Chapter 1 - Part I: The Nemasian Emissary and Prince Julianos

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Asura watched as Belrus, the blazing father of dawn, rose on the far horizon beyond the Onyx Sea and the Black Ocean, where the uncharted Forbidden Continent was. She was sitting in the old lookout at the edge of Red Garden, which offered her a view of Entrana and the sea as good as the one she had in the balcony of her room. 

Large plumes of smoke were beginning to come out of the factories' towers as the city's industrial heart gave its first pump of the day, students headed towards their universities and the workers in the ports started to load and unload cargo from the ships.

"Wait for me, Entrana... Your Princess is coming right away to fulfill her duties," Asura thought with acid sarcasm. "Just let me have some breakfast first."

She got off the wooden platform. As soon as her eyes focused on the path between the roses that led to the Keep, she saw that a woman in her late forties was running in her direction with difficulty while trying to hold the bottom of her white dress in hands. She had white rags around her head like any other member of the staff of servants in the Keep, covering everything with the exception of her face full of freckles.

"Damn, Frida! Not now..." the Princess heavily sighed and preparing herself for the scandal Frida Helmholtz was about to make just because she left her room without any company, unlike her: the maid was accompanied by a man that she did not know, dressed in an exotic gray tunic and a semi-transparent veil covering his cloaked head.

For the sake of formality, he stopped in the limit of the path between the roses and crossed his arms impatiently.

"My lady! Oh, lady Asura!" the maid exclaimed when she got to her side, breathing as if she had been running the last fifteen minutes from one place to another. She bowed politely before unleashing a barrage of words that would have made even the most patient person insane. "I've been looking for you all over the Keep! Where have you been?"

"I just...woke up early and decided to see the crack of dawn," she lied, knowing full well that she could not tell her that she had been in the crypt, much less in her grandmother's dark prison, but the maid was bumbling so rapidly that she did not even listen to her.

"When I saw your bed empty and damp I thought the worst! Your Excellency would have beheaded me if I hadn't found you safe and sound... And the little Prince, oh by the Gods! Such a ruckus he would have made!"

"Frida..."

"And you wearing such distasteful clothes again?" she continued, regardless of the annoyed way that the Princess was staring at her. "My lady, you know very well that you can't show yourself before the lords like that, looking like some cheap mercenary waiting to be hired to cut some throats."

"Please, just..."

"If your dear mother finds out that..."

"Enough!" Asura shouted, freezing the maid in response. She quickly looked down in penitence, waiting for her lady to speak. "I'm nineteen, so please stop treating me like a child! I don't give a damn about what mother thinks, today I'm not going to wear that ridiculous dress, it's that clear?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Are you going to keep pestering me?"

"No, my lady."

"Good," she said with relief. She did not like one bit to be so harsh to that woman who had taken care of her since she took her first breath; perhaps her sudden outburst had been a bit excessive. There was no way that she could explain to Frida that it was the curse the reason why she was so uptight. Not yet. "Now, bring him here."

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