Chapter 23
Rylana had to jog to keep up with Jildarin after he changed into his human form so they could enter the city.
She’d expected him to fly straight to the diner, risking the ire of the peacekeepers and their pillars to shape-shift there, but he’d mentioned not wanting trouble with the authorities when he had so many important preparations to make before the king showed up.
Now carrying her bow, quiver, and the lance, as well as her pack and the horn, Rylana might have been willing to deal with the peacekeepers in exchange for not having to tote everything through the city on foot.
She’d also had to endure a golem tying tranquility ribbons on all her weapons.
A long moment had passed as the magical being considered the lance before wrapping its tip in multiple knots.
Only with great impatience had the pacing Jildarin waited for Rylana.
Of course, he had no weapons that needed to be tied.
Unless he was in his dragon form, at which point he became a weapon.
When they jogged up the street behind the diner, intending to go in via the storeroom, Jildarin let out an inhuman roar. He thrust a finger at the carriage doors. They’d been thrown open, and a goblin was peering curiously inside. When that goblin saw the enraged Jildarin coming, he sprinted away.
“I locked up before leaving with your sister.” Rylana groaned with certainty that the storeroom had been ransacked again. “We’re going to have to find someone to install magical security wards. Though you’d think people knowing a dragon owns the place would be enough of a deterrent.”
Jildarin only roared again, then ran inside. Rylana followed but she also patted her chest, reassuring herself that she still had the horn.
“Your area has been marauded.” Jildarin pointed to her bedroom furniture, her clothing and blankets and belongings strewn about again.
And was that a pair of her undergarments dangling from a rafter? What was possessing these dwarves to hurl her panties about?
Jildarin squinted around the rest of the storeroom, but it was so full of kegs of dwarven ale that it was hard to see at a glance if anything else had been disturbed. “I will check the kitchen. My pantry and cookbooks!”
He ran for the hallway.
“I see where his priorities lie,” Rylana murmured, though she wouldn’t have expected anything else.
She only glanced at her belongings, suspecting she and Jildarin had returned before any opportunistic thieves had dared venture in. And she knew the intruders hadn’t found what they’d been looking for.
“Was it the same two dwarves?” she wondered as she headed to the hallway. Had the peacekeepers let them out of jail? “Or that female from the market? Or someone new?”
Rylana groaned again at the thought. She couldn’t wait to give the horn to the king whether Ekton believed it was his family heirloom or not.
“What are you doing here, dwarf?” came Jildarin’s cranky rumble from the kitchen.
Rylana spotted Mya peering through the doorway. “I was going to say I’m relieved you’ve returned because I haven’t been able to start my preparations for a dessert since you haven’t given me your menu yet, but I see you’re… surly.”
“My lair has been invaded. Again.”
Rylana joined Mya in the hallway near the kitchen. “It was my underwear that was flung into the rafters, but he gets upset whenever someone trespasses in the storeroom.”
“In my lair,” came Jildarin’s aggrieved input from the pantry.
The kitchen appeared undisturbed, with every pot, pan, and plate put away, as it had been that morning.
The dwarven cookbook remained open on the counter.
Rylana was glad the entire diner wasn’t in shambles.
Whether the king meant to visit that evening or not, she didn’t know, but she did know Jildarin would want to open back up for business as soon as possible.
Having missed being able to serve breakfast and lunch probably upset him as much as the antics of the conniving female dragons.
“Do you know the meal he’s planning?” Mya asked her.
“I heard a rumor that the king’s carriage was spotted coming into town with their regular weekly shipment of ore and finished tools and weapons and such.
If Ekton is eager to get his horn back, he could come by as soon as tonight, and we’ll want to take the opportunity to feed him delicious fare. ”
“I believe the menu will center around some kind of rockballs,” Rylana said.
“I am making tentative plans to feed a basic and well-loved dwarven recipe of venison, ground pork, and bison rockballs in a garlic-tomato sauce with pasta accompanied by elven pesto cheese,” Jildarin said from the pantry.
“Then, to showcase my abilities and let the dwarves try more worldly fare, a seafood-based rockball dish featuring squid, eel, and luminescent fangfish from our fine lake. I’ll fry those until crisp in a white-wine-and-garlic sauce with my dragon spices blended in as well as a few more mundane but still sumptuous herbs.
And, of course, I will incorporate dwarven alcohol into the sauces to please the king’s palate. ”
“Got all that?” Rylana asked Mya.
“Yes. I’ll make desserts to pair with both dishes.”
“I am also considering a rockball appetizer with dipping sauces and will keep you apprised on that development. Rylana, I do not believe my pantry was disturbed by the home invaders, and I have noted the ingredients you purchased for me this morning.” Jildarin leaned into view and nodded his approval at her.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
“You must feel honored that he doesn’t forget your name and call you human,” Mya said as Jildarin walked across the kitchen to also check the walk-in icebox, though Rylana doubted the intruders had looked for the horn in there.
“We’ve grown close,” she said. “He hasn’t called me my enemy for months.”
“Very honored. Will you serve the king on your rooftop terrace? Or in the dining room?”
“Hm,” Jildarin said from the icebox. The soft utterance could have meant he’d been distracted by checking the chilled ingredients or that he was considering Mya’s question.
“Does the location matter for your desserts?” Rylana couldn’t imagine the taste changing based on whether they were served indoors or outdoors.
“I was thinking about what happened the last time royalty was served on your terrace.” Mya pantomimed firing a bow. “If the king is going to dine up there, I might bake some traditional dwarven stonebread in a round shield-like shape. In case it needs to be hefted to deter arrows.”
“I’d laugh, but I have a feeling that’s not a joke, that something called stonebread does exist.”
“It does. There are a lot of recipes.”
“All with heft?”
“Naturally. Attacks at the supper table, both from allies invited to dine and enemies storming the stronghold, have happened often enough throughout dwarven history that there are numerous accounts of the bread being used both in defense and offense.” Mya made a motion like throwing a disc.
“I don’t know if the king will want to dine up there surrounded by elven plants—maybe we should have a subterranean cellar made for our rock-loving dwarven guests—but I’m sure elven archers won’t have a reason to attack him, regardless.”
“I wouldn’t expect the elves to target him,” Mya said, “but dwarves are after the horn, right? Maybe more than the two that the peacekeepers arrested?”
“That may be true, yes. I’ll plan to have my bow nearby in case there’s an assault, but I hope there won’t be.
Jildarin wants royals and other V.I.P.s to dine here so he can put their names on his plaque so it will attract more patrons.
If the diner gets a reputation for being attacked when high-profile customers come, that could be a deterrent to business. ”
“The food is very good. Probably worth being shot at now and then.”
“A line we’d prefer not make its way into a restaurant critic’s column.”
Mya waved, said she would start the breads and desserts, and headed out.
Jildarin walked out of the icebox wearing a thoughtful—or was that pensive?—expression.
“Everything okay?” Rylana asked. “Nothing missing?”
“No, I do not believe the thieves entered the kitchen or disturbed anything except your area.”
“Especially my underwear. I may need you to turn into a dragon later to help me retrieve the pair in the rafters.” She smirked as she imagined him reaching up there with his long neck and plucking them down with his fanged maw.
Gently down, she hoped, so those fangs wouldn’t leave holes.
She’d heard from Zalani that eyelet-lace underwear was currently trendy with the women of Tranquility, but Rylana doubted panties perforated by dragon fangs qualified.
“Should you need my services, I will be pleased to assist you.” Still looking thoughtful and distracted, Jildarin gazed upward.
“I find the verdant rooftop terrace with its trees and shrubs and vines peaceful, and the elves and humans seem to as well. Even the gnomes, goblins, orcs, and trolls frequently request to dine up there. But you’ve raised a valid point.
Dwarves are more comfortable surrounded by stone walls, and ogres also enjoy being in mountain caves. ”
“We can host the king in the diner. The walls are made from brick. And Mya was probably right to bring up that the terrace, since it’s out in the open, would be more vulnerable to attack. There shouldn’t be attacks in Tranquility, but…” Rylana held her palm out.
“It has happened before.”
“And we’ve been ransacked just this morning.
Those who seek the horn may be moved to do something foolish if they’re afraid they’re about to lose their opportunity to get it.
I’m sure it’ll be harder for them to steal once the king, surrounded by all his guards, has it.
What do you think about hiring a gnomish wizard to install a security system for the diner?
There are several in town who specialize in employing their magic to such ends. ”