*There will be a link at the bottom for a bookfunnel version of “our story so far”. Note the story so far is unedited, and there will be timing and spelling discrepancies as well as I might have slipped into the wrong person a couple of times. Also some chapters are glossed over and will be more fleshed out in the finished book. Also, I’m starting to believe this is the book that never ends… Yes, I know where it’s going, but the detail keeps expanding. WD hopefully tomorrow. (It’s more getting to sit down than anything, as I have six rose bushes to bury. Okay, plant, but bury is funnier. They know what they did.)*
Of Kings And Bakers And Star Empires
Eerlen:
Eerlen Troz woke up hurting. For that moment, on waking, he was shocked at how much it hurt to breathe, to think, to…
And then he realized what hurt was his semi-conscious check of the ruby and his link to it.
His unlamented predecessor in the role of Archmagician, the never-sufficiently-Maker-Cursed Lahem Drahy, had said it was a good idea to check you had the ruby on waking up, because that meant you were still alive.
Apparently of all the things that Eerlen had learned from Drahy, and of everything he’d tried to forget, he remembered that one particular piece of advice at the bone-deep level that he did it while half asleep. And power-burned. And in Yanda.
Stopping reaching his power for the ruby stopped the overall pain, except for a line from his hand to his chest. And that didn’t hurt as badly as he expected. He opened his eyes, staring at the strange ceiling of Yanda. He had the slightly blurry vision and the feel of an ache behind the eyes that were typical of power-burn. Or a hangover. And he’d had worse of each.
The ceiling held. There were no screams from anywhere in the shelter.
His hand went up and touched the ruby. It was with him, so he was alive. He felt for the child’s power pattern within himself. The child was alive. For a moment, on wakening, he’d thought it was done, that this one too had joined the list of his dead half-siblings. But the child was alive.
Which left Lendir snoring softly by his side. And—
“Shit.” He sat up. Lendir sat up at the same time, looking at him with wide, shocked eyes.
“I left two third circles alone after a major healing,” Eerlen said. “You know what they’re like.” Third circles, after a major healing, for reasons having to do with opening their own pattern to do the healing, as well as possibly an inherent formation of pattern, were as likely as not to get in a to-the-death-duel or an unadvisable sexual exploit. Two of them was just asking for trouble. Particularly when the two were a King and a territorial ruler.
Eerlen looked around for his clothes, but Lendir’s hand shot out of the blankets, and grabbed at his arm. It was warm, but strong. Lendir’s voice was slurred by sleep, but clear enough as he said, “’s fine. I took care of it.”
“You… took care?”
“I told Brund to stay behind and help our guest clean. It’s not fair to make him clean after he fed us and all. Law of hospitality.”
Eerlen relaxed, but his questioning mind forced him to say, “Our guest?”
“He’s an ambassador. He cannot be completely without restraint.”
“We can hope,” Eerlen said. But mostly said it to be contrary. From what he’d seen, the ambassador to the stars was more tempted by baking. Or at least there was no sign of impropriety when both he and Brundar had been unconscious and at his mercy. Eerlen smiled, at Lendir’s irrational response to attempts at healing by a non magician.
Lendir was stirring now, sitting up, making the very odd not-quite-a-word exclamation he made when he’d given up on sleep.
They bathed and dressed together, and in silence. Lendir had been confused at Eerlen hiding being with child. Eerlen couldn’t quite explain that he’d done it because he was mostly trying to hide it from himself. Trying to hide the hope. There was nothing worse than hope when it had been disappointed so often. But Kalal had said the child was strong and likely to survive. Of course, healers had said that of three who’d been still born. So far as he understood, the problem was that sometimes his children had a mistimed gestation, and tried to take the same time as Ellyans while having the development speed of Draghals. He sighed.
Dressed, he came into the common area. He’d heard voices, and found they’d been coming from the kitchen area. Strangely, as Eerlen emerged, he heard AdLeed laugh, a rare enough sound that it made him wonder if he was still big-healing-punchy. For all that he was not a somber person, AdLeed did not laugh easily.
The ambassador was at the table, and had…. Dough. He was rolling it out with a long, cylindrical vase, normally used to serve liquor. Eerlen paused frowning. Webson took butter from the slightly warmer area by the stove, and spread it on the sheet of dough on the table.
“There are ways to make dough rise,” he spoke while he worked. AdLeed and Brundar both stood across from him, watching him. “That involve yeast. And a chemical substance from mining, that if you have here I don’t know how to find. But the simplest is this, which is why its’s so weird that it’s considered a gourmet form of bread in my culture. You just make dough, and you lay it out real thin and then you spread butter on it. Then you fold it.” He folded the layer, over and over. “Layers and layers like… Damascus steel. No, wait, you’ll have no idea what Damacus is. It’s a city. Do you have folded layered steel? What do you call it?”
AdLeed laughed again. He was leaning slightly forward which was fascinating to Eerlen. Was Kalal AdLeed flirting? That was something else he’d never seen. “That,” AdLeed said. “Would be Brinarian steel, milord. My domain.”
“Ah, well, then your people should be naturals for making crescents.”
“Crescents?”
“Like the moon. You’ll see.”
He started cutting triangles of the multi-layered dough, and folding it again, then bending it, to form little crescents.
“Moon bread,” Brundar said. “Fascinating.”
Well, the good news was that the two third circles were not entering into the synergy of post-healing and either killing each other or very not killing each other. The bad news was that the poor ambassador would need iron-clad self control at this rate.
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