Another rainstorm swept through the area around Eyriehold in Dorne that day. Ever since the high walls of the fortress at Prince's Pass had been completed, storms like this had struck roughly every ten days. Everyone had grown used to them.
The repeated downpours had swollen the nearby Vale River, making its current even more turbulent. By now, the Dornish found it exceedingly difficult to cross by boat.
Inside one of the completed fortress towers, Danyla and Bethany were feeding goat's milk to four Red Shadow Leopard cubs with glass bottles the glassworkers had newly made to her design. Since this world's level of production could not yet produce rubber nipples, Danyla had told them to use fish glue from large fish instead.
The newborn Red Shadow Leopard cubs had not yet opened their eyes and relied entirely on Danyla and Bethany to help them feed. They were about the size of ordinary puppies, but their appetites were considerable. It took two goats at peak milk production to keep them fed.
Once all four little ones had drunk until their bellies were round, Danyla dampened a cotton cloth with warm water and gently wiped their private parts to help them relieve themselves.
Watching from nearby, the little monkey Lukao came over to join in, picking up a cotton cloth and copying Danyla's movements.
"Luka really is clever. Apart from not being able to talk, I feel he's hardly any different from an ordinary child."
Whenever Danyla was away, Bethany was almost always the one who looked after Lukao, so the two were quite close.
"Your Highness, people say Dorne gets very little rain. Why has it been raining so heavily around Eyriehold lately?"
Looking at the downpour outside the window, Bethany could not help asking in bewilderment.
Danyla put the