Anton woke up to breakfast. Kelsey had expanded the table from last night and was serving up porridge and toast. The girls were all sitting down, marvelling at the quality of their dishes and spoons. Even Soraya was sitting with the rest of them, taking dainty bites of a slice of fried meat. He took a seat, greeting all the other girls. They returned his good morning enthusiastically. Soraya gave him a nod.

Kelsey dropped a bowl in front of him. “Don’t worry about washing up, just pile them in a heap and I’ll have my people do it,” she said.

“Thanks,” Anton said. Aris came and sat next to him. She gave a wave and special smile to Cheia and accepted her own dish of porridge. There was dried fruit and salt on the table, along with pots that looked to be filled with sweet spreads. Anton thought that they looked like items that Kelsey had bought in the Rused and Denasti markets.

“Do we need to go buy more food?” he asked, looking at the spread before him.

“We’re good for now,” Kelsey said. “I don’t want people to see supplies coming and going from here all the time. I can bring in what we need.”

She gestured at the porridge. “I’ve pretty much got grain production covered, enough to cover us and help out Kirido. The rest of your complete breakfast is a little harder. The chickens proved to be… problematic.”

“How so?” Anton asked. His parents had been rich enough to not bother with them, but Aris’s family had raised some chickens and it seemed easy enough.

Kelsey sighed. “All the eggs that hatched turned out undead chickens,” she said. “Something about the magical energy in there. So it doesn’t look like I can raise animals. Not ones you want to eat, anyway.”

Anton looked over at the meat that Soraya was eating.

“She can’t eat anything else,” Kelsey said. “So she gets special meat treatment.”

“Didn’t we pick up a load of preserved meat at the fort?” Anton asked.

“Sure, but… I’d rather go through our fresh stocks before we break those out.”

“How much fresh stocks have we got?” Anton asked. Thinking back, he couldn’t recall Kelsey purchasing that much meat. Not in bulk.

“Oh, plenty,” Kelsey said. “You don’t want it though.”

“Why not?” Anton asked.

“This had better not be poisoned,” Soraya put in.

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Kelsey said. “It’s just human meat.”

Everybody froze, including Soraya. Then the courl deliberately took another bite, chewing it slowly. The pause lasted until she swallowed.

“Interesting,” she said. “Human meat is forbidden in the Empire, but one hears stories.”

“You can’t eat humans!” Aris protested, only a little ahead of everyone else. Soraya stared them all down.

“Take it up with the cook,” she said. “I am not so ungracious a guest as to refuse to eat the food served to me.”

“Kelsey!” Aris exclaimed.

“What? Waste not, want not, you know? I’ve got a bunch of corpses that need processing, why not save some of the choice bits to feed Soraya?”

“Because it’s wrong!” Anton insisted, backing up his wife.

“Is it? How?”

“In the earliest days of the Empire, the first Empress decreed that courl should not eat the flesh of sentient races,” Soraya said thoughtfully. “This was a matter of pragmatism. The Empire had captured its first human city, and the Empress wished for humans to serve us, rather than be served.”

She smiled at them all, a wide grin that showed all of her pointy teeth. “Over the years, there have been occasional exemptions from the rule. Now that I’ve tried it… I’m honestly disappointed that its taste is so mundane. I mistook it for pork.”

“You don’t eat courl, I bet,” Anton said.

“Of course! To eat one’s own species would be… but that is not what is happening here.”

“Meat is meat,” Kelsey said. “There are issues, sure, with parasites and prions and such, but I’ve got that taken care of. Any meat that comes through me you know is safe.”

She thought for a bit. “Unless I’m trying to spread an undead plague, but… I’m not! So rest easy.”

“It’s disrespectful,” Aris tried to explain. “Eating someone that was alive like that. It’s just… wrong.”

“It was more disrespectful to murder them in the first place, I expect,” Soraya replied. She thought for a moment. “Is this meat from the two guards that the elf barbarian killed in my home?”

Kelsey stopped muttering about dispersion rates and infection times and returned her attention to the conversation. “Oh… yeah, something like that,” she said.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Anton narrowed his eyes at her evasion, but Soraya was not done talking. “The disrespect, the insult that was done came then. What happens to the bodies afterwards matters little to the souls that have left.”

“I hope you’re not thinking that the souls are still in there,” Kelsey said. “Take it from me, once they die, the souls are gone.”

“Even though you can raise them again?” Aris asked. Now that Anton thought about it, wasn’t that an even greater insult to the person that was?

“Nah. Revenants and Vampires… they’re not the person that they were before. They can fake it, pretty well, but even if they have the same memories, it’s a different thing that’s remembering them.”

“Where is Tyla, anyway?” Anton asked, suddenly noticing that the elf wasn’t there.

“She’s sleeping, she was up all night,” Kelsey said. “She probably won’t be participating in whatever we do today.”

“That thing should be arranging for my ransom,” Soraya said.

“Wait— we’re not finished talking about that,” Aris said, pointing to the remains of Soraya’s meal.

“I think we are,” Soraya said, languidly taking another bite. “The crime has been committed. You’re not willing to condemn the murderer or the cook, so why me?”

Aris turned to Kelsey. “Just don’t serve her any more humans!” she pleaded.

“Sure,” Kelsey said, “As soon as you manage to explain why. You think that the alternative is more respectful?”

“You never explained what processing actually means,” Anton said uneasily.

“Yeah, it’s complicated, and not at all pretty,” Kelsey warned. “Neither is what happens when you bury a poor fool. Eaten by worms and maggots? That’s your idea of a proper post-death?”

“No, but… I—” Aris stumbled over her words. Kelsey gave her more time to speak, but she couldn’t come up with anything.

“It’s all part of the cycle of life,” Kelsey said soothingly. “Everyone, everything, gets eaten eventually.”

“You don’t,” Anton pointed out. “Not you, and not your monsters.”

“I suppose I do have a pretty good recycling plan going,” Kelsey said. “But even then… If I die, I imagine all my monsters and all my stores will make a nice feast for the worms.”

“I have another question,” Soraya put in primly. “It has been mentioned before, but why are monsters being referred to?”

“Whoops!” Kelsey exclaimed. “We’ve said too much in front of the Muggles! What are we going to tell them?”

Anton sighed. He looked over at the other girls, who were staring at him quietly, with similar questions on their faces.

“Right. I suppose now is the best time to explain everything.”

----------------------------------------

“So you are a barbarian lord,” Soraya said, lounging back in her chair and looking at him speculatively.

“I suppose so,” Anton replied. “It doesn’t feel like it, but I am. Does that matter?”

Some time had passed. Zaphar had come back and been dispatched, both to deliver some ransom instructions and to scout out the administrative quarter. No one else was allowed to leave, with the possible exception of Anton and Aris. Anton, however, didn’t feel like testing his geas, and Aris wanted to stay with him. Right now, she was talking with the other girls.

Kelsey had started what she called occupational education. Most of the girls were interested in taking up a new First Tier class. Kelsey had set up a loom, of all things, and was taking them through the process of using it.

Soraya wasn’t interested in a new class, and wasn’t welcome in the group besides, so she had decided to converse with Anton. He was due to teach sword-fighting to those interested in learning, but he was waiting for Kelsey to produce the weighted wooden swords that he’d asked for.

“Perhaps,” Soraya answered. “Tiatian nobility has a certain cachet, but the barbarian kingdoms of the northern coast are not well regarded.”

“You’re not noble yourself, are you?” Anton was pretty sure she wasn’t, but she did live in a compound that was bigger than the Baron’s— than his castle.

“I’m not,” Soraya assured him, “But my father’s wealth was such that I was hoping to marry into a noble family.”

“I see,” Anton said noncommittally.

“Unfortunately, my Father set his sights on the Bey’s Champion, Al-Kadir. A brute of a man with not a drop of noble blood.”

“He sounds important, though?” The name sounded familiar to Anton. He thought back on where he might have seen it.

“Oh, he is valued by our Lord. Lauded for his performances in the Arena. The Bey’s chief enforcer and thug. He rides the rising tide now, but his fortunes—and his family— will last only until the first time he is defeated.”

It was coming to him now, but Soraya wasn’t finished.

“I don’t know what Father was thinking, tying our family to that brute—giving me to him! Obviously, I had to take steps.”

“Hang on,” Anton said slowly. “Are you talking about Salim Al-Kadir?”

“That’s the one,” Soraya said bitterly. “Has his fame spread even to the barbarians? Now that I think about your murderous ways, you might even get along with him.”

“I inspected him outside your house, after the auction,” Anton said. “He was Tier Four!”

“Yes, he has had a certain amount of martial success,” Soraya admitted. “He’s considered the most powerful fighter in the city. Literally— that is what Champion means, after all.”

“But because he doesn’t have the right father, he’s nothing to you?” Anton asked.

“In a civilised culture, a person’s family is everything,” Soraya said coldly. “Joining a noble house is the best way to ensure that my children will be able to rise to the destiny that they deserve. Al-Kadir can put Al in front of his name, and he is so feared that no one will gainsay it, but his children will not be so feared. They will be cast out the moment his star fades.”

“So your plan is just to take your share of the ransom, and then leave your family?” Anton asked. “That seems so cold.”

“Well, I may consider going back to them. This embarrassment may cause Al-Kadir to distance himself from my father, making the idea of engagement impossible. Otherwise… well, it’s my father who started acting outrageously.”

“Even so,” Anton started, but he was interrupted by Zaphar’s return.

“Guys! Guys!” he said, slamming the door he had let himself in by. He rested for a moment with his back to it, as if afraid someone was going to smash it in. “We’ve got a problem!”

“Did you make the drop?” Kelsey asked, coming over to them. The rest of the girls kept their distance. They were far more interested in the conversation than the loom, though.

“No, no, I couldn’t!” Zaphar said excitedly. “Somebody was there! Waiting! The Champion of this dung-blasted city!”

“Al-Kadir? He was there?” Soraya asked.

“Wait, how do you know Al-Kadir?” Kelsey asked.

“I don’t! Though, I might have seen him at the auction? He looked familiar. I don’t know.” Zaphar shook his head, like he was trying to shake the memories loose.

“Then how do you know it was him?” Kelsey asked.

“Because everybody in the market was talking about it!” Zaphar blurted out. “He’s famous! It was very weird for him to be standing right in front of the post where we’re supposed to post the note, so everyone was talking about how the most famous fighter in Denasti is going to rescue his fiancée!”

Kelsey looked over at Soraya, who drew herself up, ears going straight up.

“Well,” she said. “I hope you don’t think this is my fault!”