Chapter 193: Taste of Victory

Words : 1248 Updated : Oct 14th, 2025

Dinner that night was quiet, the way battles always ended best. Inigo set the skillet on the stove, the scent of sizzling garlic and onions filling the cramped kitchen. Lyra leaned against the table, bow unstrung and propped in the corner, her posture loose but her eyes sharp, like a soldier who had learned the body could rest even when the mind refused. "You cook after everything," she said at last. Inigo stirred the pan, brow furrowed in concentration. "Cooking makes sense. Heat, time, measure. Physics doesn’t lie. People do." Her lips quirked faintly. "And food never talks back." "Unless you burn it." The steam curled upward, carrying warmth through the little room. Outside, the streets still buzzed with the leftover energy of the cheer they’d walked through. Even here, away from the guild plaza, they could hear faint voices singing their names like they were already half in the songs of bards. Lyra rubbed at her temple. "It’s too much. Too fast." "You wanted them to sing about the food," Inigo reminded her. She gestured toward the window, where the hum of voices carried faint but steady. "They’re not singing about the food. They’re singing about us." Inigo slid the pan off the fire, portioning the meal into two bowls. "Then let’s give them both." The next day, the plaza was thicker than ever. Word of the capture had spread overnight, faster than fire in a dry field. Bards had already begun composing verses; students scribbled accounts on parchment, embellishing until "road bandits" had become "a warlord’s army," and "ambush" had become "a siege of fire and steel." At Mcronald’s, the line began before dawn. Nobles sent servants to hold places, apprentices from the mage’s academy debated the seasoning of the fried chicken as though it were alchemy, and common townsfolk pressed together just to see the two Platinums behind the counter. Riko nearly burst at the seams. "They’re chanting out there," he whispered as he scrawled the day’s menu. "Your names! Like you’re generals returning from war!" Lyra tightened her apron, muttering under her breath. "Feels more like livestock on parade." Inigo tied his apron slower, calm as stone. "Then let’s serve them the feed they want." When they threw open the shutters, the roar was immediate. Cheers, clapping, even a bouquet thrust forward by a blushing noble’s daughter. Inigo accepted it without a change in expression, passed it to Riko, and went straight to the grill. "Two doubles!" Lyra barked, slipping effortlessly into the rhythm. "Fries up!" Riko shouted, emboldened by the crowd. The fryer hissed, meat seared, paper crinkled. Orders moved like clockwork. Yet above it all hummed the murmur of legend, people repeating half-true tales of the ambush at Harrows’ Notch, each one growing larger with every telling. By midday, Elise herself dropped by, ledger in hand. She leaned on the counter, smirking at the chaos. "Platinum ranks selling fried chicken to nobles. If my father were alive, he’d say the guild lost its mind." Lyra handed her a basket without breaking stride. "Tell him we’re feeding his city better than his council ever did." Elise laughed softly, then lowered her voice. "Thorne says interrogation begins tonight. Vane’s already cost half the city sleep, and the tribunal won’t wait. Don’t be surprised if you’re summoned again." Inigo slid another patty across the grill. "We didn’t bring him back just to watch him rot. If there’s a hand behind him, we’ll need to know it." Elise tilted her head, studying him. "You’re taking this too calmly." "Cooking helps." She chuckled, pushed off the counter, and vanished back into the crowd. That night, with the stall closed and lanterns flickering along their street, Lyra sat cross-legged on the table while Inigo cleaned the fryer. She held a bowstring in her hands, twisting it idly between her fingers. "You ever think about what Thorne said?" she asked. "Which part?" "That we’re examples. That people are supposed to follow us. What if we don’t want them to?" Inigo wiped his hands on a rag, glanced at her. "Then don’t look back. Leadership’s not about asking people to follow. It’s about walking straight enough that they do anyway." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You sound like a guildmaster." He set the rag down, sat opposite her. "I sound like a cook who’s tired of bad orders." They sat in silence a moment, the kind that wasn’t empty but full, thick with the weight of what they’d done and what lay ahead. Outside, footsteps echoed, a bard’s faint song drifted, and the city kept breathing, unaware of the knife-edges being balanced in a small kitchen. It came just past midnight—a knock, sharp and deliberate. Riko stirred from his cot, rubbing his eyes, but Lyra was already at the door with an arrow nocked. The figure outside was a guild runner, pale and out of breath. He held a strip of parchment sealed with wax. "For Inigo and Lyra," he gasped. "Guild summons. Tribunal tonight." Lyra broke the seal, scanned the words, and her face tightened. "They want us present." Inigo buckled his belt with slow precision. "Of course they do." The guildhall at night was colder, quieter. Torches burned low, shadows clinging to the corners. In the tribunal chamber, a half-circle of officials sat like judges at a feast, robes heavy, expressions heavier. Vane knelt in the center, wrists chained, face pale but eyes still sharp with pride. Thorne stood at the edge, arms folded. When Inigo and Lyra entered, his eyes flicked to them, then back to the prisoner. "Platinum representatives," the guild scribe intoned. "Witnesses to the capture of Vane of the Notch. Your testimony stands alongside his fate." Lyra spoke first, voice even. She told the story as she had before—clear, stripped of embellishment. Inigo followed, briefer still. Facts, nothing more. The officials murmured, scratching notes on parchment. One leaned forward, asking, "And his men? Did they resist?" "They broke," Inigo said. "Because of fear?" "Because of physics," he answered flatly. "Fire, steel, timing. They had none of it." A murmur of amusement rippled through the chamber. Thorne’s mouth twitched, just once. When the testimony ended, silence fell. Then Vane laughed—a sharp, bitter bark. "You think you’ve won. You think cutting me ends the tolls? I was only ever a shadow. There are others, higher, richer, better hidden. You’ll never cut all the nets." The chamber stiffened. Officials whispered sharply. Lyra’s hand tightened on her bow. Inigo just watched, expression unreadable. Thorne stepped forward, voice calm but carrying iron. "Then you’ll tell us who holds the lines above you." Vane spat blood on the floor. "You’ll have to dig it out of me." The tribunal voted swiftly after that. Interrogation, confinement, silence. His words had sown enough unease to demand answers, and the guild would get them, one way or another. When it ended, Thorne dismissed them with a glance. "Go home. Rest. Tomorrow, the city will need its cooks again." Outside, the night air was cool. Lyra’s steps were quick, sharp. "He’s not lying," she said. "There are more." Inigo’s jaw was set. "There are always more." She stopped, forcing him to meet her gaze. "And if the guild drags us into another net?" He held her eyes for a long moment. "Then we cut again." And with that, they walked home in silence, side by side, the weight of Platinum heavy on their shoulders, but the scent of tomorrow’s bread already pulling them forward.

Chapter 193: Taste of Victory

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