Chapter 324: Harem Dining

Kane finished the lighter forms when the system’s numbers stopped inching upward and simply held.

Sweat had dried in a film across his shoulders.

The brace still limited the left arm, but the deep structural protest in the ribs had eased into something he could ignore for ordinary movement.

He dismissed the status window, set Mjoldr against the yard wall, and went straight to the private bath.

Hot water closed over him.

For a long minute he did nothing except sit under it and let the heat work into bruised muscle and residual inflammation.

Days of fighting on stone and mud, of sleeping in foreign chambers and waking to system warnings, of fucking through pain and recovery protocols, none of it had left room for this simple animal comfort.

He felt a flicker of shame at how good it was, then let the shame go.

Whatever.

The body had earned the water.

He dried, dressed in clean trousers and an open shirt that didn’t fight the brace, and walked to the main dining hall of the guest manor.

The long table was already being set.

An older elven maid, grey at the temples, with efficient hands, the particular bright competence of someone who had decided the barbarian household was her problem and intended to solve it, moved between kitchen and table with bowls and platters.

Kane had forgotten her name.

He was certain someone had told him twice. He nodded to her anyway when she set a heavy plate at the head place.

"Thank you. The work shows."

She beamed as if he had given her a title and retreated toward the kitchen for the next load.

The women began to arrive one by one.

Thora came first, hair still damp from her own wash, expression settled into the post-claim calm that made her look almost approachable until she decided otherwise.

She dropped into the seat at his right without ceremony.

Misha followed, white hair neat again, already carrying a small ledger she set aside only when the food appeared.

Sira blew in through the side door with orange hair half-tied and the energy of someone who had already argued with two instructors before breakfast.

Kessa padded in behind her, striped ears forward, eyes immediately cataloguing who was sitting where.

Griselda entered last of the core group, quiet and composed.

Firlia appeared from the corridor with a short stack of harbor notes she placed near her own seat before sitting.

The older maid returned with the main dishes.

Platters landed. Steam rose.

For a moment the table was only the sound of serving and the low scrape of benches.

Kane looked at them: the full, noisy, complicated set of them around one table, and the thought landed clean.

It had been a while since he ate like this.

Not the food itself.

The company.

The last proper meal with his women in one place had been in Menual, before the road to Milfheim and Berakamon and the rest.

He would need to go back there soon and see the state of things with his own eyes.

Greta and Sarah were almost certainly holding the lines well.

That did not remove the need to check.

Thora reached across, speared a massive roasted bear leg from the central platter, and dropped it onto his plate hard enough to make the wood jump.

"Eat. You trained on light forms and healing juice. That is not a foundation."

Kane eyed the leg.

It was larger than reasonable.

"You’re feeding me like I’m about to fight another emperor before noon."

"We’re about to cross to an island of people three times your size. Eat the leg."

Misha, more precise, transferred a smaller dish to the space beside his plate.

The contents stared up at him with cloudy preserved eyes.

"Protein and minerals for tissue repair," she said.

"Don’t make a face. You must’ve swallowed worse in Berakamon."

Sira pulled her own plate closer and curled a protective arm around it.

"I am not sharing. I waited through the entire Thora performance on corridor rations and spite. This is mine."

She nevertheless scraped a very small, grudging portion of roasted root and meat onto the edge of Kane’s plate.

"There. Token contribution. Don’t expect more."

Kessa had already begun eating from her own heaped plate with focused efficiency.

When Sira glanced at her expectantly, Kessa didn’t even look up.

"I don’t share food. Berakamon rules. Survival rules. My rules."

"You shared him," Sira pointed out.

"He is not food."

Griselda ate quietly, methodical and unbothered, occasionally glancing at the brace as if still assessing whether Kane intended to pretend he was fully cleared before the system agreed.

Firlia kept her portions neat and her notes within reach, the flush from the yard conversation still faintly visible at her ears whenever Kane’s attention passed over her.

Kane tore into the bear leg because Thora was watching and because the hunger under the training was real.

The first solid mouthful of proper meat after days of functional rations settled something in his chest that had nothing to do with strategy.

"This is better than the resting-chamber trays," he said.

"By a lot."

Thora snorted.

"Everything is better than resting-chamber trays. You looked like a ruin when you walked back in. You’re still not cleared for the kind of stupidity you prefer, so you will sit here and eat until the plate is empty."

Misha sipped watered wine and opened the small ledger with one hand.

"Harbor master confirmed a vessel suitable for the crossing. Two days’ provisions possible on short notice. Quiet departure window exists the morning after next if the arm fully heals and the weather holds. Firlia already started the request chain."

Firlia nodded once, professional mask mostly restored.

"The boat is a converted coastal runner. Not pretty. Stable enough for the open stretch and the cliff approaches. Crew can be kept minimal if we prefer not to advertise the passenger list."

Sira pointed a fork at Kane.

"You’re still doing the thing where you plan the next empire while chewing. Stop. Eat. Then plan. The Giants are not going to un-exist because you thought about them between bites."

Kessa finally looked up from her plate.

"The Giants will respect mass and precedent. If you walk in half-healed and talking about coalitions, they will measure the healing first and the words second. The boat can wait one more day if you need it."