Weeks passed.
I learned this not by calendars or clocks, but by change.
My hands grew steadier. My cries came less often. My vision sharpened enough to distinguish faces instead of mere colors. Gold became gold. White became marble. The ceiling above my cradle stopped swimming every time I opened my eyes.
I still couldn't speak.
But I could listen.
And I did.
People spoke freely around a baby. Servants discussed court matters in hushed but careless tones. Ladies-in-waiting whispered gossip while dressing me. Even guards outside the chamber doors talked when they thought no one important was listening.
They never considered me important.
That mistake gave me everything.
"Her Highness slept well today."
"The Empress barely left her side again."
"She's devoted. After what happened during the birth, who wouldn't be?"
Empress.
The title surfaced again and again.
And always with the same name.
Empress Seraphyne Morvaelis.
My mother.
I saw her often now. She had pale blonde hair, almost silver in certain light, worn long and meticulously styled. Her eyes sharp, intelligent, and unreadable softened only when they landed on me.
When she held me, the world felt quieter.
Safer.
But no less heavy.
My father appeared less frequently.
Emperor Alaric Morvaelis.
He shared the same blonde hair as my brother. His presence filled the room without effort. Even when he said nothing, everyone stood straighter.
He studied me every time we met, as if I were a problem waiting to be solved.
"She's observant," he said once.
"She's a baby," my mother replied calmly.
He only smiled.
Then there was my brother.
Prince Kaelen Morvaelis.
He was impossible to miss.
Blonde hair that never stayed neat, green eyes filled with mischief, and far too much energy for someone born into royalty. He visited me often, leaning over my cradle, making faces, poking my cheeks gently.
"Still staring at everything," he said one afternoon. "You're going to be scary when you grow up."
I didn't blink.
Kael liked to talk.
He talked while servants adjusted blankets. He talked while sitting beside my cradle. He talked because silence clearly bored him.
And slowly, piece by piece, I learned the world I had been born into.
"This is the Morvaelis Empire," he said once, swinging his legs from a nearby chair. "Biggest on the continent. Dad says it's annoying to manage."
That word made something in my mind stir.
…Wasn't this the empire in the novel I was reading?
The thought came slowly, cautiously, as if my mind itself was afraid to say it out loud.
Morvaelis.
The name echoed faintly in my memory, tugging at something half-forgotten. I searched through the fragments of my past life the nights spent hunched over my phone, scrolling through chapters until my eyes burned, telling myself just one more.
Morvaelis.
Yes.
The Morvaelis Empire had been mentioned early in the novel. A vast, powerful empire that dominated the continent. Wealthy. Stable. Ruled by the Morvaelis imperial family, who had been deeply involved in the Great War. One of its members, then Emperor Vaelor Morvaelis, my grandfather had been among the Five Equals.
But they were never the focus.
They were background.
A setting.
Kael kept talking, oblivious to the storm brewing inside my head.
"They say the empire's been peaceful for decades," he said casually. "But Dad's always busy. Meetings, reports, boring adult stuff."
Peaceful.
That matched too.
In the novel, the early chapters were calm almost deceptively so. The real turmoil didn't begin until much later.
I listened harder after that.
Filtered every conversation. Weighed every word.
"The northern trade routes are doing well this year."
"The border disputes haven't flared up yet."
"The Academy is expanding its intake again."
The Academy.
That word made my chest tighten.
I'd heard it mentioned more than once now, always with reverence.
"Prince" one of the attendants scolded gently, "His Majesty doesn't like it when you disturb the princess too much."
"I'm not disturbing her," he protested. "I'm educating her."
I almost snorted.
"…Okay, okay," the attendant said firmly. "The princess needs to sleep now. You can come tomorrow to play with her."
"But I just got here," Kael complained.
"She's already yawning," the woman replied, even though I most definitely was not.
Kael huffed, dramatic as ever. "Fine. But tomorrow I'm telling her about the Academy again."
He leaned over once more, poked my cheek lightly, and whispered, "Don't forget me."
Then he was gone.
The room quieted. Curtains were drawn. The gentle murmur of servants faded until only the soft crackle of a distant hearth remained.
Sleep should have come easily.
It didn't.
My body was tired unbearably so but my mind refused to rest.
Morvaelis.
The name echoed again and again, refusing to fade. The more I turned it over in my thoughts, the heavier my chest felt.
This wasn't coincidence.
Too many pieces fit.
A powerful empire. Long-standing peace. An imperial academy renowned across the continent. Even the timeline matched early stability before everything went wrong.
And then there was me.
A princess of Morvaelis.
I searched my memory desperately, combing through what I could recall of the novel. It had been male-oriented, centered entirely around Caelis Aurellion a commoner boy with nothing but talent and stubborn will.
An orphan.
Brilliant. Too brilliant.
He had raised his younger sister alone, scraping together coin, food, and hope in a world that offered him none. When he'd entered the Imperial Academy at twelve under a rare scholarship, the story had truly begun.
Three elemental affinities.
Fire. Wind. Water.
A genius so rare that noble houses tried to claim him before he even understood his own worth.
And Morvaelis…
Morvaelis had been mentioned in passing. A superpower empire. One of the Five Equals. Distant. Untouchable.
Imperial politics that existed only as background noise.
The imperial princess hadn't mattered.
She hadn't even appeared.
A chill crept through me.
If I was remembering correctly… then that meant something far worse.
I wasn't reborn as a protagonist.
I wasn't even reborn as a side character.
I was a name that existed only on paper a figure acknowledged and then forgotten.
Someone whose fate was never shown.
Never explored.
Never important enough to matter.
My tiny fingers curled against the blanket.
Was that why nothing felt right when I woke up in this body?
Because this body wasn't meant to do anything?
The thought terrified me more than death ever had.
In my past life, I had been ordinary. An engineering student with deadlines and regrets, but at least my future had been unwritten.
Here?
Here, the world already had a story.
And I was standing on its margins.
A baby's body couldn't tremble the way my mind did, but something inside me recoiled all the same. If this was truly the novel's world, then I knew what came next.
Not now.
Not for years.
But eventually.
War.
Chaos.
Bloodshed that swallowed empires whole.
The Morvaelis Empire would be forced to move.
The Five Equals will have to step forward again.
And Caelis Aurellion would become something the world both feared and relied on.
Where did that leave me?
A princess with no role.
No future written.
No guarantee of survival.
My breathing hitched a soft, involuntary sound that escaped my throat. Almost a cry. Almost.
A shadow fell over my cradle.
Warmth followed.
Gentle hands lifted me, cradling my head carefully. A familiar presence enveloped me, carrying the faint scent of lavender and parchment.
My mother.
Empress Seraphyne's voice was low as she hummed a simple melody, unadorned and slow. Not a royal tune. Not something grand.
Just something human.
The tension inside me loosened, bit by bit.
My thoughts dulled. The sharp edges of fear softened, blurred by exhaustion. No matter how much my mind raced, my newborn body had limits.
I was too small. Too fragile. Too new.
Darkness crept in, heavy and inevitable.
As sleep finally pulled me under, one thought lingered faint but resolute.
If this world already has a story…
Then I'll survive long enough to rewrite my place in it.
And for the first time since my rebirth, I slept without dreaming.
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