Herald of Steel

By the time Alexander finished touring the southern district, the sun had nearly started to set.

Hence, burdened with the pressure of time and all the gifts he was already carrying, the pasha decided to defer that tour to the next day.

He would return home to the joyous outcries of his kids, who excitedly giggled over the toys he had bought for them.

*Rattle*, *Rattle*, *Rattle*,

Those earthen 'maracas' seemed to have been their favorite.

As for the jewelry he bought for his wives, well, they were received in a much more refined manner.

The ladies were of course grateful, but it was not like they lacked such things. Alexander's conquest of the lands had landed him enormous amounts of the stuff. Just the Tibian royal treasury had literal piles of gold and silver jewelry of every possible kind.

Hence, what truly moved them was the saffron spice Alexander had bought.

"Alex, what is this?" Cambyses licked her lips while dipping a bit of her cut meat into the saffron infused warm water, before quickly tearing the wet piece into her small mouth.

The 'coating' gave the well cooked beef a delicate, sweet, floral taste with some earthly undertone, making the tongue dance in glee with each bite.

From the look on her face, it was clear Cambyses loved it, as did all the other women joining her.

"It is called saffron. It is a kind of spice…. made from a certain rare flower." Alexander chimed in a cool voice, taking his own dip of the 'sauce',

"There were various ways to eat it. The one you are having is the simplest. You just grind the dried flower stalk and then mix it with room temperature water, milk, honey, or even wine."

"But if you want to be a bit more fancy, you can mix it with flour and water and then baste roasted meats in it. Or even just sprinkle the powder over it and dig in."

"Oh? I never knew there was such a convenient spice," Cambyses only gave a small, happy nod, not even thinking of asking how Alexander knew this. After all, she had seen him do, this was the least of surprises.

Chalking this up to the spice merchant revealing its uses, she took another large bite and chortled, "It is good that you opened up the city to the outside world. That's how we are able to get all these good things. Mmmm!"

The sentiment was shared by all the other girls too, with the only exception being Mean.

Being someone utterly unconcerned about policies, this petite girl was far more interested in trying out the various uses of this spice that Alexander had laid out.

So she was seen quickly pouring a bit of the saffron water into her drink, then letting out a squeal of joy at the taste,

"Ahhhh, it's so good! Tastes like I am drinking flowers! I want to have this every day, Alex!"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Her cry of joy quickly caused everyone else to try the same thing, and once they had the taste… well Mean's sparkling eyes were quickly joined by Cambyses's, as well as an even more excited Fabiyana.

"Big brother! I also want to drink it every day! I want to have it with honey water every morning!"

Even the extremely shy, still fully veiled Arrya shot Alexander a few, very brief glances in anticipation. She did not understand Mean's exact meaning, but the context was clear.

This sweet wine, mixed with that flowery fragrant scent was not something even the best drinks in her memory could match. And she had drank the best drinks in the whole of Iyizarid to make that comparison.

Sadly, the pasha who had all this anticipation placed on him knew he had to dash these optimistic wishes.

Warmly ruffling the young Fabiyana's hair when she was sitting next to him, Alexander curved his lips into a bit of a helpless smile,

"Haha, sorry little princess, your big brother is not that rich. Just that small bit I bought cost a few thousand ropals! This spice is more expensive than gold!"

"What?" The one to let out this instant cry of incredulity was Gelene, who was perhaps the most money sensitive among them all. She could barely stop herself from jumping out of her chair in fright, unable to believe she had been virtually drinking 'liquid gold'.

And this reaction was quickly imitated to various extents by others, who sent their bowl of spice water a somewhat dreaded look.

The only one unaffected by this price revelation was the man who paid for the stuff, and thus chuckled while nonchalantly eating, "Hehehe, Cambyses at the start of the dinner said the orange saffron water looked like liquid gold under the candlelight. She was more right than she could have ever imagined."

Then with a pause, suddenly his voice changed to become a lot more magnetic,

"Actually the reason why this saffron is so expensive is because the spice merchant's brother died trying to get it. He told me the whole story!"

These ominous words undoubtedly added a great air of mystery to the whole thing, causing everybody including Arrya to pick up their ears. Even she noticed how the air had suddenly become very somber.

Alexander thus recounted in a cool, heavy tone,

"This saffron is taken from a flower that grows high up in the mountains, usually found inside the nest of giant eagles. These birds are pitch black, like the night, and grow to enormous sizes… the size of houses….like this big" Alexander stretched his long arms as wide as they would go to emphasize the size,

"Hiss!" And this suddenly caused the frightful Fabiyana to immediately let out a small fearful yelp and grab Alexander by the waist, like she was afraid of being snatched by the giant bird right here, right now.

Alexander did not know but the tiny girl had a small trauma regarding birds- in her childhood, once when she was playing outside, a raven had flown really close to her, its feather basically brushing past her face.

That poor bird had been wounded by a hunting arrow and unable to maintain attitude, almost crashed into the fair girl's face.

Fabiyana did not know what happened to that bird, but she did remember crying for a few days straight out of fright, and then for a long time, she did not even want to go outside.

It took a long time for her mother to convince the daughter otherwise. But even now, the shadow of that trauma still lingered and Fabiyana preferred to keep a good distance from all kinds of birds.

If there was a tree with a bird, even if it was a harmless sparrow or a melodious songbird, she would not approach it.

So for Alexander to describe a giant eagle in such vivid detail- it was like her nightmare truly coming to life.

She wanted to just bury her head deep into Alexander's lap.

"Hahaha," Alexander was a bit surprised by this intense reaction but quickly soothed the scared girl by stoking her beautiful, silky hair, "Don't worry, don't worry, they don't live here. And big brother will protect you if they come."

This placated the girl somewhat, letting Alexander continue,

"These saffron flowers are the favorite food of these birds. It is how they grow this big. So egg laying mothers always keep a large stash of the flower to feed its young. And these spice merchants have to work in pairs to get them." Explore stories on empire

"One of them distracts the ferocious beast with a fiery torch while the other sneaks up from behind, snatching the pile of flowers and sprinting downhill."

"These brothers also had done the same thing many times. But apparently, this time something went wrong. The giant bird suddenly turned around for whatever reason and noticed the poor merchant trying to steal from its nest."

"It immediately attacked with its giant talons and beaks. The man would have been ripped to shreds if not for his brother's intervention. He bravely used his torch to sting the eagle, giving the other the opportunity to run down the hill with the spices. But in doing so, alas, he truly became the bait."

"When the next day the spice merchant went up the mountain to look for his brother, he only found a few spots of blood and tattered clothes. Everything else was inside the giant eagle's belly."

"........"

Alexander's horror story sent the whole room into a chilly silence,

"*Sob*!" With only Fabiyana's scared sobs occasionally leaking out.

By now she was so scared that she did not even dare look at that golden saffron water, fearing that a giant eagle was going to find her through it.

"Is.. that really happened? There are truly such huge beasts?" While Cambyses questioned with enlarged eyes, also full of weariness.

She did not necessarily disbelieve Alexander, but it was more like she did not dare believe it.

"Hmmm, it is possible! Who knows what manner of beast the gods have hidden away in the corner of the earth!" Gelene from the side however poignantly mumbled this, supported by an equally sagacious Ophenia,

"Indeed! The world is truly huge. And the bounties of the gods are endless. This spice does befit that divine status.

Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!

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