Page 7

THE FIRE HAD remained unscathed during the fighting. Char’s potatoes needed a few hours to bake, and since the wood or ashes from the fire weren’t scattered, he felt safe assuming the potatoes were safe. He did reach into the embers to check one, squeezing gently, which told him the potato was only starting to soften and hadn’t been stepped on.

Assured lunch was okay, Char refocused on the rest of his supplies, which hadn’t fared as well.

The packs containing the food looked like they had been kicked multiple times. The tops had been forced open and the smaller bags inside tossed about and trampled. One of the bags of dried peas had been opened and scattered everywhere. A bag of dried meat had a muddy footprint on it and looked squashed, but the insides could still be salvaged. The bags of dishes had fared worse, many of the plates broken, the enameled wood not able to hold up to the trampling of booted feet. Silverware was as scattered as the peas, but at least it wasn’t broken. Char gathered the food first, checking every bag and making two piles. One for everything that could still be used, and the second for what needed to be thrown away. Once the food was checked, Char moved over to the dishes. Everything not broken that had spilled out he put in a pile to be washed, everything broken he put in a pile to throw out, and he checked through everything still in the bags to make sure he didn’t miss anything.

A glance around the camp showed he was alone. The rest of the group were probably still dealing with the aftermath of the fighting. Char had no idea what that entailed, but his assigned kitchen crew was not around. He had gotten used to not having to wash dishes, but he kept his grumbling internal as he gathered the dirty dishes and dumped them into a pot to carry them, found some soap, and headed down to the lake.

But as he started down the hill, he realized he wasn’t alone. Three people were near the water’s edge, and Char swallowed hard when he realized two were kneeling over the one lying prone in a pool of blood. The two kneeling were healers, their hands glowing green over the body. As he drew closer, Char recognized Clarise. One healer had his hands pressed to her abdomen, the other had one hand on her upper thigh and the other on Clarise’s arm.

“Can I—?” Char coughed to clear his throat, his gaze caught on Clarise’s pale, clammy skin, so different to the rosy shade of her usual light-brown complexion. “What can I do to help?”

The healer working on her abdomen opened his eyes and glanced over. “Tea, if you have it.” He sounded exhausted, his voice thin and reedy, but the green magic coating his hands was strong and even.

“On it,” Char replied. He dumped the dishes on the ground—well out of the way of the blood—and took the pot to the lake. Char walked out into the water, away from the churned-up silt on the bank. He gave the pot a quick rinse and then dunked it deep into the water where anything on the surface wouldn’t get inside. He also checked he didn’t accidentally catch a fish as he pulled the pot out. Then he hurried back to the fire. The pot went into the hottest spot on the grill, and Char tossed on a couple more logs to make the fire burn hotter. Since a watched pot never boiled, Char left it to do its thing and returned to his pile of dishes. He found two cups and the diffuser, located where the soap had gotten buried, and returned to the lake to wash them. By the time he returned to the fire, the pot was starting to steam.

The teapot was one of the items that had remained safely packed. Char unearthed it, slipped the diffuser into the slot, and then went digging for the bags of dried tea leaves. At the very bottom of the pack he found the ginseng, which was the best tea for restoring energy. He assumed Fen’s group had packed it for exactly that purpose, although in the evenings Char had been serving his own blend of rose and chamomile instead. Char measured the leaves into the diffuser, by which point the water had reached a full boil. He pulled the pot off the heat and left it to cool, keeping an eye on the bubbles and the steam until he was certain he wouldn’t burn the leaves. Without a thermometer he couldn’t be exact and ensure the tea would retain the health benefits that were best preserved at a precise temperature, but he knew he could get a fairly close estimation. When the water was ready, he filled the teapot, made sure the diffuser was fully immersed, and brought it and the cups over to the healers.

When Char smelled the earthy, slightly bitter notes, and the tea had reached the right shade of tan, he removed the diffuser and poured.

“Here,” he told them. The healers each freed a hand to take a steaming cup, both downing the contents immediately despite the heat. Char offered a refill, glad when the healers sipped this time.

“Thanks, that helps,” the healer who had requested the tea said. He sounded better, and he smiled slightly.

“How is she?” Char asked. He topped off their cups.

“We got to her in time,” the second healer said between sips. “Right now it’s mostly meticulous work, tiny internal stitches that take a lot of power and finesse, and attempting to replenish her lost blood. Another twenty minutes and she’ll be safe to be moved, which is largely thanks to our boost from the tea. It’s delicious.”

“I’ll have to find out who made the blend and let them know,” Char replied. “It’s ginseng and honey crystals.”

“Ginseng for the energy boost and honey for some sugar, which also helps refuel the body.”

“The honey eases the bitter taste of the ginseng too,” Char added, shrugging. He knew about the various health benefits of foods and how to best craft a meal for anyone experiencing certain illnesses or difficulties, but that was the end of the overlap between chef’s training and a healer’s.

They finished the tea and set their mugs aside, waving Char off when he offered another refill. They got back to work, so Char left the teapot nearby and returned to his abandoned pile of dishes.

“There you are!” Ralph called an indeterminant amount of time later. Char looked up from the fork that had a particularly stubborn spot of mud on one tine, and realized he had completely zoned out his surroundings. Sometimes—actually far more often than Char really wanted to admit—the repetitive motions of washing or chopping, or even stirring, sent him to a happy place in his head where swirling thoughts and anxious worries faded away. The soothing abandonment of the world definitely helped him get through difficult times, but it was still abandonment.

Still, there were too many things Char didn’t want to think about right now. Clarise, lying in a pool of blood, hurt so badly her healers had parched themselves dry of energy. Fen, his face bruised and swollen, yet still smiling at him as if it didn’t hurt. Those damned butterflies that erupted inside Char’s stomach every time he thought about Fen’s smile shouldn’t be anywhere close to the same list, and yet the extreme confusion they caused had Char shying away. And that was besides the fact that Fen was a prince who had no business smiling like that at a lowly chef, even if Char was an Oba-Musen. What Fen hadn’t elaborated on was that there was a hierarchy even within the Musen family. Only those who could manifest the passive skill of neutralizing poison and were rated tier one after graduation received the Oba prefix, which meant “elder” in the old tongue. However, that designation only meant Char was a really good cook. He wasn’t anywhere close to equal to a prince or a commander, and Char therefore shouldn’t let the darn butterflies manifest at all.

Yet every time Fen smiled: whoosh and butterflies. Every. Darned. Time.

“I heard you saved our captain,” Ralph said as he joined Char at the water’s edge. He picked up another fork and started scrubbing. “We really appreciate it, you know.”

“He told me who he is, so you don’t have to call him captain in front of me,” Char replied, finally getting the mud unstuck from the tine.

Ralph nodded and set his cleaned fork aside on the cloth to dry, picking up a spoon next. He was serious, not prone to smiles, yet friendly even though he hated kitchen duty. “You saved our commander then,” he replied with a shrug. “Anyway, commander said to hurry you up. Captain Zain wants us moving out within the hour. It’s about four days to the city from here, and she wants to use all the daylight we have left. We’re packing up the tents, loading up the horses, and putting out fires right now.”

“Not with my potatoes in it, they’re not!” Char dropped his cleaned fork onto the pile and left Ralph with the rest, which was now only the things he’d used to make tea earlier, and rushed over to the kitchen area. Clarise and the healers were gone and the camp buzzing with activity as the tents were taken down and the horses saddled. Laura was loading Char’s pack donkey with the bags from around the fire, which Char saw with a flash of relief was still burning merrily. She had used the mitts to move the grill off to the side to cool.

“Hey!” she called with a smile when Char joined her. “I left that bag for the rest of the dishes. Anything else you need?”

“Just these,” Char explained before sticking his hands into the embers and starting to pull out potatoes. He placed them on the grill, which was cool enough it wouldn’t continue cooking them and was much better than the ground.

“Yes!” Laura cheered, then yelled over in the direction of the tents: “Hey, guys. Baked potatoes!”

“All right!” Jensen was the first to arrive, followed by everyone else except Fen and Clarise.

“They’re hot!” Char yelped when Jensen blithely reached for a potato.

“And I’m starving,” Jensen replied with an easy shrug. He pulled his sleeve down over his hand, grabbed a potato, smiled at Char, and then hustled off toward the tents again. The rest of the group followed his example until only three potatoes remained.

“Where’s Fen?” Char asked, wondering what to do with the two extras.

“Behind you,” Fen said. “I heard there were potatoes, so I came over.”

Fen and Captain Zain joined Char and Laura next to the fire. Laura was holding her potato with her sleeve over her hand, gently blowing on one of the rounded ends, although she nodded to her commanding officers.

“It’s just plain potato. Not even any salt. I’m not sure it’s fully cooked in the middle. And it’s covered in ash, too.” Char wrung his hands, unhappy he was inadvertently serving such a lackluster meal.

“It’s exactly what we need right now. Nothing fiddly, simple and filling. Much better than jerky I promise you,” Fen said as he yanked down his sleeve and grabbed a potato. “Clarise won’t be up to eating hers. Zain, go ahead. And Char, the last one is yours I believe?”

Char nodded, taking one in his bare hand. Zain’s left eyebrow lifted, and she shot Fen a look Char couldn’t interpret. She had changed out of her armor into a tunic and breeches and slipped her sleeve over her hand to take the last potato.

The potato was too hot for even Char to eat, so he used his free hand to tip the remaining water from the pot he had used to make tea over the fire, dousing it and sending up a plume of smoke. He brought the emptied pot down to the lake for Ralph to use to load all the cleaned dishes into, and by the time they both returned to Laura and the donkey to load the last supplies, the potatoes were cool enough to eat.

Fluffy, but dry and definitely needing seasoning, the potato somehow still tasted delicious. It had been a long time since breakfast, and a fraught day, so perhaps that was why Char kept taking bites even though lacking flavor. At least the ash provided a nice grilled flavor to offset the otherwise bland food. All too soon, the potato was gone.

“Right,” Zain said, dusting off her hands against her hips. “Let’s mount up and move out.”

Laura finished loading the last of the supplies onto the donkey. Char took the lead from her and headed over to the horses, finding his pony easily since it only had the one pack behind the saddle. Also, his pony was smaller than the warhorses, which helped. He mounted, secured the lead, and joined the group as Fen waved them forward, gladly leaving behind the lake and their completed mission. They would meet up with Zain’s larger group and then continue into Toval.