I shook my head. I was rapidly learning that if it was something Liane was excited about; it was likely something I should think twice about doing.

  However, I was very curious how drake stew would taste, so this time I would ignore that little voice asking whether it was a good idea.

  Once we stopped for the night, I had a lot of things to work out before we reached the capital, the main thing being what I was going to do in terms of food for Micca to sell. I was planning to make the candies; that was why I purchased the mould.

  But what buffs?

  I felt like the obvious ones would be health regeneration and mana regeneration. They’d both have fire immunity simply because I would need Crisplet’s help. I could also infuse the mixture with the orbs from Stock Reduction, as that was a skill I had not used anywhere near enough.

  “Milo, how many candies do you think I should make for Micca, and is there anything else I should make?” I asked.

  The conversation about her supply caught Micca’s attention, but she likewise just looked to Milo.

  Milo appeared to be in thought, rubbing his chin. “No more than a hundred candies, and sell them no cheaper than a gold a piece.”

  He looked at Micca, who was just staring wide-eyed at him. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “You said one hundred candies… for no less than a gold,” Micca repeated quietly.

  Milo nodded. “Yes, that’s correct. That will be for fairly basic ones.”

  “That… that’s a hundred gold,” Micca said again, just looking stunned. Milo seemed to catch on to what she was actually asking.

  “Yes, that’s correct. You’d better get used to handling large sums of gold, or maybe even a platinum coin or two one day,” Milo said with a chuckle.

  “Platinum?” both myself and Micca asked at the same time.

  “Ah, I suppose it’s not something you’ve heard of. Makes sense. I’ve never seen one myself. It’s called platinum, but the metal itself really has little to do with it. The coin is a rare mana alloy that’s incredibly difficult to forge, and they keep the composition a secret… but it’s worth a thousand gold coins,” Milo explained.

  I looked forward, shaking my head. I couldn’t even comprehend just how much money that was, muttering, “What could even be worth that much?”

  “Can you think of nothing?” Milo asked with a chuckle. “While you think of it though, just don’t say anything out loud for a while. We’re not alone on the road anymore.”

  Milo then rode off towards Hari, pulling alongside him where he seemed to engage in a whispered conversation.

  “What did he mean by we’re not alone anymore?” I asked Micca, who was now alongside me.

  Micca shrugged. “I don’t see anyone behind us. I’m not sure.”

  We rode in silence after that. I couldn’t help but feel nervous, especially when Liane vanished from her horse, clearly scouting something out.

  I even called Crisplet back to the brazier.

  It was a little over half an hour before Liane returned, appearing on Milo’s horse side-on behind him, causing him to nearly fall from the saddle.

  I moved forward to overhear a little of what was being said.

  “Royal guards. Appears to be the guy from last night travelling with a few others. They don’t appear to be travelling too fast or following us though. I just think they’re travelling faster than us and catching up. The group seems jovial; they were talking about looking forward to returning to the capital,” Liane reported.

  “Ah. Either they’re making sure nothing happens to Trevor, or they’re trying to beat him there,” Milo said.

  “Both, most likely. When word gets out about that phoenix visit, especially in the capital, the royals will want to be seen chatting and friendly with him, purely for appearance’s sake, so they can claim that they are also close to the phoenix,” Hari added.

  By this stage, I couldn’t help but interrupt. “Should we be worried?”

  “From them? No, not at all. For Liam to break his promise would mean he’d have to break his class. He’ll follow his word to a fault and bring you in and out of that castle without harm,” Hari said.

  Milo nodded, pushing Liane off his horse, where she just vanished and appeared behind me on the back of Sable. “Just be careful about what you say. It’s not impossible for one of them to have a class with incredibly high Perception as part of the guard, and they could hear you if their class was focused towards it.” He straightened up on his horse.

  Liane was playing with Crisplet. “You can speak without concern when you’re in this air bubble we’re in right now.” Liane waved her arms as though I could see something.

  Milo shook his head. “Sense mana, Trev. You’ll see it then.”

  Of course—I was forgetting so much already. I closed my eyes and reached out with my mana, where I felt the wind mana. It was heavy and still, and sure enough, it was in a dome around us.

  “This really stops sounds?” I asked, my eyes still closed.

  Liane answered, “It’s not perfect, no, but they’d need to be pretty specialised to get through the mana. And at that stage, they’ve probably already heard everything long before we noticed them.”

  I travelled mostly in silence for the next couple of hours. Liane had gone back to her own horse, but Crisplet stayed with me. I didn’t really trust myself not to say something I shouldn’t.

  It was just after the second hour that they appeared on the road in the distance for me. Again, they didn’t appear to be racing towards us or even trying to hold their distance. They were simply slowly gaining.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Finally, another hour passed, and they caught up with the group.

  Hari dropped to the back of the group to intercept Liam, who was riding forward to us.

  “Greetings!” Liam called. Before Hari could respond, he continued, “Don’t worry, we’re not tagging along with you. We wanted to get back to the capital before you, and despite personally having hundreds of questions about what happened last night, I don’t wish to encroach on your peace while you travel.”

  A smile appeared on Hari’s face. “I was wondering what your intentions were. That’s good to know. We like our privacy, as I’m sure you can understand.”

  Liam smiled. “Absolutely. Don’t mind us. We’ll be out of your hair momentarily.”

  He then rode on ahead, the five people behind him now catching up, most of them staring at me but saying nothing before they passed. They seemed to move at a much faster pace, putting distance between us.

  Hari, however, called a stop for us, motioning for Liane and Jen to carry on, which they did. No words were spoken, only hand gestures, as our wagon was pulled to the side of the road.

  “This is as good a place as any along these roads to camp for the night. It’s early, but I say we stop here and let them get well ahead of us,” he said. Milo nodded, already getting off his horse and working on the foundations for early stables to hold our horses and wagon.

  I looked out around us and noticed there were just vast fields, but here at least it didn’t appear like anything was growing, just grass and the occasional outcrop of bushes and trees.

  “What do they farm out here?” I asked over my shoulder to Milo.

  “Livestock. Probably Buvul for a field this large,” Milo said, looking out in the direction I was.

  When Milo finished building the stable, he built a stone dome. It was of a much darker colour than usual and was forming significantly slower, as the stone itself seemed to be far more dense and compact than normal.

  “I’ve not seen you build this one before. Is it new?” I asked, watching in awe as the stone rose from the ground.

  “It’s one of my defensive buildings. It’s very good at absorbing blows and protecting from sound,” Milo explained.

  Crisplet was already in the middle of the circle, figuring out where to set up the fire.

  “You can go in. It’ll just slowly form around you. Stay away from the edges for now though, okay?” Milo said, gesturing to the gap where a door would soon be.

  I took his invitation and entered the middle of the room, where Crisplet had started the fire. I took out several pieces of the treant wood along with a handful of scrap bits, which lit up immediately and were turned to coal.

  Since we stopped early and had extra time, tonight was the night I was going to get a lot of my cooking done. Pulling out the smoker that Geo got for me, it would be a tight squeeze, but I could fit all three bellies onto the racks.

  They were already seasoned and ready to go, so I just needed to leave them to smoke basically overnight. I pulled over the cover, trying to make sure the meat wasn’t touching the sides.

  Next, since I had time, I wanted to prepare something I had been meaning to do for a very long time: just a simple stock.

  So many of the sauces in the cookbooks I had required a red-meat stock or a poultry stock, or even a seafood stock. In the past, I had even put bones away for this, so tonight was the night.

  The first thing I did was pull out the bones I had set aside. They were mostly Skywolf bones with one or two Buvul bones as well.

  The first step was to roast off these bones, get some nice colour on them before adding them to the large pot. To that I would add some more Buvul meat along with plenty of vegetables—especially onions, carrots and celery—the latter of which I was starting to chop up.

  Once they were all chopped and waiting on the meat, I got to work on the main meal for tonight: drake stew.

  This in itself would not be easy. I was all but out of portioned chunks of meat at this stage, so I needed to butcher the carcass myself. That was fine; I was confident with my Monster Carver skill. I could do it now, at least for the drake.

  The issue was the size of the carcass. If I pulled it out now, it would barely fit inside this dome Milo was making. And if I pulled it out outside, then anyone could see it.

  Walking to the door, I saw Milo dusting himself off.

  “Milo, I don’t suppose you could make me a large butchery building… just temporarily?” I asked.

  Milo looked at me sceptically for a moment. “How large?”

  I didn’t know how to tell him without just coming out and saying it—and that wouldn’t be ideal—so I tried to think of a way he’d get the idea. “Uh… Boltron size?” I said, unsure.

  But Milo’s eyes lit up. “Ah, gotcha. I know what you need. No worries—give me five.”

  I watched as a basic stone box formed from the ground, Milo stopping to eat a piece of candy midway through, before finally a giant stone box stood before us, completely eclipsing the dome and stables combined.

  “It won’t last long, so be quick,” Milo instructed.

  With a quick wave to Crisplet, I went towards the box, noticing that Micca was watching me in confusion while Darren and George were both currently training with Hari.

  I waved her over, entering the box and pulling out the drake without hesitation.

  As Micca entered the room, I heard her start to speak. “What the fu—”

  “Shhh,” I said. “Just watch. Speak later.”

  I then tried to assess where the best place to cut would be. The knacker had taken the chunks and scales from the right shoulder, and that alone had done us with all this meat for so long.

  I wasn’t confident in being able to slice through the scales even with my skill, so I started where the knacker left off, climbing up the leg of the drake, reaching the section that had already been cut out.

  Pulling out my knife, I slid it under the scales, separating the skin from the flesh with ease.

  I ended up removing a chunk of meat that was easily larger than my torso. I even struggled to lift it, choosing instead to store it away once I had it fully separated.

  I nearly made the mistake of storing the drake while I was on top of it, which would have been awkward, because that was a fair distance to fall.

  Climbing back down, Micca still stood in the doorway, just watching.

  Hitting the floor, I stored the drake and gave her a thumbs up. “Follow me. I’ll explain in the dome—we can talk there.”

  And I led the way.

  Entering the dome with Milo already inside, sitting by Crisplet’s fire, Micca spoke first.

  “I know you told us you had a drake, but I didn’t realise just how large it actually was.”

  Milo chuckled from the side. “That’s not a normal-sized drake. It’s considerably larger than most. It was, after all, the first mate of the Tempest Dragon in Boltron.”

  While they were talking, I pulled out the piece of meat I had cut off and put it on the stone table Milo had prepared for me—then reinforced for me when it cracked.

  I sliced off just two thick slices and stored the rest, dicing them into chunks, placing them in a bowl. I didn’t need anywhere near all of it.

  Once that was done, I coated them in a fine layer of grain flour before searing them off in some Buvul tallow. Once they were all brown, I used the same pan to start cooking down some vegetables, getting all the flavour off the bottom of the pan.

  I stored it away at this stage to hold it where it was, waiting for the red-meat stock to have some time.

  The plan was to use the stock in the stew, add some herbs to it. I didn’t want to use much because the buffs would mostly go to waste anyway unless Lily showed up.

  But honestly, I wasn’t even sure what she could kill in the area. I didn’t want her slaughtering all the farmers’ livestock.

  I waited patiently for the stock, chatting with Milo and Micca while it boiled away.

  After an hour, Crisplet gave me the signal. I knew from Geo’s teaching that I could keep this stock on for hours, even days, and it would get stronger in flavour—even becoming a sauce itself if I took it all the way down.

  But today, I just used half of it with the drake stew: all the meat and vegetables in the pot, adding some tomatoes which I knew would breakdown as well, before covering it all in stock, placing the lid on top and setting it by the fire.

  As the pot hit the fire, a familiar pressure arrived, and sure enough Lily appeared, giving me a look before laying down next to the fire, where Crisplet threw a coal at her that passed through her harmlessly.

  It felt good to be on the road again.