Page 32 of Orc'd & Loaded
"Tight. No gaps." She's panting. Visible breath. That's how cold it's gotten. "If it's pulling heat through convection, we need to eliminate the air channels between the runes and the open cellar."
She's right. The insulation needs to be seamless.
We work. No discussion necessary beyond the logistics of angles and weight. I haul the heavy crates. She directs placement with sharp gestures, architecting a wall of wood and produce around the glowing box. Three crates deep on the north side where the pull is strongest. Two on the east and west. The south side faces the wall, stone against iron, natural insulation.
My back screams on the seventh crate. Not from the weight. From the cold settling into muscles that have been soaked in rain for an hour. I drop the crate into position and straighten, rolling my shoulders. Frost on my forearms. Actual frost, white and crystalline, melting against my skin.
Solene slams a crate of leeks against the gap between positions two and three. The impact jolts the whole structure. She braces it with her shoulder and pushes until the wood groans and seats itself flush. Her arms are shaking. Not from effort. From the cold finding her thin frame with surgical precision.
"One more on top." She points. Her fingertip is white. "That gap at the corner is still venting."
The last crate sits against the far wall. Ale. My ale. Six heavy stoneware bottles of the dark porter I've been aging since spring. I grip the crate and lift. The weight is absurd, maybe a hundred pounds, and the cold has stiffened my fingers into something less than cooperative. I walk it across the cellar in four careful steps and heave it up onto the stack.
The gap seals.
The blue pulse dims. Steadies. Drops back to that gentle rhythm from before, lazy and slow, a sleeping thing instead of a starving one. The temperature stops plummeting. I move my palm flat against the outer crate. Cold, yes. But contained. A wall of wood and vegetables holding the enchantment's appetite in check.
Solene leans both hands on her knees. Her breath comes in visible clouds. Sweat on her temples despite the chill, strands of dark hair stuck to her skin. Her chef coat is destroyed beyond any hope of salvation now, smeared with dirt and frost-melt and the green stain of crushed leek tops.
She looks up at me through the curtain of her hair.
"Your grandmother," she says between breaths, "built a cellar that tries to freeze its occupants alive."
"She was a practical woman. If raiders broke in, the cellar would handle them."
"We're not raiders."
"The runes don't check credentials."
Something close to a laugh escapes her. Short. Bitten off. But real, and the sound of it lands in me like a fist.
We're done. The icebox hums behind its fortress of crates, content now, and the cellar holds at something survivable. Cold, yes. But not kill-you cold. Not raid-deterrent cold. Just uncomfortable enough to make every wet piece of clothing feel like a personal insult.
I drag two empty canvas sacks from the pile near the stairs and drop them against the far wall, opposite the icebox. The stone here holds residual warmth from the building's foundation. Not much. Enough. I lower myself onto the rough fabric and my knees pop like gunshots.
Solene stands for another twelve seconds. Counting, probably. Measuring the indignity of sitting on a grain sack against the indignity of standing in wet shoes until dawn. Mathwins. She folds herself down onto the second sack with the controlled precision of someone who refuses to collapse even when collapsing is the only sensible option.
We sit. Three feet apart. Backs against ancient stone. The blue glow from the icebox barely reaches us here, just enough to sketch outlines. The curve of her shoulder. The sharp angle of her jaw. The ruined architecture of that French twist, listing badly to port.
"Why vegan?"
The question leaves my mouth before the thought fully forms. But it's the right question. I've been carrying it since the first day, since she swatted that rib out of my hand like I'd offered her a live grenade.
Her head tips back against the stone. "Why Orcish barbecue?"
"I asked first."
"You did." She pulls her knees up. Wraps her arms around them. "My mother ran a cattle farm outside Lyon. Two hundred head. I grew up elbow-deep in animal agriculture. Loved the work. Hated what it cost."
"Cost."
"The land. The water. The animals, obviously. But also her. She worked herself into the ground feeding those cows so other people could eat them, and she never once sat down to a meal she was proud of. I wanted to build something where the pride wasn't extracted from suffering. Where the plate itself was the complete statement."
The cellar holds the silence after she finishes. Rain drums above us, muffled through stone and oak and eighty years of wardwork.
"That's why you want the star."
"The star proves it's possible. Not just to me. To every chef who's been told plants are a side dish. A compromise. A lesser thing. I refuse to be a lesser thing."
