Chapter 9: Two Sticks and Rice

Nerei found her at the end of the afternoon in the infirmary, washing her hands for the fifth time.

"He's on the high terrace," the steward said. "He asked me to ask if you'd eat with him."

Her ears tipped back.

"He said it very casually, which means he practiced for an hour."

Shiori dried her hands on her apron.

"What's on the high terrace?"

"Dinner," said Nerei, smiling. "And the thing he told me never to show anyone."

The high terrace lay at the top of the keep behind a low wooden door.

She pushed it open and stopped breathing.

The garden was long and narrow, cut into the roof, with raised beds of herbs and beans along the wall.

At the far end was a square stone basin full of water.

Rows of bright green shoots stood up out of the water, thin and straight as pins, swaying in the evening wind.

She walked to it.

She knelt on the edge and touched one green blade.

"It's rice," she said.

"Yes."

He was standing by a small table with two covered bowls, and he had not moved since she came in.

"I've grown it for eleven years," Kaedan said. "It does badly. The winters are too short. I keep trying."

"It's rice."

"Yes."

"I haven't had rice for seven months."

Her voice broke on the last word, and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.

He crossed the stone floor quickly and went down on one knee beside her, and for a moment he only held her shoulders.

"Eat," he said gently. "It's not good rice. It's the best I can do."

She wiped her eyes and let him lead her to the table.

He lifted the cover from a bowl.

White grains steamed up, short and sticky, with a little grilled fish on top.

He took two thin sticks of smooth wood from beside his plate and held another pair out to her.

She took them without thinking.

The sticks lay across her fingers exactly right, and she picked up a mouthful and put it in her mouth.

It tasted like her grandmother's kitchen.

She laughed and cried at once, and he sat across from her and ate with his own two sticks, neatly, with his eyes down.

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