The Stealer of Hearts gazed up at the wall encrusted with rubies, each one the size of a human fist. Their glow showed strength and power beyond what all lusted after.
What would you do for the price of immortality?
The Empire of Glass, Time crawled like a wounded beast and it was a man's greatest enemy. The Empire of Glass' inhabitants may be the oldest of all races on the earth, immortal and ageless, but sometimes the tiniest flaw in their life can cost them their souls. Being of a glass soul, enabled your life to be endless, as long the soul was whole. One chip. One break or crack. And you lose in one conflict— a rash decision, a century of life and love and joy.
For centuries, they had lived and loved, ruled and fought, their existence bound by the shimmering threads of their souls.
But power, like a venomous serpent, coiled around the heart of the King, driving him to madness in his pursuit of eternal life. His collection of souls, stolen from the corpses of his own people, adorned the walls like trophies of his depravity. Yet, even with his vaults overflowing with the essence of countless lives, his thirst remained unquenched. The Stealer smiled at the King's achievement.
For years he'd collected these beauties from the corpses of his people. The Executioner belonged to the Queen as she was of the true Bloodline. Her assassins were to use as her King pleased. The King was credited for over five hundred thousand hearts across the years. And yet he would never have enough. His trophies were displayed before the Stealer in an element of rock.
Within the fortress of ruby-laden walls, the air itself tasted of ancient power and the glow of countless souls illuminated the darkness. High above the blood-red stones was the mightiest of all. The Queen's Heart. King's prized possession, pulsing with a venomous rhythm that echoed through the chamber like a sinister lullaby. To possess such a treasure was to hold the fate of the entire realm in one's hands.
But the Stealer was not content to merely admire from afar. A dagger slid into their hand and they set to work, carving a path through the ruby-studded wall, each stroke opening small fissures in the wall of souls. As cracks spiderwebbed across the surface, the Queen's Heart trembled, its very essence threatened by the Stealer's touch. Cracks appeared in the stone anchor as the dagger was used to pry out one glass soul. Veins opened around the gem, beginning to ease the heart.
And then, with a final twist of the blade, the deed was done. A single soul, shimmering like a diamond in the darkness, lay cradled in the Stealer's palm.
What was left was a small well, exactly the size of a glass soul missing.
But the theft was not yet complete. With practiced precision, the Stealer replaced the stolen soul with a flawless ruby, a counterfeit so perfect that even the most discerning eye would be fooled. One of many gems sitting idly in the Royal Treasury.
The Stealer slipped away into the shadows, leaving behind a trail of darkness in their wake. For on the Eve of Tea Day, they had claimed a prize beyond measure, a soul so pure that it held the very essence of life itself. The night wind bellowed through the palace, chilling their bones despite the warmth of their heavy cloak.
The palace lay cloaked in darkness, the sentinels snoring from too much wine and petit fours.
Sleep deeply, my trusting enemies.
Even the usually bustling servants were silent, their absence leaving an emptiness that echoed in the empty halls. Even in the Queen's chambers.
The Queen. Her heart was the greatest of all. The ripest for plucking.
But it was not the Queen the Stealer sought tonight. No, their target lay deeper within the labyrinthine maze of the palace. The Stealer made their way through the silent corridors, their movements as stealthy as a black cat haunting the night. Wails of icicles from the north tower pierced the silence like a banshee's lament, sending a shiver down the Stealer's spine. For a moment, they stood frozen in place, the icy tendrils of fear clutching at their heart.
A momentary lapse and then—the Stealer's fingers were embraced with the Keep door, slamming shut on them.
Dammit! They swallowed the silent curse and slipped through the door, into the depths of the palace, their eyes gleaming with a hunger that mirrored the darkness that lurked within their soul. Tonight, the Queen's heart would be theirs to claim, no matter the cost.
A frightened voice pierced the silence of the northern tower. "Who is it?"
"Something for the human." The Stealer said the phrase agreed between them. A woman, her face etched with sleep, appeared from around the corner of the spiral steps, her eyes widening in horror as she beheld what lay before her. "You found one?" she gasped, her voice barely a whisper, betraying the terror that gripped her soul.
"It was possible," the Stealer murmured, his voice like the shards of ice slicing through the air. With a deft movement, he produced a blown ruby glass soul from the depths of his cloak, its crimson hues dancing in the flickering torchlight. The woman tenderly took it up.
She held a lifeblood in her hands, the blood of an innocent killed by the King of Hearts. "You- didn't.." she whispered, "...didn't... do anything rash?"
"Nothing unworthy that I've already done." The Stealer of Hearts shot her an evil smile.
The soul glittered in her hands. "You have one soul. Use it well." The Stealer hissed the words close in the trembling woman's ear. The Stealer vanished into the darkness from whence he came. She made her way to the north tower, where a single candle spluttered across the damp cell. In the darkness, a figure lay upon a straw pallet, his golden hair gleaming faintly in the dim light.
She drew back the sheepskin cover and opened the boy's shirt, button by button. Her heart was thumping at the sight of naked flesh. His chest was bare for her to see, her eyes going larger and larger upon his supine figure, his features carved from marble, yet tinged with the pallor of death.
"What on earth am I doing?" she whispered to herself, her voice barely audible above the sound of her own racing pulse. She was almost giddy. First, she had broken the King's law by taking ownership of a robbed glass soul and second now undressing a man. But she knew what she must do, for the sake of the innocent soul trapped within the glass prison and her oath as a Healer.
She pressed the glass soul against his chest, feeling it shatter into a thousand pieces against his cooling skin. Ruby shards pierced her skin, drawing forth droplets of blood that mingled with the dust of the shattered soul, trickling through her fingers where a dying human heart lay in a corpse.
And in that moment, the air crackled with dark energy, as life surged back into the boy's veins, his chest rising and falling with newfound breath. The empty shards of the soul were all left in her fingers. Lifeless. No blood. No power.
A shuddering gasp and the boy shot up in the pallet. His chest was heaving up and down from the rush of the soul within him. He lived. For three reasons: One, from one glass soul. Two: He would require hundreds of glass souls. Three: Without the supply of hearts, he would drop dead in the kitchens and all would discover he was a flesh-in-blood soul, and would Her Highness be willing to risk her head for that on the Executioner's block?
"What the bloody hells—" he began, his voice hoarse.
"Shut your guttersnipe mouth and listen to me," she interrupted, her tone sharp. "You have work to do, if you wish to live. Unless you want me to plunge this dagger into your heart and claim the soul that Her Highness bestowed upon you?"
For a moment, there was silence, broken only by the distant echoes of the castle's tortured whispers. And then—
"—am I doing here?" He flashed an undeniably attractive grin. "I believe I can listen, ma'am." The last word was dripping with sarcasm to the stone floor.
*****************
Ah, the grand saga of the humble onion, forever immortalized in the annals of culinary history.
Onions. Piles and piles of onions.
He whacked off the sprout ends, sliced each bulb in half, and using the curved edge of the knife, peeled off the silky skin to reduce to atoms with the heavy kitchen knife.
"Chop, chop there!" brayed the voice of a cook. "I've got twenty hungry courtiers waiting for their meals!" And what do they desire? Devil's gravy, of course! Because nothing says haute cuisine like a sauce made from onions, butter, sausages, and bacon.
Already there were mounts of finely diced onions that fellow cooks scooped off his bench into tubs to sauté in a pan with butter, sausages, and bacon for the Devil's gravy.
She saved me so I could do this? he mused. Saved from what, you ask? Perhaps from a fate worse than onion chopping.
He had been at this same task for eight hours, repeating the steps. Cut. Chop. Peel. Dice, dice, dice, then chopchopchopchopchop! The blade moved in a blur over the shells of pale onion and became atoms on the board. There were oozy blisters where the knife handle rubbed on his first finger and thumb. He ripped a strip of fabric off his apron and bound his fingers.
Balls of fat spat in the iron frying pans as the bacon turned in the sizzling butter. The smell of golden onions and bacon was heavenly in the air and could make even the most stoic of chefs weep tears of joy. Around him, cooks ladled the pans of prepared gravy onto silver dishes topped with condiments of whipped ricotta potatoes, olive-garlic sautéed carrots, and homemade sausages crafted by the palace Butchers. A sausage made of marbled fat meat, rare truffles, stinky blue cheese, mushrooms, and the King's special port. The combined smell was irresistible.
The hours drag on and the dinner rush finally wanes, our weary hero surveys the aftermath of his onion-fuelled frenzy. Floors were scrubbed, tables gleaming, fires smothered and ashes scooped into the bins. The morning dough for the breakfast was left in their scalloped baskets before the cooling ovens to rise. Oats were measured into a pot with salt, raisins, honey, and water and left alone, slow-cooking until the morning.
The boy whipped off the towel and washed his fingers. He was the last one left from leaning his work surface. His shoulders and back ached with a fire, he was tired but was too hungry to complain. His eye caught a link of sausages folded in a long napkin beside a cook's kit. Perfect. I want something hearty before I sleep again. Strangely his chest did not ache, nor did his heart. The cook's garb had a high collar to his neck wrappings. The sourpuss lady had told him to keep it on, his wound clean and dry or she would personally drown him in his own piss in the middle of the night.
In the back storage of the kitchen, where vegetables languished in slatted fruit crates and wine bottles huddled in a neglected corner, he found himself on a culinary quest. Armed with determination and a checklist, he surveyed his ingredients like a general plotting his strategy.
"Sausage, onion, tomatoes, garlic, wine, and herbs," he recited, ticking off each item on his fingers with a flourish.
He gathered what he needed and started prepping. The onion, yes, it did not tire him seeing another damn onion, which he finely diced again. The garlic succumbed to the swift blow of his knife, its cloves crushed and reduced to a fragrant mince. The onion and garlic were thrown into a small pot with a good splash of olive oil and fried, stirring until golden under his watchful eye. He thinly sliced up the sausage and carefully dropped it into the vigorously bubbling liquid. With a devil-may-care attitude, he uncorked a bottle of vintage red wine, pouring half of its contents into the bubbling cauldron with a flourish. He stirred it again and reduced the heat so it would slowly cook down to a nice, thick stew. And what of the other half of wine, you ask? Eh. What the hell. And promptly emptied the remaining liquid into his mouth. Dregs and all.
"Aaaah!" Whatever the King of Hearts had paid for this stock, he was a man of fine taste. "I whole-heartedly thank you, your glorious Majesty," he said, the mocking words swirling around the empty, dim kitchens to the sky and—
"What the hells do you think you are doing?!" roared a voice.
The tipsy assistant, clutching an empty bottle in one hand and a spoon in the other. He squinted through the haze of booze-induced bravado at the formidable figure of the chef, one hundred-and-eighty pounds of muscled fury. He looks like a shit brick house.
"I'm cooking?" It was obvious. At least to him.
"I can see that!" snapped the chef, his patience wearing thinner than a crepe on a hot griddle. But as the chief's fiery gaze fell upon the damp, bloody napkin where the precious royal sausage had been stashed for His Majesty, his fury reached volcanic levels. "Did—" He exploded. "DID YOU JUST USE THE KING'S SAUSAGE?!"
He sounds like a wrathful deity displeased with the offerings of mere mortals. "Yes. Waste not, want not."
Meaty hands, slabs of flesh that showed a century's worth of burns, callouses, and singed armchairs, and sweat, seized the hapless assistant by the collar and he found himself being shaken frantically, his head snapping back and forth like a rag doll. "GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT OF THE POT! NOW!!! EVERY LAST PIECE OF IT!"
The boy's teeth were chattering in his skull.
Desperately, the chef plunged his fingers into the seething stew in a futile attempt to salvage the royal sausage, only to recoil in agony as flames always won. The moment his flesh touched the bubbling stew he yelled, recoiling like a snake. He stuck his fingers between his thighs to ease the pain. The boy rubbed his aching jaw.
"Why the hysterics? It's just meat. You can eat it, if you want," he remarked, his tone as casual as a Sunday stroll through the royal gardens.
"ARE YOU STONE-DEAF, BOY?" he shrieked. "ARE YOU WANTING YOUR HEAD ON A PLATE SERVED TO THE KING?!"
"None at all, but if your King wishes us to waste his good ingredients, I don't see any harm in using it."
"You- a chore boy shouldn't be sticking ya nose where it doesn't belong!" His rough country accent grew thicker with each passing moment.
"I'm hungry, though." The words were sullen.
"Dammit!"
He ladled a plate and scooped a quelle of fluffy white potatoes and served with a side of olive oil-sautéed asparagus with soybean sauce. The chief grabbed the plate from him with the fork and shovelled a few spoonfuls into his mouth. "What shit is—" To his astonishment, the chef's taste buds were treated to a flavour sensation unlike anything he had ever experienced in his near-half a century of culinary conquests.
"Is it delicious?" the assistant inquired, rocking back on his heels with smug satisfaction.
The chef, his mouth still full of stew, could only nod in dumbfounded agreement as he eagerly demanded another helping. "Where d'ye make this?" he demanded. It was so damn delicious!
He tapped his skull. "I've got a whole head of them. Childhood food from my Ma." He didn't dare mention that it was simple, hearty peasant food of this meal would never again see the light of day from the chef.
"Do me another potful!"
He obeyed, finely chopping onions, and peeled garlic, frying them in olive oil with generous handfuls of thyme and parsley. He added peeled, pureed tomatoes, water, beef hoof stock, diced bacon, and the remaining uncooked sausage. He stirred the thick mixture in the pot, seasoning to taste with a tub of white lima beans. "Now we let it cook." He nodded to the small pan he'd prepared for himself. "Anyone hungry for more?"
"I'll have another," snapped the chef.
The other cooks looked on in slack-jawed amazement, they too succumbed to the irresistible aroma of rebellion, eagerly joining in the feast of forbidden sausage stew.All the recipes they followed were of the chef's own secret notes, apart from the Queen's tarts. This was unheard of!
"What the hell, this is good!" They dove into the stew and settled on the fruit crates to eat.
The boy smiled as he finally tucked into his own bowl of sausage stew, Perhaps the girl was wise where he worked. And he'd enjoy it, for the Time being.