would be my second sharpest, after this night.

Solara waddled the length of the table, accepting food from everyone. Even food I did not touch with my Cradle, which was a surprise.

Ash fed her a piece of dripping meat from one hand, and she took it happily with a chirp. She waddled in front of me and accepted a piece of the bread. She made a strange squeaking sound as she ate, evidently as surprised by the taste as I had been. She moved over to Alisa. The girl smiled as she fed her bread, this one covered in a white thing called cheese, which had tasted strange on my tongue, in a way I liked and disliked all at once.

Then she crossed the table and waddled to the other side, where she accepted her tributes from Edda and Corin. Ren tried to offer Solara something green, something she assured the bird 'tasted great'. Solara opened her beak, and a wisp of fire trailed out of it. Ren hurriedly gave her meat after that, which Solara accepted, but only after a chirp of tremendous volume. A warning to the girl to never again attempt such trickery.

And there was talking, much of it. Ren started speaking and would not stop, even when her mouth was full. She explained in great detail how many of the Inkers who had previously dismissed her now treated her the same as anyone else. How she had shot up several places in the rankings without doing anything at all. Corin explained how Inkers who had never had a minute for him now spent almost too much time hovering by his side.

Edda spoke last, and briefest. Demonbloods she had never once exchanged a word with now nodded to her in the corridors. A human Line had approached her three days past and asked whether she took students. She had not answered him yet.

When her recollection was done, she looked at me. "Thank you," she said. Then, after a moment: "Standing wasn't so bad."

She said it evenly, but she did not quite meet my gaze. I looked at her, and I smirked. "Standing is but the first step to walking, child. Do not forget that."

Edda nodded. She nodded very seriously, as though I had handed her a decree.

Ash looked at me and nodded as well. She knew this as well as I. This was all that girl's doing. It seemed Lena was going rather far out of her way to keep her word. Not that I disapproved of it.

They explained how they had gone to the Archon to ask for this mess hall, only for an hour. They had expected to be refused. Yet they had been granted the right, and so here we were. A single uninterrupted hour.

I ate. I ate a great deal. Far more than a Queen should. By the end of her patrolling, Solara waddled in front of me and sat down heavily. I did not need to check the bond to know that she was full. Then, finally, we came to the cake. That was what Ren had named it.

It was set before me with a care none of the other dishes had received. It was a great round thing, and it was a light black. Thin lines of pink and white and red crossed its surface, and upon it, words had been written in those same three colors.

At the top, in careful letters, were names. Ash. Lysanthia. (and Sol). The first name was small and clean. Mine began clean and did not end clean as it reached the circular edge. Sol's was written most clean of all.

Beneath the names ran three lines, one in each color.

Thanks for everything. That was written in white, and written well.

Thank you, Your Grace. That was written in pink, and with more flourish than I would have expected from the boy.

FUCKING COME BACK, ALRIGHT?! That was written in red, and took up the entire bottom half of the cake. Zarvok would be proud.

It took no great mind to know which hand had written which line.

"They spelled your name better than mine," I said.

Ash was looking at the cake, and she was smiling. Her thumb had found the blue-grey stone at her throat and was tracing its edge, and this time, I thought she knew she was doing it. "Yours is longer," she said.

I looked at the cake, then up at the three. They were all watching me. For what, even I could not guess.

"You better bloody like it," Ren said, pointing first at the cake and then at me. "You have any idea how long it took him to make this?"

"He?" I said.

Ren pointed at Corin, who was trying very hard to appear smaller than he was. He caught my gaze and diminished further, though that should hardly have been possible. "It didn't take that long," the boy said. "Just a few hours." He said it as though a few hours meant nothing. Perhaps, once, they would not have.

Solara stood in front of the cake, and she regarded it with her big golden eyes. She regarded it with what I could only call curiosity. I shared it. She chirped, and looked at me. Then she chirped again, louder. I reached for the cake.

Ren's hand was on mine in an instant. "Hey, hey!" she said. "You're supposed to cut it first." She reached to the side and produced a simple blade. She handed it to me, and I took it.

I regarded the cake, then the knife. The knife was dull. It could hardly have cut anything. Of all the weapons I had ever held, this was surely the poorest of them. It would have to do. Everyone leaned in as I extended my arm. Even Solara craned her neck. I paused. "Ash? Would you do this with me?" Whatever manner of ritual this was, I did not want to do it alone.

Ash smiled, and then her hand was over mine. The cake cut easily. I made one slice, from top to bottom. There was cheering from the three in front of me. Even Alisa was clapping. Ren cheered loudest of all.

I carved out a piece for myself, and another for Ash. The inside of the cake was not black like the outside. Rather, it was layers of black and white. I took a bite.

It was sweet. Sweet in a way nothing in either of my lives had prepared me for. The cream was cool, and it melted. And somewhere inside the taste, there was a thing faintly bitter on the tongue. It should have detracted from the whole. It only added to it.

I stared at the cake. Then I took another bite.

Solara chirped. I broke off a piece of the cake -a large piece- and set it down in front of her. She pecked at it. Pecked at it again. She paused and opened her beak wide, and swallowed the piece whole. Then she raised her head and let out a chirp that rang off the walls. I checked the bond. She was pleased. She was far more than pleased. I fed her another piece.

"Well? How is it?"

The voice was quiet. So quiet I almost did not hear it at all. I looked up. Corin sat across from me, and his own slice sat before him, untouched.

"It's amazing," Ash said at once. The Hero had already eaten half her slice, and it had not been a small slice. I did not think she could eat that fast.

Corin smiled at that. And then he kept staring at me.

"It is-" I fumbled for the word. Adequate rose to my tongue. I opened my mouth. I closed it. I sighed.

"It is one of the finest things I have ever eaten, child," I said.

Corin's eyes went very wide. Across the table, Ren and Edda had both stopped mid-bite to stare at me. Then, for a reason even the Gods might have struggled to name, a tear slid from the corner of Corin's eye. He wiped it quickly, with the back of one hand.

"I'm glad," he said, and he picked up his fork, and he began to eat his slice.

I did not understand. Ash pressed closer against my side, warm from shoulder to elbow. I supposed that perhaps not understanding was fine.

I looked out at the table, at what remained of the feast. I was no stranger to feasts. Many had been served in my name, or in the name of one of my Generals. In terms of scale alone, this one paled in comparison to all of them. But these things were not just scale. These banners made of bedsheets were no proper banner, and yet they did not have to be. I still did not know what this all meant, but I understood more than I once would have. Enough to know that this was not nothing.

I had walked into this place expecting an ambush. One of many. This was the first ambush I had ever walked out of hoping, someday, to walk into again.

Soon, even the great cake was done. Solara had eaten her slice, and then resumed her rolling on the far side of the table. Except now the rolling was… different. She twisted and turned with each roll, often moving in small circles. I checked the bond, and found only great enthusiasm come back. Perhaps the cake had fed her too well.

Ren and Edda rose, and collected the plates. They stacked them into one large tower that Ren carried to the front of the mess hall. I watched them go.

"Don't think I've had food this good even back home," Alisa said. Her chin was lowered now, and she seemed rather pleased with herself.

"Girl."

She looked over at me. "Don't call me girl," she said.

I ignored her. "When are you going to show us your mark? Do you believe I have forgotten?"

Alisa met my gaze. Then she met Ash's. She sighed. "I planned to, after this. I have not forgotten." She rose, just as Ren and Edda returned.

"Hey, think our time's up," Ren said. "Don't wanna know what Marissa's gonna do to me if we run over-" She paused, and looked around at all of our expressions. "The hell's going on?"

Alisa looked at us. Her gaze moved from me to Ash, and then to the other three. Her strange silver mark caught the lantern light, and for a moment, it shone. Then she nodded, almost to herself.

"I suppose it's time, then. Very well. I will show you."