The fortress city of Winter's Keep did not so much welcome its king home as it gingerly accepted back a strange, new, and fragrantly complicated reality.
The ashen pall of Mount Saede still clung to cloaks and boots, but the air inside the great citadel now swirled with a far more potent and confusing aroma: garlic, roasting meat, rosemary, and the soul-deep scent of a king's claim.
The promise had been made to three hungry pups in a hellscape. Cecilia Araceli, a woman of her word, was now fulfilling it in the fortress's cavernous, fire-lit kitchens. Giant haunches of beef and mutton seared in pans the size of shields. Root vegetables caramelized in honey and herbs.
Word, of course, had spread. It spread faster than the scent. The Alpha's new Luna is cooking. By sunset, the vast feasting hall, a space usually reserved for roaring debates and the messy consumption of entire boars, was packed.
