Chapter 15

Lilith walked up behind Celeste doing her best not to surprise her as she was serving food onto her plate. “Whatcha eatin?” she asked in a sing song voice.

“Oh hi. It looks like lamb and asparagus mostly. But they have chicken if you prefer it.”

“Yes the Duchess preferred chicken for most of her meals…. The real one.” Wendel said

Both of her friends filled their plates. If you could call the half empty plate of Celeste’s full. They then made way for Lilith and Sir Tanel but didn’t walk away yet.

Lilith began following her nose and put the best smelling items on her plate. She held herself back only filling her plate not stacking the food high. When she looked down she realized she had almost all meat the only vegetable present being a few pickled artichoke hearts that were served with the chicken.

Sir Tanel soon had his plate full as well with a good portion of asparagus and carrots. They all sat down at the table and Lilith looked up and saw Wendel sitting across from her again. She immediately got up and went to the side of Sir Tanel and shooed him over on the bench so he could sit in front of Wendel. Lilith now sitting across from Celeste.

Celeste pointed at Lilith’s plate and the artichoke heart. “You know that's supposed to be seasoning right?”

“No way these are super tasty where I came from.” Lilith confirmed before she stabbed the heart with her fork and lifted up to take a big bite. It seemed to weigh a lot less than she expected. Surprisingly as Lilith bit in there was an explosion of flower petals. They landed on her plate mostly but a few also landed on everyone else in her party. Sir Tanel even brushed a few petals off his shoulder. “It still tastes good!” Lilith said as she lowered her now empty fork down back to her flower covered plate.

“Ya they are supposed to open like that while in the oven but it looks like that one wasn’t in there long enough or they added it late.”

“So they are supposed to season the meat they are cooked with?” Lilith asked. Suddenly not so upset with herself, her expression turning from one of embarrassment back to anticipation as she began cutting up the meat on her plate.

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“Yes, I would say mission accomplished on that one Lils.” Sir Tanel said looking at the pink flower petals scattered about the table.

“Well they were supposed to be on the chicken anyways you can’t be upset with them being on your lambchop.” Celeste said, trying to defend Lilith a bit.

“Oh no, I was just marveling at the efficiency she accomplished what our valiant chef could not.”

Lilith was enjoying the meat and the extra taste the flower petals provided. In fact she was hardly paying attention to the rest of the world. She was amazed at the savory tastes of each dish as she ate piece after piece. The only think slowing her down was when her fork ran into one of her fangs as she was devouring the lamb slice by slice. Wanting to savor every bite, she began to open her mouth wider and that seemed to work.

“Ya, I think she successfully seasoned all four plates in under 2 seconds.” Wendel continued to tease Lilith seeing as she implied he was going to be the messy one this evening. “Lilith doesn’t that hurt your jaw?”

“What?” she asked, looking up at him as she closed her mouth around another bite of lamb.

“Never mind” Wendel said “Hey Tanel remember how I told you Lilith got a visit from Lathander last night?”

“Ya and about her “gift”…. I’m glad you said something, because she didn’t tell me a bloody thing this morning.” Sir Tanel said as he took his last bite of chicken.

Wendel put down his fork and began gesturing with his hands as he spoke “Well Celeste and I have been doing more reading on the life cycles of devils and apparently when they die they go directly back to the plane of hell they originated on.” He waited for a second only getting a nod out of Sir Tanel. “But there is a delay. It can take anywhere from 2 days to 2 months for all the power to go back to the nine hells depending on how powerful the devil was. You see I think its just like Lilith said, there is no magic on her world and Maldeval’s power was stripped from him and Lathander returned some of it back to Lilith.” He raised his eye brows at the conclusion of his sentence.

“Well that does make a lot more sense than Lathander randomly handing out tails to people.” Sir Tanel said still not sounding the least bit phased as he finished off the rest of his plate and threw his fork down with a clatter.

“Yes but here is the best part. Lilith can cast devil’s pact magic. She read the runes off to us this morning” Wendel pointed a finger between him and Celeste.

With this Sir Tanel’s face turned white and he pushed his plate away from him. He then took out a handkerchief and began to blot out a cold sweat that had instantly formed on his brow. With a serious look he leveled a finger at Wendel saying, “Don’t tell anyone. Don’t even say those words out loud again. If you know who finds out about you know what they will send an army here. And it won’t arrive by foot or by boat it will arrive on the wing and this town will be burned to ash.” Color finally returned to Sir Tanel’s face it was a bit more red than usual and he worked to tame his expression from horror and shock to anger and back to a more pleasant one that he reserved for his friends. “Please for all our sake?”

“I understand Tanel no need to say another word. I think everyone here is clear that there will be no more talk of that sort of magic…. But we can still try it out and see what it can do right?”

“You are incorrigible.” Sir Tanel Regent of Daggerford looked around at all 3 of his friends staring puppy dog eyes at him at the same time and he suddenly felt like the man that dropped a birthday cake or ruined a party. He wondered why the feeling felt so familiar when he realized he had actually orchestrated the ruination of a rather large banquet the previous night. Knowing that this was part of Wendel’s life’s work he caved under the pressure. “Fine fine, but keep it subtle and don’t involve the town. If we are lucky they will only scourge the tower.”

With that all three of them got up and started to head to the entrance. “Wait where are you lot going?” Sir Tanel asked still seated on the bench with his left elbow resting on the table. Lilith gave him a pat on the shoulder to try and ease his nerves.

“To the tower, to do you know what to you know who.” Wendel replied as if it should have been the most obvious thing in the world.

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