The Crown's Entrapment

At Valcrez Island

Back in the cabin, Xenia, along with Darius and Osman all shared their respective lunches. The princess’s cooking wasn’t that half bad, but the fact that she overshot the salt did kind of put a damper on her supposed training.

At least, that was what Osman told her.

“Are you sure that you tasted this before you served it?” Osman laughed even as he took in his soup with a generous amount of water. “You didn’t even try and add more water to correct it.”

“How was I supposed to know that?!” Xenia pouted, her steaming soup still trying to cool as she defended herself. “I taste it and it was fine. Even Darius over there is eating it without any problems.”

Sure enough, the king was busy sipping on his food to even bother participating in the discussion. He was being awfully silent than usual though. But even so, the smile that he gave her whenever she looked at him eating only meant that he was enjoying her cooking.

Cause how else would she interpret such an expression?

“Never mind then,” Osman sighed. “Just next time, if you ever overdo it on any sort of seasoning, you have to balance it out with something that can cancel it out. Like water for salt, or milk for spice.”

“Got it,” Xenia rolled her eyes, her lips humming in satisfaction at her own cooking. “I know that enough, at least.”

To her dismay, the admiral then tried to talk to Darius, to which her mate promptly glared at him with a silent level of scorn.

‘Hah! Serves you right for saying that my cooking’s too salty!’

It was most certainly not, of course. This was exactly how she wanted her food.

“Anyway, while we’re here, let’s continue your training.”

Xenia blinked, “But we’re not done eating?”

Sure enough, they still had bowls of soup in front of them as they all sat around the table. Darius was going in for seconds, while Osman was busy dipping some bread into his soup. Where did that piece of bread even come from?

“Ah, but we’ll be training your mind for today,” Osman pointed out. “Cooking just so happened to require a deal of mental discipline and logic that I could use to further your studies.”

“That just sounds like you wanted to just skip out on more work.”

“Perhaps, but that’s not important,” Osman chuckled, taking a bite out of his soup-soaked bread. “As of now, His Majesty and I will be quizzing you with a few riddles and questions. Some of them might be straightforward, while others might require a bit of mental legwork in terms of leaps in logic and the like.”

Xenia raised an eyebrow at his words. It sounded easy enough, but she just knew that there was more to this. She refused to be caught off guard. Not now, and never again.

“Okay then. I can do that,” she nodded.

“Right then,” Osman smiled. “I suppose we can start with your first question…. Your Majesty?”

To her subtle surprise, Darius looked to be caught off-guard by the sudden attention. Still scooping up more of her soup, he promptly finished up and sat back down at the table. He hummed for a bit before he spoke.

“Ah, yes… A question, is it?” he casually stated.

“That’s right, Your Majesty,” Osman smiled. “Do you have some riddles that we can ask her?”

For some reason, Xenia felt her back stiffen as she waited for whatever it was that her mate might ask of her. She didn’t know if werewolves had any sort of special riddles with them as opposed to the few she knew from back in Ebodia, but surely she could hold her own if she just thought hard enough for them.

“Ermm… What’s red, blue, and black all over?”

…

…

“Uhh…”

Xenia didn’t know what to say. Was that supposed to be a proper riddle?

“Uh, Your Majesty?”

“What else were you expecting, Admiral?” Darius growled at the man. “You caught me off-guard. And while I can think up of proper riddles, crafting one isn’t something that I can do on such short notice.”

The princess didn’t know whether it was appropriate to laugh or not as she saw how flustered Darius had become. It was clear that he didn’t want to say that riddle out loud, and yet he was forced to because of Osman’s sudden attention.

“See? Now that is yet another lesson that you have to take into heart, Princess,” Osman sniggered. “The fae, in particular, would sometimes ask something of you without so much as giving you a chance to think about it. They might even give you nonsensical questions, to which you respond with a nonsensical answer. For example, what’s the square root of a fork?”

Xenia blinked, her gaze looking at the admiral as if she was hoping that he was still joking around. To her dismay, however, he was deadly serious. Hell, even Darius was starting to think as he hummed in his seat.

“And that is correct, Your Majesty,” Osman suddenly called out. She could only guess that Darius told him his answer telepathically. “And apologies for putting you on the spot.”

“As much as it annoys me, your jokes still hold some meaning to them,” Darius sighed. “They might be infuriating at times, but I can still see the logic to them. And for that, you can live just yet.”

“You wound me, Your Majesty,” Osman joked aloud. “Still, what’s the Princess’s answer going to be?”

Xenia couldn’t help but stiffen as she was now put on the pedestal. What even was a square root? Was it an alchemical term that she failed to learn during those lessons all those years ago?

…

…

“You have no idea what I just asked you, don’t you.”

Xenia hung her head low, “No, I don’t.”

Osman clicked his tongue. “Now that wouldn’t do. You have to at least have some idea on a few things that some mages might take for granted. Like a square root. That’s your problem, right?”

She weakly nodded.

“Well, I suppose we’ll just have to drill some knowledge into your head today,” Osman smirked. “At least we have a whole day to do it as opposed to you going in without any clue as to what to expect.”