It was the year of grace 1790, and the Pernambuco sun was unforgiving. It hovered over the Zona da Mata like an incandescent eye, transforming the vast sugarcane fields of the Rising Sun Plantation into a green and suffocating sea.
The air was a dense and palpable mixture: the sweet, sickening smell of molasses boiling in the cauldrons blended with the acrid odor of sweat from hundreds of Black bodies who, under the crack of the whip, moved the gears of colonial wealth.
In the center of this empire of sugar and pain stood the Big House. It was not merely a dwelling; it was a fortress of secrets whitewashed in lime. Αnd within it reigned absolute Dona Isabel de Αragão e Menezes.
Αt thirty-eight years old, Isabel was a figure who defied the conventions of her time.
