The Queen of Sweets (1)

The first morning after Victor's return he got back into his daily training routine. With his growing age and body his tremendous talent as a fighter was getting more and more obvious. He spent nearly four hours of life and death fighting in his personal training arena.

When he left the arena, he bathed and cleaned himself very thoroughly, but one could still see a small sword wound on his right cheek. Obviously, the interruption of his daily training due to the Athenaeum club left his fighting status a bit rusty.

Contrary to Victor's annoyance over his mistake his personal guards were full of awe. A ten-year-old with this fighting will and power was already way more than they could have ever dreamed of. The young lord they were loyal to truly fulfilled every fantasy those warriors could have.

His two little sister and even Ashara and his mother were already waiting at the dining table. Victor met up with his father and they both walked into the room together. Suddenly the laughter and happiness stopped when Isabella saw the wound on her child's face. She dropped everything she was doing now and instantly came to Victor's side.

His two little sisters started crying and run to their brother hugging both of his legs. His family was truly frightened, because that was the first time he ever participated in a dinner while having a wound on his face from his recent training.

Even Ashara got a little sacred and stood up from the table, walking straight to Victor but not really knowing what she should do in this situation.

The young lord tried to ask his father for help, but the experienced Amando would certainly not poke this hornets' nest and take the blame for his son.

It took him nearly 15 minutes to calm everybody's mood and finally have time for the meal. But this time he didn't give into any demands from his mother nor sisters, because this training was important for him. 

They needed to learn and deal with something like this. It was his responsibility as a future Lord of House Di Natale to train with his guardians and let the family's private soldiers be in awe of him.

A military family cannot be ruled by somebody that is too afraid to go on the battlefield or not strong enough to control his soldiers. Victor needed to go through this training and tempering to protect his family in the future.

The only person who truly understood and admired his behavior was Ashara Dayne. She went through all this already with her brother, the Sword of Dawn. He had to train with the soldiers of House Dayne as well and got many injuries every day. Of course, his training was not as cruel as the training of House Di Natale, but for a small boy it was brutal, nonetheless.

Up until this point her brother was always the only person she really admired, but he was slowly getting replaced by the young adult in front of her. His smart choices, careful behavior and heroic power was slowly capturing the heart of the young maiden of Dorne.

Of course, Victor could feel the slight change in attitude and how Ashara was getting more and more shy in front of him. She tried to avoid direct eye contact and was getting very concerned about everything he did, without getting to close to him. Those were obvious signs of extreme curiosity and maybe even the first signs of love.

He was not disturbed by this at all, one might even say he was delighted by this development. But Victor didn't want Ashara to become some lovestruck fool who only focused on himself and lost her independent way of doing things. He wanted here to have a career and not only become a housewife. There were thousands of women like this in Westeros and Essos if he only wanted a lady to keep the house intact.

The only problem was that he couldn't really find a project for only Ashara to do. If you were not born as the last blood of a fallen dynasty, like the future Mother of Dragons, it was really hard for a woman to have any sort of career, apart from being used as a marriage tool.

The problem of Ashara's career didn't trouble the young heir of House Di Natale for too long, as eight days after his return to Canahs a message reached his ears that delighted him to the extreme. Victor was born in Germany in his previous life and that country was famous for his bakeries. His only real joy in life was picking some of his favorite pastries from his local bakery before shutting himself down in his laboratory for the rest of the day.

Victor found special honey and sugar on the conquered islands of the Stepstones, but he still missed cinnamon, coffee and especially chocolate. Over the years he sent out many requests for spices and similar plants and finally someone found a product that heavily resembled cocoa beans. When he finally saw the cacao beans and realized that his search was successful, he was overjoyed.

Not only because he finally found his secret craving after many years, but also because this cocoa bean was growing on the Summer Islands south of Westeros.

This would not only relieve his worries about a target he could attack during the Usurpers' war but even help him with a career project for Ashara. The Queen of Sweets makes for quite an impressive title. Maybe not as impressive as the future Daenarys but quite satisfying for future concubine of House Di Natale.

Chocolate not only represented the joy and pleasure of fine dining but also immense benefits. The industrial chain of chocolate would be able to bring large benefits to House Di Natale and Lys. This gave him the perfect opportunity to gather the strength of the noble families of Lys and start his conquest of the Summer Islands shortly before the war in Westeros would start.