“Butlers, porters, scullery maids…”
“Ah.” He shrugs. “The villa does not require much in the way of maintenance. There are groundskeepers to tend to the gardens and cleaning staff to corral the occasional dust bunny. Otherwise, I see no need to keep a fleet of servants at my beck and call.”
“Not even a cook?” I press. A king would keep a kitchen staff at the very least…
“I enjoy cooking.”
“Youcook.” I cannot hide my skepticism. The towering, battle-hardened warrior…the bloodthirsty killer-king, feared by all in the Midlands…cooking? I try to picture his hands—hands I have watched snatch the life from men with an ease that speaks of long practice—dusted with flour, maneuvering arolling pin across a countertop, steering a whisk. It is not an image I can reconcile with reality. Rather like trying to envision a shark climbing a tree.
“You’d be surprised by the hobbies you find time to pick up when saddled with the curse of immortality,” Soren says lightly. “Give it fifty years. A hundred. You’ll be far more eager to hard-boil your own eggs than have them hand-delivered to you by someone you have watched wither beneath the weight of age during their years of service. Just as you watched their predecessor—and their predecessor, andtheirpredecessor—lose the battle against time.” His pause earns a wry edge. “Somewhat spoils the taste of one’s breakfast. You’ll see.”
I fight a shiver. “I should hope not.”
“In any case, I do cook. I’m even rather good at it. Maybe I’ll give you a demonstration at some point.”
“You could’ve given me a demonstration today if you’d made breakfast,” I grumble. “Thus eliminating this little quest to town.”
“And miss an opportunity to annoy you?” His lips twitch. “Never.”
My sigh is martyred.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and continue onto a forked path that winds through a grove of lemon trees. Their scent is both crisp and mellow, a suffusive cloud of citrus. At the end of the grove, nestled on the cliff side, sits another villa. Like Soren’s in style, though smaller and less stately.
“Arwen lives there when she’s not out on campaign,” he informs me, noticing the direction of my gaze. “She’s the best general in Llyr, as well as the best strategist. She’s been leading my armies in battle for longer than you’ve been alive.”
Not quite the picture I’d had in my head of Llyr’s crown princess.
“We’d have been invaded ten times over without her aptitude for strategy and surprise attacks,” he continues. “Don’t tell her I said that. If her ego gets any larger, I fear I’ll need to expand her villa to accommodate it.”
I suppress a laugh. “I look forward to meeting her.”
“I’m not certain you should. Arwen can be a bit…”
My brows lift.
“…abrasive,” he finishes finally.
“A dominant trait in your bloodline, it would seem.”
He looses a huff of amusement. “You have not seen my abrasive side yet, little wind weaver. Consider yourself lucky.”
I bite back a retort.
As we slowly descend toward the city proper, I come to realize the royal grounds are stacked like layers of a tiered cake, each housing different groves and gardens, springs and waterfalls. Each home to mysterious inhabitants of which there is no earthly sign. I struggle to take it all in while keeping pace with Soren’s long strides, curbing my impulse to bombard him with questions. He does not offer much in the way of conversation, though occasionally as we pass by different dwellings, he will murmur a name associated with whoever lives there.
Tethys.
Melité.
Vaughn.
I try to keep them straight in my head, but in truth it is beginning to spin from both information and overexertion. I’ve lost count of the endless stairs and pathways. My thighs are aflame, my breaths reduced to choppy pants by the time we reach the final set of steps that brings us down to the edge of the grand canal that wraps the base of the royal grounds. A beautiful bridge, crafted of an unfamiliar metal—pale and refulgent, much like theinside of a seashell polished to a shine by a thousand ocean caresses—curves before us.
Soren pauses briefly at its foot. “Ready?”
“For what?”
He grins, a flash of white there and gone. Then, he crosses the canal into the heart of his city.