Chapter 3
Entering the kitchen, Audra sighed with contentment as heat from the cookfire brushed welcome warmth across her cheeks, eased some of the tension in her shoulders. She donned her cooking apron, knotting the strings behind her with a practiced hand.
A great cauldron sat at the center of the room over a fire pit ringed with stones.
Its contents bubbled, and clouds of steam carried the mouthwatering scent of ginger and chili peppers.
Taking up her favorite wooden spoon, another piece carved by her father, she dipped it in and stirred the stew.
In just another hour, the spiced beef would fall off the bone, and the potatoes would be bursting with flavor.
Fernwell Inn wasn’t all terrible patrons, laundry, and aching muscles from constant cleaning. Sometimes it was quiet moments in the kitchen, like this one.
Her stomach gave a low growl in response to the aroma, so she carved three thick slices of one of the loaves of bread she’d pulled from the large brick oven an hour before.
She slathered them with butter, drizzled them with a bit of honey, wrapped each in a cloth, removed her apron, and headed out of the kitchen.
There were few patrons in the tap hall today, which was just how she liked it.
A shifty-eyed merchant sat by the largest of the windows, the table before him hidden beneath stacks of paper, his back to the expanse of bay that glittered proudly in the early afternoon sunlight.
The merchant appeared stretched, his limbs too long, and he was, unfortunately, determined to cling to the last six tufts of hair sprouting from the crown of his head with every fiber of his being.
He was, Audra thought with mild surprise, also becoming something of a regular.
This would make his … she thought back over the last year, sifting through days and weeks and months muddled by a haze of grief …
third stay here. She would try harder to remember his name.
She took some small pride in remembering the regulars.
But this particular merchant … it was a wonder she recognized him at all. He just had one of those faces where one’s eyes couldn’t help but just slide right over it, and once out of sight, you would forget you ever saw him.
Which, incidentally, made him the perfect fit for his particular category: occasional crooked merchant who peddled questionable wares.
The only merchants traveling by land this far from the protection offered on the King’s Road were either:
· Wanted criminals.
· Illegitimate (in the “if you are foolish enough to purchase and consume their elixirs, they wouldn’t cause the butcher’s daughter to fall in love with you nor fix your raging wart problem as promised … but might actually kill you” kind of way).
· Taboo or otherwise undesirable (in ways Audra refused to investigate).
· A combination of all three.
This one didn’t seem bad, insofar as he followed their rules and hadn’t tried to peddle his wares to any of the other guests. At least not where she could see, anyway.
A child’s giggle tore her gaze from the sea behind the merchant.
Two unattended young girls with wild hair, wearing worn and no doubt scratchy potato-sack dresses, were playing a game with chipped glass marbles at the table closest to the roaring fire in the hearth.
Audra smiled and winked at the girls. They were thin.
Too thin. Big eyes gazed at her from birdlike faces.
“Are your bellies still full?” She’d slipped the sisters warm, honeyed milk, a slice of salted venison, and an apple earlier. Even though these tidbits between breakfast and dinner weren’t included in the price of a stay.
They nodded in sync, shyly, their brown cheeks turning rosy from even this little bit of positive attention from a grown-up. “Still full.” They patted their bellies to prove the point.
“Good, but let me know if you get hungry before dinner, alright?”
She would bet a whisp that their mother was inebriated upstairs, and their father was visiting one of the many brothels down at the wharf.
Unfortunately, the family fit into the third and final category of patron …
Wayward travelers who had made a wrong turn (or seven) somewhere along life’s journey and had the misfortune of finding themselves in Salt Hollow.
The inn’s regrettable location meant that it was the antithesis of what most would consider a particularly safe destination. So, they didn’t often have families with children stay.
Audra widened her grin. “If you two ensure every marble is returned to the pouch when you’re done playing, I think I can muster up an extra dollop of pumpkin butter with our dinner rolls tonight; what do you say?”
“We can do that!” the little one, who looked no more than four, said, as large curls bounced around her face. Audra made a mental note to locate the bag of peppermints she’d stashed somewhere in the cellar last Frost Festival.
She winked at the girls once more before deciding to address the problem of her father.
Audra frowned when she spied Kamari Evers dozing behind the bar. Just half a year ago, Father’s stomach had been large, his cheeks full, and his laugh loud. He would’ve never been caught sleeping where the patrons could see him.
In the last five months, his stomach had shrunk, his cheeks whittled hollow, and Audra might’ve forgotten what his laugh sounded like. Maybe she should encourage him to visit Eilissa. A game of cards with old friends would do him well.
As for his shrunken stomach, she would be adding an extra dollop of pumpkin butter with his rolls tonight as well.
Audra placed one of the wrapped pieces of bread on the counter in front of her father, whose snores loudly accompanied the crackle of the fire. From a locked cupboard behind the bar, she retrieved her heaviest coat, donning it before slipping out the front door into the brisk winter breeze.
The inn itself, while well-loved and cared for to the best of their ability, was in need of more than its fair share of repairs. The foundation was sagging on one side, and one room was currently closed due to a substantial hole in the roof.
Salt Hollow, a town that, at the time they built the inn, had been on the rise, promised to flourish into a port city to rival the capital.
A king’s road would be built. A shipyard.
Her parents had used both of their meager inheritances, bled everything into purchasing the land, building the inn—this dream.
And yet, the shipyard lost its funding. The king’s road never came.
The town dwindled along with their hopes of an illustrious, renowned inn.
Guests were sparse, and due to their particular clientele, prices had to be low, and thus, they could only afford the most basic upkeep.
Despite this, her painfully stubborn, ever loyal, and constant-to-a-fault parents remained steadfast in their devotion to their dream. And Audra, first and only daughter, was expected to uphold this dream, devote her life to it as well.
Still, despite the inn’s structural issues, the courtyard was still exquisite.
Aisha, Audra’s mother, had spent years creating a mosaic that spread across the courtyard using sea glass the two of them had collected from the shore far below.
It had taken Audra’s entire childhood to find enough to complete the map.
Now, the sunlight caught on the smooth glass, the familiar light greeting Audra.
I want every one of our guests to feel a bit of home while they’re here, Aisha had said as she’d arranged a collection of tiles into a lifelike rendition of the gentle longhorn cattle from the Gobehel plains.
Each province of Khaveah, the human realm, was represented, from Davell, the vast ice desert far to the south, to Lakry’Toll, the floating sea-ice kingdom north of Ruscal.
Tears pricked Audra’s eyes as she skirted around the mosaic. Since her mother’s death, she’d hated walking on her art. It had been six months; how long until the sight of the mosaic would no longer bring back these memories, making the grief lodged inside her chest swell like a rogue wave?
“Emyre!” Audra called out into the dim stables, enjoying the unimpressed looks the horses gave her for disturbing their peace.
The one closest to her, a large black stallion, stamped his hooves and huffed at her.
“Sorry, friend, I don’t have a treat for you.
” She stroked his nose. Who did this magnificent beast belong to?
The stables usually harbored donkeys, goats, old nags, and the occasional cart filled with stolen goods.
“Emyre!” she called for him again. Her adopted brother was probably asleep in the loft.
Father had “hired” the young runaway as their stable hand two years past. He had taken one look at the boy’s cuts, the patterns of his bruises, and given him the position on the spot.
Emyre had his own room in their family’s quarters, but he was happiest in the stables.
Which was fine with Audra, except when it meant he forgot to come inside to eat.
Just as she drew breath to call out for him a third time, Emyre popped his head over the edge of the hayloft. He was small for his age, with a crown of unruly curls and, recently, the slightest shadow of a mustache on his upper lip. He grinned when he saw her and slid down the ladder with ease.
His grin turned sheepish when he spied the wrapped bundle in her hand. “Audy, I was goin’ to come in for breakfast, honest,” he insisted, even as he wiped the sleep from his warm brown eyes.
“Mmm. Breakfast was served hours ago.”
He accepted the bread from her eagerly and tore into it with the sort of ferocity that only a growing boy and a feral cat could muster.
Audra narrowed her eyes and placed her hands on
her hips in mock sternness. “You’d better come in for supper. Don’t leave me to eat with just the guests again, please?”
His reply was muffled by the giant bite of bread, but his nod was answer enough.