The girl seemed to guess his thoughts: 'When I found your body, I injected you with one of our products based on stem... magic. Right now there are hundreds of millions of tiny creatures running through your body, reviving you. Do you understand that, Ailill? Soon AEONALIZE will give you back what your subjects took from you.'

She emphasised this with a tight-lipped smile, while the prince brought his hand to his head and tore off the burns like a scab, still trying to understand what was happening to his body. Harper grimaced in disgust. 'You can just throw that away.'

The maid led him to their camp, which seemed to be decorated to blend in with the landscape, with horrible green and brown stains. From a brightly coloured chest, she took out a kind of white banner, which she soon mounted on a circular screen. She tied it with ropes to a barrel-like object, which she then tied to a dark-coloured box that made a horrible sound.

Hideous creatures flew above the area, as if several wasps had merged in groups of four, flapping their wings noisily to express their pain. 'They're drones,' Harper told him. 'They're like little servants, don't pay any attention to them.'

Ailill was sitting on a rock, covered by a blanket of hideous colours that she had given him. The girl told him not to worry about getting the blanket muddy, as it was washable. Ailill told her that the blanket was so ugly that muddying it was actually a favour, to which, to his surprise, Harper replied with a laugh. 'It's a promotional blanket from AEONALIZE. They make them like that so you'll remember the brand. Think of it as a war banner, but no one cares if you disrespect it.'

He alternated between looking at the drones with disgust and watching the maid work on her little project. Her ridiculous blue trousers revealed too much of her legs, which distracted him. Harper had clearly belonged to some kind of savage tribe from the future.

'Your people...' the prince began, 'do they all dress like you?'

The girl shook her head. AEONALIZE headquarters is home to a large number of time travelers, and almost all of them prefer to wear clothes from their own eras. Initially, it was a problem to procure so many different styles, but the fashion industry adapted, and now there are several brands that cater to this need, as many civilians discovered that they also liked clothes from other eras, even if they weren't time travelers. Ailill didn't understand a single word of that answer and decided to change the subject.

'What are you building, young lady?' he asked, pointing towards the circular curtain with a wave of his hand. 'Another banner?'

'It's a portable shower. You can bathe here.' He looked her up and down, then looked at his own muddy clothes, already less warm than the prince's, and thought for a moment. 'Do you mind if I go first?' she pointed to the curtain with her thumb.

Ailill blinked. 'I mind greatly.'

Harper narrowed her eyes, as if trying to gauge whether the man was serious. 'I'll go first,' she said to the prince. 'Ladies always go first.'

'You're not a lady. You're a low-born servant girl,' he replied indignantly. 'And nobles always go before low-born servant girls.'

The low-born girl looked at him with arched eyebrows. 'Technically, you lost your titles when you died. Now you're a low-born boy, property of AEONALIZE.'

Ailill stood up abruptly, dropping the blanket. His face was pale, his good eye was wide open, and his bad eye blinked wildly. 'How dare you talk to me like that?!' he screamed. 'I am no one's property! You are my property, you are on my land!' He strode towards her, causing her to step back slightly, but she did not move from her place next to the shower.

The prince was about to lay his hands on her when a sharp pain, like a transparent sword, entered his shoulder and ran down his neck, throwing him to the ground.

His muscles contracted and it was as if a million tiny hands were holding his limbs to his torso while pulling his head back. The torture must have lasted at least five or six minutes, after which he was as weak as a piece of bread dipped in soup. Harper, meanwhile, was breathing deeply, still standing in front of him with one hand on her chest.

'That's what you get.' Then she turned halfway around, pulled back the curtain of the portable shower, stepped into the small circular space, and closed the curtain.

Ailill was screaming on the floor, the pain gone, but the whole thing reminded him too much of his own death. 'I'M DYING! A WITCH IS KILLING ME!'

Harper half-opened the curtain to answer him, revealing only her wet head. 'I'm so glad!' Then she shut herself back inside the small tent.

Barely a few minutes later, the girl emerged from the portable shower, wrapped in another horrible blanket, and walked towards her ghastly tent while the prince continued to scream. When she emerged, she was wearing warmer, albeit masculine, clothing.

She looked at the prince for a moment before crouching down next to him. 'I'm not going to apologise for the electric shock, even though I feel guilty. Drones do that when they detect aggression, they paralyse you... you're not going to die. Come on, it's your turn to use the shower...'

The prince continued to hug his knees and rock back and forth on the floor, not turning to look at her, although he guessed she must have a guilty expression on her face.

Harper gently brushed a strand of hair from Ailill's face, as there was still quite a lot on that side of his head. On the other side, it was already growing back. The prince only turned his eye towards her, now more indignant than anything else.

The girl stood up and walked over to another chest. 'Look, I have a gift for you. You've never tried this before, and it doesn't exist in this region yet. You'll be the first of your people to try it.' She took out a small plate, the same colour as her hair, contained in a kind of crystal bag, and brought it close to Ailill's face.

The prince was no longer swaying, admitting to himself that he was intrigued. In his childhood, he had always wanted to be the first to try the things that travellers brought as gifts to his father, as it gave him a certain satisfaction to go before the others. Although he was not the strongest or the most intelligent, at least he was first in line. These were usually exotic fruits from the continent that did not grow in the lands of Cernyw, and so he could show off by saying he was the first to try a new flavour. He followed the small brown tablet with his eyes as Harper rocked it in front of him.

She detected the change in his behaviour and hurried to take the object out of the bag, breaking off a corner and putting the piece in her mouth. Ailill's eyes regained some of their sparkle when he saw that it was a sweet. Harper exaggerated an expression of satisfaction. 'Among my people, they say this is like sex. Although it's very high in calories. If you stop crying and wash up, I can give you the whole piece.'

Life returned-metaphorically this time-to the prince's body, for even his own father would not have dared to give him the whole sweet on its own, especially one with such wonderful properties. He rose slowly, glancing sideways at the drones.

'They won't hurt you as long as you don't get aggressive, and what's more, if a stranger tries to attack you, they'll defend you,' said the maid, guessing his thoughts again. Pointing to the shower with her head, she continued, 'Come on, I'll show you how to use it.'

'You'll have to help me undress, maid. The chain mail doesn't come off by itself.' He snatched the sweet from Harper's hand and examined it, sliding his fingers over the smooth surface on the back and bringing it to his face to smell it.

She, on the other hand, examined him, incredulous that such a simple trick would work so well. The few chronicles she had found about the prince had commented on his lack of intelligence and his fixation with luxury, but she assumed they were mere slander on the part of his nephew's people, which was very common in medieval chronicles. She helped him remove his tunic and untangle his long black hair from his chain mail.

'Stop crying, okay? You look weird with red eyes,' she said without thinking too much.

Ailill turned to look at her with a frown, the whites of his eyes still pink, surrounding his misty grey pupils. He raised his hand to slap her insolent face, but it seemed to him that the drones were staring at him, like owls stalking their prey, and he reluctantly refrained. 'I haven't cried at all.'

While the insolent Harper continued to try to peel the muddy hair from his armour, Ailill kept his eyes on the drones. The girl had said that those terrible devices would protect him too if necessary, and his mind wandered to the possibility of using them against the idiots who had previously humiliated him. The idea of his enemies writhing on the ground made him smile.

'I think that's it, try to take it off.' Harper snapped him out of his reverie. 'It wouldn't be so hard if your hair wasn't so long.'

The prince tried to remove the chain mail as if it were a simple shirt, but found himself stuck again, and when Harper tried to help him by pulling on the metal garment, it slipped again.

'Be careful what you're doing, damn it!' he shouted as he found himself sitting on the floor, now free of his armour and on the verge of sobbing again.

'It's not my fault you don't know how to take it off yourself! Aren't you supposed to be a great warrior?' The maid threw the garment on the floor in exasperation.

The prince's face paled once more. This was the first time he had ever worn armour of any kind, except for the wooden breastplate he had once donned for his first and only training session as a child.

'I always had a squire to do it for me,' he lied, now removing his tunic.

Harper looked at him for a moment, blinking. 'And what was your squire's name?'

'You say water comes out of this?' Ailill pointed to the sprinkler, walking towards it. He pulled a lever out of curiosity and a jet of water hit his hand like a small torrential rain. He opened his palm, fascinated by the way the mud slowly peeled away from his skin. He turned his head towards the girl and smiled.

Harper seemed to want to ask again about his supposed squire, but decided to let it go for the moment. The pretender to the throne had already suffered enough humiliations for one day.