The Princess of Wrath

Chapter 1 - Part VI: The Cold Dark

After vomiting thanks to all the poor-quality beer she had drunk, and after several hours of sleep that her exhausted body had justifiably requested her, Asura felt well for the first time in so many countless days.

Not like those days of peace and prosperity when her life revolved around bureaucracy, politics, and dipping her legs in rotten water and sewer shit, but when she spent hours hiding in the Maiden of Mercy warehouse. Her arms scarred and mangled; hungry, dehydrated and hollow...

But her limbs, though with muscles weakened by starvation, responded. And her mind was steady, rid of the fever, bit by bit ordering the chaos that abounded inside her head.

It was not enough to make her remember what happened on the ship and how she arrived more dead than alive on those frozen shores... But it was enough to deduce the enigma that her grandfather had left her the night before.

"That old man," she whispered, looking up at the damp ceiling of her box, the slits of which allowed the light of the torches to partly and faintly filter through. "Why must you be right? You are like my father..."

Her heart contracted as she remembered with melancholic sadness her father Aurelion's smile, and an insurgent sob escaped her lips.

What became of the Lord of Malakai's Black Garden? Of the Empire and the annexed countries? Of their enemies and the permanent threat on their borders?

Questions that surely Argus Ithryl could answer, but not before hearing the resolution of the enigma she had left for his great-granddaughter.

Asura stepped out of her box and, standing up, she was forced to tighten the belts of her wolf-skin vest a little more. Beyond the cold, her bladder ached constantly as if she had a flame inside that refused to go out, and her ribcage indented against her skin evidenced how dangerously skinny she was.

Fortunately, the wind was not blowing as harshly as the previous day —if that state of perpetual night could be called that—, being rather a light breeze, minimally tolerable for someone who had lived all her short life in the extreme north of the Continent.

The salty smell of the sea carried on the wind was strong, but not strong enough to hide a scent that made Asura's stomach rumble like a rabid creature. Her eyes quickly focused on a small boy who was standing still as a statue next to one of the torches along the way.

"Ah, it's you, kid... Emil, right?" Asura walked towards the blue-eyed boy, who trembled in fear at the harmless woman as if she were a monster that had just escaped from her prison. "What do you have there? Smells good."

"I-I thought you would be hungry, miss!" The boy lowered his head and held out his arms, offering her a small bowl made of dried clay. "It will get cold very soon if you don't hurry."

The contents of the bowl consisted of freshly cooked food: strips of roast meat, gizzard, small pieces of kidney and intestine.

"Sounds like a typical Imperial dish... We in Entrana are big fish eaters, but Imperials further south enjoy anything a cow has to offer," she explained, smirking and feeling her stomach churn. "The intestine, for example."

Asura could barely hold her saliva in her mouth as she took the bowl with one hand and with the other, trembling with nerves and cold, took a small piece of intestine and brought it to her mouth.

She expected a rubbery consistency but was met with crunchy and tasty skin.

"No... Is it deer? It's a bit..." Even so, she took another piece into her mouth, and then another of kidney, the flavor of which was much more potent than she remembered. No seasoning, almost burnt, but for a hungry woman, endlessly delicious. "Spicy."