31. Chapter 31
AMARIA
Three knocks on the wall woke me.
I groaned into my pillow. Sunlight was streaming through the leaf-windows at an angle that meant I'd slept far later than I should have.
The knocking came again—Eryndor's signal.
We'd developed the habit over the past few days, a way to warn each other before one of us left the room.
Nothing worse than being yanked awake by the tether because someone decided to take a walk without warning.
I knocked back twice. I'm up. Give me a minute.
By the time I'd pulled on my heartgrass tunic and scraped my hair into some type of order, the sun was nearly overhead. We'd slept through breakfast entirely. My stomach reminded me of this fact loudly and persistently as I made my way toward the communal kitchens.
Serenya fell into step beside me halfway there. She looked better than last night—still pallid, still tired, but her eyes were clear. The Codex was tucked under her arm.
"You can read it?" I asked.
"Every word." She managed a small smile. "Woke up and tested myself on every page. It's all still there."
"Good." I squeezed her arm. "That's good."
We followed the smell of cooking fires and found the outdoor prep area—a wide clearing where Liraethians and refugees worked side by side, chopping and stirring and tending great iron pots that hung over open flames.
And in the middle of it all: Maxx. Leaning against a wooden post. Watching something with an expression of pure, unadulterated delight.
I followed his gaze.
Eryndor already stood at a long wooden table, a small paring knife gripped in his hand like it was a longsword. Before him lay a pile of root vegetables—carrots, turnips, some knobby tubers I didn't recognize. He was staring at them with the same intensity he used to assess battlefield threats.
Thwack.
A carrot lost its head.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
The slices fell in a perfect line. Identical. Uniform. Each one exactly the same width as the last.
He wasn't cooking. He was executing the vegetables.
"Is he always like this?" Serenya whispered.
"Oh, this is nothing." Maxx didn't take his eyes off the spectacle. "He's only been here five minutes and he's already reorganized the cutting station twice."
Thwack. Thwack.
Eryndor moved to the next carrot. His brow was furrowed in concentration. A lesser vegetable might have wept.
"I think it's dead, Soldier Boy," Maxx called. "It surrendered three slices ago."
The Crownforged didn't look up. "Uneven cuts lead to uneven cooking rates. Chaos in the pot leads to mediocrity on the plate."
Maxx turned to me, grinning. "He's court-martialing the stew. I’m pretty sure the carrots are facing charges."
"Someone has to maintain standards," Eryndor said flatly. Thwack.
"I tried to toss in a potato earlier," Maxx continued, his voice conspiratorial. "He caught it mid-air. Mid-air, Amaria. Because I didn't 'announce my trajectory.'"
"Unannounced projectiles in a workspace are a safety hazard."
"It was a potato."
"An unannounced potato."
I pressed my lips together, fighting the smile. Serenya had given up entirely and was shaking with laughter.
A shadow fell over the table.
Dreadscale loomed behind Eryndor, studying the precise pile of vegetable cubes with a carefully blank expression. He reached past Eryndor and picked up a whole, raw potato. Dirt still clung to its skin.
He looked at the potato.
He looked at Eryndor's perfect cubes.
He looked at the potato again.
Then he bit into it like an apple. One massive crunch, half the potato gone, dirt and all.
Eryndor's knife stopped mid-slice.
The muscle in his jaw feathered.
He turned, very slowly, to stare at Dreadscale with an expression of profound personal offense. As if Dreadscale had just insulted his mother, his kingdom, and the very concept of civilization itself.
Dreadscale chewed. Swallowed. Took another bite.
"Efficient," he said.
Eryndor's eye twitched.
I lost it.
The laugh burst out of me before I could stop it and my eyes started to water. The terrifying Crownforged, the soldier who'd faced down monsters and kings, standing there looking personally victimized because a Dragonborn ate a potato wrong.
Eryndor's gaze snapped to me. For a split second, he looked annoyed—that familiar flash of rigid dignity asserting itself.
Then his shoulders dropped. He gave a tiny, resigned shrug, surrendering the battle of the potato.
"The stew will be mediocre," he said. "I want that on record."
"Noted," Serenya said, pen moving. "Mediocre stew. The Crownforged's formal objection."
"I didn't say formal—"
"Too late. It's in the Codex now. Preserved for all realms to read."
Maxx slung an arm around Eryndor's rigid shoulders. "Look at it this way, Soldier Boy. When historians study the fall of civilization, at least they'll know you tried to save lunch."
Eryndor closed his eyes. Drew a long breath through his nose.
"I am surrounded by chaos agents," he muttered.
"Yes," I said, still grinning. "You really are."
The tether hummed between us, warm and content.
For one moment, we were just a group of idiots arguing about vegetables in the sun. No prophecies. No Void or world-ending bonds. Just lunch.
It was almost enough to forget what was coming.