Plopping down on her bedding and staring at the ceiling, Rowena couldn't stop thinking about what had happened that day. The way the Grand Duke had looked at her didn't sit well with her, to say the least.

Of course, she could just write it off as a weird thing that happened and move on, but there was this eerie feeling she got whenever she recalled the look of horror in his eyes.

Her skin went cold as she thought about what would make the Grand Duke of Varnhagen, the man who struck fear into the hearts of others all over the North-Western Continent, look like his heart might stop beating at any given moment.

And why would he look like that, just because he met his daughter's eyes once?

She tried to shake off the feeling of foreboding, but goosebumps had already spread on her arms as she finally had time to calm down and think about what had happened.

The rest of the day she had been busy packing, not only clothes and jewelry for her time in the Territory, but also for her trip with the envoy, since she couldn't stop at her home once she was on her way from all the way up north.

A sigh escaped her, causing Ava to turn her head. "Is something amiss, my lady?"

"Nothing, it's alright."

It felt unfamiliar to be in a room with only one maid, and it wasn't Norina. She had obviously gotten so used to her that she could have been worried.

But she dismissed the thought, not wanting to rack her brain for nothing. Instead, she thought about how she would go about her endeavors in the Territory.

Norina got some of Rowena's accumulated allowance in gold coins to put in her chest of Mana Stones. This was her first and foremost goal. She had started to train the muscles in her arms, at least enough to be able to carry a heavy wooden sword from the basement facilities.

'I do use Mana to strengthen myself, but in the end, Mana isn't some Miracle Soup.' It always depended on the quality of one's bones, muscles, and overall stamina.

No amount of training would allow her to exceed the limits set by her five-foot-two body. Even thirteen-year-old Celia was at least five-foot-three, and even all the strengthening had only added two inches to Rowena's height, so there was nothing more to gain at this point.

On the periphery of her consciousness, Rowena noticed that Ava, who had been sorting through the jewelry that had been thrown around this morning and then again later when they packed up, had begun to subconsciously hum as she did the job she was supposed to be doing in the background. She clattered and smiled.

There was a time when no one was allowed to touch anything in here, they weren't even allowed to follow their mistress because Rowena hated the presence of people.

This Rowena didn't mind though, as she was used to people sharing a room with her, giving her just enough background noise to keep her mind at ease while she planned her next steps.

Would she even be able to find the blacksmith she had read about in the book and ask him? He was one of those stereotypical old man types that often appeared in books like "The Saintess' Unbreakable Shield".

How would she try to gain his trust? He didn't like outsiders very much to begin with. Her only chance was to somehow convince the one person he always treated warmly: his wife of many years, Iris.

Another sigh was heard. Ava looked a little concerned, but didn't ask again, not wanting to upset her mistress. But said lady didn't even notice that she had been sighing for a while now, as she finally sat up and prepared to go to bed.

"You can go to sleep. Tell Norina she can go as well, if you see her on the way."

"I will deliver your words, my lady," Ava said, bowing very slightly and politely before leaving the room, turning off the lights in her wake.

Rowena had to sleep, knowing they would wake her early again, with a two day journey ahead of them. She could only shiver uncomfortably at the thought that the ride to the territory would mean at least an extra day or two to and from the Lodden Empire's capital, Kadena.

She didn't know exactly how long, but she imagined it would be a few more days. With that in mind, she closed her eyes.

And just as she thought, they woke her up at the crack of dawn, bathed her and dressed her in the most normal out of the four remaining outdoor dresses she had left after clearing out her wardrobe.

She took another one of the three more fancy outdoor dresses with her, but the simplest out of them, because she had been informed that there would be a small gathering of nobles to welcome their envoy once they arrived in the city of Kadena.

Barely two hours into her miserable ride, her bottom was sore and her back was straining to stay in position. She had wished for a bit of music while training, but in this moment, she was craving it. But there was nothing much she could do about not having a portable device for it.

At the very least, her father had not lied to her about preparing the fastest horses in the continent.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

To be exact, they were horses imported from another landmass adjacent to this continent, the Northern Peak. It wasn't big enough to be considered a continent, but it had all kinds of hardy wildlife.

'I'd heard that animals like that didn't exist a thousand years ago, even on my old world.' Scientists had written papers on the subject time and again, saying that they had evolved just as humanity had, after the Visitors had invaded and Mana had become part of the natural ecosystem.

It must have been the same in this world, but those changes had happened earlier, though they weren't as endangered by the Visitors as the people of Celia's world. That's why their weapons and magic development wasn't as advanced as theirs. Just necessity, it had nothing to do with them being "modern".

'And yet none of them invented teleportation. Sucks.' Another bump in the carriage pulled by seven black warhorses, the type that people commonly referred to as "Highland Horses" or "Devil's Horses".

She paused as the thought crossed her mind. Now that she had accepted the idea that this was another world for the time being, there were things she didn't quite understand. The idea of a "God" was one thing, but they also shared the concept of a "Devil".

When it was just a novel, she took it for granted that things were just like in the "real" world. But now it raised the question of what could be attributed to the same race, in this case humanity, evolving in the same direction.

'Interesting how there are two worlds, with completely different people, with this Earth apparently only a little more than half as big as my old one,' she remembered, thinking about the world map she had looked at to see where she was actually going, 'and yet they developed almost the same and the planet is called the same.' It was a curious thing to her.

'Evolution is always influenced by the memories of the lost,' an uninvited voice chimed in.

'By the memories of the lost,' she pondered Pan's words, but suddenly flinched when she had an epiphany, 'the souls of the dead?'

The souls that wandered in the World Beyond the Surface. The space they knew almost nothing about.

'So what, worlds exist side by side and the souls just jump from one to the other?' How else could they affect each other? 'But wait, does that mean that there could be more than just two worlds?'

'There is nothing more to say.'

'Really, now?' Of course, it was obvious that he couldn't tell her that, because it was probably information that was forbidden to her, but usually it was a matter of asking the right questions that he could answer indirectly.

But it seemed that he couldn't tell her if there were other worlds or not. And that might mean that there weren't, but it was more likely the opposite. Still, she would never know for sure.

She wanted to scream, but when her face turned sour, she could see Norina and Ava shooting confused and worried looks at each other, so she faked a cough and looked out the window of the carriage instead.

Those devil horses seemed to plow through any and all terrain like machines. They didn't even get tired after another three hours. Only three guards rode alongside on their own horses as Rowena's escort.

They were Holy Knights, because normally no one was supposed to ride on these monsters. Even the coachman had to wear safety gear, and there was a second coach in the open back, sleeping.

She didn't even know how he managed to be calm enough to sleep. It was obvious that these two were also part of the Silver Lion Knights, the Duchy's own brigade.

"How fast are we going?"

For a moment, the carriage was silent again, until Norina uttered a sound of contemplation. "Since we have been going for a while, I would guess about forty-five to fifty kilometers per hour?"

'Fifty kilometers per hour', she thought, 'what was that in miles? About thirty-five?'

She had to rack her brain, but there was no one in the world who could answer that - if not, then at least no one on this continent.

But a normal horse shouldn't be that fast. It must be a breed she didn't have in her world. 'Well, why horses, but not teleportation?'

Neither kilometers nor miles could measure the amount of displeasure she felt when another bump on the road, taken far too quickly, made her jump and fall back on her backside in annoyance.

It was at this point that the most unlikely of participants thought to offer his opinion on her predicament. 'But Celia's world had the same magic and didn't have teleportation either.'

'What, now you're talking?' Completely baffled and irritated by what he had said and how he had said it, she gritted her teeth as subtly as possible. 'And what about it? We had airplanes. It's inexcusable to have neither, I will have you know.'

Truth be told, it wasn't all true that they didn't have anything like airplanes in this fantasy world - they did have drakes. It was a sort of flying animal, they had that in Rowena's old world as well, but it was very rare, due to environmental reasons. 'It basically kind of died out a bit.'

There was always a thin line between something that was an animal and something considered a monster. Monsters were those that used Mana to enhance themselves, like humans did. Tevak Horses, the devil's horses, could run at a speed of up to fifty kilometers an hour for fifteen to twenty hours on end, because their bodies had gone through evolution through Mana, yet they could not use Mana themselves. A drake could fly because it had wings, it also had a strong body because of how it had evolved. A dragon however, the greater form of a drake, was a monster, because it could utilize Mana to fortify itself and spit fire, among a variety of other things.

It was an animal that could be tamed if done right, but there were laws in place on who was allowed to ride one and it was mostly seen as an act of causing public nuisance. It could also be seen as a declaration of war, depending on the rider's nationality. To avoid that, they had to fly very high, which would endanger any civilian and would kill most of them, unless they had fortified bodies, due to being capable of utilizing Mana quite adeptly.

That's why this was not an option for the young lady in this case. She didn't want people to know about her proficiency with magic, as to not be used as she had been in her old world. So no one would think of providing her with a drake to fly on.

As far as Rowena remembered from the book, they were currently building intercontinental railroads for their advanced steam engine trains. But of course, they weren't there yet, so she had to endure this torture for another day and a half.

Despite her agony, her face lit up every now and then when she looked at the scenery. It had to be said that she had never seen such lush green forests in her life. The sky was blue, and even hours later, when they had to stop and rest for a while, already setting foot on colder and a bit more barren regions, the stars in the sky where shining like jewels to her eyes.

Somewhere in this unfamiliar world, she had sometimes felt lost and felt that everything was familiar and yet so unfamiliar to her. Looking at those stars sparkling above her, while trying not to fall out of the carriage, reminded her how vast this world was. And how she could go anywhere she wanted if she played well with the cards she was dealt in this life.

'Aurora,' she remembered in that moment when her feet were flat on the ground and she looked down, 'maybe this truly is my new dawn. Can't hurt to try, right?' But maybe, in reality, she was just afraid of the hope that came with it.