Chapter 806: Kaelia’s Cooking Class [III]

Her chest swelled with boundless pride, her blue hair shimmering in the sunbeams as she stood by her pot with the regal posture of a conquering general.

Leaving the beaming princess to tend her pristine simmer, Kaelia turned to inspect the rest of the hall.

For the next ten minutes, Kaelia walked the wide avenues of the Hearthbloom Kitchen, checking each of the thirty stations.

She moved with quiet focused diligence, lifting lids, adjusting flue dampers with her iron hook, and offering soft words of correction to the nervous garrison girls.

"Lower your damper half a notch, recruit, the water is churning too hard..."

"Add half a ladle of cool water to that pot, sister, your level has dropped below the shell..."

"Keep the lid seated and don’t let the vapor escape."

Across the room, the sound of rhythmic scrubbing echoed from the stone wash basin.

Ther’Abella and Elowynn were leaning over the deep limestone trough, their aprons soaked with gray rinse-water as they worked with frantic desperate energy.

Ther’Abella was scouring the blackened interior of her pot with a handful of river sand, her teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached, muttering dark elven promises under her breath while the sand scraped loudly against the scorched iron.

Beside her, Elowynn was pouring boiling water through her saucepan to cut the thick residue of pig fat, scrubbing the sides with a stiff bristle brush until her knuckles were red and raw.

Once the iron was clean and steaming both women rushed back to their cooktops.

They set their pots down with heavy thuds, filled them with fresh mountain water from the clay pitchers, carefully lowered two fresh eggs into the liquid, and slammed their lids shut, watching the coals with the manic unblinking intensity of sentries waiting for an ambush.

Kaelia stood by the center counter, keeping careful track of the time.

She stood patiently, listening to the gentle bubbling across the room, waiting with deliberate generous restraint.

"Mmmhm~ I have a good feeling~"

She made extra sure there was more than enough time for Ther’Abella and Elowynn’s newly submerged eggs to reach a complete thorough simmer before she called the end of the exercise.

...Kaelia gave them six full minutes of rolling steam, ensuring the heat had penetrated all the way to the heart of the shells.

Finally, Kaelia drew a deep breath and clapped her hands together with a sharp ringing snap.

CLAP!

"Time is up, everyone!" Kaelia called out, her voice cutting clearly over the bubbling hearths. "Douse your dampers and remove your pots from the heat... Use your wooden tongs to transfer your eggs into your bowls of cool water to arrest the cooking process! Once the shells are cool enough to handle, gently tap them against the counter, peel away the outer casing, and crack your eggs open onto your plates! Let’s witness the results of your labor!"

A flurry of hurried movement rippled across the thirty stoves.

Tongs clinked against iron rims, cool water hissed as hot shells were plunged into glazed ceramic basins, and the rhythmic hollow tapping of eggs against stone counters filled the room like a flock of busy woodpeckers.

TAP!

TAP!

TAP!

Kaelia stepped forward, beginning her final inspection at the head of the room.

Aki was the first to present her dish.

The blue-haired princess carefully sliced her peeled egg in half with a thin silver butter knife, stepping back with a proud radiant smile.

The cross-section was perfect.

The white was firm, glossy, and pristine as fresh snow, with zero discoloration or rubbery tearing along the edges... Dead center, the yolk sat like a glowing orb of warm amber honey, set completely around the perimeter while retaining a rich semi-liquid core that glistened under the kitchen lanterns.

"Flawless," Kaelia declared, nodding with profound professional respect. "A textbook soft-boiled egg... The white is tender, the yolk is luxurious, and the temperature curve was maintained without a single flaw. Truly exceptional work, Lady Aki!"

Aki let out a happy squeal, clapping her hands together while a blush of pure triumph painted her cheeks.

Kaelia moved down the line, inspecting the plates of the garrison girls.

For the most part, the results were remarkably solid.

The Shieldmaidens produced firm, dependable hard-boiled eggs that were completely solid throughout, perfect for durable field rations that could survive three days in a leather pouch.

The archers’ plates held soft, tender eggs with slightly runny centers, cleanly peeled without gouging the whites.

"Good texture here."

"A clean peel on this one, very nice."

"Slightly overcooked, but edible and nourishing... Well done, girls."

Kaelia offered warm praises and encouraging smiles at every station, watching the young women beam with pride as they tasted their own cooking.

The Hearthbloom Kitchen was filled with the happy satisfied hum of success then, Kaelia arrived at the front corner.

She stopped between Ther’Abella and Elowynn’s prep counters, her hands clasping in front of her apron as she looked down at their respective plates.

Her smile slowly dissolved into thin air once again.

Ther’Abella stood with her chin tilted upward, her arms crossed firmly over her Viridian Guard cuirass, looking at her ceramic plate with cold haughty satisfaction.

Resting in the center of her dish was an egg that she’d managed to crack open with a starlight dagger.

...It was a disaster.

Despite the extra time Kaelia had generously provided, Ther’Abella had been so terrified of scorching the bottom again that she’d turned her flue damper completely shut halfway through the cycle.

The shell had cracked unevenly, tearing away half the albumen in jagged rubbery chunks and from the center of the mangled white, a pale raw yolk had ruptured across the porcelain, pooling into a slimy translucent puddle of yellow slime that smelled of stale pond water.

"It’s... an ancient elven delicacy," Ther’Abella insisted haughtily, though a bead of cold sweat trickled down the constellation marks on her cheek. "A semi-fluid restorative emulsion. It’s meant to be swallowed in a single disciplined round..."

Beside her, Elowynn was staring down at her own plate with a deep furrowed scowl of profound confusion.

The tall corsair had swung completely in the opposite direction.

Terrified of undercooking her egg, Elowynn had stoked her birch coals until the iron grate was glowing white-hot, leaving the pot at a violent roaring boil for the entire duration...

Her egg had gone through an extreme transformation.

The white was tough, leathery, and shriveled into a dense rubbery gray puck that looked like a hardened leather sole.

The yolk inside had turned a ghastly sickly shade of chalky greenish-black, cracked into dry powdery fissures that reeked intensely of rotten volcanic sulfur.

"I don’t understand," Elowynn muttered, poking the rubbery gray mass with the tip of her knife.

The knife bounced off the rubber white with a dull thud. "I gave it plenty of heat! It should be thoroughly done! Why does it smell like a demon’s armpit?!"

Kaelia stood between them, staring at the pool of raw yellow slime on the left and the sulfurous green cannonball on the right.

Her shoulders began to tremble.

A suffocating wave of pure crushing stress crashed over the petite chef’s chest, squeezing the breath from her lungs.

She cooked for Lord Silas and every Hero in the Keep, she fed the whole of Blessed Land three times a day, and she’d never once been beaten by a stove yet, standing before these two legendary, centuries-old warriors, she felt like she was staring into an infinite bottomless abyss of culinary incompetence...

Kaelia reached up with trembling fingers.

Slowly, she untied the strings of her pleated chef’s cap, lifting the white linen from her dark hair.

She reached behind her waist, unfastened the knot of her white linen apron, and pulled the cloth over her head.

Kaelia slammed the folded apron down onto the oak prep counter with a sharp resounding crack that echoed through the silent kitchen.

SLAP!

Every single girl in the room jumped, freezing in their tracks as they looked at their usually timid instructor.

Kaelia stood tall on the balls of her slippers, her chest heaving beneath her double-breasted coat.

Her pale cheeks were flushed with a fierce fire, her eyes blazing with the sacred furious resolve of a master artisan whose life’s purpose had just been challenged by the gods themselves.

She pointed a small iron-hard finger straight between Ther’Abella and Elowynn’s noses, her voice ringing out across the stone hall with unshakeable conviction.

"Listen to me, both of you!" Kaelia announced, her words shaking the copper pans hanging from the rafters. "I don’t care if you’ve lived for seven hundred years! I don’t care if you’ve sailed the seven seas and swing twin blades of liquid fire! I won’t rest! I won’t sleep! Not until I’ve personally beaten basic kitchen sense into both of your heads...! I’m going to teach every single one of you how to cook properly if it’s the last thing I do on this earth! I swear it on the sacred fires of the hearth!"

...

The late-afternoon sun had dipped behind the turquoise ridge of Aki’s Wonderland, casting long violet-tinted shadows through the leafy canopy overhead.

A cooler floral breeze whispered through the courtyard, stirring the banners along the sea-green spires of the newly upgraded Rosewater Citadel and ruffling Silas’s dark hair.

Along the smooth, stone-paved avenue leading down toward the southern boundary where the teleportation circle lay inscribed, Silas walked with steady unhurried strides.

He carried Kaelia securely in both arms, holding the petite chef cradled comfortably against his chest like a fragile treasure.

The poor girl was thoroughly exhausted.

Her snow-white chef’s coat was rumpled, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and small smudges of gray ash and yellow egg residue clung stubbornly to her collar.

Her dark hair had completely slipped out from beneath her linen cap, spilling across Silas’s shoulder in loose, disheveled waves.

Her small chin rested heavily against the leather collar of his tunic, her eyes drooping with soul-deep fatigue.

Silas could feel the slight trembling sigh she released every few paces, the vibrations humming against his ribs as his fingers supported her back and thighs.

’...Poor girl.’

Walking just beside his right hip, Solenne glided along with graceful quiet steps.

The silver fox-girl’s nine magnificent tails swayed gently behind her in a wide plush fan, occasionally brushing against the fabric of Silas’s trousers in an instinctive soothing motion.

Lupina bounced on the balls of her feet a few paces ahead, her claw gauntlets unstrapped and resting in her hip pouches, her silver wolf ears swiveling idly toward the treetops.

Behind them walked Morrighan, tall and imposing in her mythril armor, her crimson spade-tipped tail giving an occasional slow, rhythmic flick against the stones.

Aurelia walked with her hands folded serenely within her white vestments, while Rowenna hugged her little notebook tightly against her chest, her blue eyes darting toward Silas every few seconds.

Escorting the Blessed Land retinue to the circle were Aki, Ther’Abella, and Elowynn.

Ther’Abella looked as though she’d survived a siege.

Her silver hair had been hastily brushed into a lopsided braid, but flecks of dried egg yolk still glistened near her left temple.

Her cheeks were pale, her lips were pressed into a paper-thin line of bitter aristocratic agony, and she kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to look at the other girls.

Elowynn walked beside her with a sheepish lopsided grin, her hands stuffed into her leather breeches pockets, her tall frame swaying with relaxed pirate grace despite the lingering reek of scorched lard clinging to her apron strings.

Aki walked closest to Silas, her steel breastplate catching the fading rays of the sun, her azure eyes sparkling with an endearing mix of pride and lingering worry.

In Silas’s arms, Kaelia stirred faintly, letting out a soft defeated groan that sounded like a wounded kitten.

"I cook for the whole of Blessed Land three times a day," Kaelia mumbled, her voice muffled against the fabric of Silas’s chest, "and I never sit down once... but two hours in that kitchen felt like ten years of my life evaporating into thin air."

She lifted her heavy head slightly, turning her tired eyes toward the blue-haired princess walking beside them.

"At least you know how to fry meat now, Lady Aki..." Kaelia murmured, offering the girl a faint exhausted smile of pure honest relief. "The heat control on that iron skillet was actually quite commendable..."

’Aki was truly my star student,’ Kaelia thought, a warm genuine sense of gratitude fluttering through her weary chest. ’In that entire room of thirty women, she was the only one who actually listened when I spoke... She soaked up every single temperature adjustment like a dry sponge. When I showed her how to sear the outer crust without burning the inner marrow, she watched with such bright, earnest eyes... She worked with genuine passion.’

Kaelia swallowed.

’Aki is going to do great things for this territory, and her people will never starve while she stands over the fire. I truly wish her all the luck in the realm... especially if she has to share a table with those other two.’