Ainen walked into the Feast of Trials and stopped just inside the door, taking it all in before moving another step.
A table ran the length of the whole room, longer than any table had any business being, and every inch of it was covered in food. Steam rose from some dishes. Frost clung to others. A few of them moved, very slightly, when nobody was looking directly at them.
A sign stood at the near end, carved in plain letters that felt almost too calm for what they said.
Eat wrong, and the dish eats back.
"Lovely," Ainen said, cracking his knuckles. "Let's begin."
---
The first dish looked like a simple soup, pale gold and gently steaming, the kind of thing that would have looked perfectly ordinary on any table in the kingdom. Ainen didn't touch it right away. He'd learned a long time ago, in kitchens far less magical than this one, that the simplest-looking dish in the room was usually the one hiding the sharpest trick.
