Gaia Chronicles: The Integral Saga

The kitchens beneath the Grand Pavilion had been a haven of order since dawn. Pans clattered in rhythm, linen-draped trays flowed to the upper halls, and servants moved with practiced precision—until, at last, the final courses were dispatched to the main festival and the great copper doors swung shut.

Silence reigned, broken only by the exhausted sigh of Head Steward Aldren, a stooped man with hair like iron filings.

"Lock the doors," he murmured. "We've done our duty to the dignitaries. Now we claim this night for ourselves."

And so began what would later be whispered of as the staff's own festival—the single evening each year when Gaia's stewards, pages, scribes, and attendants gathered without pretense or propriety to share what they knew best: stories.

By the time the cellar lanterns were lit, nearly fifty of them had assembled, each bearing a flask, a covered basket, or some token from their appointed stations. The tables were set in a long rectangle, so no man or woman would sit apart.

The first toast was given in a hush of reverence.

"To the King's peace," Aldren intoned, raising a goblet of clove-spiced wine. "To Gaia's shield. And to the thirty-one who carry the Founder's charge."

Glasses lifted in answer. Then, with the formality thus satisfied, the whispering began in earnest.

"Have you seen Sir Astron this week?" asked Master Valen, the senior scribe. He was a wiry man whose ink-stained hands betrayed decades of record-keeping. "He moves like a shadow even in daylight. They say he caught three pickpockets near the western gate without so much as a raised voice."

Mistress Elenna, the chief seamstress, shook her head. "He's always been silent as the grave. But I'll grant he has presence. Not like Sir Julius, mind you—who struts about as if the festival were a tourney made for his amusement."

"Sir Julius does have a certain enthusiasm," agreed the herbalist, a thin woman whose apron was perpetually smudged with lavender. "I watched him challenge Sir Wang Han to a drinking contest after Lady Harriet's cook-off. You should have seen the state of the courtyard the next morning."

Murmurs of laughter. Another round of wine was poured.

"Speaking of Lady Harriet," said Elenna, her voice lowering to a conspiratorial hush, "I was tasked to mend a tear in her festival gown after the first evening. A finer fabric I've never seen. She thanked me herself—imagine that—and I could scarce meet her eyes. There's a power in her, like standing too close to a bonfire."

"Indeed," said the steward, nodding solemnly. "And yet I wager none of them can match Lady Sylvia's voice. Even the King paused his conversation when she began her solo. It was like listening to an oracle."

"It was," said the young scullion girl, her cheeks pink. "I was at the back of the Hall of Petals when she sang. Sir Cyg was there, you know. He never moved the entire time. Just watched her as if she were the only person alive."

At the mention of that name, a hush settled over the table.

Sir Cyg.

They all knew the stories by now—some exaggerated, some not. The prodigy of tactics and the wielder of Aetheron. The one who had fought the Abyss at seventeen. But in these last days, his reputation had become something stranger, woven through with the festival's gentler currents.

"He's not like the others," murmured the steward in a voice pitched so low it was nearly lost. "Have you ever seen the way he looks at them—all seven? It's as if he can't decide whether to step forward or flee."

"He never flees," Elenna corrected gently. "Not truly. But I saw him take Lady Charlotte's hand during the rain. It was a small thing—yet she blushed as if he'd spoken poetry."

"Lady Charlotte," Valen echoed. "Brilliance and awkwardness in equal measure. I overheard Sir Gram remark that she disassembled and reassembled Kyrosyn during the gala, just to pass the time."

"Lady Mia has a gentler touch," offered the herbalist. "I watched her painting the lanterns yesterday. Sir Cyg lingered behind her table for a full quarter hour, though he pretended to be examining the pigments. I believe she knows exactly what she means to him, though she would never say so aloud."

The scullion girl tilted her head. "And Lady Hikari?"

For a moment, no one spoke. Then Elenna sighed.

"There's something in her eyes," she said softly. "As if she fears her own heart more than any foe. But when she stood in the garden and Sir Cyg called her beautiful… I was there, fetching fresh candles. I nearly forgot to breathe."

"It was a tender scene," Valen agreed, dabbing his eyes as if embarrassed by his sentiment. "Even Lady Eun-Ha seemed moved—and she is a mystery to all."

A steward farther down the table, old enough to remember the earliest campaigns, nodded gravely. "Lady Eun-Ha is the silent star of this generation. I hear tell she crafted that floral blessing for Sir Cyg in secret. They say she watched him from the colonnade all through the Petal Waltz."

"Lady Elaine is no less devoted," Elenna said. "I've never seen her so serious as when she prepared the windmill stand for their day together. She nearly wore herself to exhaustion, yet she insisted it had to be perfect."

"And Lady Harriet," the herbalist added wryly. "She would storm the walls of the Abyss itself for him. I do not believe she has ever desired anything as fiercely as she desires his notice."

One by one, the staff named them:

—Lady Sylvia, whose song broke hearts.—Lady Charlotte, with her restless mind and hidden softness.—Lady Mia, luminous in her quiet creations.—Lady Hikari, fragile as spun glass yet brave in her confession.—Lady Eun-Ha, a secret kept behind her tranquil gaze.—Lady Elaine, radiant with unspoken joy.—Lady Harriet, fire incarnate.

And Sir Cyg at the center, unknowing or unwilling to choose.

"Perhaps," said Valen slowly, "it will end as all stories must—with a single choice."

"Or none," murmured the seamstress. "Some hearts are too vast to belong to one alone."

They drank to that, though none could say what they meant by it.

Hours passed. The cellar grew warm and close with candle smoke and the mingled scents of cloves and honeyed pastries.

Before dawn came, they parted—quiet now, thoughtful.

Each carried with them an unspoken truth:

The thirty-one were heroes, legends even in life. But in the hush of the staff's secret gathering, they were something more—just men and women who laughed, who longed, who might yet be undone by the simplest of things.

The hope of being loved.