Out of it, the sound of waves rose. Slow, steady, not the distant murmur from Savora’s harbor, but close enough that the sea felt like it was breathing at her feet.
Cool water lapped against her toes.
Ritsuka opened her eyes.
She stood at the edge of a narrow strip of pale sand. The shoreline curved out on either side, waves rolling in and out in calm, even strokes. Each one broke in a thin line of foam, slid back, and left the sand smooth and dark.
She turned.
“Were am I” Ritsuka thought
The beach rose gently into a stretch of soft grass and white roses, their petals moving in the same slow rhythm as the sea. An open pavilion stood there, all pale stone arches and carved pillars, vines climbing lazily around them. Gold light poured down from somewhere above, bright but not harsh, scattering off drifting petals.
A woman stood between two of the pillars, as if she’d been waiting there a long time. Long, white-gold hair fell in loose waves down her back, stirred by a breeze Ritsuka couldn’t quite feel. A crown like a small sun rested lightly against her brow. Her dress was the color of fresh cream, patterned with tiny stars and moons that caught the light whenever she shifted.
What made Ritsuka’s chest tighten wasn’t the crown or the dress.
It was the pendant at the woman’s throat, familiar, the same shape and metal as the one Ritsuka knew lay against her own skin back in bed.
Heat prickled under Ritsuka’s collarbone in answer.
“That can’t be a coincidence,” she thought. “The pendant. The way this place feels…”
The woman’s gaze met hers, steady and deep. When she spoke, her voice carried easily over the sound of the surf, warm and worn at the edges.
“You push yourself like someone who has never been allowed to rest,” she said.
Ritsuka swallowed once, throat dry.
“Are you… Leah?” she asked.
For a moment, only the waves answered. Then the woman’s mouth curved, soft and knowing.
“I am,” Leah said. “And you, Julia Wynnee… or should I call you Chef Izumi?”
The old name hit hard for Ritsuka as flashbacks of her past danced in her memory.
Ritsuka’s fingers curled reflexively at her sides.
“…Just Ritsuka is fine,” she said. “The rest is… a lot to unpack.”
Leah’s eyes eased, the corners softening.
“Very well, Ritsuka,” she said. “And before your thoughts start racing, no, you are not dead. Your body is in the bed you last left, breathing. Your maid and your young guard are worried but are there for you.”
“So all of that was real?” Ritsuka asked. “The poisoning… Savora… him.”
Her voice dipped on the last word.
Leah’s expression turned briefly, gently sad.
“All of it,” she said. “I’m sorry. None of that was a dream. This world is very real, and so is what comes next.”
Leah’s gaze drifted past her, toward the horizon, as if she could see something out there beyond the line of water and sky.
“I don’t have the luxury of a long chat,” she said. “Pulling you here stretches things. While you stand on this shore, your body is still lying in that bed. Time keeps moving.”
Ritsuka’s fingers twitched at her sides.
“So this is… what?” she asked. “A warning?”
“Yes,” Leah said. “Call it a nudge from someone who sees a little farther down the road.”
The goddess stepped away from the pillar and walked closer, bare feet leaving no prints in the grass. As she moved, the roses along the path seemed to lean toward her, petals shivering.
“Listen carefully, Ritsuka,” she said. “Across the sea, in the empire you know as Drakovar, war is brewing. The king is sick. His brother tightens his grip around the throne. Three princes gather power and followers, each with their own idea of what the world should look like. And beyond them, some lands and peoples refuse to kneel… but will not stay quiet forever.”
The waves kept their slow, steady rhythm. The words did not.
Ritsuka’s mouth flattened.
“And Savora?” she asked. “Where do we sit in that mess?”
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Leah’s eyes returned to her.
“You sit in the middle,” she said simply. “If the war spills over, Savora must stand, not be swallowed.”
The thought landed heavy and cold in Ritsuka’s gut.
“So that’s it,” she thought.
“So what was your reasoning for bringing me here?” Ritsuka asked. “Out of everyone you could have picked.”
A faint smile tugged at Leah’s mouth.
“I brought you here to remind you that you have choices,” she said. “You can rebuild a new life in Savora. The restaurant you spoke of building can be real here. A place you can finally call home, if you decide to fight for it.”
“Home…” Ritsuka echoed under her breath.
The word sat uncomfortably true.
Leah’s gaze dipped briefly to Ritsuka’s chest.
“You felt it,” she said. “The heat under your skin. The markings. The way you're cooking did more.”
“That was you?” Ritsuka asked. “This pendant. The tattoos. The… whatever that menu was.”
“The relic is mine,” Leah said. “But it answers to its bearer. I gave a portion of my power to your line generations ago. Each person who wears it shapes how it wakes.”
She lifted a hand, and the pendant at Ritsuka’s unseen throat gave a small, answering thrum.
“Julia’s mother used it differently,” Leah said. “She favored order. Safety.”
Ritsuka’s chest tightened at the mention, but Leah’s tone held no judgment.
“You,” Leah continued, “built your life around cooking. So the relic wakes to that.”
Ritsuka let out a slow breath.
“So my cooking has magic in it now,” she said.
“Yes.. This world is built on different rules than the one you came from,” Leah said. “Here, relics reshape what you touch. Beasts walk on four legs and two. Power settles into tools, bloodlines, places..”
Ritsuka grimaced.
“So I have to learn this on my own,” she said. “The menu and everything that comes with it.”
Leah’s eyes held hers. There was no apology there, but there was understanding.
“You already know what it means to learn by doing,” Leah said. “Recipes you burned through to get them right. Menus you built from scraps. This is the same work, with stranger rules. I can nudge a few doors open. I am not allowed to walk you through all of them.”
A faint pressure curled around Ritsuka’s chest at those words, like invisible fingers closing and then easing off.
“Not allowed,” Ritsuka repeated. “You’re a goddess. I figured you explaining how this works would be the bare minimum.”
Leah’s mouth tugged into a small, tired almost-smile.
“There are lines even I do not cross,” she said. “I can give you a gift. I cannot live your life for you. How you live from here is on you.”
Ritsuka huffed out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh.
“Seems like a lot” she said. “You’re expecting all this from a widowed chef in her forties.”
“You’re more than that and you know it,” Leah said. “Your battlefields will be your own. You’re sharp with people and Savora is not just some quiet island. You will soon know why it’s very hard for someone to overtake your new home”
The sea breeze picked up, tugging at Ritsuka’s hair. Somewhere above, the light dimmed a fraction, as if the sun were slipping behind a thin veil.
Leah tilted her head, listening to something Ritsuka couldn’t hear.
“Our time thins,” she said. “By the time you wake, the rider your brother sent will have failed to turn your would-be groom away. His ship will already be on the water.”
Ritsuka’s lips pulled into a thin line.
“Of course it will,” she muttered. “Even in this world, stubborn men can’t just accept rejection.”
“He is not a normal man,” Leah said mildly. “He is a man who built himself on ambition and the belief that he is owed more than he has. Be careful.”
She held Ritsuka’s gaze.
“He cannot simply snatch my pendant from your neck,” Leah added. “Relics of this weight do not transfer hands politely. For someone else to claim it, your life has to end first. Remember that.”
A chill slid down the back of Ritsuka’s neck, colder than the seawater.
She let out a short breath through her nose.
“So if he wants the relic, he has to get rid of me,” she said. “Good to know.”
Leah stepped closer and closed her hand gently around Ritsuka’s wrist. Her touch was warm, steady, like a hand on a kitchen counter before the dinner rush.
“If you want answers,” she said, “go find them. In the eyes of the people you choose to trust.”
For a moment, the pavilion, the roses, the beach all felt sharper, as if someone had turned the focus of a lens. Then the light overhead brightened suddenly, too bright to look at. The roses blew apart into drifting, golden petals. The sound of the waves rose, filling Ritsuka’s ears until it drowned Leah’s words.
“Leah..”
Her own voice stretched, pulled thin.
“Wake up, Ritsuka.”
The goddess’s final words reached her through the roar.
Heat. The smell of smoke and linen. A damp cloth against her forehead.
Ritsuka sucked in a breath and nearly choked on it.
The ceiling above her was stone, not sky. The pillow under her head was too familiar to be anything but real.
“My lady?” a voice cracked. “My lady, can you hear me?”
Isolde’s face swam into focus, eyes ringed dark, hair coming half-loose from its braid. One hand was on Ritsuka’s shoulder. The other still clutched the cloth.
Beyond her, by the door, Daen stood rigid, as if he’d been carved into place. His hand was braced on the frame, knuckles white.
Ritsuka swallowed.
“Yeah, I can hear you,” she managed. Her voice sounded like it had been dragged over gravel.
Isolde let out a noise that was half sob, half laugh.
“Ser Daen,” she said, not taking her eyes off Ritsuka. “Go. Fetch Lord Lucas. Tell him Lady Julia is awake again.”
Daen didn’t argue. The door slammed back against the wall as he bolted out.
Ritsuka frowned faintly.
“Why the emergency relay?” she muttered.
Isolde’s mouth tightened.
“You’ve been asleep since yesterday morning,” she said. “Nearly a day and a half. We could not wake you.”
The words dropped into Ritsuka’s chest like stones into deep water.
A day and a half.
Leah’s voice brushed the back of her mind.
“Time keeps moving. Faster than you think.”
Ritsuka stared at the ceiling for one quiet, steady heartbeat.
She closed her eyes once, briefly.
“Of course,” she whispered. “He’s really coming.”
END OF CHAPTER 10