Elara woke up to the smell of dust and old silk.
For a beautiful, fleeting second, she was just a woman waking up in a soft bed. Then, the weight of reality—the wrong reality—slammed back into her.
She was in the Bronze Age. She was a tyrant's hostage. She had eaten noodles.
And... oh god.
She sat bolt upright, the silk sheets pooling around her waist.
"Lemons."
She buried her face in her hands. "I told him his mortal enemies could be defeated by lemons."
It had seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, a hilarious act of non-violent sabotage. But now, in the cold light of morning, she was terrified. What if he had tested her? What if he had asked his priests, "Are lemons magic?" and they had said "No, Your Majesty, that is the stupidest thing we have ever heard, she is clearly a fraud, please execute her"?
She was spiraling into panic when the hidden door creaked open.
A new servant girl—this one even younger and more terrified than the last—scurried in. She was balancing a heavy wooden tray. Elara's stomach rumbled, but it was a hopeful sound. Maybe the kitchen had learned?
No. The servant placed the tray down, and it was the same depressing breakfast: a brick of hard bread and a bowl of suspicious grey porridge. Elara's shoulders slumped. The kitchen had not learned.
But then, the girl did something else.
With the reverence of a high priestess handling a holy relic, the girl walked to Elara's bedside table. She was carrying a small, silk cushion. And on that cushion, piled high, glowing like the morning sun, was a pyramid of... lemons.
Maybe ten, maybe twelve. Fresh, yellow, perfect.
The servant girl placed the lemon-cushion on the table, bowed so low her forehead nearly swept the floor, and ran out of the room as if a wolf were chasing her.
Elara just stared at the fruit.
This was it. This was the confirmation. Kaelen hadn't questioned her. He hadn't tested her. He had, instead, probably moved his entire military logistics chain overnight to acquire citrus. He had believed her.
She picked one up. It was heavy and smelled incredible.
She didn't know whether to laugh hysterically or have a complete nervous breakdown. She was, officially, the architect of the Great Lemon War.
The main door to Kaelen's chambers slammed shut, followed by the sound of his heavy, booted footsteps. Her door swung open.
Kaelen was vibrating with energy. He wasn't in his heavy armor, but in a simpler, black leather tunic. He looked like a man who had been up all night, had already won a small battle, and was ready for the main event. He was holding a rolled-up map.
"Oracle," he said. He didn't say "good morning." He didn't ask how she slept. He strode to the table, spread the map out, and pointed. "You are a genius."
Elara, clutching a lemon, just blinked at him. "I... am?"
"The simplicity of it," he breathed, his golden eyes shining with a frightening, predatory light. "They have spent generations building their 'hair magic,' their dark strength. They never once thought to protect themselves from a fruit."
He was 100% serious. This was, to him, the single greatest tactical discovery of his reign.
"Now," he said, tapping the map, which showed the border of the Black Sun Empire. "We must finalize the logistics of the attack. I need your wisdom on... deployment."
Elara gripped her lemon. "Deployment."
"Yes." He looked up, his face a mask of intense, academic focus. "I have my men stripping every lemon grove from here to the southern sea. The first shipment will be here by nightfall. But we must be efficient. Do we throw the lemons whole?"
He was asking her. He was genuinely, truly asking for tactical advice on lemon-throwing.
"Um," Elara said, her mind racing to keep the lie alive. "No. No, not whole. That's... wasteful."
"I knew it!" he said, hitting the table. "My generals said to use the catapults, to hurl them whole. Fools! They see it as a rock. They don't see it as magic."
"Exactly," Elara said, gaining confidence. "It's not the impact that hurts them. It's the... the zest. The... the spritz of the acid."
"The spritz," he repeated, savoring the word. "Of course. The acid must be... activated. Atomized!"
"Precisely! You have to cut them. Halves, or even quarters. The juice must be exposed to the air. That's what neutralizes the dark hair-oil."
Kaelen nodded, his mind clearly picturing a thousand of his soldiers, armed with knives, cutting fruit on the eve of battle. He was completely unfazed by this.
"Excellent. We will establish a 'cutting tent' behind the lines." He looked at the map again. "Now, what about the archers? I was thinking... we could dip their arrowheads in the juice. Would the magic hold over distance?"
"I..." Elara thought. Will that hurt them? No. It'll just make the arrows sticky. Go for it. "Yes! Yes, that's... that's a brilliant idea. The... uh... the 'Acid-Arrow'... it will terrify them. It will... it will make their hair... itch. From a distance."
"Itch," Kaelen mused. "Psychological warfare. I like it. We'll make them scratch themselves to death. Good."
He was pacing now, a caged lion who had just been given the key. "One last thing. The peels. What do we do with the peels after we squeeze the juice for the arrows?"
"Oh! The peels!" Elara said. She was getting good at this. "Do not waste them! They are... also potent. You... you burn them. On the front lines. In big braziers."
"A sacrifice?"
"A fumigation," Elara corrected. "The smoke! The smoke from the burning peels... it... it's harmless to your men, but to those with Black Sun hair magic, it... it causes... moral confusion! They will forget why they are fighting!"
"Hair-itching arrows and moral confusion," Kaelen said, his voice low with triumph. He looked at Elara with something approaching pure, unadulterated awe. "You are the most terrifying weapon I have ever possessed."
He rolled up his map, his good mood infectious. The war was, in his mind, already won.
And then, his strategic brain shut off, and his human brain took over.
He stopped. He finally, really, looked at Elara.
She was still sitting on her bed, wearing the same clothes she had arrived in. Her dark, modern-cut jeans were stained with dirt from the courtyard. Her silk blouse was rumpled and torn at the shoulder. Her hair was a mess. And she was clutching a lemon like it was a scepter.
Kaelen's nose wrinkled. Just slightly.
"This," he said, gesturing to her entire person. "Is unacceptable."
"I... I know," Elara said, suddenly self-conscious. "The porridge is terrible—"
"Not the porridge," he cut her off. "You. You are my Oracle. A Divine Guest. You will not... look... like a street-rat who fell in a ditch."
"Hey!"
He ignored her, striding to the door and barking a command. "Bring them!"
Two servants hurried in, their arms piled high with... clothes.
Elara's heart sank. It wasn't the itchy wool dress from before. Oh no. This was... worse. These were gorgeous. Piles of wafer-thin silk in shades of blue and green, intricate belts woven with gold thread, delicate, whisper-light veils. They were stunning. They were priceless.
And they looked about a thousand times more complicated than the "itchy tent" dress.
"I... I..." Elara stammered, looking at the pile. "Kaelen, I... I appreciate this. I really do. But I... I don't... I can't... I don't know where my arms go. These look like they need a team of engineers to put on."
Kaelen was about to argue. He was a king. You didn't question his gifts. You put on the magic-confusing-clothes and you were grateful.
But he stopped. He took one step closer.
He had been so focused on the lemon tactics that he had been standing across the room. Now, he was near her.
His expression didn't change, but his head tilted. He was a man of the senses. He was a predator. He had smelled the river-flood on the air. He had smelled her ramen.
And now, he could smell her.
She didn't smell like incense, or palace oils, or... anything good. She smelled, faintly, of dust, old sweat, and fear.
He wasn't cruel. He was just... blunt.
"The clothes can wait," he stated, his voice flat.
He pointed to another, smaller, unmarked door in the corner of her room—a door she had never noticed.
"First," he said. "You will bathe."
He turned and walked toward the door, his door. He paused, looking back at her.
"My personal bath-steward, Taya, will attend you. Do not... drown her."
The door clicked shut, leaving Elara alone. She looked at the pile of complex, beautiful silks. She looked at the small, dark door that led to the bathhouse.
She had just won a war with a citrus fruit, but she had a sinking feeling that the next battle—the battle for her own privacy—was going to be much, much harder.