KIERAN'S POV:
[THE EMBARRASSING DINNER]
The dining hall is ridiculous.
I'm talking fantasy-movie ridiculous.
Game-of-Thrones-budget ridiculous.
The table is so long I can barely see the other end. Candles everywhere—hundreds of them—casting flickering shadows on walls covered in dark tapestries. The ceiling disappears into darkness overhead.
And it's just us.
Me at one end of this stupid long table. Ravion at the other end—so far away I'd need binoculars to see his expression.
Between us? Mountains of food.
Roasted meats. Vegetables I don't recognize. Bread that smells amazing. Fruits piled high. Soups steaming in silver bowls. Desserts that look like art.
Enough food to feed fifty people.
But it's only For two.
"This is insane," I call down the table.
Ravion looks up from his plate. "What?"
"THIS!" I gesture at everything. "Why are we sitting so far apart? Why is there so much food? This is—"
"Traditional," he interrupts. "Royal dinners are always formal."
"This isn't formal, this is lonely! I can barely see you!"
Something flickers across his face. "Would you prefer to sit closer?"
"I—" I stop. Because yes, actually. The bond is already tugging at me, unhappy with the distance. "Maybe."
He stands immediately. Picks up his plate. Walks the length of the table and sits in the chair directly beside me.
Much better.Wait, no. Not better. Complicated.
"Happy?" he asks, those red eyes glinting with amusement.
"Shut up."
We're halfway through the meal—I'm trying to figure out what this meat even is—when the doors open and someone bustles in.
An old woman. Tiny—barely five feet tall—with silver hair in a neat bun and warm brown eyes. She's wearing simple but clean clothes, and she's carrying a tray loaded with even more food.
"Ravion, darling!" She sets the tray down and immediately starts fussing over him. "You're not eating enough! Look at you, all skin and bones—"
"Grandmother." Ravion's voice is gentle. GENTLE. I've never heard him sound like that. "I'm eating plenty—"
"Nonsense! You need your strength!" She's already piling more food onto his plate, ignoring his protests.
Grandmother?
I must look confused because Ravion glances at me. "This is Elara. She's been my caretaker since I was five. I call her Grandmother."
Elara turns to me, and her whole face lights up.
"Oh! OH! You must be the new husband!" She bustles over to me, examining me with bright, curious eyes. "Such a pretty boy! And so young! Ravion, he's practically a baby!"
"I'm twenty-two," I say weakly.
"A BABY!" She's already loading my plate with more food. "Here, dear, you need to eat! Keep your strength up!"
"I'm really not that hungry—"
"Nonsense!" More food appears on my plate. Meat. Bread. Something that might be potatoes. "You're a king now! You need energy!"
She says "energy" with this meaningful look.
And suddenly I understand.
Oh no.
OH NO.
"You know," she continues, piling on even more food, "for your duties." Another meaningful look. "As a consort." Even more meaningful. "Especially with someone as vigorous as our Ravion—"
"GRANDMOTHER." Ravion's face is actually red. He can BLUSH?!
"What? I'm just saying the boy needs to keep his strength up! You're a very demanding young man, Ravion, everyone knows—"
"ELARA."
"—and this poor thing is so slight! He'll need plenty of food if he's going to—"
"PLEASE STOP TALKING."
I'm frozen. Plate piled so high I can't see over it. Face burning so hot I might actually combust.
She thinks I need extra food for SEX.
For sex with RAVION.
Which we haven't even—
"I'm just being practical," Elara sniffs. "When I was young, my husband and I—"
"GRANDMOTHER, NO."
"—would go for hours and I always made sure to—"
"I'M BEGGING YOU."
"—eat plenty of protein beforehand because—"
"KIERAN HELP ME."
I can't. I physically cannot. I'm dying. This is how I die. Death by awkward sex talk from my husband's grandmother-figure.
Elara pats my cheek fondly. "Eat up, dear! You'll need it!" She winks.
WINKS.
Then she bustles out, humming cheerfully.
The silence she leaves behind is deafening.
I stare at my plate—which now has enough food to feed a small army.
Ravion stares at the table.
Neither of us moves.
Finally: "I'm so sorry," Ravion says quietly.
"She thinks we're—that we've—"
"Yes."
"But we haven't!"
"She doesn't know that."
"EVERYONE THINKS WE'VE—"
"Yes." He's trying not to smile. FAILING.
"This isn't FUNNY!"
"It's a little funny."
"It's NOT!"
Now he's full-on grinning. "She means well."
"She just gave me the 'you'll need energy for sex' talk! IN DETAIL! WITH EXAMPLES FROM HER OWN LIFE!"
"She's very open."
"I'm going to DIE. I'm going to die of embarrassment and it's your fault."
"My fault?"
"You're the one with the sex-talk grandmother!"
He laughs—actual, genuine laughter that transforms his whole face. Makes him look younger. Less cursed-king, more just... person.
"Eat your food," he says, still grinning. "You'll need your energy."
I throw a bread roll at him.
He catches it. OF COURSE HE DOES.
"I hate you," I mutter, face still burning.
"So you keep saying." He takes a bite of the bread I threw. "But you're blushing."
"That's embarrassment, not affection!"
"Are you sure?"
"YES!"
But the bond hums warmly between us, and I'm not sure of anything anymore.
KAELIS' POV:
[UNDERWATER FOOD FIGHT]
"No."
"Kaelis—"
"No."
"You need to eat—"
"I'm not eating that."
Nyx looks at the plate floating between us—because everything floats down here, which is weird—and then back at me.
"It's kelp."
"It looks like seaweed."
"It is seaweed."
"EXACTLY."
We're in what Nyx calls the "dining chamber," which is just a fancy way of saying "room with a table and chairs that are somehow anchored to the floor despite being underwater."
The food floats.
Everything floats.
It's like eating in zero gravity except wetter and more annoying.
"You need nutrients," Nyx says with that patient voice that makes me want to punch him. "The kelp is rich in—"
I flick a piece of floating kelp at him.
It hits his face.
Sticks there for a second.
Slowly slides down.
The look on his face is priceless.
"Did you just—"
"Maybe."
"—throw food at me?"
"It was floating near me. Could've been an accident."
"You flicked it."
"Prove it."
His eye twitches.
VICTORY.
"We're supposed to be having a civilized meal," he says slowly.
"You're the one who brought me to an underwater cave! Nothing about this is civilized!"
"I'm trying to teach you proper—"
I flick another piece of kelp.
This one hits his forehead.
"KAELIS."
"WHAT?" I grin innocently. "I'm just eating. Very civilized."
"You're weaponizing your food!"
"I'm being creative!"
A piece of fish floats past my face. I grab it. Examine it.
"What is this?"
"Moonfish. Very rare. Very sacred to—DON'T YOU DARE—"
I bite it.
Make the most disgusted face I can manage.
Stick my tongue out.
"It tastes like sadness."
"It's a delicacy!"
"It's disgusting." I try to spit it out, but we're underwater and the fish just... floats out of my mouth and drifts away.
Gross.
Nyx is staring at me like I've personally offended every ocean in existence.
"You just—with the sacred moonfish—"
"It tasted like feet."
"It's been aged for fifty years!"
"That explains the feet taste!"
He makes this sound.
Not quite a scream. Not quite a groan. Just pure, concentrated frustration.
I'm nailing this dinner.
"Perhaps," Nyx says with extreme patience, "we could try the crystal shrimp?"
A tiny glowing shrimp floats past.
I catch it.
Hold it up to the light.
"It's alive."
"Yes."
"You want me to eat something alive?"
"It's traditional!"
"It's barbaric!"
"It's a delicacy!"
"Why is everything down here a delicacy?! Can't you just have normal food? Like bread? Or cheese?"
"We're underwater, Kaelis."
"So?!"
"Bread gets soggy!"
"Then DON'T BE UNDERWATER!"
We're both shouting now—him floating slightly above his chair because he's agitated, me gripping the table to stay anchored because I forgot to use the magic foot-strap things.
The shrimp escapes.
We watch it swim away.
"This is going well," I say.
"Is this," Nyx says slowly, "what you were like at royal dinners? In your palace?"
"Oh, worse. My mother used to throw plates at me."
"I'm starting to understand why."
"HEY!"
"You just called a fifty-year-aged moonfish 'sad feet'!"
"Because it WAS!"
A piece of bread—actual bread, somehow not soggy—floats past.
I grab it.
Take a bite.
Umm.. Delicious.
"See?" I say through a mouthful. "THIS is food. Not your weird fish."
"That bread took three days to make using specialized underwater ovens and—are you making faces at me?"
I stick my tongue out.
"Twenty-two years," Nyx mutters. "I waited twenty-two years. For THIS."
"You're welcome!"
"That wasn't a compliment!"
"Sounded like one!"
A piece of kelp floats between us. We both eye it.
"Don't," Nyx warns.
"I'm not doing anything."
"Kaelis."
"I'm just looking."
"If you throw that—"
I throw it.
Food fight.
UNDERWATER FOOD FIGHT
It's glorious.
Kelp flying everywhere. Fish zooming past. Bread doing loop-de-loops. Nyx is yelling, I'm laughing, and everything is chaos.
A piece of kelp hits him in the face. Again.
He looks at me.
I look at him.
"You're impossible," he says.
"And you're stuck with me!" I grab more floating food.
"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"
"ABSOLUTELY!"
He starts laughing—can't help it—and suddenly we're both just floating there in a cloud of flying food, laughing like idiots.
"You're a disaster," he says between laughs.
"I know!"
"I waited twenty-two years for a disaster."
"Best surprise ever!"
"Worst surprise ever!"
But he's still smiling.
And I'm still grinning.
And the food is still floating everywhere like the world's weirdest snow.
"Come on," Nyx finally says, waving his hand and making all the food disappear (show-off). "Let's get you some actual food. Surface food. From your era."
"You can DO that?!"
"I'm a god, Kaelis. I can do many things."
"Can you get pizza?"
"What's pizza?"
"I saw it in 2025 everyone eating is in a resturant and looks very delicious."
"Oh.. I can't do that."
"Useless"