VAELRIC
The kitchen at Kaelith smelled of butter, hot stone and plums cooked down with enough sugar to make Vaelric forget that the pastry cook had already told him no twice. He waited until she turned toward the ovens, then lifted one cake from the cooling tray.
“Take the one at the back,” his mother said.
He nearly dropped it. She was sitting in the window alcove with a book across her lap, apparently having watched the entire operation. When he asked whether she intended to tell, she only asked if the cook would have given him one had he asked properly.
“Probably.”
“Then why steal it?”
Vaelric took a bite before answering. Warm plum ran over his thumb. “They taste better stolen.”
His mother failed to hide a smile. Then she asked what he would have done if the twelve cakes had been meant for twelve other people.
“I would have taken something else.”
“That is not quite the lesson I was hoping for.”
She closed the book. “Being able to take something does not make it yours. The person it belongs to must still have a choice.”
Vaelric studied the half-eaten cake. “What if I ask now?”
“Then she gets to decide after you have already taken it. That is not the same thing.”
“That seems inconvenient.”
“Choice often is.”
On his way to apologize, Vaelric stopped beneath the courtyard arch. A dragon passed high over Kaelith, dark against the summer sky.
“One day I’ll have one of those.”
His mother followed his gaze. “If one chooses you.”
“I choose too.”
“Yes,” she said. “That is the point.”
Vaelric looked from the dragon to the stolen cake, sighed, and went to find the cook.
Years later, he would remember the lesson long after he forgot whether she let him keep the cake.