Chapter 13
Aoife
The scent of yeast and flour filled the castle kitchen where I stood, kneading the sticky dough on the wooden counter that sat in the middle of the space.
Sunlight warmed my skin, shining in through the big windows with their blue and silver stained glass panes.
Thankfully, the hearth was empty, no flames flickering from it. I was already sweating from the heat of the oven and not sure I could handle any more.
“You know, that is my job,” Elowyn said from behind me. The castle chef stared at me, her arms crossed, her thick brown hair peeking out of the tall chef hat she wore. “I don’t think King Lor will like you being down here, Your Majesty.”
That was exactly the point. I thought of the last time he’d found me in the kitchen, years ago, when we were first married. It had irked him to no end to see me in here, and I knew he thought this was beneath me. So today, he was going to have to join me.
I shot a look at the door like at any minute Lor might appear. I’d asked Meera to give the invitation to his advisor, but I didn’t know if he would actually come. My entire plan of getting him to realize how inadequate a king he was hinged on him accepting my invitations.
Elowyn came to a stand beside me. “How do you know how to make bread?”
I gave her a look, and her round green eyes widened. “Right.” She squeezed her eyes shut, cheeks flushing. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I actually wasn’t a kitchen slave,” I said. “But I did learn to bake bread from one of the Fair Folk who was.”
She’d been like a mentor. Almost like a mother figure. She was long dead now, far older than me.
I continued to knead the dough, flipping it over and digging into it with my knuckles.
“I used to sneak into the kitchen and watch Olaya make all sorts of dishes. Stews, stuffed meats, pies. I wanted to do something for the Fair Folk to raise their spirits, so when everyone was sleeping, I’d sneak into the kitchen, make bread, and deliver it to all the slaves in the castle. ”
Elowyn swallowed, eyes filling with tears. “That’s really beautiful. It’s what I love about food, you know. How it brings people together, how it brings joy.”
I nodded, thinking about how everyone would wake up to a little loaf of bread at their feet, a little like magic. Castle actually helped me deliver it. I’d finish a loaf and it would disappear and reappear where it was meant to.
I hadn’t made this recipe in a long, long time, and I stared at the dough, memories of my time in the kitchen flooding me, when I’d be surrounded by other Fair Folk as they chattered and cooked.
We’d share stories, laugh, comfort each other.
Now it was just me in here. I wasn’t even sure how to approach the other Fair Folk about something like this.
Not sure they’d understand. This world still felt new to me, but not to them.
“Is this really what you want to be doing?” Elowyn leaned against the table next to me. “Do you enjoy cooking?”
I sighed, my fingers pausing.
“It became a tradition, one that I love. Maybe baking or cooking isn’t my favorite thing in the world, but I do love being able to raise the spirits of my people.”
Elowyn gestured to the dough. “You know Liam and I can do this. If you want to reinstate a tradition from your people, we can help.” She gave a soft laugh. “I’m sure you have more important things to be doing than toiling away down here.”
I sighed. Not her too. She was starting to sound like Lor.
“You know we haven’t really gotten a chance to know each other,” Elowyn said softly. “I don’t see you at any of the gatherings or community events or even just out and about in town.”
“You mean all the events for mortals?” I asked, sending her a pointed look.
She frowned. “But there’s plenty of Fair Folk at the events too. In fact, the Fair Folk seem to love our traditions.”
“That’s because they’ve forgotten their own,” I snapped. It was like the Fair Folk had completely assimilated and lost everything that made us who we were in the process. All our traditions, our ways of life, had been lost, and I felt a little lost too.
“Ah,” Elowyn said, understanding lighting her eyes. “Well, if anyone can bring those traditions back, then it’s Aoife the Warrior Queen. Your people love you, you know. They respect you. Revere you.”
It didn’t feel like it. It felt like all they’d done was leave me behind, and I was still trying to figure out my place, how I could be their queen in this world that I didn’t understand.
Elowyn gestured to the big stone oven, taller than me, its bottom a huge base of stone with an iron door for the coals, the oven above where bread could be placed. “Castle already has the oven heating up for you. It only does that for those it likes.” She winked.
“You started without me,” a deep voice said, and I looked over to see Lor leaning against the doorway. I didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, what he’d heard.
He nodded at Elowyn, who dipped her head. “Your Majesty.” Then she scurried past him and out of the kitchen.
As usual, his face was a mask, unreadable as he approached me, wearing his typical black leather trousers and white linen shirt tucked in, the top buttons undone to show his muscled chest and thick curls of hair.
“You’re late,” I said as he came to a stand by me.
“That’s because I had to cancel my inspection of road repairs to accept your invitation. You couldn’t check the calendar before scheduling this?”
His voice had an edge to it, an air of impatience that I’d fully expected.
“No,” I said. “This couldn’t wait.”
I gestured to the mound of dough sitting in front of him. “Start kneading.”
His jaw locked. “I don’t know how.”
“Then watch and learn.”
His dark eyes traveled down to my hands, and he stepped forward, actually doing what I’d told him to. “You do know we have cooks, chefs, who we pay to do this.” His strong hands pushed and pulled the dough, exactly in time with mine as he watched studiously.
“That’s right.” I tapped my chin. “I forgot how beneath you this is.”
“That’s not what I meant then, and it’s not what I mean now. I . . . I misspoke all those years ago, and I’m sorry for what I said. But that wasn’t my point.”
“Then what was your point?”
“We have schedules, roles for a reason. It’s what keeps order.
It’s how we ensure things get done. Those road repairs are important.
The harsh mountain weather has created holes, bumps, fissures.
Just the other day, a child broke her ankle running through our streets.
It’s unacceptable, and it’s our job to fix it, to make sure it’s being done correctly. Not to mention—”
“Being a ruler isn’t all rules and schedules and meetings,” I said, my tone sharper than I meant.
It was always sharp when I spoke with Lor, and I had a fine line to walk.
Yes, I liked irritating the king, but I did genuinely want to show him that I was a capable queen, that if I could bring back the traditions of my people, show them their identity, use those traditions to bring everyone together, that I was the superior person for this job.
“Do you ever just interact with your people? Get to know them? To understand their history?”
“No,” he said with a heavy sigh. “That’s not who I am. I like rules. I like schedules. I like efficiency. This feels like a waste of time.”
He didn’t say it with any malice, just like it was some unobstructed truth.
“Which is exactly why you need to do it.” I lifted the dough and stretched it as far as I could, peering at Lor through it.
He watched me so intently, so seriously, and I shifted, not knowing what to do when he wasn’t scowling at me.
I pushed the dough back into a ball. “It’s ready.”
A wooden board floated over to me, and I plopped the dough onto it, then shoved the board into the stone oven.
His hands pushed harder against the dough. Sunlight shone through the window, washing over his pale skin. “I don’t think this is beneath us,” he said after a short silence. “I just believe we all have a place in society.”
Except for me. I was queen of a world I didn’t understand.
Playing by rules that made no sense. Trying to rule over a society that I no longer recognized.
“So that’s it?” I asked, anger flaring at that answer, which sounded so similar to something Fairwitch would’ve said to justify their use of slaves.
Like everyone was stuck in their position and couldn’t ever rise above it.
“We’re just what society tells us we are.
” I was what Lor told me I was. “We can’t change anything. ”
“No.” He stopped kneading and turned to face me.
“That’s not what I meant. I don’t mean that no one can rise above their station or change their life, and I certainly don’t mean to say I wouldn’t want them to.
I just mean that we as leaders, as rulers, have our place.
Not above our people, or any better than them, but as examples for them.
If we don’t do our jobs, how can we expect anyone else to?
Which is why I don’t understand the purpose of this. ”
I put my hands over his on instinct, and he stiffened.
We rarely touched, and I snatched my hands away as an unexpected bolt shot through me like I’d been struck by a spark of .
. . something. Lor just stared at me, his hands flexing and clenching.
“You’re going to overwork that dough,” I said.
“It’s time to put it in the oven, and then I’ll show you exactly what we’re doing. ”
I’d show him, show everyone, who the Fair Folk were, and maybe, I’d reclaim part of myself, my people, in the process.