Eryshae

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Sam

The door to Marcan's Fine Robes for Gentlemen of Status and Ceremony creaked open on its polished brass hinges, and Sam stepped into a world that smelled like lavender oil, pressed wool, and pure, unrelenting judgment.

He paused just past the threshold, blinking in the golden light, and immediately regretted everything.

Bolts of silk and brocade lined the walls like rows of sleeping beasts. A mannequin to his right wore what looked like a quilted waistcoat embroidered with serpents made of glass beads. Somewhere, a harp was playing itself softly. The kind of music that made you feel underdressed even when you were wearing three layers.

A man with the build of a barrel and the temperament of a blade stepped out from behind a dressing screen. He was impeccably groomed, from his ink-black mustache to the creases in his shoes. His eyes narrowed when he saw Sam.

"You must be the consort," he said, as if Sam had personally offended him by existing. "I prefer Sam," he replied, offering a hopeful smile. The tailor's sigh could have folded fabric.

"Undress. We'll begin with the measurements before the fittings." Sam opened his mouth to object; politely; but found himself ushered onto a low dais before he could say anything at all. Within seconds, his jacket was off, his sleeves rolled, and his arms spread like a scarecrow while pins and chalk swirled around him in a storm of muttered curses and imperial sighs.

"Your posture is that of an office drone," the tailor snapped. "I was an office drone," Sam replied.

"That explains the tragic posture." Sam bit his tongue.

The fitting went on like that; measured, poked, repositioned. He was informed that his shoulders were "uncooperative," that his collarbones "lacked the grace of nobility," and that no tailor worth his salt would allow "arms like battering rams" to go untempered by subtle embroidery.

By the time Vael and Mira arrived, Sam was halfway into a ceremonial jacket the color of moss and dusk, trimmed in gold-threaded vines. He looked like a very dignified, very agitated tree. "I swear," he muttered as Vael approached, "this jacket is trying to strangle me."

"You look like the forest's vengeance," Vael said sweetly. "A storm pressed into silk." Sam turned, raising a brow. "That supposed to be a compliment?"

"I haven't decided yet." She stepped closer to adjust his collar, and his fingers caught hers, just for a moment; soft, grounding. And then Mira's voice drifted from nearby: "Princess, if you'll excuse me… I need to find the ladies' room."

Sam watched her go, something unreadable crossing her face before the velvet curtain swallowed her from sight. He exhaled slowly. His heart still hadn't caught up from the way Vael's fingers lingered against his sleeve.

Sam tugged at the collar again the moment they stepped out of the tailor's shop, muttering under his breath as if the thing were sentient and vindictive. "I'm convinced the lining is stitched with curses," he said, flexing his shoulders as if trying to make the jacket lose interest in his body. Vael laughed softly beside him, slipping her arm through his. "You survived my father. You'll survive embroidery."

"Questionable," he murmured. "There are battlefields with less tension than that man's measuring tape." Mira walked a half step behind them, silent but attentive. Always watching. She didn't smile, but there was something calm in her expression. Steady. Assured. Sam never quite knew how to read her; she moved like someone born in shadow, but her presence was never cold. Just quiet. Like a knife that hadn't yet chosen what to cut.

They walked in step, the city bustling around them, awash in Solstice color and celebration. Children wove between market stalls with streamers and sugar sticks. Musicians tuned flutes and hand drums near the corners. The scent of fir boughs, citrus, and baked fruit filled the air with sweetness and spice.

Sam let himself relax into it. A little. He had never imagined this kind of life. Not really. Not when he'd been a cog in the machine back on Earth. The closest he'd come to celebration back then was the warmth of ramen and a movie.

And yet here he was, walking beside a princess who looked at him like he mattered more than ceremony. More than expectation. More than his past.

He glanced sideways at her. Vael's eyes caught the sunlight and scattered it. There was fire in her, sure; but there was earth too. Something anchoring. The kind of strength that didn't need to shout to be heard.

He didn't realize how long he'd been looking at her until she raised a brow. "You're staring."

"I'm thinking," Sam replied, schooling his expression. "Same difference," she said, but her smile betrayed the softness beneath her words. He looked ahead again, letting the comfort of her beside him steady the strange rush of nerves inside his chest.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He should've been excited. But that low hum in his bones; the one that had started in the tavern had started to buzz again. Something was off.

Not in Vael. Not in Mira, exactly. But in the edges of things. The stares that lingered a second too long. The silence that fell when he passed certain doorways. The way some of the guards stiffened when Vael's name was spoken, or they caught sight of him. Like they were afraid of something. Or someone.

And now the Solstice. The ceremony. Too many moving parts. Too much symbolic grandeur for something that should be simple.

He trusted Vael. He trusted Mira… mostly. But instincts were instincts for a reason. They reached the bend in the road where the street narrowed into the northern square, and the painted sign of Marzi's Confections gleamed ahead like a promise of sugar and temporary peace.

"Here we are," Sam said, forcing brightness into his voice. "A sacred temple of frosting and personal indulgence." Mira didn't reply, but her eyes lingered on the window display. Sam caught the flicker of something unreadable behind them; longing, maybe.

He tucked the thought away. "Ten flavors," he said, glancing between them. "But I'm limiting myself. I'm a man of restraint." Vael rolled her eyes. "You ate five cakes last week and had to nap upright like a disgraced WarRaccoon."

"It was an honorable nap." He opened the door with a dramatic bow. "Ladies first." And as Vael and Mira stepped inside, Sam followed; smiling on the outside. But the buzz in his bones didn't stop. It just sank deeper.

Marzi's Confections smelled like every good memory rolled in sugar and roasted fruit. Sam stood at the center of it, fingers dusted with glaze, heart feeling strangely light. He had absolutely no regrets. "This," he said, pointing at the half-eaten fireroot-honey cake slice, "is transcendent."

"You say that about every bite," Vael muttered, though her tone was far from annoyed. She was smiling, that soft, amused sort of smile she got when she thought she was hiding it.

Sam leaned toward the baker with exaggerated seriousness. "We'll take three of those for the Solstice banquet. Minimum. And if the ancestors aren't pleased, I'll bribe them with frosting." Marzi gave a proud curtsy, clearly delighted. "You have excellent taste, young man."

Mira stood beside the case, quiet but not withdrawn. She hadn't said much since rejoining them, but Sam caught the flicker of a smile earlier when he'd waxed poetic about candied quince like it was a divine revelation. And she had laughed; a real laugh, even if just a breath.

He didn't need to press it. He knew the Solstice was a lot for all of them. Expectations. Traditions. The kind of symbolism that stretched back through generations. But he didn't feel uneasy about it. If anything, he was ready.

He belonged here. Not because he was born into this place. But because he'd chosen it. Because they had chosen him in return.

His role in the Rite of Balance might be ceremonial, but to him, it meant something. It meant standing beside Vael; not just as her partner in ritual, but in everything Emberhold needed for this turning of the year. He looked over at her as she examined a miniature pear tart topped with spun sugar.

"Don't let the pretty ones fool you," he said under his breath. "The lemon cakes have ambition." Vael didn't look up. "If I find lemon in something labeled 'fig and cedar,' I'm revoking your cake privileges."

Mira, again, gave the ghost of a laugh. Sam turned toward her and offered a bite of something too decadent to name. "Here. This one's dangerous." Her fingers brushed his as she accepted it. Her expression didn't change much; but something softened in her eyes. "Fireroot and honey," she said, tasting it. "With a hint of clove."

"See?" Sam grinned. "You get it." The three of them stood there for a moment like something whole. The kind of trio that had weathered storms and come out the other side with flour on their sleeves and something stronger between them.

Sam didn't think about danger. Or betrayal. Or what the crowd would think on Solstice night when he and Vael touched the Pact Stone before all of Emberhold. He was proud of it. Grateful. Ready. "This is going to be the best Rite of Balance in a hundred years," he said aloud, mostly to himself.

Vael raised a brow. "You say that now. Wait until the ceremonial horns start and your sleeves catch on fire."

"I will become a legend," he declared. "You will become ash," Mira murmured, almost too quietly. But she was smiling. And Sam didn't feel a single shadow.

Sam stood before the last row of Marzi's confections as if at the altar of some sweet-blooded pantheon, reverent and grinning, hand poised theatrically over a slice of lemon-frosted almond fig cake. "Some men write poetry with ink," he said solemnly. "Others with fire. But I…"

"write it with crumbs," Vael finished. He placed a hand to his chest. "Wounded by truth."

"She's not wrong," Mira murmured, arms folded, but her lips tilted with reluctant fondness. Sam picked up a plate bearing a delicate spiral of marzipan and peach, trimmed in candied rose petals. "But look at this. Look at this. This isn't dessert. This is a prophecy. This is temptation in six curls and a satin crumb."

He turned to the baker. "Do you name these? Tell me you name them. Tell me this one's called 'The Forsaken Dream of Orchard Queens' or I'm walking out." Marzi cackled. "It's peach rose spiral."

"Unacceptable," Sam said, deeply disappointed. "Missed opportunity."

"Rename it," Vael said, eyes narrowing over a pistachio fig bite. "But no mention of queens. I'm overbooked." Sam lifted the cake slice to eye level, gazing through the glaze like it held cosmic truths.

"I name thee: Solstice Reverie with Blushing Regret." Vael groaned. Mira choked on a laugh. Undeterred, Sam set the plate down with care, as if placing a relic in a temple.

"Each of these," he said, "is a stanza in a poem written by sugared hands and fevered hearts. The orange-blossom torte? Clearly the second verse in a ballad about forbidden citrus and melancholy afternoons. The fireroot-honey cake? That's war poetry. Spiced with longing. Touched by gods."

He turned toward Mira, eyes bright. "That last bite you took? I swear I heard a sonnet die in ecstasy." She blinked at him. And then; just barely; smiled. It was small, and fleeting. But real. Sam caught it. And, as always, said nothing.

He turned instead to the next cake: a raspberry-vanilla cream piped with rose-laced sugar leaves. "And this," he whispered, "this is the one you eat when your lover sails off to war, and you write them letters scented in elderflower ink while the cake weeps quietly on the sill." Vael nearly dropped her fork. "Gods, Sam, how long have you been waiting to do this?"

"I was born to do this," he said gravely. "Every mistake in my life led me to this moment." Even Marzi was laughing now, eyes twinkling behind sugar-dusted lashes. "You're a menace," she said. "A delicious one."

Sam bowed low. "Let it be etched upon my pastry tomb." They lingered there a while longer; sampling, laughing, trading tiny bites of poetry masquerading as cake. Mira said little, but she did not leave. She watched. She let the moment rise around her like the scent of rising dough. Light. Golden. Comforting. And Sam… Sam reveled in it. Not as a man on edge, not as someone bracing for ceremony or conflict.

But as someone who had, at least for today, walked into a shop with people he cared for and found joy baked in layers of lemon, almond, rose, and laughter.