The Burning Witch 3: A Humorous Romantic Fantasy

CHAPTER 17 PEACE OVER POTATOES

Why am I carrying you again?”

“Because I’m tired.”

“You were asleep when I got to our chamber. I haven’t even been to bed yet.”

“I’m still waking up,” Kat mumbled into Eric’s shoulder as she allowed her forehead to rest there as he carried her on his back to their destination.

The prince sighed while shaking his head wearily and hefting his hold behind the redhead’s knees.

“I thought it was the wives who were supposed to take care of their husband’s meals when they got home late at night.”

“That was not my experience,” Kat yawned back.

Chuckling dryly, Eric nodded to himself. “I suppose it wouldn’t have been.”

At last, the couple had reached the kitchens where Kat had persuaded her husband that they should go to have him cook his own late dinner/early breakfast of pancakes.

It was still cold and dark outside; the rest of the castle occupants were sound asleep in their beds, and so the pair got to experience the rare pleasure of solitude.

“If this keeps up, I’m asking Mr. Kraft about why you’re so tired,” Eric called back on a more serious note.

“It’s ’cause I only went to bed an hour before you got back … an’ …” Kat yawned again. “Because I’m still recovering after not sleeping for a month. I live like a normal person for a fortnight or so after.”

Eric let out a sigh. That did make sense, but he couldn’t help the paranoia brewing in his mind that she was pregnant with his offspring. Even though it was still far too early to know such a thing yet, it occasionally sauntered into his forethoughts.

Luckily for him, they had reached the kitchens, and surprisingly, there wasn’t a guard in sight.

It should’ve been their first clue that not all was as it seemed …

However, when Eric opened the door to the kitchen and found Finlay Ashowan with a mixing bowl in hand, wearing a brown robe hanging open while in relaxed trousers and a tunic, he was completely taken aback.

Fin blinked in bewilderment at Eric.

Eric gaped right back at him.

Kat let out a soft, sleepy moan into Eric’s shoulder. “Are we there yet?”

The prince cleared his throat, prompting Kat to lift her head to see what had stopped their progress, and upon seeing her father, regained a mite of her strength to slowly slide off her husband’s back onto her own two feet.

“Hello, Da,” Kat greeted her father while putting her hands on her hips and smiling wryly.

Fin casually noted his daughter wearing a similar sleep set to her husband, and that they both were in dark blue robes, then met Kat’s gaze. Perhaps it’d been a gift from one of her fellow handmaidens …

“What’re you two doing up?” the duke asked mildly.

“Eric didn’t get back until now, so we were coming down for him to cook,” Kat explained briefly.

Fin’s attention moved to the prince, whose expression had turned stony. “What were you up to away from the castle?”

“That isn’t …” Eric started to say, but his eyes fell to the house witch’s hands that were resuming mixing the food in the bowl he held, displaying his usual habit of cooking while listening.

A small hitch climbed its way up the prince’s throat. “The witness I brought back from the duke’s estate is a friend of mine.”

“You didn’t tell me about that.” Kat looked at her husband interestedly.

Meanwhile, Fin had just dropped a dollop of butter into a frying pan, and like magic … the smell had the couple’s mouths watering in an instant.

“We’ve been a little busy,” Eric reminded her while they proceeded to make their way over to the kitchen table.

“That’s true. So who is this person?” Kat and Eric slid into two of the three kitchen chairs in front of the cooking table.

Had they always been there?

“Eli … Well, even I didn’t know everything about him—nor do I know everything now. Lad has a past he is rather adamant about staying the hell away from. I first met Eli the second … or third? The third time I think that I was taken hostage to be ransomed. I had boarded with some Zinferan merchants, and we were heading back to their homeland, when the boat was taken by slave traders. Most of the men I was traveling with were killed, and I was taken onto the trader ship where they were already moving about fifteen people they had captured … Eli was one of them. He was the youngest one there, and I was given to understand he had been moved around a lot. To be honest, the slavers didn’t seem all that inclined to sell Eli, and he never said why until more recently.” Eric let out a long, weary breath. “Eli’s a witch, and one of the Zinferan emperor’s adopted children. If the rumors I’ve heard from the Zinferan court are any indication, I think it was one of the concubines who had him sold.”

Fin had been looking at Eric with a mixture of alarm and shock as he shared the tale. “Gods. That poor boy.”

“How old is he?” Kat asked while reaching out and casually gripping Eric’s forearm.

A move that drew Fin’s attention, but he didn’t comment on.

“I was guessing around fifteen when we first met, so around sixteen or seventeen now.”

“If the traders weren’t interested in selling him, how did he fall into Duke Icarus’s hands?” Fin asked with a furrowed brow.

Eric’s mouth pursed thoughtfully. “When I left Eli … I’d put him on a boat headed back to Zinfera. I’d hoped that he’d maybe be able to return to his family and live his life freely again—I didn’t know anything about him being a prince until I found him here in Troivack—however, I watched the boat explode. I didn’t know they were carrying illegal moonshine, and I’m not sure what caused the fire, but I thought he died. Turns out the duke is the one responsible for the whole thing … He did it all to get his hands on Eli.”

Fin straightened. “What is it about this boy that makes him so important?”

“Something about his magic … but he’s like Tam. Doesn’t want to talk about what his abilities are. He says it’s because it’s always brought him trouble. I’ve promised him that in exchange for helping us, we will give him a brand-new life. When we spoke today, it sounded like he wanted to go to Daxaria as soon as possible.

Fin let out a long breath as he molded in his hands what appeared to be shredded potatoes, which he then set into the frying pan and sprinkled with seasoning.

Kat’s stomach rumbled loudly, making Eric shoot her a grin that she pretended to ignore.

“There is a lot of uncertainty around this Eli from the sounds of it. I’d be cautious about him,” Fin mused aloud.

At first it looked like Eric wanted to argue the point, but he stopped himself as he rested his forearms on the table to look more directly at the duke.

“I agree there is a lot to be skeptical about, but … I still feel like I know his character. He and I survived some nasty scrapes, and he’s saved my neck a time or two. Though there is one detail I haven’t had a chance to talk about with His Majesty.” Eric paused, and it was during this lull that Kat could see how tired her husband was. After all, he hadn’t slept in nearly a full day … “Eli says the duke had arranged for him to kill me, and then he was supposed to be given to the devil. Of course that was before Eli knew it was me that he was supposed to murder.”

Fin didn’t say anything but listened intently as he flipped the potato pancakes, and the pan sizzled seductively as the faint scent of onions that must’ve been mixed in with the fare wafted over the small group.

“So Eli can testify against the duke.” Kat sat up straighter, her eyes widening excitedly.

Eric winced and shook his head slowly. “The word of someone who’s been enslaved against that of a duke won’t go far in this court. It’d be better if Eli would let us announce he is technically royalty, but he refuses no matter what protection we promise. At the very least, he was able to let us know about the mercenaries and where a couple of the groups that were hired to add momentum to the rebellion were hidden. Because he received a higher education, he can point us in the right direction to gain more information about the duke.”

Kat’s shoulders slumped back down.

“His Majesty already sent a group to the enslaved people at the duke’s estate. These are the people I wasn’t able to properly free because we were being hunted the entire way back.” Eric rubbed his eyes before a yawn escaped his mouth.

“Do you want me to give you a piggyback ride upstairs after food?” Kat asked sincerely while reaching out to rub her husband’s back.

“Maybe. Or I might just fall asleep on this table,” he managed, his eyes watering from the intense stretch of the yawn.

“It sounds like you’ve been working a lot.” Fin’s voice was quiet, and his gaze soft on the prince, a great deal of emotion brewing in his chest.

Eric met Fin’s eyes, but the prince’s feelings could not be gleaned by the house witch in that instant.

Instead of commenting on the tension, Fin turned around and procured three plates already filled with the potato pancakes topped with sour cream and chives. Thick sausages that neither Kat nor Eric had seen him cook were packed on the side of each plate with a healthy spoonful of sauerkraut.

The couple stared at the meal dazedly.

While his food was openly marveled, Fin set two forks beside their plates.

“What about you, Kat? What’ve you been up to today since I last saw you?”

“You mean when I had to remove my teacher from your arms so he could sleep off his drink?”

Fin cleared his throat with a vague smile before he rounded the table to pick up the third chair and bring it around so that he could eat his own meal facing the couple.

“Today I— Oh Gods. I’ve missed this,” Kat burst out with her cheek stuffed with food. Her eyes fluttered closed as she savored the otherworldly tastiness of her father’s cooking. “Mm …”

She didn’t speak for a long while as she chewed her food. Fin smiled into his own plate as he took a couple bites.

Eric said nothing, but he was eating with great enthusiasm.

“Well … I registered most of the women who want to start learning self-defense, though it is a terrible idea for me to teach them. I have no gauge of what is normal for a person or not, but I guess I understand that His Majesty is thinking about what would make the women most comfortable …” Kat waved her fork and continued, “Honestly, the corridor was packed, so I’ll have to finish taking their names later today. Though I wish there was more I could do about Harriod Ball’s wife wanting to learn. She was there yesterday, and she seemed so earnest about it … then he had to come and be donkey dung about the whole thing.”

“Oh! How did the match between him and Joshua go?” Eric asked, sitting up straighter in his seat and having swallowed enough of his food to have been able to speak.

“I still can’t believe it completely … He won! Honestly, when Lord Ball had him on the ground, I thought he was done for, and I would’ve felt absolutely awful that I was the one who challenged him to the spar in the first place—

“Why did you challenge someone to a duel?” Fin interrupted seriously.

Kat hesitated answering, but Eric leaned a little closer to her in silent support. The two shared a brief look.

“Ah, well … he was bullying two of my peers, and then he was openly rude to me. So I had the grounds to slap him with my glove, which I’m itching to do again just for his wife. Joshua asked that he get to be the one to fight in my stead though.”

A funny look filled Fin’s face then, as his eyes drifted back to his plate and he gave a small laugh to his food.

“What?” Kat questioned while feeling tenuously relieved that he wasn’t lecturing her for putting herself in danger.

Her father leaned back in his seat and, after a breath, moved his warm blue eyes up to hers.

“I’m just … seeing a bit of myself in you right now.”

Kat flushed and twisted her mouth in the sudden awkwardness that came in the wake of such a comment.

“Kat’s incredible. Anything she’s taken on, she’s handled,” Eric added proudly.

His wife blushed scarlet, then hunched over her food. “That’s not true. Most of the nobility still think women are useless and witches are demons.”

“Some are starting to question it though. Remember, you aren’t finished here yet,” her husband reminded with a smile, his eyes crinkling.

Kat refused to look at Eric. Her face was already on fire, and she knew if she were any better rested, her aura would be flaring to life.

Fin watched the exchange between them and felt his heart ache in his chest …

He saw it.

The second they had come in and he had seen them acting freely with each other … He understood how easy and natural it was between them. He saw how madly they loved each other, but he also witnessed the way they leaned on each other, both literally and figuratively. Then to hear the work they were doing … and how encouraging they were …

The house witch felt himself start to accept it then. The fact that for both his daughter and old friend, it was indeed, the perfect match.