“Here,” Kitalia said, handing Kre a small wooden cup full of something steaming.
“What is it?”
She ignored him and went back to her pack. Holding the cup in his hands, he took a tentative sniff. It smelled like vegetable soup. He took a small sip and, despite burning his tongue in the process, he tasted something very much like a hearty vegetable soup.
“Be careful,” she warned with a smirk, “it is hot.”
He had already burned his tongue trying to slurp out of his cup, dribbling some down his chin as well. He wiped his sleeves along his chin and sucked some air in through his lips to cool his mouth. “How did you heat this up without a fire?”
Kitalia held up a small black disk, no larger than the palm of her hand and about as thin as a piece of leather. “Charred oak tablet,” she said by way of explanation. “High heat, no smoke.”
Nodding as if understanding, Kre took another, more careful sip of his soup. Whatever it was she used, it did certainly make the soup very hot and in a very short time.
“It should go without saying,” she added hesitantly, “but some things you might see are secrets of my people. Like these tablets and the dried soup powders. I would appreciate it if you did not share these secrets with your own people, even with those people that you trust most.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Kre replied. “While I’m in prison, I won’t be mentioning my friendship with an Ylveryan, because they’ll think I’m crazy at the least, and a traitor at the worst. I can almost guarantee that I wouldn’t survive my sentence if I tried to talk to my fellow prisoners about magical fire tablets to anyone.
“If, somehow, I do survive to see my eventual freedom, I plan to go back home and live the rest of my life on my farm, not talking to anyone about anything that’s happened since the day that Cooter… I mean, Ser Sandiscoot died. So, you see, you have nothing to worry about from me sharing your peoples’ secrets.”
Kitalia smiled warmly and nodded, sipping at her own cup of soup. Even a few steps away, Kre could feel an aura of warmth coming from the small pot resting on a relatively flat rock in front of her.
With the soup warming his belly and his eyes growing heavier with every passing minute, Kre asked, “Is there anything else we need to do before we get some sleep?”
She shook her head, “No. We are safe enough here in the hill country. Still, I shall sit the first watch and will wake you when you are needed.”
Kre yawned, “Don’t you need to get some sleep too?” Although grateful for the opportunity to rest, he was concerned that his companion was pushing herself far too hard.
“I do not. My people do not sleep our lives away as your people do.”
Figuring that was all the explanation he was going to get, Kre laid his head against his pack and closed his eyes. Just as the slow, numbing hand of peaceful sleep could steal away his consciousness, he heard a voice calling him back to wakefulness.