Chapter 6 Cadeon
Cadeon
She has begun leaving tea outside my door. The house is warded against UV rays so I’ve moved from the basement upstairs to the functional room I would use when the basement would get too cold over the winters.
I discover it the first time by accident, nearly stepping on the cup in the pre-dawn darkness as I returned from patrol. It sits on a small tray, steam still rising faintly, alongside a note in her cramped handwriting: “In case you need it.”
I stand there for longer than I should, staring at this small, incomprehensible kindness.
Masters do not leave tea for their familiars. They summon. They command. They do not offer comfort in the dark hours when nightmares cling like cobwebs.
I should leave it. The gesture is unnecessary. Vampires do not require sustenance in this way. But I can’t.
I pick up the cup. Drink it slowly. The herbs are calming, but I can’t name them like she can. Her magic hums through it, gentle and persistent. *Peace. Rest.*
The note, I keep.
By the fifth morning, I find myself appearing in the kitchen doorway before she calls. Not because I must. Because I... choose to.
The thought is still strange. Foreign.
"Good morning," she says without looking up from whatever she is preparing. Her hair is in a braid, her work apron already dusted with flour. The kitchen smells of bread and cinnamon.
"Good morning." The words feel rusty in my mouth. How long since I have exchanged pleasantries? Decades? Centuries? How long since I chose to seek out a master in the light of day.
"I'm making porridge," she continues, measuring oats with the same chaotic precision she brings to everything. "Do you want some?"
"I don't need..."
"But you can taste it. So why shouldn't you?"
I have no answer that will not sound like the automatic denial it is. So I sit at the table and watch her work.
She moves through the kitchen like she is dancing with invisible partners: reaching for spices, stirring, tasting, adjusting. Nothing about her movements is efficient. Everything about them is... alive. Present. Like she is having a conversation with the food itself.
Her magic seeps into everything she touches. I can feel it even from here: warmth and comfort and care poured into something as simple as morning porridge.
When she sets the bowl before me, I taste it carefully. Honey and cinnamon and that peculiar warmth that is distinctly hers. It settles in my chest in a way I cannot name.
"Good?" she asks, watching me with those bright eyes.
"Yes." The word comes easier than it should. "Thank you."
Her smile could light the room better than any fire.
The days acquire a shape I did not know I needed.
Morning: her cooking, me watching. The comfortable silence of two people learning to exist in the same space.
Afternoon: research, ward maintenance from inside, the necessary work of keeping this estate functional that has been my task for two centuries.
Evening: dinner. Always dinner, elaborate and unnecessary and entirely for my benefit, though she pretends otherwise. Though I don’t require it.
Night: patrol. When the sun sets, I check the boundaries, walk the perimeter, ensure everything is secure. Old habits, perhaps. But also... necessary stillness after a day of her bright, chaotic presence.
"You don't have to do this," I tell her, watching her prepare something that smells of wine and spices.
"I know." She doesn't look up from her work. "I want to."
Want. Such a small word. Such an impossible concept.
"Why?"
She pauses then, ladle in hand, and looks at me with that directness that still catches me off-guard. "Because you deserve to remember what it's like to enjoy something. To feel human, or well, like I person I guess."
There’s a pink flush to her cheeks from the stove, her blood in her cheeks making my mouth water. She takes like old magic and sensual secrets between lovers. Not that I’m going to inform her of that fact.
I do not know what to say to her response. So I say nothing.
But I taste everything she makes. And I remember.
It is the cake that breaks something in me.
She has been preparing it all afternoon, a mulled wine cake, she calls it, dense with spices and soaked in sweetness. The scent fills the entire cottage. Cinnamon and cloves and something darker, richer. It smells like...
Like winter festivals. Like the great hall of my father's keep, when I was still human enough to attend such things. Like everything I have forgotten about being alive.
"Try this," she says, cutting a slice and offering it to me. She is practically vibrating with anticipation, like a child presenting a gift.
I take the plate. The fork. These small civilized gestures that Elspeth never bothered with.
The first bite dissolves on my tongue, and I...
I am drowning.
It is not the taste itself. I have been tasting her food for days now, identifying flavors with clinical precision, acknowledging quality the way I once assessed battle formations. Functional. Detached.
But this.
This.
Memories flood back with visceral force. Not the battles. Not the blood. But *before*. The winter I turned sixteen and won my first tournament. My sister laughing as snow fell on her dark hair. The way strawberries tasted in spring, sweet and bright and alive.
I had forgotten. God help me, I had forgotten there were things other than duty and death and the endless gray weight of service.
This is not tasting. This is remembering. This is feeling.
I set down the fork very carefully, because my hands are shaking.
"Cadeon?" Her voice is soft, concerned. "Are you okay?"
"When did you last taste something?" she asks gently. "Really taste it, not just... identify it?"
"I..." The word sticks. "I don't remember."
The admission catches in my throat. I have been tasting her food for days. Porridge. Bread. Soup. I can tell you the exact proportions of salt and herbs in each dish. I can identify every spice with the precision of someone who once memorized battle maps.
But I had not felt any of it. Had not let it mean anything beyond sustenance and courtesy.
Until now.
"Oh," she breathes, and when I look up, her eyes are bright with tears she will not shed. "Then I'll just have to fix that, won't I?"
It is not a question. It is a mission statement.
And thus begins her campaign to remind me what it means to be something other than a weapon.
She cooks things I have not tasted in centuries. Roasted meat with herbs I remember from my mother's table. Bread that tastes like harvest festivals. Soup that warms me from the inside despite the cold dead thing I have become.
And I... help.
It starts by accident. She is chopping vegetables, her technique enthusiastic but inefficient, and I cannot watch anymore without offering correction.
"May I?" I gesture to the knife.
She blinks at me, surprised. Then smiles and hands it over. "Please. Show me how it's done."
I take the knife. Feel its weight and balance. My hands remember this, even if I do not: the precise movements, the rhythm of blade against board. I have wielded swords for centuries. This is just a different kind of cutting.
"Like this," I demonstrate, the vegetables falling into uniform pieces.
"Show-off," she teases, but she is watching my hands with fascination.
I do it again, slower, so she can see the technique. She tries to copy it, her movements still inelegant but improving.
"Better," I tell her.
"High praise from a knight," she says drily.
I do not tell her that I have never taught anyone anything. That Elspeth never asked me to do anything that was not violence.
But I think she knows anyway.
After that, I find excuses to be in the kitchen when she cooks. She does not order me to help. Does not command. Just... makes space for me. Hands me things to chop or stir. Asks my opinion on spices.
Treats me like I am her partner in this small domestic dance.
The silence between us shifts. Becomes comfortable. Companionable. Sometimes she hums while she works. Sometimes she talks about her day, about something she read, about nothing at all.
I mostly listen. But sometimes... sometimes I respond. A comment here. An observation there. The rusty machinery of conversation slowly remembering how to turn.
"You're funny," she tells me one evening, grinning.
"I am not."
"You are. You're just very dry about it."
I do not know what to do with this assessment. So I focus on chopping the carrots with perhaps more precision than necessary.
Her laugh is warm as summer.
The Midwinter announcement comes via messenger three days later.
Iris stares at the letter like it has personally insulted her. "No. Absolutely not."
"Is there a problem?" I ask, though I can feel her panic through the bond: sharp and bright and growing.
"The cottage mage is supposed to host the Midwinter Feast." She looks up at me, eyes wide. "Dozens of people. A whole formal dinner. I've never hosted anything in my life. I can barely manage a dinner party, let alone a feast."
"That seems unlikely given the elaborate meals you prepare daily."
"That's different! That's just us! This is..." She waves the letter helplessly. "Everyone. The whole village. They'll expect something worthy of my grandmother, and I'll just... I'll disappoint them."
I consider this. The fear in her voice is real. But so is her competence. I have watched her command a kitchen with the same focus and precision I once brought to battlefields.
"I've planned military campaigns," I say carefully. "A dinner is less complicated."
She stares at me. "Are you... offering to help?"
The question catches me off-guard. Am I?
Elspeth would have commanded. Would have dictated every detail and expected flawless execution. Would never have asked.
"Yes," I hear myself say. "If you wish it."
"I wish it." She says it immediately, relief flooding her features. "I really, really wish it."
Something warm unfurls in my chest. Not the bond. Something else. Something that feels dangerously like purpose.