The Duke of Anjou would hardly send someone useless to the palace simply to annoy Lina. There had to be a reason behind his decision, and since she had nothing particularly urgent to attend to that evening, she immediately summoned the girl he had sent. What she saw when the young woman entered the room surprised her.
The girl appeared to be only fourteen or fifteen years old. She wasn't an extraordinary beauty, but her delicate features made her rather pretty, unlike the sharp, angular faces common among the Western women Lina had encountered. Yet her complexion was an unusual milky white that looked more sickly than beautiful. Her hair and eyebrows were almost silver, and even her eyelashes were completely white. Most striking of all were her pale pink eyes, unlike the familiar blue, green, or brown eyes of the people around her.
