Chapter 9
Whispers of Magic
Leo starts to suspect Elara's 'ravings' aren't random. He notices patterns, and the way her moods seem to influence his kitchen. Could her 'lost' language hold a different kind of power?
Leo hummed a tuneless melody as he kneaded dough, the rhythmic push and pull a familiar comfort. Sunlight, thick with the scent of yeast and sugar, streamed through the windows of his little bakery, illuminating the flour dust dancing in the air. It was a perfectly ordinary morning, except for the fact that his bakery had become the unofficial embassy for a princess who spoke in riddles, or as he’d come to think of them, Elara’s “food-rants.”
He’d initially dismissed her outbursts as the ramblings of a distressed foreigner. But lately, a peculiar pattern had begun to emerge. It wasn’t just that she spoke Spanish, a language he’d only encountered in dusty phrasebooks and the occasional passionate argument between tourists. It was what she said, or rather, what he felt when she said it.
Just yesterday, Elara had been pacing the shop, her brow furrowed in a way that made Leo’s stomach churn with a strangely specific anxiety. She’d launched into a torrent of Spanish, her hands gesturing wildly. Leo, trying his best to appear helpful, had offered her a croissant. She’d recoiled as if he’d offered her a live scorpion. Then, with a sigh that sounded like a deflating balloon, she’d uttered a string of words that, to his ears, sounded vaguely like “churros, quiero churros, el dulce, el crujiente, la gloria dorada!”
Keep reading "Whispers of Magic"
Open the same story in AIBookCraft. Later chapters may require an active subscription.
Free on iOS & Android · No signup to read