Page 34 of To Sway a Prince
"He doesn't eat regularly either?"
"You both get caught up in your tasks." Caein sighed. The spoon rattled against a bowl of half-beaten eggs. "And I do not require food any longer so it is easy for me to forget. But good food is good for the soul, and that makes your magic stronger."
General health and well-being always provided positive results for one's magic so long as you weren't cursed in some way to prevent it. I stepped farther in, debating asking about what I'd overheard, then deciding against it. "Can I help?"
"I have it—" Caein swore in a language I didn't recognize as the spoon flipped out from the bowl and onto the wooden floor, spattering a sugary glaze. "Yes. If you would like to assist me, I would not object."
I stooped down to pick up the wooden spoon. Seeing a small blue and white check towel, I used it to clean up the floor. "Cinnamon bread?"
"Yes, an old, old recipe from my mother's side. Now…if you could add a pinch of crushed cloves and three pinches of nutmeg and mix it in, I would be most grateful."
It was a little surreal to be helping prepare cinnamon bread, but I enjoyed the hominess of it all. After I washed my hands in the basin, I measured out the cloves and stirred it together. "Where is Ramiel?"
"Trying to break the curses and tend the Chasm, heal the leviathan, all the usual tasks," he said. "The dragons were especially energetic this morning. They were up before the sun. He set them through their paces."
"Does that mean the leviathan will try to break through sooner than expected?" I hadn't removed enough of the cursed knots to give Ramiel much of a reprieve, and I didn't think he could take more than one or two more fights with the omenfangwithout the curse destroying him despite the ground we had gained.
"No, it means the leviathan has calmed. He'll likely rest, then hunt, and then sleep. It should mean we have more time." A long sigh followed. "Time. The one thing we need, and the one thing we're never certain we'll have." The bread dough squashed at an awkward angle.
"Would you like me to knead it?" I asked.
"If you wish." He sounded rather relieved. I couldn't blame him. If I were in his position, I'd hate it, and I guessed that what he was doing was an act of kindness specifically intended to bring comfort. There were other simpler cuisine you could prep and that would be easier to manage if you had to rely on your aura or telepathic abilities or will to maneuver objects.
I rolled the dough onto the flour and began to work it. It stuck to my palms and fingers, the yeasty scent growing stronger. My mouth watered. It smelled so much like the peace loaves my mother and sister and I made each year with all the other women.
"I'm glad you're helping him," Caein said, his voice vibrating around me. The whisk beat around in the bowl with the eggs, faster and smoother now. "I feared that when I returned from rest again, he would have perished…what happened on the bridge has been a grave fear of mine since the coming of this curse. When the omenfang attacks outside the tower, its power is always far greater."
"You're leaving? Or—I guess resting?" I glanced up at the ceiling. "Why?"
"I'm still adjusting to being a Nolche. It requires that I often…sleep might be the best term for it, but there are mercifully no dreams."
It was strange to watch the implements within the kitchen move themselves. The spoon in the bowl stirred in stuttering strokes, and the whisk moved in halting spins.
"No dreams, huh? That sounds nice. As long as you can get out of it."
"It is restful. The challenge comes in moving between the host structures. I am not the guardian of only this place."
"You're the guardian of the guardian tower?" I smiled at this. The rolling pin clattered toward me, wobbling as if someone had sent it rolling from the wrong end. Picking it up, I dusted it with flour and started to roll out the dough.
"A guardian of the Sentinels. I was a friend to the Sentinels before my transformation. I am a friend to them now though Ramiel is all that remains. I divide my time between the families I loved in my corporeal life."
"What happened to the other Sentinels?" I rolled the dough. There was something comforting about his presence, despite his ghostly nature.
"That is not my story to tell," he responded. "But Ramiel may speak of it when he is ready."
Fair enough. We fell into an easy silence. As I kneaded the dough, I decided then not to mention the conversation I'd overheard last night. Caein was trying to protect Ramiel, just as I was trying to protect Zephyrus. And now we were all trying to protect the Chasm.
As I put the loaf in the oven, it startled me to realize how important that had become to me.
When Ramiel came to the kitchen, my stomach somersaulted again. He didn't remain, but he did smile a little.
I didn't know how, but…somehow we really found a beautiful synergy. Over the next three days, we did little more than work and prepare, but time passed swiftly.
Ramiel did not stop for meals, only pausing long enough to gather food from the kitchen and then returning to his desk or the rune tables. He barely stopped for sleep. And for a few hours out of each day, he stretched out on the couch and let me work at the knots.
I drew out the threads with great care. Each one when severed curled back on me and vanished into the air with a pulsing hum, cutting or biting at me. Though he sometimes winced, he often soothed or stroked my arm to remove that sting. Each touch from him made me grow warmer. Sometimes my hands shook a little.
Foolishness. Loneliness. Whatever it was, I had to be cautious. My fingers worked along his chest.
