“You look like you’re a good cook, Seraphis.” Loren commented. The princess wore only her travelling leathers and surcoats. The Sagnian’s braziers heated the room more than enough.
Seraphis nodded. “Thank you, princess. You pick up a few skills from being on the road. This is what I used to prepare for the soldiers while out on our journeys. If Duro and I didn’t hunt and forage, they’d have eaten their way through their provisions before we got anywhere.”
“Where are you soldiers, by the way? I’ve only seen you and Kaiten since we got here. Are they posted as lookouts?” Loren looked through a doorway towards the back of the room, but it held only a hallway caved in with rubble.
“Gods above, no.” Seraphis laughed. She placed the cut vegetables in a pot, ready for the meat. “They all died.”
“What?” Loren said, horrified.
“We passed through the Plaguelands, same as you. The soldiers died off one by one, from thirst or starvation or madness.” Seraphis explained. “They withered to dust before our eyes.”
Loren was silent. She remembered their horses, dying a few days into their journey and falling to the barren earth in still, choking air. She looked to Seraphis. “Did you see the queen too?”
“The queen? What queen?” The warrior princess looked shocked.
“The queen of Yureun.” Loren said, suddenly doubting herself. “Or at least her ghost. In the castle?”
Seraphis stared at Loren, brows furrowed. “We didn’t see any castle in the Plaguelands. It was just dirt and cursed air as far as anyone could see. Were you hallucinating? Some of my men thought they could see lakes in the earth, before they ran off screaming.”
“Maybe it was just a dream…” Loren muttered, eyes unfocused. She trailed her fingers towards her dragon pendant, and Seraphis tracked the movement. The Sagnian princess stared a little too long at the dragon.
Kae approached the table with a large slab of meat carved from the deer’s side. She began cutting out more manageable cuts that could fit in the pot. “It wasn’t a dream, princess.” She said roughly. “We saw the queen, gaunt as anything, and her bear-like monster of a husband. They spelled us, you saw through her illusions, we fought back, then we ran away.” The huntress dropped a chunk of meat into the pot with finality. “Then we found the outpost.”
Seraphis looked back to Loren. She nodded, impressed, before turning back to the pot and helping Kae with the cuts of meat.
“You found the vengeful ghost of a long dead queen and got away safely?” Seraphis chuckled. “What magic do you have that let you get away with your lives, dragon princess?”
Loren and Kae exchanged a look. Behind Seraphis’s back, Kae glanced at Loren’s dragon pendant from where it was peeking out from her surcoat. She said nothing and turned back to the pot. “It was just luck, I think.” Loren said evasively. “You were supposed to tell us why you and Kaiten are here.”
“Yes, yes, I know.” Seraphis smiled. She took the pot and crossed the room to a brazier set by a stone wall. She put the whole thing down on the coals, and flames shot up and licked at her hands. Kae and Loren called out in alarm, but Seraphis stood and rubbed her hands together. She was not burned in the slightest. Seraphis saw their shocked faces and laughed. “I am sister to the queen of Sagna, remember? I have a very high heat tolerance, even higher if I use my borrowed magic.”
Kae frowned, brows furrowed in thought. “But if you do well with the heat, won’t you suffer even more than us in the cold?”
Seraphis nodded and gestured to the braziers. “Hence the fires, huntress. I’d wither and die in the north, so I plan on leaving this godforsaken frigid place soon. Come sit with me while our food cooks.”
After a few minutes, Cassendir and Kaiten came in from the cold. Frost and snow had accumulated in Kaiten’s fur, and Duro snapped up the snow that fell as the prince shook out his mane. The heir to the Beastman throne sighed as he removed a red and black doublet emblazoned with the twin lionesses of Sagna and took a seat at the table. “It’s much too hot in here, Seraphis.” He said.
“You’ll get used to it soon enough. Besides, it’s better than freezing to death.” Seraphis replied.
“Not if your skin is a fur coat.” Kaiten grumbled. He was shirtless and wore only a set of leather trousers. Being surrounded by women didn’t faze him at all. The young lion looked to all the faces in the room, everybody was seated at the single table and there palpable tension was in there air. “What’s happening?” he asked with wide eyes and an air of innocence.
Seraphis sighed and tapped the table. “We have to discuss quite a few things. Isn’t that right, princess?”
Loren took a breath and leaned forward, arms on the table. She thought she looked like her father in that moment - strong and confident – or she hoped. “You killed Gaturr, skinned him, and had a minion deliver it to us at the castle. I saw him, I saw the barbarity of what you did to him. Then you kidnapped his son and heir to the throne. Why should I not kill you where you stand, Seraphis Dagan?”
The princess of Sagna smiled at the accusations, her gaze dropping to the table. “I admit, I did all that. I cut the skin of Kaiten’s father from his body, I
