Her name is Vyrsia. Or at least, that's what she says I can call her, my assassin client. She raises an eyebrow when I tell her what I want her to bring back for me, but doesn't question it. In fact, she doesn't talk at all. Not with her voice, at least. She signs her name for me, answering all my questions with brief hand signals. I watch her carefully, her mouth in particular. At one point her jaw drops open for the briefest of moments, and my worst suspicions are confirmed.
She has no tongue.
I try to hide my trepidation as she signs terse answers to the last of my questions, and immediately I begin to modify the recipe forming in my mind. A Gourmand's magic works through many means, but one of the most vital conduits is the diner's perception of the meal and their resulting experience. In short, the flavor of the food.
I had not been tongueless for very long. But from what I've heard, and what Vyrsia confirms, over time one does begin to recognize flavors in the throat when swallowing—though it's a pale shadow of what was lost.
Rajvid the Perfumer comes to the forefront of my thoughts, and with him my newly bolstered appreciation for the power of aroma. If ever there was a time to put that into practice, it's now.
My final decisions made, I send Vyrsia off to bring back my core ingredients. Then I fling open the trunk and start pulling out rations. A bag of rice. Flour. Sugar. Spices. Dried fruits. Cooking oil. Canned coconut milk and salt pork. Once I've got a fire crackling on my waist-high cooking hearth, I grab the water jug, a small cauldron, and a few other things and set to work on the rice.
My silent assassin returns with reassuring speed, a large moon viper curled in her arms. Sticking out from her belt pouch I see the green ends of the leek I'd asked for, and I don't doubt the egg is in there too. Once she hands it all over I thank her and send her off to rest up on the sidelines while I clean, gut, and skin our snake. And as I do, I meditate on the qualities I mean to call up from this creature, this sacrifice. To amplify and transfer to my fighter. I allow the thoughts of hidden danger, deadly speed, sharp barbs, and true aim flow through my entire essence—the energy dancing through my veins, down my arms, into the food. Bright and delicious. An unseen light.
In adding sautéed leek, dried garlic and spices, chopped fruits and bits of pork belly to my coconut-infused rice, it becomes a thick, aromatic stuffing. I fill the hollow of the snake with the porridge before coating it in beaten egg and then a mixture of flour and more spices. Curling this into a spiral, I skewer and deep fry it.
The fragrance is potent. The little bit of flavor I'd sampled from the rice stuffing was strong. I just hope it's enough as I hand the dish to Vyrsia.
"Breathe the fragrance in deep before each bite," I instruct as her nostrils flare, eyes going wide. My lip quirks upward to one side, but I suppress a full smile. Wait till after you win to be smug.
She pulls the fried meat and filling from the bone carefully before eating it. The way she guides the food between her teeth and then to her throat with her fingers is all too familiar, and I have to suppress a shudder. That's a part of my life I try not to remember. When she swallows, the assassin's expression brightens—and before long she's practically shoveling the food into her mouth. The visible changes are subtle, but I can see them. Her lean muscles are more defined in the flickering light of the arena. The tones of her skin shift to reflect and blend into her surroundings. But her vitei, her entire essence, takes on a greater vitality, her eyes bright.
It was her vitei, after all, that had lent that citrus-poison flavor to the air before, and the dish I've made compliments and enhances it to perfection. As she finishes, I stick my hand out to her.
"Your bandolier, if you please."
She hands it over readily, daggers and all, before returning to her meal with the total focus of the starved.
Taking it over to my cooking station, I pluck up the venom sacs I'd set aside in the butchering process. Piercing them, I mix the milky fluid in with some honey and resin to make a thick paste. Then I use that to coat the tips of the daggers before returning them to their sheaths.
"Be careful with these," I warn her. "The venom—" but she puts up her hand.
"I know of this," she signs. Her stance and expression alike scream predatory competence.
Now to see how she does in the ring.
~~~
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We're far from the first to fight. Almost an hour passes in a carnival of blood and carnage—the only limit given to the fighters being to leave their opponents alive in the end for Offering. The dirt of the arena is already smeared with blood by the time Vyrsia finally steps into the ring.
She doesn't remind me of a house cat any more, as she takes up her position across from her adversary. No, she's a stalking panther now—an extension of the shadows. A bit of night made manifest.
Her dark eyes flash as they size up the man across from her—almost twice her height, at least three times her weight. All muscle and gut. His hair and beard are shaved so close that in places you can see where the blade's scraped his skin. His gorget and bracers have a few knicks and scrapes, but the rest of his armor is well kept, almost new-looking. I strain to catch the taste of his vitei, to pick out his enhancements and their source....and catch the strong, gamey flavor of boar's meat.
In one arm he hefts a shield. In the other, a spear.
I take a deep breath. If this were an ordinary one-on-one arena fight, she'd have no chance. Assassins like her don't do so well without the elements of secrecy and surprise on their side. But this is a cooking battle, and she's got me on her side.
Lucky her.
The horn is blown, and Vyrsia becomes a blur of erratic movement. Her opponent tracks her—his eyes and reflexes keen, though his legs move slow. A dagger whips out at him from the blur, but his shield comes up just as fast to catch it. He lumbers off to one side, and I glimpse his chef—watching from just outside the central ring. Leaning on another Gourmand's cooking station for support. She's young. Around my age, I think...her doe eyes wide with terror.
The pit I'd felt in my stomach earlier twists again.
More daggers bolt through the air, all of them coming to a shuddering stop, sunk deep in the wood of the spearman's shield. For a while, the fight goes nowhere. She's too fast for him to touch, he's too well-defended to breach. But he must leave his neck open, sometimes. How else did he get those scuffs? He's also conserving energy as much as he can, only moving when he has to defend himself or when she darts in closer than usual—giving him in an opening.
But Vyrsia's almost out of daggers. No doubt trying to give herself a better shot, she finally comes in a little too close, flinging her last dagger straight at his eye. But he dodges it easily, using the effort of avoiding her strike to propel one of his own. His spear catches her in the side, and she shrieks and grabs it as though she thinks she can wrest it away. But then she lurches backward abruptly and I see the real purpose for her sacrifice. With her left hand, she's snatched one of her daggers free of the shield.
Oh gods, please. Lutra and all her children. May there still be venom on that blade.
With her tunic torn and the cut over her ribs dripping blood, she's slower now. But slow for her is still viper-fast for most. In a few heartbeats, she's several paces away from him, motionless as she gathers her strength. Taking this for a moment of weakness, the spearman rallies his own reserves of energy and charges her—a hurtling mass of muscle and hardened leather, heavy oak and metal. A battering ram.
She shoots upward at the last moment, kicking off his shield to flip through the air over his shoulder. They whirl to face each other, but she's faster. The dagger in her hand finds its home, wedged into the slender opening beneath his gorget. Not far...just enough to tear through the fabric and knick the skin beneath, I'd guess.
But it's enough. There's a reverberating, meaty thunk as he falls into the bloodied dirt. Unconscious. Unconscious forever. His chest still rises and falls, and they may be able to pry his eyes open for the Offering—but will they really be able to claim his soul, if he can't actually see or hear the Reapers?
I hope not.
Vyrsia stands over his prone bulk, chest heaving, and throws a triumphant look to me. But my gaze belongs to the chef far behind her, at the opposite end of the arena. The girl with the doe eyes who just vomited into the dirt, sagging to her knees with no one to help her.
~~~
There are advantages to being stuck living amongst royals. One of them is that their liquor will get you drunk real quick. Maybe it won't even leave me too hungover.
Chiara bangs at my bedroom door.
"I was saving this bottle for something, curse you!" She shouts between bangs, finally back from the dinner I'd declined to attend. Frederico reaches for the door, but I throw him a glare, slowly shaking my head.
"But—"
"No," I mouth.
But a heartbeat later, the door opens from the outside. I sit up to glare at her, too.
"I have keys to all these rooms, obviously," she spits.
"Then why all the banging?"
"Because I'm angry." She lifts the empty bottle of what was once a very, very fine mead. The finest of several bottles I sampled from her personal bar before tossing them through her bedroom door while she was away. "My room isn't your dumping ground, bottom-feeder."
"Oh it's bottom-feeder now is it? Is that any way to talk to your wife? Your champion?"
Her eyes go briefly wide before narrowing again.
"You're right," she says, voice poison-sweet now. She slinks up to me where I sit on my bed. "I should be rewarding you for that valiant win." Catching hold of the collar of my robes to either side, she leans in as if to kiss me, hips pressing between my thighs. I lean back, catching myself on the meat of my palms.
"Never mind that," I amend, bringing up a knee to block her from getting any closer. "Go back to being angry and over there." I shove forward with my leg, pushing her away. "Better yet, just get out."
She rights herself but doesn't move any further back.
"I may need you, but you need me too, Sa—"
"Don't say that name," I hiss, jolting to my feet.
"Don't cross me," she counters before turning from me and flouncing out.
~~~
When I wake, my head is throbbing and my mouth's dry as cotton. So much for not getting hung over. The rays of sunlight breaking through the crack in my curtains may as well be nails driving into my head. Dragging myself into a sitting position in bed, I rub my bleary eyes and glance over to the door, expecting to see Zapatio, my Third Shield—Frederico and Adares's shifts having turned over in the night. But instead it's a more familiar face blinking at me from his station near the door.
Cedro's.