The next morning came quiet. No knocks. No shouting elders. No forced training drills.
Just silence.
I sat on the floor, hunched over the tattered manual like it was sacred scripture. The cover read "A Scholar's Guide to Taste", but it was more than that. This thing was ancient. Recipes from every corner of the known world and even some that had fallen off maps. Crumbling parchment, cramped brushwork. Some words had faded, others were corrected with notes in different hands.
My fingers traced the ink until I landed on one that stopped me cold.
"Lian'go Milk Cakes – A delicacy from the Akaran Dynasty, once served only to Emperors and other nobles."
The ingredients were simple. Sticky rice flour. Jaggery syrup. Crushed black sesame. Goat milk reduced with smoked tea leaves.
I read it twice. Then a third time. My stomach growled, not from hunger, but from the idea of it—something sweet, soft, made for royalty. Something the Varions wouldn't touch unless it came skewered on a sword.
I stood, joints stiff. The floor was cold, and my legs ached from sitting too long, but I moved anyway. I had to.
In the back of the estate, there was an old storage kitchen. It hadn't been used in years—most of the meals now came from the main hall kitchens, run by the clan's cooks. This one was for servants and workers.
The door creaked when I pushed it open. Dust clung to everything. Pots stacked in corners. Rusted pans. A cracked mortar and pestle.
The thought of something eating something sweet was enough to make me drool. I only ate a sweet once before. Some passing merchant handed out candied roots to kids while waiting out the rain. Mine was sticky, rough-cut, barely sweet—but I still remember how my jaw locked from smiling too hard.
That was years ago. Felt like someone else's memory now.
The clan was busy with the festival. After every Path Assessment Ceremony, they held a feast to honor the new blood. Fires burned through the night. Roasted meat, bone stew, Alcohol—all of it lined the long tables. Warriors shouted and laughed, teeth bared and mouths full. Some were already drunk before sunset. Others were still sharpening blades, showing off scars like medals.
I stayed away.
Too loud. Too many eyes.
They wouldn't notice one less mouth at the table.
Especially not mine.
I slipped back into the kitchen. The pots were cold, but I found what I needed—just enough rice flour in a sealed jar, a few sticks of jaggery, and old goat milk that hadn't spoiled yet. The tea leaves were buried behind a crate of dried beans, still holding their smell after gods know how long. Everything else I had to guess, but I followed the script in the manual as best I could.
The fire was weak. The pot dented. The steam filled the space quick, and I worked fast, heart thumping like I was doing something forbidden.
Maybe I was.
Sweet things didn't belong here. Not in Varion kitchens. Not in their mouths.
To the Varion meat was everything, in the kitchen there were always different kinds of meat, mostly pheasant or duck and sometimes wild boar and deers are also included.
To the Varion, meat was everything. In the kitchen, there were always different kinds—pheasant or duck on normal days, wild boar and deer when the hunts went well. Blood was prized, bones were boiled down into broth thick enough to stand a spoon in. Fat wasn't trimmed—it was celebrated.
But sweetness?
That was for the weak. For women. For poets and dancers. Not for warriors born with blades in their hands and marrow in their teeth.
Still, I made the cakes.
Steam coiled up as the batter set. I watched it like it might vanish if I blinked. The smell wasn't strong, but it was warm—gentle in a way that didn't belong in this place.
I waited.
Then I waited more.
When they were ready, I carefully removed them from the pot. The cakes were soft, golden, and dotted with the crushed black sesame. They weren't perfect—some edges a little burnt, others a little undercooked—but they looked beautiful to me.
I couldn't help but smile. I took one and bit into it, the sweetness exploding in my mouth. The rice flour gave it a soft, chewy texture, and the jaggery syrup was thick and rich, like honey on the tongue. The black sesame added a sharp crunch that contrasted against the smoothness of the milk. It was decadent, indulgent, a taste that could have belonged to any noble court.
It was like nothing I'd ever tasted before. The sweetness coated my mouth, and for a moment, I forgot about the rough, bitter world outside.
The distant sounds of the feast filtered in, but they felt muffled now. The warriors, drunk on their pride and their meat, could have cared less about a dish like this. To them, it would be beneath them. But to me? It was everything.
I finished the first cake and quickly devoured the others. Each bite was an escape, each chew a fleeting moment of indulgence in a life that was rarely kind to me.
When I was done, I sat back against the cool stone, letting the silence of the kitchen wrap around me. For once, it felt like I had something to myself—something sweet, something that didn't belong to the Varions and their endless thirst for blood and battle. It felt like a rare treasure, something I could hold on to for just a little longer.
I had no delusions that this would change anything, but in that moment, it didn't matter. I was content.
For now, it was enough.
My fingers were still sticky with syrup when I caught my reflection in the old bronze kettle across the room. I looked ridiculous—goat milk on my sleeve, flour smudged across my jaw, eyes wide like a starving child.
Outside, the festival was rising into full madness. I heard the clash of tankards, the roar of another drinking song, the scrape of metal on bone as someone decided to carve meat with a sword just to show off. Let them. They could have their blood and bluster.
I cleaned the space as best I could, scrubbing the pans with cold water and an old rag that turned to mush halfway through. I left the cracked mortar where it was, a quiet witness to my little rebellion. The cakes were gone. Every last bite. And yet the memory of their warmth lingered like a ghost behind my teeth.
I tucked the manual back into my robe, pressing it close like a secret. It didn't belong here any more than I did. But I wasn't ready to let go of it.
As I stepped out of the kitchen, the wind caught me—sharp and cold. Smoke curled from the feast fires. The sky was a deep bruised purple, stars beginning to show through the haze. No one noticed me slip past the edges of the celebration, no one called my name. I wasn't one of the warriors. I wasn't part of their world.
In the shadows of the stone corridor, I glanced back once, toward the kitchen and its faint, lingering warmth. Then I turned and walked on, quiet and alone, the taste of Lian'go Milk Cakes still soft on my tongue.
It was the first time in years I'd eaten something that didn't make me feel like I was preparing for war.
"HEY BOY!!"
I looked back after someone calling to me, there I saw a drunk man with gray hair and a small bottle of rice wine looking at me. I didn't know him, he wasn't part of my clan nor one of the servant.
He was slouched against the edge of a pillar, half-shadowed, like he'd melted into the stone. His cloak was tattered and too fine for a vagrant, but too stained for a noble. The bottle in his hand caught the firelight—clear rice wine sloshing inside, glinting like moonlight in a well.
"You look like someone who just committed a sin," he said, voice slurred but sharp at the edges. "Sticky fingers, guilty mouth. What'd you steal? A kiss? A secret? Or…" He sniffed the air and grinned, teeth crooked. "Something sweeter?"
I didn't answer.
Because something in me said not to.
Not fear. Just instinct. This man wasn't drunk the way Varions got drunk. He wasn't stumbling or slurring nonsense. He was acting drunk, wearing it like a second skin—badly fitted, slightly off.
He took a lazy sip, then wobbled closer, bottle hanging from two fingers. "You know, I haven't smelled that in years. Black sesame. Jaggery. Little hint of smoked tea leaf."
My stomach tightened.
I tried to ran away, then he suddenly grabbed my arm.
"Oh what do we have in here?"
His grip wasn't rough. It wasn't tight, either. But it was there—anchored like a hook under my skin, holding me still with barely any effort.
The rice wine bottle dangled from his hand, swinging lazily as he examined me with eyes sharp and calculating, despite his disheveled appearance.
I shake off his hand and ran away from there without looking back but I could still hear the laughing from that man.