Chapter 169: A Nation’s Wealth
Seeing Virve devour a heaping portion of spicy sauce and stare challengingly at Heila, the entire group descended into laughter and good natured teasing while they continued to sample their way through the different dishes. Ashlynn had several questions for the members of the Scaled Clan that accompanied them about the various dishes.
Some were rich and herbaceous while others had a deep, fiery heat that left her eager to gulp down the sweet fruity drink provided by a vendor who seemed favored by the children in the park.
The cuts of meat may not have been the best, much of it had actually been ground in order to form into meat balls on skewers, and the vegetables clearly weren’t the best of a harvest, but the flavors were new and exciting and the gentle atmosphere was a better sauce than anything poured over the savory flatbread.
"I’ve noticed something," Ashlynn said after finishing what must have been her tenth skewer of meat. The combination of plentiful food and gentle, nourishing energy from the earth was doing wonders for restoring her mood and she was starting to feel like she’d recovered from Nyrielle’s intense feeding. "Is this a place that’s only visited by the wealthy?"
"The wealthy who desire places like this keep their own gardens," one of the scaled guards said, tapping the point of his tail on the ground in confusion. "Why would you think that this is a place for the wealthy?"
To the guards from the palace, this was a very ordinary public park, though perhaps it could be considered nicer than others as it was fairly close to the central district and the palace. Still, many of the people eating, playing, or relaxing in the park were common folks with jobs in the central district rather than people who lived there.
"Perhaps not the elite of the city then," Ashlynn said, looking around the park with sharpened senses that captured every detail. Far beyond the strength and speed she’d gained as a result of her blood bond with Nyrielle, she valued the results of her training with Georg to sharpen her senses, greatly increasing the number of things she was able to observe at a glance.
The children splashing in the fountain weren’t just well-dressed. Their clothing was recently made, lacking the patches from wear that were so common when children were young and rambunctious, and also lacking the fraying at the hems that was common when they only possessed hand-me-downs from older siblings.
Beyond the clothing, their cheeks were round and healthy, their limbs strong, and their laughter carried the carefree joy of those who had never known true want. Even in prosperous cities like Blackwell or Lothian, it was common for ordinary folks to suffer the hardship of lean years, yet these children bore none of those signs.