Death's Daughter and the Ebony Blade: Volume 5 [Parts 1 to 3] by Maito Ayamine

Author:Maito Ayamine
Language: eng
Format: epub

“Please, go ahead and eat. I only hope it is suited to your tastes,” Valencia said with an air of apology as he welcomed them to dinner. The broad table before them was buried under platters of food.

He hardly needs to worry about that, Ashton thought, surreptitiously looking over the spread. Every dish looks like a work of art.

Nothing here could be called everyday fare, not by any reckoning. It was the sort of cooking you’d find on the tables of the highest ranking nobles back in Fernest. No matter how rich the Holy Land of Mekia might be, there was no way Valencia dined like this all the time, even as the commander of a fort. It had obviously been arranged for Olivia’s sake, no doubt on the instructions of Seraph Sofitia. She had already worked her way into Olivia’s heart via her stomach. The unnerving speed with which Olivia wielded her knife and fork made that clear enough. While Sofitia’s motives for inviting Olivia into her realm remained a mystery to Ashton, he couldn’t shake the sickening feeling that everything thus far was going as she had planned it.

Claudia, who sat beside him, didn’t even glance at him as she said, “There’s no point in worrying about it now. It’s not every day you get a meal like this. Enjoy it.”

Ashton was privately astonished. It was as though she had once again seen right through to his innermost thoughts.

“You look surprised,” Claudia remarked.

“Well, yes...”

The corners of her mouth twitched. “You wear your thoughts remarkably openly. I’d recommend learning to conceal them better, if you’re going to be a tactician. Soldiers watch their superior officers closely, even if you don’t notice them doing it,” she advised him, then took a mouthful of herbed roast chicken. The self-assurance with which she held herself even in the middle of what was essentially enemy territory practically made her seem relaxed.

“D-Dear me, I see you aren’t one to flinch in the face of a good meal,” Valencia said, with a nervous smile. “Most heartening, I say.” He clapped his hands lightly, then instructed a servant to bring out more food at once. Given that the new dishes appeared only moments later, Ashton had to assume that word had spread of the deep pit of Olivia’s stomach. It would seem it had not, however, been communicated to the servants, who stared, transfixed, at Olivia’s voracious eating even as they carried out the plates.

Meanwhile Ellis, who sat opposite Ashton, was tucking into her meal with gusto, her eyes glittering. Evanson sat beside her, with a similar look on his face.

“Delicious,” Ellis said, letting out a sigh of delight. “To think, if we were still guarding towns, we’d have gone our whole lives never eating anything this good.”

“I have to agree with you there,” Evanson said.

“Right? And all of it, every last bit, is thanks to my big sister, my beloved goddess, Olivia.” Ellis turned to look at Olivia with scorching devotion in her eyes.

“Ellis,” Evanson warned, lowering his voice, “under no circumstances are you to put your condition on display.

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