Day 5: A Meeting Before the Council

Dawn hadn't yet touched the guild inn's windows when Marron gave up on sleep entirely. The silver envelope sat on her nightstand like an accusation, its seal still faintly warm. Kitchen Seven. Come prepared to cook for the full council.

Her nerves needed grounding before facing whatever awaited in a few hours. She padded down to the common kitchen in her slippers, hoping for tea or bread to settle her hands.

Instead, she found a maid arranging linens in the pantry alcove. The woman looked up, taking in Marron's rumpled nightgown and hollow-eyed expression.

"Couldn't sleep either?" the maid asked kindly. She was older, with silver threading through her dark hair and the efficient movements of someone who'd worked in guild kitchens for decades. "You're the trial chef everyone's been whispering about."

Marron nodded, not trusting her voice.

The maid reached into her apron pocket and withdrew something wrapped in wax paper. "You've been working yourself to the bone these past four days. I think you need this more than I do."

Inside was a bar of chocolate—smooth and lustrous, with crystals of sea salt scattered across its surface like tiny stars.

"I was able to buy this before Juno disappeared a month ago," the maid whispered. "This was one of her first creations. Salted caramel chocolate. Simple as breathing, but perfect."

Marron broke off a piece and let it melt on her tongue. Even without active magic, she could taste the love that had gone into it. Juno hadn't just been making confections; she'd been crafting moments of joy.

"She was beloved, wasn't she?" Marron asked softly.

The maid's eyes misted. "More than you know. The guild says she left to pursue advanced studies, but we all know better. Juno wouldn't have abandoned Frostfall. Someone made her leave."

They shared quick hot chocolate made from the precious bar, the maid raising her mug in a small toast. "To Juno," she said simply. "You'll do fine today, dear. Just remember: cooking is about love first, everything else second."

An hour later, Marron slipped into the guild's herb gardens through a gate that never quite latched properly. She found Sage Thorne sitting between the mint and lavender, twirling a cinnamon stick between his fingers with absent precision.

"Juno used to sit in gardens like this when the guild meetings got too suffocating," he said without looking up. "Said the mint helped her think clearly." He touched a mint leaf, explaining his faint herbal scent. "I should have known you'd find her workshop eventually. You have the same hungry look in your eyes she did."

"You knew I was there."

"The wards send alerts to certain council members when they're breached. Starlight meringue has a particularly unique magical signature." His dark eyes met hers. "Juno never taught that technique to anyone. But somehow, you knew it."

"I touched her whisk and saw memories that weren't mine. Felt techniques I'd never learned."

Sage's expression grew troubled. "That shouldn't be possible without decades of training. You did it instinctively." He leaned forward. "Every SSS-rank chef needs an alternate—I worked by her side for three years, tried to give her time to keep creating instead of drowning in politics. Fat lot of good it did."

"What happened to her?"

Sage stood and began pacing between the herb rows. "She told me she felt like a prize mare—beautiful, valuable, and completely trapped. All she wanted was to make croissants that tasted like Sunday mornings. Instead, they wanted her to reshape Frostfall's entire government with her cooking."

Marron thought of the maid's reverent tone and felt a chill. "The guild took over when she left?"

"And the city's been slowly dying ever since. Even combined, their power doesn't match what Juno could do with a simple butter cookie." His voice dropped to a whisper. "But here's what they don't want you to know—if SSS-Grade chefs don't use their creative energy regularly, it becomes destructive. They cook not only because they love it, but because if they don't, the power can literally tear them apart from the inside."

The chocolate in Marron's stomach turned to lead. "And emotion-based cooking?"

"The cruelest gift in Savoria. You have to master your own feelings while giving everyone else exactly what they need to feel whole. Juno burned out trying to be perfect for everyone until there was nothing left of herself." He stopped pacing. "She chose exile over letting them cage her. Disappeared one night rather than become their puppet."

"Is that what they want from me?"

"When they test you today, they're deciding whether you'll be their next songbird... or if you're too dangerous to let live." Sage's smile was sharp with pain. "You're already doing things that took Juno years to master. That memory absorption, the way you opened ancient wards—you might be the strongest potential SSS-Grade any of us have ever seen."

Marron's hands trembled. "So what do I do?"

"Give them exactly what they want to see. Perfect emotional regulation—cook something that requires precise feeling-infusion, but keep it subtle. They'll probably ask you to make something that evokes a specific emotion. Show power without ambition. Make them believe you want nothing more than to cook nice food for nice people."

"What if they ask for something I can't do?"

"Then you improvise. I'll be on the judging panel—I can't show obvious favoritism, but I'll try to steer them toward tests that play to your strengths." He reached into his cloak and withdrew a small bundle wrapped in herb-scented cloth. "Juno's emergency spice blend. It helps stabilize emotional infusions and prevents magical overflow. Use it sparingly, and only if you're in real trouble."

Marron accepted the bundle, feeling the weight of trust in the gesture. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because Juno was my dearest friend, and I failed to protect her from the guild's ambitions. I won't make that mistake twice." His smile was sad and fierce. "And because that memory absorption suggests you might be what the old texts call a 'True Heir'—someone who can inherit not just techniques, but actual magical legacies. If that's true, you might be the key to understanding what really happened to her."

The morning sun was rising higher, and Marron could hear stirrings from the guild inn's kitchens. Soon, her trial would begin.

"I should go," she said.

Sage nodded. "Remember—you have Juno's legacy flowing through your hands now. Don't let them cage what she died to keep free."

As he walked away, Marron clutched the spice bundle and tried to quiet the storm in her chest. In a few hours, she would cook for her life. But she wasn't entirely alone.

She had Juno's chocolate warming her stomach, Sage's spices in her pocket, and borrowed memories of a legendary chef in her hands.

It would have to be enough.