Chapter 8: To Your Taste

Elara's POV

I didn't go in the afternoon.

I sat in the dormitory until dark—four hours straight. During those four hours, I rehearsed what I needed to say, running through the words in my mind over and over. When I finished, I realized I was trembling, so I started again from the beginning, repeating the exercise until the shaking stopped.

Marla came back once. She pushed the door open, saw me sitting on the edge of my bed, and said nothing. She grabbed a book and left again.

She paused in the doorway on her way out.

"Ela," she said, "they're saying you're being kept by someone."

"I know."

"I told them I don't believe it."

Then she left. When she said "I don't believe it," she didn't look at me.

I knew she meant well. But it was precisely that phrase—"I don't believe it"—that made me stand up from the edge of the bed.

I arrived at the Obsidian Manor at eight o'clock in the evening.

The man in gray was waiting at the door, as if he'd been standing there all day.

"Miss Vaneth."

"Where is he?"

He stepped aside.

"This way."

We didn't go upstairs. He led me through the front courtyard and down a corridor to the west that grew narrower as we walked, the lamps on either side becoming fewer and farther between. I caught a scent in the air—the smell of butter melting in a pan.

My steps slowed.

"...The kitchen?"

The man in gray stopped before a door and pushed it open.

I stood in the doorway for about five seconds.

It was a large kitchen with only half the lights on. There was a long worktable, and copper pots hung in a neat row along the wall. The fire in the hearth burned vigorously, its glow washing the entire wall in warm tones.

The kitchen was empty of people.

Except for him.

He stood with his back to me, facing the stove.

His formal coat had been removed and draped carelessly over the back of a nearby chair, not even folded, just tossed there with one hand. Underneath he wore a white shirt, the collar unbuttoned down to the second button.

His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows.

He held a short knife in his right hand, cutting something. When the blade came down, a muscle in his forearm tensed, a line running from his wrist all the way to the inside of his elbow, a vein rising along with it, pulsing with each exertion before subsiding again. A spot of oil glistened on the back of his hand, catching the firelight, bright one moment, dim the next.

His wrist moved with practiced efficiency.

The knife in his hand seemed to require no effort at all.

I watched for seven seconds.

After seven seconds, I cursed myself inwardly and spoke aloud.

"What did you say yesterday?"

The sound of the knife stopped.

He didn't turn around.

"What did you say?" I asked again, my voice steadier than I'd expected. "Three nights ago, I stood in your foyer and told you what I wanted. You made that promise."

"As you wish."

"Right." I said. "This afternoon, in the west building corridor, in front of over a hundred people, you said you came to pick someone up."

He set the knife down.

"Now the entire academy knows." I took two steps forward. "Every hallway I walked through after three o'clock this afternoon, people moved aside. When I entered the dining hall, half the table where I usually sit cleared out. A second-year girl ran up to me and said she'd always admired me."

"I've never spoken a word to her."

"Someone else asked if I could introduce her brother to you."

I paused.

"When I told you all this three days ago, did you actually listen?"

He turned around.

Only then did I see that his hands were stained with blood and moisture, from his knuckles to the base of his thumb. He wiped them casually on a cloth beside him, then tossed the cloth onto the counter.

"I listened."

"Then why did you—"

"I had no intention of looking for you at the academy." He said.

I froze.

"I was waiting outside the west building this afternoon for your answer. I wasn't planning to go inside." He spoke slowly. "I saw him grab your wrist from the end of the corridor."

He stopped.

"By the time I realized what I was doing, I was already standing behind you."

The only sound left in the kitchen was the noise from the pan.

I stared at him.

I'd seen him three times in these three days. The first time, in his study, he never once let me gain the upper hand. The second time, in the dark cabinet, when I clutched his sleeve, his heartbeat had been so slow it seemed he didn't care who stood outside the door. The third time was this afternoon.

This was the first time he'd said something that sounded like an admission of failure.

"...You couldn't control it." I said.

He didn't deny it.

"Then can you guarantee it won't happen again next time?"

"No."

Just one word.

I stood there, suddenly feeling exhausted.

Not one of the words I'd prepared for four hours could be used now. I'd prepared to argue with someone who played games, not with someone who laid all his cards on the table.

"Vaneth," he said, "I broke our agreement. I won't make excuses for that. You can ask for one thing, anything, and I'll give it to you as compensation."

"What I want, you can't give back."

"I know."

Neither of us spoke. The butter in the pan began to sizzle.

I looked at the cloth in his hand, at the half-cut ingredients on the counter, at the formal coat carelessly draped over the chair back.

Then I said:

"I accept."

His movement stopped.

"The contract," I said. "I accept."

He looked at me for a long time.

"Why?"

"Why do you think?" I said. "Because of eleven thousand gold coins. Because of Leo. Because I've been calculating for three years and can't figure out any other way."

"And because of one more thing."

I lifted my head.

"You could have lied to me this afternoon. You could have said the board of directors invited you. You could have said you were passing by. You could have said you didn't know it was me. I wouldn't have checked, and I couldn't have anyway."

"But you didn't lie to me."

After I finished speaking, a hollow opened in my chest.

He didn't say "very good" or "you won't regret it." He simply wiped his hands on his apron—only then did I notice he was wearing an apron, a dark, old one with frayed edges that had faded to white at the corners.

"So what do we need to sign?" I said. "A contract, a seal, or a fingerprint?"

"Dragon contracts aren't written on paper," he said. "They're sealed in blood."

"How?"

"I bite through your skin and transfer my blood into you." He said it as casually as discussing chopping vegetables. "Once it's inside, a mark will appear on your body. As long as that mark remains, the contract remains."

I instinctively touched my collarbone.

"Then let's do it now."

"Not tonight."

"Why not?"

He lifted the pan from the fire.

"Because signing the contract requires a specific day," he said. "The time hasn't come yet."

"Then what is tonight?"

"Tonight you agreed," he said. "I'll remember."

He turned back to the stove.

"What about the first rule?" I said.

"What first rule?"

"'Wherever I say to go, you go. When I say to stay, you stay. I won't ask you why, and you don't need to ask me why.'" I repeated the words he'd said before. "Since it's in effect, what's the first rule?"

He lifted the pan and tilted it slightly.

"Stay for dinner."

...

I stood there for three seconds.

I'd thought the first rule would be to move in, or something else that would cost me dearly tonight.

Instead, it was dinner.

I pulled out a chair and sat down.

Only after sitting did I realize I was hungry—so hungry my hands felt weak. I hadn't eaten lunch today; I'd sat at that half-empty table in the dining hall for two minutes before leaving.

"You can cook?" I said.

"Yes."

"Why?" Shouldn't someone like him have an entire staff of hired cooks?

He didn't answer immediately. The copper pan made half a rotation over the fire.

"When you live alone long enough."

I looked at his back.

More than a hundred years. This man had lived more than a hundred years, alone on this mountain in this vast house, and had learned to cook for himself.

I didn't want to feel sympathy for him. I'd still been angry at him this afternoon.

But a place inside me softened anyway, at the wrong moment.

He placed a plate in front of me.

I looked down. It wasn't anything extravagant—something very homey: roasted meat with stewed root vegetables, sauce drizzled over the top, still steaming hot.

The plating was careless. One piece of vegetable had fallen askew.

I picked up my fork.

He reached out and pressed my fork down.

"Wait."

I looked up.

He stood beside the table, looking down at me. The firelight from the kitchen came from behind him, burning a thin outline around his silhouette. He rolled up his right sleeve again, that vein crossing from the base of his thumb and running all the way into the fabric.

He speared a piece of meat with his fork.

And brought it to my lips.

I froze.

"I can feed myself."

"I know."

The piece of meat hovered two inches from my mouth. Steam rose from it, brushing against my face.

He didn't move it closer, nor did he pull it back.

He simply held it there.

I looked into his eyes.

Those vertical pupils, in the firelight, were a warm gold.

"Taste it," he said.

"See if it's to your taste."

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