“Th-this is the food storage. This wagon’s got salted pork and beef; the one behind has carrots and onions… ma’am, take whatever you want—anything you want!”

“Mm.”

“Then… c-could I…”

“Mm.”

Before Mira’s words even settled, footsteps scattered behind her like startled sparrows. She tilted her head and caught the provisioner mid-flight, tripping over a pebble and sprawling, panic flaring like dry grass in wind. He ran as if a demon clung to his shadow, not a girl pretty as spring light but a blade waiting to claim a debt.

She knew why he reacted that way; it was the mark she meant to carve into his mind.

The man wasn’t unlucky; he was foolish. He said the wrong thing at the worst time—when Mira was angry, when her temper was a blade under silk.

Yes, she had just… backed down in front of Adelaide for the moment, yet her chest still smoldered, a charcoal that wouldn’t cool.

She was angry Adelaide left home on her own and gambled with risk, angrier she agreed to Slandel’s terms in a breath, then justified it with crisp logic, as if hardship’s dust and thirst wouldn’t grind at her frail body.

She had watched Adelaide waste away after fleeing Balad—fever and pain whittling her day by day, like a winter wind carving bark. Adelaide had just recovered a little pink in her cheeks through food and rest, hadn’t even regained the weight time had stolen, and now she agreed to a journey stretching half a year…!

The memory of Slandel kissing Adelaide’s hand, smiling like a snake in sunshine, stoked Mira’s anger, a tide that kept rising.

Daring to hide how harsh the road would be, tricking someone who should be recuperating—unforgivable, that woman, unforgivable.

Mira’s fingers clenched; nails bit into her palm like cold thorns. Her emotions lurched, a storm tugging at its tether.

Yet within the churn, a familiar thread tightened.

Jealousy.

She knew it. Was she really only angry over Adelaide’s deal with Slandel?

Of course not. What she felt picturing that kiss and what she felt when Adelaide mentioned how close she and Skela were—those rhythms matched like two beats of the same drum.

She knew it was business talk, but her heart wouldn’t obey; it kept asking, why bring up other women in front of me—

Mira shut her eyes, drew a breath, and cut the thought before it could grow leaves.

One…

Two.

…

She was furious, yet she couldn’t turn that fire on Adelaide. So when that witless provisioner came wagging his tongue, she didn’t think—she let the heat pour onto him, a reflex pulling the most frightening trick she knew. Face blank, she pinched his throat, lifted him so his feet dangled in air, nowhere to brace, and let him sink toward darkness before she released him.

It was her first time trying it herself, but the technique was etched deep, like a scar in old wood—no effort needed to mimic it perfectly.

She’d learned that before the Douglas Family took her in, the same way she’d learned to cook, skills branded like night fires on a slave’s back.

She lifted a barrel lid. Milky brine shone like pale moonlight, salt heavy in the air like sea wind. Uneven cuts of pork floated inside, not pink with freshness but a deep brown, oxidized like old bark.

She checked other barrels. Just as the provisioner had yammered—turnips and rutabagas, dried peas like pebbles, butter that keeps without complaint, flour sacks tied tight with hemp like bundled wheat.

She looked at the not-fresh ingredients, face steady as a quiet pond—no surprise, no disappointment.

She’d known. These were for a long road; keeping time at bay mattered more than tender taste. That man’s talk of “convenience” to charm a woman likely meant picking the least worm-bit stash for a private meal.

And that was exactly what Mira would do next.

She grabbed a plate from the rack and walked to a barrel marked with a salt scrawl. Lifted the lid—half a barrel of clean water, pork loin resting at the bottom, the softest cut, as close to “good” as provisions get.

So that was his chosen fare for tonight’s little indulgence.

Mira rolled her sleeves. She lifted a piece from the water; her fingers pressed, testing. The softened give told her it had soaked overnight, the salt tamed like a bridle on a horse. She placed the pork on her plate, satisfied.

As she turned to leave, a butcher’s knife hanging on the wall caught her eye like a dull star.

She glanced at the bright sword at her hip, weighed chopping with a thing meant for war, then reached for the humble knife and took it along, the contrast like silk beside burlap.

“Kemen (earth)—”

She murmured the spell. Two mounds of ground rose at her call like dunes catching wind; her finger traced the air, and one swelled into an oven, the other into a waist-high, broad table. She fed split wood into the earthen oven, then coaxed sparks off her fingertips—little lightning fireflies—to kiss the tinder and set it aflame.

While the oven warmed, she worked the food.

Mira set the plate down and picked up the butcher’s knife.

She drew a breath and lowered the blade.

Even prepared, some part of her recoiled when the rough edge bit through salted pork, a tremor running down to her wrist like a leaf shivering in frost.

She wasn’t a delicate lady who couldn’t stand raw meat. Her sword had opened bodies far worse than this, and her hand had never shaken for that.

It wasn’t flesh that repelled her; it was the fact she was cooking.

Cooking—home’s plain skill, nothing to hide—yet she had never told a soul. Not the Douglas Family, not the Belior royal court, not even Adelaide knew she could cook.

As for why—her palm gripped a coarse wooden handle, dead meat lay on the board, and the dull blade traced wounds that no longer bleed. With those motions, Mira’s back tightened of its own accord, and phantom stripes from an old whip flared there, a shadow of pain making her want to fling the knife away.

But she couldn’t. Her fingers ignored her will, clamping the handle in a cramped spasm like a locked shackle.

Because she knew, if she dropped it, the master’s lash would bite deeper.

…

One… two.

She exhaled and buried the black-haired, skinny, scar-laced little girl in the grave inside her heart.

She was no one’s slave now. No one would beat her because cubes weren’t perfect, nor would she see a companion strangled in front of her for hiding a hard biscuit.

No—now she had to think of one person, one thing only.

The one who freed her from those fears was alone in the carriage, waiting for dinner.

Mira focused on the cutting board, pressed lightly, and split the salted pork in two like parting a quiet stream.

**

“Mmm—so crisp.”

Adelaide slid a piece of flaky crust from her fork to her mouth. Butter bloomed like sunlight on wheat, and the crispness snapped gently, drawing out a soft breath.

A pork pie sat before her, nothing fancy on the surface, yet one bite surprised her like a hidden blossom in snow.

She speared a neat cube of meat under the crust, blew, and took a small bite; her brows lifted. The pork wasn’t the tough chew of brined meat; it was soft and juicy, fibers yielding at her teeth like ripe fruit, a touch of aged tenderness.

“This… is much better than the pies we ordered from restaurants,” Adelaide said, delighted.

“Fresh from the oven beats carryout,” Mira replied.

Mira sat on the other side, spine straight, posture held like a blade kept out of reach—distance between them as if the table were a border. Since she brought the pie, an invisible circle of no-step-closer had settled around her; Adelaide couldn’t even sit beside her, awkward as standing under a cold moon.

She’s still mad at me, Adelaide thought, and chose to ease the moment, to find another topic.

“Yes, that’s part of it, but I don’t think we had anything like this back in Balad…”

Halfway through, her gaze found tiny red specks inside the pie; her eyes widened a touch.

“Chili… Mira, did you make this?”

“…No.”

“Then I should thank the kitchen’s—”

“—No. It was me.”

Mira cut her off, a flicker of panic in her eyes like a candle’s jump. She looked aside, regret coloring her voice as she added:

“That man… isn’t decent. Try not to speak to him.”

Adelaide’s mouth parted, but she didn’t press for details. She only nodded, soft as a leaf dropping.

“If you say so, Mira, we’ll do that.”

She sliced off a corner of crust again and ate it with quiet grace, then melted into the taste, content like a cat in sun.

“Mmm—if I could eat Mira’s cooking every day, this trip wouldn’t be worse than staying at home.”

Her words barely left her lips before reality slapped them.

That night, when she couldn’t take a hot bath, regret pricked her like ice.

“Ah!”

The wet towel touched skin and Adelaide shivered head to toe, a sting like cold rain. After wavering, she called out from the bath space to Mira.

“Mira, is there really no lightning magic that can keep water hot? Like an iron rod in the tub, heating it with current…”

“You’d get shocked. Don’t overthink it. Desert nights are cold; just wipe quick and come out,” Mira answered, helpless.

She set the kettle of hot water she’d just boiled by the makeshift earthen bath. Her finger traced a few circles in air; the dirt wall swallowed the kettle like earth drinking dew, and a sweet “thank you” floated out.

“Mix the hot water with the cold, don’t—”“Ah—too hot!”

Their voices overlapped; a thud echoed inside.

“Are you okay?!”

Silence. Panic flared in Mira; she was already unraveling the wall’s magic to check when Adelaide’s small, sulky voice finally slipped out, nasal with soft tears.

“I want a bath… I want to soak in a tub of hot water.”

It was rare, honest as bare skin. For someone like her, a wipe-down wasn’t cleaning; it made her feel dirtier, like dust rubbed deeper.

What Adelaide didn’t yet realize was this: even the right to wipe herself would soon be taken away.