Chapter 157 Warm Bread and Fresh Paint

Chapter 157 Warm Bread and Fresh Paint
Rae
The lake has gone quiet, the visions sinking beneath the silver-dark surface, but my chest still feels full of them. William’s hands. Nanna’s rain-soaked coat. Salt bowls. Iron nails. A baby held close before the realm could claim her.
Cian stays beside me, hand wrapped around mine, letting me decide when the moment is over.
Eventually, I turn to Alaric.
“Thank you,” I say, though the words feel too small and slightly forbidden.
Alaric lifts one pale hand. “Do not thank me for what was already yours.”
My throat tightens again, because I have cried every drop of water in my body into Cian’s shirt tonight.
“Glassmere only returned what grief and time had hidden,” he says.
Cian looks up toward the darkening sky. “We should return home,” he says. “It has been a long day.”
I look once more at the place where Nanna’s face had been, then squeeze Cian’s hand. “Okay.”
The road back opens beneath Cian’s will, quiet and root-dark under our feet. Menace shifts against my shoulders as we step into it, warm against my neck, his tails dragging down my front.
Hollow Hill smells like warm bread and fresh paint when we return.
I stop on the threshold with Cian beside me. Hollow Hill’s warmth feels almost rude after everything Glassmere tore open.
Menace disagrees. His head lifts, nose twitching.
“Of course food brings you back to life,” I mutter.
He chirps once, weak but hopeful.
Cian’s mouth brushes my hair. “Do you want to go to our rooms?”
I should say yes; I know my body wants to hide from the world, but the hall ahead is full of sound, and it coaxes me back toward the living.
There are voices and laughter near the kitchen corridor. The scrape of a chair across stone. A child’s indignant protest followed by an older voice saying, “Paint goes on the wall, not on your brother.”
“No,” I say, patting Cian’s hand. “I want to walk.”
Cian steps with me into the hill where the entrance hall has changed again.
Today, cloths cover the floor, buckets line one wall, and two young fae stand on stools with paintbrushes in their hands.
One has green paint across his cheek. The other has paint on both elbows.
The smallest child spots me.
“It’s her,” he whispers loudly.
Cian’s hand tightens on mine, and I look up at him to see him smirking.
“Hello,” I say.
The child stares at Menace. “Does it bite?”
Menace bares all his tiny teeth.
“Yes,” I say at the same time Cian says, “Only when deserved.”
The child nods, satisfied, and I smile.
Fresh paint covers the lower corridor walls. Some places are darker than others, and one section has a handprint pressed into it, but the old smoke stains are gone. The black scrape marks from the worst nights have been scrubbed until only ghost-lines remain.
People are fixing things. Not preparing for attack, not hiding damage under glamours. Fixing.
Under my bare feet, the road-stone hums. It is faint, more felt than heard—less warning, and more welcome.
I slow, and Cian notices at once. “What is it?”
“The roads.”
He looks down, then back at me with a warm smile. “They are calmer when you are here.”
The kitchen corridor is a riot of heat and movement. Steam clouds the air. Someone carries loaves, and someone else argues with a girl about whether stealing broken pastry before dinner counts as theft.
Saoirse stands at the long table, sleeves rolled to her elbows, kneading dough like she is planning war.
She looks up, points a flour-covered hand at me, and says, “You look terrible.”
I laugh before I can stop myself.
“I feel terrible.”
“Good. Then you are matching.” She tears a piece from a warm loaf and presses it into my hand. “Eat.”
“I’m not sure bread fixes family trauma.”
“No. But it keeps people from falling over dramatically in the kitchen.”
I take a bite because arguing with Saoirse feels more dangerous than several courts combined.
Across the kitchen, Eiran sits with papers beside him. I see words as we pass. Grain stores. South hall repairs. Bedding. Schoolroom.
Schoolroom.
“You have a schoolroom?” I ask.
“We have six children who keep turning pantry shelves into fortifications,” he says. “Education seemed essential.”
Someone slips Menace a bite of meat, which he accepts with tragic dignity, and we leave before Saoirse can feed me an entire loaf by force.
In the lower hall, Torin and Liora stand near a window with deep green cloth stretched between them, arguing over whether the fabric is the right shade.
They look up as we pass. Liora’s gaze flicks over my red eyes, Cian’s hand in mine, Menace half-asleep against my shoulder. She does not ask.
She only smiles softly.
“Welcome home,” she says.
I nod because my throat tightens again, and then we find Dorian in the main hall.
He stands with a small group of fae, sleeves rolled back, head bent while an older woman speaks to him. There is no fear in her face. Frustration, yes. Exhaustion, definitely. But not fear.
Dorian listens intently, and when she finishes, he answers quietly, then places a hand over his heart and bows his head to her.
He looks less like a king performing kindness and more like a man promising to do better by his people.
Dorian looks over and sees us. His eyes move from Cian to me, and his expression softens.
“Many adventures today?” he asks.
I nod.
“And?”
“I’m glad to be back.”
“Good,” he says quietly. “We are glad you came back.”
Then his gaze shifts to Cian, and something heavier settles beneath the softness.
“We leave for Bright Thorn tomorrow,” Dorian says. “Lorcan’s sentencing cannot be delayed any longer.”
The warmth in the hall seems to pull back by a breath.
Cian’s hand tightens around mine, though his face does not change.
“Tomorrow,” he repeats.
Dorian nods. “His people have waited long enough to know what becomes of the crown that harmed them.”
Inside, I sigh. Bright Thorn feels like another lifetime and yesterday all at once, but apparently, some things still need weeding.
Around us, Hollow Hill keeps breathing.
Paint drying on old stone—bread cooling in the kitchen. Children plotting crimes with arithmetic. Roads humming under my feet. People scrubbing, mending, arguing, laughing, living.
For so long, this place has been Cian’s wound. His kingdom under the hill. His grief. His lost home clawing its way back from ruin.
But as I stand in the middle of it with flour on my fingers, Menace warm against my neck, Cian’s hand around mine, and the roots above us shifting softly with my name, something inside me answers.
Hollow Hill is no longer only the place Cian came back to.
It is becoming the place I return to as well.