Chapter 30: The Quiet Inn

Chapter 30

The Quiet Inn

The inn was somehow, seemingly, back to normal. It was the early morning of the day after, and the common room carried the sweet smell of freshly baked bread.

Roen had slept through most of yesterday, just like everyone else who defended the town. He still felt hollow, like something inside him had been scooped out and left aching. He sat at the bar, silent, listening for Sera’s breathing from upstairs. That was all that mattered.

The kitchen was mostly dark, just the hearth flickering and a little dawn light sneaking in. He owed Bess for coming back last night and getting the fire going again.

Outside, the south road was scarred with a line of blue glass, dead grass and shards scattered around the square. He’d walked the edge of it before baking the bread, just standing there, trying to figure out what to do about it. About the talk, the rumours that would start up soon.

Most of the damage was to the inn. The door and the wall around it were just a hole now, thanks to the Hollow. The floorboards needed replacing, nothing a few hands couldn’t fix, but still a pain. Six good glasses gone from the bar shelf. Garren’s stool cracked. Half the frostmint in the garden eaten by Brick when everyone panicked. He’d go through it all today, one thing at a time, until the list felt small enough to hold.

Sera came down at seven.

• • •

She moved carefully.

The cold the Hollow had put into her would take weeks to leave her body. The bruise on her temple stood out vivid purple-black against her auburn hair, and her ribs let her breathe only by careful negotiation. Her hair was loose. The points of her ears – uncovered. Not a statement this morning, she just didn’t have the energy or range of motion to put it up.

She slowly, with careful movements, at the third stool from the left, where the napkin propping up the uneven leg still stood defiantly, even after the hole in the wall had been opened. He set her tea in front of her, the usual, frostmint with three spoons of honey. She drank without speaking. He leaned against the counter and let the quiet sit in the air.

“You look terrible,” she said.

“I feel terrible.”

“Good. We match.”

He poured himself a cup. They drank together, morning light breaking across the bar in pieces.

“You owe me a conversation,” she said.

“I do.”

“A long one, everything, starting with how old you actually are, the number. Now.”

He set his cup down and looked at her, eyes finding hers, then the spot between them. Yesterday, she’d stood between a Hollow and Milo, nothing but her own stubbornness. She’d been thrown, bled, and stopped breathing long enough to break him. Now she was here, ribs wrapped, drinking frostmint tea, waiting for him to tell the truth.

“Three hundred and forty-two,” he said. “…and a half..technically.”

She didn’t blink. Didn’t drop her cup. Didn’t push back from the bar. She held the tea in both hands and let the number sit between them on the wood.

“Three hundred and forty-two.”

“Don’t forget the half, it’s important… but years…yes.”

“You don’t look it.” Sera said with a certain wit unbefitting the revelation just thrown upon her.

“I regressed. In my first life, I died when I was three hundred and forty-two. I woke at nineteen, in this body, in this era, with everything I’d learned still in my head.”

She breathed in carefully and let it out slow, half because of the ribs and half because of the news settling in.

“The cooking,” she said.

“Three hundred years of practice.”

“The wards and magic.”

“I built the architecture of the wards. In a life that hasn’t happened yet.”

“Were you a part of The Crimson Tower?”

“I was their Archmage for about two centuries. The most powerful mage in recorded history at the time. That hasn’t happened yet either. I’m currently older than the institution I’ll eventually lead.”

“The Archmage.” She set her cup down. Picked it up again. Set it down again. “You’re over three hundred years old. You’re the most powerful mage who will ever – has ever – lived. You died. You came back. You went three centuries into the past. You could have rebuilt an empire. Changed history.”

“Yes.”

“And you chose to make stew and bread.”

“Hey, the stew is important!”

“The stew is ridiculous.” She was crying and laughing at once now, her composure cracking, the pain in her ribs suddenly taking second place to the emotion. “You’re ridiculous. You’re three hundred years old, and you organise spices by region of origin.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“It makes sense if you understand…”

“It makes sense to nobody!” She wiped her eyes carefully, not to spread the tears. “You fell off the roof. The Archmage of the Crimson Tower fell off the flat roof of his own inn. Three times.”

“The roof is deceptively angled.”

“It’s flat!”

He was smiling. He couldn’t help it.

“Lira,” she said, her voice gentler now. “The woman with the blue cup. She was real.”

“She was real.”

“How long ago?”

“From my perspective, about a hundred and ninety years. From the world’s perspective, she hasn’t been born yet.”

Sera took another careful breath.

“This is the most insane thing anyone has ever told me. Including the time Milo tried to explain oat derivatives.”