What I Tasted

After class ended, I stayed behind. The room had emptied except for Adara, who sat with that same slow, sweet smile she always wore — the smile that made it hard to tell if she was pleased or dangerous. I stepped forward because I needed answers.

“It wasn’t me,” she said, her smile never faltering.

“What?” I barked, and the word sounded harsher than I meant. The silence that followed felt thick and wrong. I didn’t know how to begin.

“You said you knew Terossa,” I snapped, and slammed my hand on the table beside her. The sound echoed in the small room. “Stop playing games.”

Adara tilted her head and put her chin on her hand, eyes calm. “I know him, yes,” she said, “but not in the way you think.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, breath coming quicker.

She gave that sly little smile and said, “I know his wife.”

“You—! You’re that old?” That slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it. The words sounded stupid and shocked even to me.

Adara’s smile changed into something sharper, and for a moment it looked almost scary. I felt a chill run through me so deep it felt like a river flowing under my skin. Her expression returned to calm as if she hadn’t noticed my reaction at all.

“She was my student,” Adara continued as if she were reciting facts from a book. “Flora. She was noble and she had a great talent for magic.”

When she named Flora, something cold ran through me.

“When she left the Enchanted Forest to marry that boy, Terossa, I was furious. I couldn’t understand why she would abandon everything for a human.” Her tone hardened for a moment before softening again. “Later, I learned she was killed by a demon.”

She spoke about something so tragic as if it were a simple story from long ago. Then she smiled—faintly, almost sadly. “Humans really are fragile creatures,” she murmured. And though she was smiling, I could sense the sorrow hiding beneath her words.

Her words sounded like a judgment. Yet beneath her cool tone I heard something softer, almost like grief. It made me uneasy. “What does any of this have to do with mana-imbued weapons?” I asked. I needed to know if I could trust her.

She leaned back and fixed me with a steady look. “Don’t you see the whole picture, Valkyrie? If Flora was brought back… if she was revived… she could make weapons filled with mana. I taught her everything.”

The room tilted. “Revived?” I repeated. “That’s impossible. How could she be brought back from death?”

Adara shrugged as if she were discussing the weather. “If Terossa made a pact with a demon, then anything becomes possible.”

I felt my hands start to shake. A pact with a demon — the idea made my teeth ache. My throat closed tight. For a moment I could not speak.

Adara rose from her chair and began to walk the length of the room, the hem of her robe whispering across the floor. “How did you come to these ideas?” I asked. “It sounds like you’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”

She stopped and looked at me. Her eyes were bright and strange. “The moment you said ‘hybrids,’ my instincts started whispering. Do you know what demons love most?” she asked.

I had no answer. I only stared.

“Despair,” she said with a quiet sharpness. “And power. They crave the revival of the Demon King.”

My heart skipped. The words felt like a blow. “The Demon King?” I echoed.

Adara nodded. “The elixir to bring him back calls for blood — much blood. But not just any blood. Hybrids are easy to take because most people won’t notice if they vanish. No one fights for those who belong nowhere.”

Her voice grew colder, like ice moving underfoot. “If I were a demon, I would feed on their isolation, their sorrow. I would use them to make the elixir and bring the Demon King back without the Royal Capital ever knowing.”

“You’re mad,” I said. I wanted to laugh it off, to call her paranoid, but the tremor in my voice ruined the lie.

Adara’s lips quirked. “Maybe. Or maybe you were too safe to see it before. You were a crown princess, Valkyrie. You had comfort and walls that kept the ugly things out. You never learned to look where no one else wanted to look.”

Tears burned hot behind my eyes — anger and shame and a strange, new sorrow. “I… I was—!” The thought felt like an accusation.

I gripped Adara’s sleeve. “If you knew this, why did you do nothing? Why keep quiet while they suffered?”

She looked at me without blinking. For a moment I thought there would be hatred in her face, or fear. Instead she smiled — not the sly smile now, but a look full of something fierce and private. “Because I want the demon to taste what I tasted,” she said simply. “I want him to feel the same hollow that swallowed Flora.”

I let go of her sleeve. Her confession landed like iron. “You want him to succeed?”

“Yes,” she said. “Then I will watch him build his joy from other people’s despair. When he believes he has won by making others suffer, I will destroy him. Killing him now would be too simple. I want him to understand the weight of what he has done.”

The honesty in her voice was raw and steady. She’d loved Flora, that much was clear. The depth of that love surprised me. It changed something in the room.

Softly, I said, “You loved her. Even though she was a human. That’s—” I stopped, searching for the right word, and settled on, “—rare.” My voice had a small, shaky smile.

Adara’s eyes widened with real surprise.

I straightened. The grief and confusion still pressed at my ribs, but something inside me had made a choice. “I will help you,” I said. “I’ll help end this. Only with your hand, that demon must die.”

She wanted revenge for Flora. Then, I’ll give it to her.

She didn’t answer with words. Instead her pose shifted, and her presence — that small, dangerous heat around her — softened in a way that felt like agreement.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Flora and Terossa.
If Flora had truly been revived, surely someone in the Royal Capital would have noticed. Where could she possibly hide? How could a noblewoman return without a single whisper spreading through the court?

Adara’s voice sliced through my thoughts. “Unless she isn’t recognized.”

My head snapped toward her. “What do you mean?”

Her lips curved into a smile that made my skin crawl. “She could be hiding in plain sight. Disguised as someone insignificant — perhaps a daughter in a lesser household.”

My thoughts tangled. Flora… disguised as their child?

Then it struck me like lightning. Lady Morphin… Count Terossa’s daughter.