Page 23 of The Minotaur's Little Peach
"I told him he could shove his overpriced vegetables up his—" She paused, glancing toward Taran's basket, then finished with a grin that transformed her entire face. "Well, let's just say I found a better deal two stalls down."
That grin. By the Lady, when she lets herself be sharp and clever instead of careful and grieving, it's like watching sunlight break through storm clouds. Her personality starts emerging in ways it never has before, at least not around me. With Korrun, she'd been softer, gentler—the woman who found safety in his steady presence. But with me, she's developing an edge that speaks to who she was before love made her tender, before loss made her cautious.
We've started lingering over meals, stretching them far longer than necessary. What begins as practical discussions about Taran's feeding schedule or repairs needed around the house gradually wanders into observations about the town, stories from the colosseum, and eventually—carefully, like she's testing whether I'll listen without judgment—glimpses of her childhood.
Tonight's no different. Taran sleeps peacefully in his basket, finally settled after a day of fussing that left us both drained. The evening meal sits mostly forgotten between us, soup gone cold in our bowls while conversation flows easier than it has any right to.
"The first time I saw the colosseum, I thought it was the most magnificent thing I'd ever laid eyes on," she says, fingers tracing the rim of her cup. "All that stone, those arches reaching toward the sky like they were trying to touch Zukiev herself."
Her voice carries that particular softness it gets when she's surprised to hear herself sharing these things, like the words slip out before she can think better of them. I've learned not to interrupt during these moments, just listen and let her decide how much she wants to reveal.
"Course, I was twelve and had never seen anything bigger than the shop where I worked," she continues. "Everything in Milthar seemed impossibly grand compared to scrubbing floors and emptying chamber pots for travelers who barely acknowledged I existed."
The casual mention of her Indentured service makes my jaw tighten, but I keep my expression neutral. She's never spoken directly about those years before, only hinted at circumstances that led to her selling fruit near the colosseum grounds. The picture forming in my mind—a child working herself raw for people who saw her as furniture—stirs something protective in my chest that has nothing to do with duty to Korrun's memory.
"How long?" I ask quietly.
"Seven years." She meets my eyes briefly before looking away, but not before I catch the flash of old pain there. "Started when I was ten, after my mother died. Had debts to pay, and children don't have many options for earning coin."
Seven years. From ten to seventeen, the ages when a girl should be learning about the world, maybe starting to think about her own future. Instead, she'd been breaking her back for strangers, counting days until freedom.
"I kept selling fruit after," she says, as if reading my thoughts. "I still needed money and I’d been with a master Theren for so long. He was... kind. Let me learn the trade properly, taught me how to judge quality, negotiate with suppliers. And then, when I wanted to start cultivating produce, he started buying it from me."
"Smart man," I say, meaning it. "Probably recognized what you were capable of if someone gave you the chance."
Her smile flickers, uncertain but pleased. "I was good at it. Reading people, I mean—knowing who'd pay premium for perfect fruit and who'd settle for bruised pieces at a discount. Understanding what they needed before they asked for it."
Those skills translate perfectly to how she navigates our household now, I realize. The way she anticipates when Taran needs feeding before he starts fussing, how she stocks our pantry based on weather patterns and market fluctuations, the careful attention she pays to my moods after particularly difficult days. She learned to survive by watching, listening, adapting to what others required.
"That's how you met Korrun," I say. It's not a question—I know the story from his letters, but hearing her version reveals details he never shared.
"He was impossible to miss," she laughs, and for the first time when speaking of my brother, her expression brightens instead of clouding with grief. "Seven feet of solid muscle blocking my entire stall from the afternoon breeze, complaining that my pears would spoil in the heat. As if I hadn't been selling fruit in that spot for months without his expert opinion."
The image forms easily—Korrun in all his earnest concern, probably genuinely worried about fruit quality while completely oblivious to the effect his massive frame was having on her business. My brother never did anything halfway, including worry about produce he had no intention of buying.
"So naturally, you told him exactly what you thought of his unsolicited advice," I guess.
"I told him if his oversized frame wasn't blocking every hint of breeze, my pears would be perfectly fine." Her eyes sparkle with the memory. "Then he bought my entire basket just to prove he wasn't trying to criticize my merchandise."
"And talked you into spending the day with him."
"Took some convincing," she admits. "I wasn't exactly in the habit of trusting strange minotaur, no matter how charming they thought they were."
But she had trusted him, eventually. Enough to build a life together, to carry his child, to love him with the kind of fiercedevotion that makes his loss feel like losing a limb. The thought should hurt—does hurt, in the way missing Korrun always will—but it's accompanied by something else now. Gratitude, maybe, that she had that kind of love, even briefly. That my brother found someone who saw past his size and strength to the gentle heart underneath.
When she speaks of her past like this, I see more than her beauty—though Zukiev knows I've always thought she was beautiful. How could I not? The way afternoon light catches the red undertones in her dark hair, the gold flecks in her hazel eyes when she's amused, the graceful line of her throat when she tips her head back to laugh. I've been careful not to let myself linger on those observations, to keep them filed away as inappropriate thoughts about my brother's woman.
But watching her now, animated by memories and comfortable enough to share them, I see something deeper than physical beauty. I see resilience—the fragile strength of someone who endured six years of servitude and emerged with her spirit intact, who built a business from nothing and made herself indispensable to a community that had overlooked her as a child. Someone who survived losing the love of her life and still finds ways to laugh, to care for others, to face each day with stubborn determination.
It draws me in, not as duty to my brother's memory, but as a man who can't help but admire the light flickering stubbornly in the dark. The realization should alarm me more than it does. Should send me packing for the docks where I can lose myself in familiar work and uncomplicated relationships with cargo manifests instead of grieving women who make my chest tight with feelings I have no right to entertain.
Instead, I find myself leaning forward slightly, drawn by the warmth in her voice as she describes Henrik's patient teaching, the satisfaction she'd found in building something ofher own. Her hands move when she talks, graceful gestures that punctuate her words and catch my attention in ways that make me grateful for the table between us.
Because I shouldn't be doing this. Shouldn't be feeling it. But that hasn't diminished the growing feelings that are becoming far too intense.
13
DAEGAN
