Tales of Avalon: The Maid and the Falcon

✧ Chapter 23: Good Fortune ✧

Peregrine sighed, her mouth full of something that, though somewhat spicy, was not remotely as strong as the khest peppers from that first morning.  There were small scraps of meat in it, and though they were a bit chewy and gamey it was a good meal.  Hastily she swallowed and turned her attention to Tena.

"So, let me be sure I understand."  Tena looked up inquiringly, her bread half-dipped in the sauce.  "In Tabora the table is the center of the house?"

"Yes.  Being accepted at the table and accepting food from it is belonging to the family of the house."

"A family of food," Peregrine mused, looking with renewed interest at the bowl.  "I wonder how many conflicts we would avoid in the north if we followed the same principle."  In all honesty, sometimes family doesn't mean much either.  How many small crises had been created in Avalon from family conflict and inheritance battles?  That was without considering Peregrine's own situation.

"You seem sad."  Peregrine jumped and looked up to see Tena looking at her in some concern.  With a smile, Peregrine shook her head.

"No, I'm alright.  Just... thinking."

"Mm."  Tena looked as if she wanted to say something more, but she refrained.  After a few minutes of quiet eating, she again interrupted Peregrine's reverie.  "Peregrine, did you see what happened in the marketplace a few days ago?"

"The glow?"

"Yes.  They said after it went off, people were finding Evak members everywhere."  Tena paused, a complicated look on her face.  "Everyone they found had the Evak tattoo, and... they were all dead.  Not one mark on them, but they all died.  They're saying the tattoo had to have been poisoned or something."  She shivered.  "Aya, I'm glad Evak is gone, but what if the next people are worse?"

"The next people?"  Peregrine leaned forward over her bowl, frustration building in her core.  "What do you mean, the next people?"

"There are always people like them.  As long as people pay well, someone will fill in the gap."

Peregrine sat back a bit.  "The Tanen."  After a moment, she sighed and dipped her bread in her bowl.  "Tena, why is trade with the Tanen so open here?  It has to be secretive in the north."

"Aya, why would it be secretive?  This is where it started."

Peregrine's head spun.  Tabora, land of monsters, is the birthplace of the Tanen?  Memories of the Destane facility ripped through her head, and in her heart something twisted painfully.  That dark, disastrous building had done so much damage, even as a secretive auxiliary.  And it had begun here?

"How?" she managed to ask, her voice sounding hoarse, strangled.

"I think it started with alchemy of monsters and monster parts, but at some point it escalated.  Now, if Tabora nobility need a limb repaired or a new heir, they'll go to the Tanen.  No one asks how it's done, but we all know."

"Does that mean that the main force of the Tanen is here?"

"Not in Namah, no, but if you mean Tabora... yes.  Here and... I think there may be a branch in Mena as well."  After a moment of silence, a hand brushed Peregrine's, and she leaped in her chair.  Tena had come around the table to her, looking at Peregrine's hand.  "Aya, look at you.  Do you have some kind of history with the Tanen?"

Peregrine glanced down at her hand to see that it had crushed her bread to paste and it shimmered with heat, as if she'd been trying to burn the bread to ashes.

"I... do have some history.  Some of mine suffered under them."  Peregrine forced her hand to loosen, holding the mangled and singed bread limply.  She stared down at it without really seeing it, her thoughts far away.  "Most did not survive."