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Chapter1
The grainsof salt slid through my fingers as I sprinkled them into the stew. It was a simple thing, really—seasoning the vegetable soup—but after twenty years of captivity, I tried to savor every simple pleasure life had to offer.
Including salt.
Sometimes the customers said I savored salttoomuch, but I ignored them.
That was an easy thing to do, considering there were no chains on my wrists any more.
I’d escaped a few months earlier with the other two women I had been trapped with. We’d parted ways shortly after, each of us with our own goals. Diora and Akari had been looking for freedom and revenge, so they headed out to kill the kings they were magically connected to. I’d told them I was doing the same, but it was a lie.
I didn’t give a flaming leaf about revenge.
All I wanted was peace.
I’d lived far too long with far too much pain, and now, I wanted comfort.
Comfort… and joy.
So I’d started working at an inn near where my friends and I had escaped to, spreading that happiness in the form of well-salted vegetable stews and pies. The time since had been blissful, and the only regret I had was that I’d let my friends believe I intended to kill the king whose magic was keeping me alive.
He was a violent bastard, who had reportedly destroyed a vast number of homes and lives.
But his magic had savedmylife on so many occasions that I couldn’t hate him. Even if I could, what was the point? We were never going to meet.
So, I made my soup, and ignored the many glares I received from the customers who were sensitive enough to magic’s feel to realize that I possessed the same intense dark power that the evil king did.
They could hate me if they wanted; I was just there to make soup.
Soup, and pies.
If that was all that filled the rest of my years, I would be content.
Though honestly, I didn’t think I would have that many years left. I was an elemental fae who had never visited the lands of my people, which meant I’d never had my own magic running through my veins. And for someone like me, that was a death sentence.
I’d grown weaker in the recent years, but more particularly since I had escaped the prison. I could feel the land of my ancestors calling to me.
But I’d already asked around, and there were no ships going to the elemental lands anymore. The kings had been addled long before I was stolen away from my home, so the lands were off-limits for most fae.
Since the chance of me managing to wrangle up a ship for myself and then successfully navigate it to another part of the world alone was below zero, I had accepted my fate.
Soup, salt, pie, and peace.
That was all I needed, anyway.
I dusted the seasoning off my hands over the sink near my side, and then grabbed the ladle off the countertop. After lifting it back to the pot, I gave it a few good stirs to dissolve and disperse the magical powders.
I possessed more than a fair share of power myself, though most of it was inaccessible given my illness, but to me, there was nothing quite as incredible as the right amount of seasoning in a warm, belly-filling meal.
When the food was good and stirred, I grabbed the pot by its fire-proof handles, bumping the button for the heat with my hip on my way out to the serving area. I wasn’t much of a people person—I preferred to remain quiet, rather than engage in meaningless conversation—but scooping soup into bowls was calming, so I endured the surface-level chats for the sake of that.
I murmured hellos and responses to the regulars who often showed up to complain about my soup as they ate every drop of it, setting the pot down on the thick fabric pad already on the counter for that purpose.
The conversation wasn’t geared toward me for once, so I peacefully used my ladle to fill bowls. There was a server to help for the evening crowd, but since it was only mid-day, I was on my own.
When I began to distribute the bowls, I heard bits of the conversation, keeping my expression passive so no one would realize I was listening in. While I only heard bits and pieces, my heartbeat picked up a bit while I moved. They were discussing my least favorite topic yet again.
A few months back, word had come from the nearest town that the Dark King had taken his army into the Shadow King’s city… and that he’d been defeated by the Shadow Queen.
