I awoke choking on breath that was not my own.
Air tore into my lungs in sharp, uneven gasps, each inhale burning as though my chest had forgotten how to function. My hands flew upward, fingers clawing desperately at the silk sheets tangled around me. They trembled violently, clumsy and uncooperative, as if the connection between thought and movement had not yet been fully restored. Heat surged through my limbs—unnatural, scalding—like fire forced into veins that had never known warmth. My heart hammered against my ribs with such force that I thought it might shatter them.
For one horrifying moment, I was certain I was dying.
Again?
I sucked in air sharply, my body arching as pain lanced through me, white-hot and merciless. The sensation was overwhelming, every nerve screaming in protest. When my vision finally steadied, I realized the ceiling above me was unfamiliar—high and vaulted, composed of pale stone intricately carved with gold filigree that caught the early morning light. Sunbeams streamed through tall, arched windows, illuminating drifting dust motes that moved slowly, peacefully, as though mocking my panic with their calm indifference.
This wasn't my room.
This wasn't my world.
I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping—irrationally—that when I opened them again, everything would return to normal. That I would wake in my own bed, in my own body, with the dull comfort of familiarity pressing down on me.
But the sensations remained.
The weight of the blankets resting against my skin. The softness of the mattress beneath me. The persistent ache in my chest. The faint but distinct scent of incense and roses lingering in the air.
It was real. Then memory struck me without warning.
Steel flashing in dim light.
A scream—my scream.
Pain, sharp and final, blooming violently through my body before everything went dark.
I had died.
I remembered dying.
My eyes flew open once more, and this time the scream tore free from my throat, high and raw. The sound startled even me. It didn't sound right.
My voice was too small.
Too young.
Wrong.
Footsteps thundered outside the chamber, hurried and heavy.
"My princess!" a woman cried out. "She's awake—send for His Majesty at once!"
Before I could process her words, the doors burst open. The room filled rapidly with people—maids in pale blue dresses rushed forward, guards in polished armor took up positions along the walls, and a physician hovered near the foot of the bed, clutching a worn leather satchel. Voices overlapped in a chaotic blend of relief and lingering fear, their faces reflecting equal parts gratitude and shock.
Instinctively, I shrank back, pulling the sheets tightly against my chest.
Princess?
My gaze dropped to my hands.
They were small—far too small. Delicate, pale, untouched by scars or calluses. A thin gold ring encircled one finger, its surface etched with a sigil that caught the light.
I recognized it instantly.
My breath hitched.
No.
No, no, no.
That symbol belonged to Aivaras.
My favorite novel.
My heart began to pound harder than before, dread coiling tightly in my chest.
"No…" I whispered, my voice trembling despite my attempt to keep it steady.
The world tilted as memories—memories that were not mine—came crashing down upon me.
A palace of white stone and gold, radiant beneath the sun.
A king with weary eyes and a gentle voice, burdened by responsibility and loss.
A great kingdom standing precariously on the edge of ruin, weakened by devastating war after devastating war—conflicts born from the greed of insatiable nobles and the manipulations of unseen powers ruling from the shadows.
And a princess.
The youngest princess.
Princess Yuri.
I screamed again, but this time the sound never left my lips.
Because I understood.
I hadn't survived.
I had been reborn.
Amid the clamor surrounding me, one voice cut through sharper than the rest. A woman—strikingly beautiful, the kind who would have commanded attention effortlessly in my previous world—broke into tears the moment her eyes met mine. She rushed forward, collapsing to her knees beside the bed, sobbing openly as she reached for my hand.
She must have loved Yuri deeply.
And yet, what unsettled me most was the absence of any response within my heart.
Instead of warmth or familiarity, something dark stirred—an instinctive, growling sensation of fear and anger that coiled deep within my chest. It felt ancient, primal, and entirely alien to me.
'These aren't my emotions,' I realized distantly. 'Their Yuri's.'
The physician told me I had been unconscious for three days. He told me I had been poisoned, my skin turned black and purple veins ran across my skin, he told me about the screams that shrieked from me, being like a devil being exorcised, yet the royal doctors managed to complete an antidote within time for my life to be saved, evident in my awakening.
They told me it was an accident—a servant's mistake, a vial switched in the dark, an unfortunate error amid the chaos of court life.
They lied.
I knew how Princess Yuri died.
Because I had read it.
In the novel, her death was brief. A footnote. A tragedy included only to emphasize how cruel the royal court could be, how fragile life was beneath the weight of a jeweled crown. She died loudly in a roar of blood at seven years old, poisoned, her existence fading before she ever had the chance to matter.
Except now… I was here.
Yet her memories were fractured, scattered like shards of glass buried beneath my own thoughts. I caught glimpses of her fears, her attachments, her innocence, all tangled with my own consciousness.
But she was gone.
And I was here in her place.
The people of Aivaras didn't know that Princess Yuri had already died once.
They knelt and smiled and whispered prayers of gratitude, thanking the gods for her recovery, unaware that the soul they rejoiced over was a stranger wearing her body.
I should have been terrified.
I was.
But beneath the fear lay something far worse.
Knowledge.
Because I knew what came next.
"Your Highness," a maid said gently, adjusting the pillows behind me. "His Majesty wishes to see you."
My stomach twisted painfully.
King Yando.
Yando of Aivaras.
In the novel, he had been portrayed as a good king—exhausted, worn thin by endless war and political strife. A man who had lost too much and clung desperately to the few things he had left.
His children, most of all.
And he loved Yuri.
Deeply.
I nodded stiffly, my throat too tight to speak.
They dressed me carefully in layers of soft white and gold fabric, embroidered with delicate runes meant to ward off illness and misfortune. As they worked, I caught brief glimpses of myself in a polished mirror.
Long, pale hair, almost silver in the light.
Wide eyes, the color of dawn.
A child's face.
Too young...
The doors opened, and guards parted as I was escorted through the palace halls. Every step felt surreal. The marble beneath my feet was cool, grounding me in an uncomfortable reality. Above, banners bearing the crest of Aivaras—a crowned sun pierced by a sword—hung in solemn silence.
The throne room loomed ahead.
King Yando stood at the base of the dais, his crown set aside, his posture rigid. The moment he saw me, the carefully maintained composure shattered.
He crossed the distance in seconds and knelt before me, his large, calloused hands closing around mine with desperate tenderness.
"Yuri," he breathed. "My little sun."
My chest tightened painfully.
"I thought I'd lost you."
I didn't know what to say.
So I did what Yuri would have done.
I smiled.
"I'm okay, Father."
The words tasted like ash.
Relief flooded his face, followed swiftly by fury.
"This will not happen again," he said as he rose, sorrow hardening into steel. "I swear it."
He turned sharply toward the side of the hall.
"Bring him in."
The air shifted.
I felt it before I saw anything—a pressure, as though the room itself had gone still. The guards tensed. Courtiers fell silent.
A figure stepped forward from the shadows.
He was tall—unnaturally so—clad in dark armor etched with countless scars that spoke of battles no one dared recount. A cloak the colour of dried blood draped over his shoulders. His helm was removed, revealing a face carved from stone, eyes cold and unyielding.
I recognized him instantly.
Gabriel.
The Warden of Aivaras.
In the novel, he was a legend. A monster. A savior. A man who had slaughtered armies and vanished at the end of the war, presumed dead.
He was never meant to meet Yuri.
And yet—
He knelt.
Not before the king.
But before me.
"I am Gabriel," he said, his voice low and steady, cutting through the silence like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. "By royal decree and by ancient oath, I am sworn to your protection."
My breath caught.
In the original story, Gabriel disappeared after the last slaughtering of Brizani.
Yuri had already died.
'This isn't just reincarnation,' I realized. 'This is a deviation.'
King Yando's hand settled firmly on my shoulder.
"This man is your guardian now," he said. "Where you go, he will follow. Where you sleep, he will stand watch. No blade will reach you while he draws breath."
Gabriel lifted his gaze.
Our eyes met.
For the briefest moment—so fleeting I wondered if I imagined it—something shifted in his expression.
Not warmth.
But resolve.
Absolute. Terrifying. Unyielding.
In that instant, I understood what frightened me most.
I was no longer a forgotten side character.
I was alive.
Protected.
And standing at the center of a story that was never meant to change.
As Gabriel rose to his feet and took his place behind me, his shadow stretching long and dark across the marble floor, a single thought echoed through my mind:
'Can I survive this world…?'