Death, Samuel realized, was an astonishingly boring. One minute, he was sputtering, drowning in his own blood in a damn canvas tent, the next… poof. He was just elsewhere. No pearly gates, no fiery pits, just this endless, oppressive gray. It was less a place and more a state of being, a vast, featureless void where the very concept of time seemed to curl up and die.
But then, something stirred. A faint ripple in the vast, still ocean of his non-existence. It was a sensation, then a whisper, then a distinct presence. Something pulled him back, not gently, but with a sudden, urgent tug, like a fisherman reeling in a reluctant catch.
And then, a voice. Young, trembling, and laced with an raw, primal fear that cut through the gray like a knife. "Please, anyone… I don't want to die…" The words were barely audible, a desperate plea echoing in silence.
That voice. It snagged on something deep within Samuel's very core. Not compassion. He'd brutally burned that particular weakness out of his soul years ago, a necessary casualty in his ascent to power. Love, pity, empathy – those were luxuries he couldn't afford, vulnerabilities that would have seen him dead long before now. No, what the voice stirred was something far more ancient, more fundamental.
Samuel found himself was lying in a bed, a lumpy, uncomfortable thing that smelled strongly of bitter herbs, stale sweat, and something else… something heavy, like a shroud of sorrow. Rough-hewn wooden beams, darkened with age, crisscrossed the ceiling directly above him. Sunlight, shockingly bright and warm, streamed in through a window made of real, honest-to-god glass. Not the rough, uneven panes he'd seen in common inns, but proper, clear glass. Expensive, definitely, but not palace expensive. Not the opulent, shimmering sheets of glass that adorned the royal apartments. A merchant's house, perhaps, or a prosperous farmer's. A place of comfort, but not extravagance.
"Lucas! Oh, thank the gods, you're awake!"
A woman's voice. Thick with tears and relief. It was a sound that vibrated with genuine emotion, a warmth he hadn't heard directed at him in decades. Samuel, against the screaming protests of every muscle in his newly inhabited body, managed to turn his head. He nearly recoiled. The simple movement sent waves of dizzying weakness through him.
"Mother?"
"Yes, darling, I'm here. You've been unconscious for three days, my sweet boy. The fever… oh, the fever nearly took you. We thought… we truly thought we'd lost you."
Then, the memories flooded back. Not his own, not the memories of the Sorcery Rune, the political machinations, the betrayals and triumphs of Prince Samuel, but the memories of the original inhabitant of this frail, young body. Lucas Hartwell. Twelve years old, the son of Edmund Hartwell, a successful grain merchant in the small, unassuming village of Millbrook. A bright child, everyone said, with a keen head for numbers and a gentle, easygoing disposition that made him surprisingly popular with the other village children. Lucas. The boy who'd been on the brink of death from a severe lung fever when Samuel's soul had crashed into his body, utterly obliterating whatever remained of the boy's own essence.
"I'm… I'm alright," Samuel managed, the childish treble still jarringly unfamiliar. "Just… tired."
"Of course you are, sweetheart." The woman, Margaret Hartwell, said in tears. "You need to rest and recover your strength. Mrs. Elwood, the healer, says the fever's finally broken, thank the gods, but you'll be weak for weeks yet. Just take it easy, my love."
Samuel nodded, a stiff, awkward motion that sent a fresh wave of dizziness through him. He let his eyes drift closed, not from exhaustion, though he was certainly bone-weary, but from the overwhelming, desperate need to think. He was alive. Somehow, impossibly, miraculously alive. But in the body of a child. In a godforsaken, backwater village hundreds of miles from the capital, from his court, from everything he knew. His army, the one he'd spent years building, was scattered to the four winds. His enemies, those smug, treacherous bastards, were triumphant, probably toasting his supposed demise in the very halls he'd once commanded. And he, Samuel, the bastard prince, the one they thought they'd gotten rid of, was trapped in flesh that wouldn't reach its full strength, its full potential, for years. Years!
But he was alive.
And that, in itself, was everything. Because being alive meant he could have his revenge. The thought, cold and sharp, was a spark in the overwhelming darkness of his predicament. It was a promise to himself, a silent, deadly vow.
Over the following weeks, Samuel – or rather, Lucas, he had to constantly remind himself of this infuriating detail – began to navigate his new, utterly bizarre existence. The Hartwell family was, to his royal sensibilities, everything his upbringing had taught him to despise. They were common folk, earnest to a fault, utterly, suffocatingly wholesome. Margaret, his 'mother,' fussed over him like a mother hen, clucking and hovering with an almost pathological need to nurture. His 'father,' Edmund, was a man who spoke of honest work, fair dealings, and moral virtue with a kind of naive sincerity that would have gotten him laughed out of any aristocratic court in the kingdom. It was all so… simple. So uncomplicated. And so utterly alien.
They loved their son. Completely. Unconditionally. Without reservation. And Samuel found their unwavering devotion… unsettling. He'd never experienced anything remotely like unconditional love before. In the palace, affection was a currency, something to be meticulously traded for advantage, for power, for influence. Loyalty was a fragile thing, always conditional on continued usefulness, on a favorable outcome, on maintaining one's position in the treacherous dance of court politics. Every kindness had a price, every smile a hidden agenda.
But Lucas's memories, which surfaced in startling clarity at the most unexpected times, painted a different picture. Birthday celebrations with clumsily carved wooden toys, sticky with cake frosting and childish laughter. Bedtime stories told by firelight, the flickering shadows dancing on the walls, a warm hand smoothing a worried brow.
"You're different," Ava, Lucas's ten-year-old sister, observed one crisp morning. She was helping him with his physical exercises, a torturous routine of stretching and gentle lifting designed to rebuild the pathetic strength in his twelve-year-old limbs. Her bright, perceptive eyes, so much like her mother's, studied him with an unnerving intensity. "Since the fever, I mean. You talk differently. You use… bigger words. Like a scholar, almost."
Samuel paused. Ava was sharp for her age, sharper than most adults he'd encountered in this village, really. Her innocent observation was far too close to the truth. He'd have to be more careful. He couldn't afford to raise suspicion in this quiet, observant household. He had to embody Lucas, fully.
"The fever… it made me think about things," he said slowly, carefully choosing his words, trying to make them sound suitably profound for a recovering child. "About… about what I want to do with my life. What's important."
Ava nodded, her expression serious. "What do you want to do?" she pressed, her gaze unwavering.
Samuel's eyes drifted to the window, to the distant, hazy outline of mountains that separated this provincial backwater from the beating heart of the kingdom. Somewhere beyond those formidable peaks, Queen Isabella, that calculating viper, was probably congratulating herself on having finally eliminated him, the troublesome bastard prince, a thorn in her side for too long. And Marcus, his pathetic, easily manipulated half-brother, was likely sitting on a throne he'd never earned, ruling a kingdom he wasn't fit to govern, a puppet in Isabella's cold, manipulative hands. The thought made a cold fury stir within him.
"Father says you're going to be a scholar," she mused, adjusting the blanket over his legs. "Maybe work for the tax collectors, or the magistrate. You're so good with numbers now."
Tax collectors. Samuel suppressed a visceral snort of disgust, a familiar wave of aristocratic disdain washing over him. A man who had commanded vast armies, who had negotiated treaties with foreign princes, who had played the deadly game of court politics with ruthless precision, reduced to counting coppers for petty, provincial officials. The irony, the sheer, crushing absurdity of it, was almost amusing.
Almost.