The first thing Iris felt was silk.
Wrong. Everything wrong.
Her sheets were cotton. Old cotton, soft from years of washing, smelling faintly of the lavender detergent Damien complained about but never actually asked her to stop using. Her pillows were flat because she kept forgetting to buy new ones. Her mattress dipped on the left side where—
Where he used to sleep.
This bed didn't dip. This bed was vast, an ocean of fabric that seemed to swallow her whole. The sheets were cool and slippery against her skin. The pillows were fat with feathers. And the smell—roses. Cloying. Sweet. Suffocating.
Iris opened her eyes.
A canopy stretched above her. Deep red velvet, embroidered with gold thread that caught the dim morning light. Heavy curtains hung around the bed, drawn back on one side to reveal a room that belonged in a museum.
Stone walls. Tapestries depicting hunts and battles. A fireplace large enough to stand in, embers still glowing from last night's fire. A vanity with a silver mirror. A wardrobe carved from dark wood.
No lamp. No outlet. No phone charging on the nightstand.
Iris sat up too fast. Her head spun. Her hands flew to her chest, pressing against her sternum like she could push her heart back into rhythm.
Dream. This is a dream. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Counted to ten. Opened them.
The room remained.
Her breathing came faster now. Shallow. The air felt thick, heavy with smoke and perfume and something older—stone and dust and centuries of secrets.
She threw the covers off. Her legs tangled in a nightgown. White. Linen. Long sleeves with lace at the cuffs. She didn't own anything like this. She slept in his old t-shirts, the ones he left behind when—
Don't. Don't think about that. Focus.
Her feet hit the floor. Cold stone. She gasped, stumbled, caught herself on one of the bedposts.
And then she saw her hands.
Wrong. These hands were wrong.
Her hands had a scar across the left palm from a kitchen accident three years ago. A tiny tattoo of a crescent moon on her inner wrist that she'd gotten drunk at twenty-two. Short nails because she bit them when she was anxious.
These hands were smooth. Unblemished. The nails were long and shaped into perfect ovals. The fingers were slimmer than hers, the skin paler, like this body had never seen sunlight.
This body.
The thought hit her like ice water.
Iris ran. Bare feet slapping against stone. She nearly tripped on the nightgown twice. The vanity loomed ahead—that silver mirror—and she grabbed the edges of it so hard her knuckles went white.
The face staring back wasn't hers.
Same general features. Dark hair. Full lips. But the angles were different. The nose was straighter. The eyebrows more arched. The eyes—
The eyes were hers. Brown with flecks of gold. The only thing she recognized.
Everything else belonged to a stranger.
Iris's mouth opened. No sound came out. She watched the stranger's mouth open too, watched the stranger's chest heave, watched the stranger's hands shake against the mirror's frame.
No. No, no, no, no—
A knock at the door.
"Your Highness? Are you awake?"
The voice was female. Bright. Eager. Coming closer.
Iris couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stare at the wrong face in the mirror.
The door opened.
A young woman entered. Blonde hair pinned beneath a white cap. A dress of simple grey wool. A servant. She carried a tray with a teapot and cup, steam curling into the cold air.
She saw Iris at the mirror and smiled. "Oh, you're up early, my lady. Feeling better, I hope? You gave us quite a fright, sleeping for three days straight. The physician said—"
"Three days?"
Iris's voice came out hoarse. Cracked. Like she hadn't used it in years.
The servant's smile faltered. "Yes, Your Highness. After your... spell. Don't you remember?"
*Spell. Three days. Your Highness.*
The pieces weren't fitting together. Iris's mind kept trying to arrange them into something logical, something that made sense, and failing.
"I need—" She stopped. What did she need? A phone? A doctor? A one-way ticket back to reality? "I need a moment. Alone."
The servant's face creased with concern. "But my lady, breakfast—"
"Please."
Something in Iris's voice must have landed. The servant set the tray on a small table, curtsied, and backed out of the room.
The door clicked shut.
Iris's knees gave out.
She crumpled to the floor, the nightgown pooling around her like spilled milk. Her hands pressed flat against the cold stone. Grounding. Real. She focused on the sensation—the rough texture, the chill seeping into her palms—and forced herself to breathe.
In. Out. In. Out.
Slowly, horribly, the truth settled into her bones.
This wasn't a dream. Wasn't a nightmare. Wasn't some psychotic break she could medicate away.
She was somewhere else. Some*when* else, maybe. In a body that didn't belong to her. With servants calling her "Your Highness" and talking about spells and physicians.
The last thing she remembered—
The apartment. Rain against the windows. The pregnancy test in her shaking hands. Positive. Two pink lines. A future she never expected.
Damien didn't know yet. She was going to tell him that night. Cook his favorite dinner. Light candles. Pretend she wasn't terrified.
But then the pressure started. The humming beneath her skin. The power she'd spent years suppressing, suddenly awake and hungry.
She'd felt it building for weeks. Ignored it. Hoped it would fade.
But didn't fade.
It erupted.
The apartment shook. Glass shattered. She couldn't stop it, couldn't control it, couldn't do anything but scream as light poured from her hands and—
And nothing. Blackness. Then silk sheets and the wrong face in the mirror.
Iris pressed her forehead to the floor. The stone was freezing. Tears leaked from her eyes, pooling beneath her cheek.
Where am I? What happened to me? What happened to—
The thought she'd been avoiding crashed through her defenses.
Damien.
Where was Damien?
She'd been losing control. The power surging. Had she—
No.She couldn't have. Not again. Not like before, in that other life, when she'd held him while he bled out and begged something, anything, to bring him back.
She'd made a deal then. A desperate, stupid deal with something that answered from the dark.
I'll do anything. Just let me see him again.
And she had. In the modern world. A fresh start. No memories for him, but she found him anyway. Loved him anyway. Built something fragile and precious.
Now it was gone.
The baby. Our baby.
Her hand moved to her stomach without thinking. Flat. Empty. The nightgown's fabric bunched under her palm.
No pregnancy. No child. No proof that any of it was real.
A sound escaped her throat. Something between a sob and a scream, muffled against the stone floor. Her body shook. Her fingers clawed at the ground like she could dig her way back to the life she'd lost.
Minutes passed. Maybe longer. The fire crackled. Somewhere outside, birds sang like the world wasn't ending.
Eventually, Iris pushed herself up. Her arms trembled. Her face was wet and swollen. But she stood.
She had to know. Had to understand what this place was, what had happened, whether he—
Whether Damien was here too.
She walked to the window on unsteady legs. The glass was thick, warped with age. She pressed her palm against it and looked out.
A courtyard stretched below. Cobblestones. A fountain that wasn't running. Men in armor moving in formation—training, she realized. Swords catching the weak morning light.
Her eyes scanned the figures. Different builds. Different heights. None of them—
And then she saw him.
Standing apart from the others. A sword in his hand, the blade lowered. He was listening to an older man—a commander, maybe—nodding at whatever instructions he was being given.
Same broad shoulders. Same dark hair curling at the nape of his neck. Same way of standing, weight on his back foot, like he was always ready to move.
Damien.
Iris's hand pressed harder against the glass. Her breath fogged the surface, obscuring him for a moment. She wiped it away frantically.
He's here. My Damien ,He's alive. He's—
He looked up.
Not at her window specifically. Just up, toward the castle, squinting against the light. From this distance, she couldn't see his eyes. Couldn't tell if there was any recognition, any memory, any hint of the man who used to trace her collarbones and whisper that she was the only thing that made sense.
But she knew.
She knew before she even asked.
The deal. The price.
He won't remember you.
He was alive. He was here. And he had no idea who she was.
Iris watched him return to his training. Watched him swing his sword with brutal efficiency. Watched him laugh at something another knight said—a laugh she knew better than her own heartbeat.
Her forehead dropped against the window. The glass was cold. Unforgiving.
"You promised," she whispered. "You said you'd always find me."
He couldn't hear her. He was a stranger now, living a life that didn't include her, loving someone else or no one at all, sleeping without dreams of a woman who would burn the world down just to hear him say her name.
And she was trapped in a dead princess's body, watching from a tower, waiting for a wedding to a prince she didn't know.
The door opened behind her. Multiple footsteps this time.
"Your Highness." A different voice. Older. Sterner. "It's time to dress. The prince has requested your presence at breakfast."
Iris didn't turn around. She kept her eyes on Damien until he moved out of sight, swallowed by the crowd of training knights.
I'll find a way. I'll make you remember. I'll break this deal and tear that entity apart with my bare hands if I have to.
She straightened her spine. Wiped her face with the back of her hand.
When she turned, her expression was empty. A mask. The face of a princess who had just recovered from a mysterious illness and nothing more.
"Then let's not keep His Highness waiting."
The older woman—a head servant, maybe, or a lady-in-waiting—studied her for a moment.
Iris didn't flinch.
After a long pause, the woman nodded. "Very good, my lady. We'll begin with your corset."
Iris followed her toward the wardrobe, leaving the window behind.
But she could still feel him. A pull in her chest. A hook behind her ribs.
Three lifetimes of loving him, and the distance between them had never felt so vast.