When I woke again, the room was quiet—eerily so. The kind of silence that made you aware of your own heartbeat, of the shallow breaths that caught somewhere between disbelief and panic.
Golden light spilled across the marble floor, filtered through heavy drapes embroidered with threads of silver and violet. The faint breeze from the window stirred them like restless ghosts, whispering of a life I didn’t belong to.
I wasn’t in the plane.
I wasn’t surrounded by twisted metal and fire.
I was alive.
Or at least, someone was.
The soft scent of roses hung in the air, mixing with something older—lavender and parchment, maybe. My body felt lighter, softer. When I glanced down, I didn’t see the hands that had once held surgical instruments steady through hours of exhaustion. These were slender, pale, too delicate for scalpel work.
The hands of a princess.
I swallowed hard, trying to ground myself. Laurine Samaniego. That was my name. Twenty-six years old. A doctor. The youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Medicine for my work in regenerative neural therapy. I had spent my entire life fighting to save others, and yet—one random night, after a conference, my plane had gone down in flames.
I was supposed to die.
I even remembered the moment the world went white.
But instead… I woke here.
“Princess Celestee! You’re awake!”
The sudden cry nearly made me jump out of the ornate bed. A girl—no, a maid—had burst through the door, clutching her apron, tears brimming in her wide brown eyes.
“P–Princess, you’re really awake!” she cried, voice breaking with joy. “By the heavens! You’ve been unconscious for days! I thought… I thought I’d lost you forever!”
Her words felt like a hammer blow to my chest. Princess? Celestee?
“What… what did you just call me?” I asked, my voice hoarse, foreign in my own ears.
She froze. “Y-Your Highness? It’s me, Ana! Your personal maid! You’ve been asleep since that night, since—since the lake—”
She broke down, sobbing so hard she had to clutch the edge of the dresser for support.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” she wailed. “If only I hadn’t left your side, you wouldn’t have—wouldn’t have tried to take your own life that night!”
My mind went still.
Tried to take… my own life?
“No,” I murmured, confusion twisting in my chest. “I… didn’t. I wouldn’t—”
But I wasn’t Laurine anymore.
I was in the body of Princess Amethyst Celestria Rosaire IV, youngest royal daughter of the Kingdom of Aurellia—fragile, quiet, and doomed. I knew her story. I had read it. She was a tragic side character in “The Song of the Silver Crown,” the very novel I used to read on sleepless nights after long hospital shifts.
A princess forgotten by her family. Promised to a duke she barely knew. Betrayed and executed during the rebellion that would end her empire.
She didn’t die by her own hand.
She was murdered.
So why did everyone here think she tried to end her life?
I met Ana’s tearful gaze and forced a faint, shaky smile. “I… I’m sorry, Ana. I don’t remember much.”
Her face crumpled further, and she began to cry harder. I placed a trembling hand over hers. “It’s all right. You did nothing wrong.”
But even as I said it, a sharp pain flared behind my eyes. The world tilted. Flashes of another life—not mine—seared into my mind: a hand reaching through cold water, a scream swallowed by darkness, the faint glimmer of the moon reflected on a lake’s surface.
Then, blackness.
When I came to again, the room was empty. A tray of food sat untouched in the corner, the air carrying the faint scent of honeyed meat and freshly baked bread. The sun hung low outside the window, staining the world in violet and gold.
I sat up slowly, the silk sheets rustling beneath me. My head still pounded faintly, but the fog had lifted enough for me to think clearly.
All right, Laurine.
You’ve been isekai’d—into a doomed princess.
You have three months before the rebellion.
And apparently, someone already tried to kill you.
I exhaled. “Great. Just great.”
I moved toward the tray, taking a piece of bread and biting into it absently. It was soft, slightly sweet. My hands moved almost automatically—clinical, practiced, the motions of a doctor even in another life.
I scanned the room: gilded canopy bed, ornate dresser, a wardrobe the size of my old apartment, and a writing desk by the window. The whole place screamed wealth and isolation. It was beautiful, but cold.
I ran my fingers along the carved designs of the desk until they brushed against a small leather-bound book. It was violet—Amethyst’s color. When I opened it, neat lines of delicate handwriting greeted me.
“I fear the Duke will come.
I feel his presence even in my dreams.
Father does not notice me.
Mother is gone.
I am alone.”
The words hit harder than I expected. I traced the ink gently. “You were never alone again, Amethyst,” I whispered. “Not now.”
Page after page detailed small observations: servants’ gossip, her sisters’ petty rivalries, the King’s indifference. There were even lists of court attendees, minor noble names, and suspicious exchanges. She had been observant—lonely, but not stupid.
Her final entry ended abruptly.
“I heard whispers near the Queen’s Palace tonight… I should not go, and yet—something compels me.”
That was the last thing she ever wrote.
I snapped the book shut.
Whoever pushed her into that lake had covered their tracks well.
My medical brain shifted automatically into diagnostic mode—except this time, the patient was me.
Symptoms: missing memories, apparent attempted suicide.
Diagnosis: attempted murder disguised as self-harm.
Treatment: investigation and prevention.
A knock startled me. Ana stepped in again, holding folded garments in her arms. She had composed herself but her eyes were red-rimmed from crying.
“Your Highness,” she said softly, “you should rest. You’ve been asleep for three days. Everyone was worried sick.”
I smiled faintly. “Worried? I doubt that.”
Her brows furrowed. “Of course they were!”
“No,” I said quietly. “No one here cares what happens to me, Ana. Not my father, not my siblings.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but I lifted a hand. “It’s all right. I’m used to it.”
But I wasn’t talking as Amethyst anymore. I was talking as Laurine—the girl who had spent her life in sterile hospital rooms, working herself half to death to prove she deserved to exist.
“Ana,” I asked after a pause, “tell me what you know about the Duke.”
She froze, as if the name itself carried danger. “The Duke of Valleria?”
“Yes. Him.”
Ana lowered her eyes. “Lord Lucien Valleria is… unlike anyone else in the court. Brilliant. Cold. Mysterious. They say he was raised on the battlefield, not in a palace. He returned from war only last year, bringing victory to the empire. The people revere him. But others… fear him.”
Lucien Valleria.
The name alone carried weight.
In the novel, he had been the catalyst for the empire’s downfall. Not because he wanted power for himself, but because he had aligned with the people’s rebellion—the same rebellion that would execute Amethyst and the royal family.
“He doesn’t smile,” Ana continued nervously. “They say he has no heart, only duty. He never attends balls or courtly gatherings unless commanded. He accepts the King’s decrees, but everyone knows… he could destroy the empire if he wished.”
“And he’s supposed to be… my fiancé?” I asked.
Ana nodded reluctantly. “It was announced by His Majesty, though you were never formally introduced. The engagement is to be celebrated on your eighteenth birthday, three months from now.”
Three months.
Three months before the story begins.
Three months before the rebellion.
I clenched my hands into fists. “And what of the rebellion, Ana? The unrest?”
Her face blanched. “You shouldn’t speak of it, Your Highness. The walls have ears.”
“Then whisper,” I said.
Ana hesitated, then whispered, “The people are growing restless. Taxes have risen. Famine spreads outside the capital. The nobles hoard gold while the poor starve. There are… whispers of revolt. Of a coming storm. Some say the Duke supports the people, though others believe he only bides his time.”
I leaned back against the canopy bed, exhaling slowly. “Unpredictable. Dangerous. Just as I remembered.”
The gears in my head turned. If the Duke was truly the pragmatic strategist I remembered, then there might still be a way to survive. To rewrite this story.
I glanced at Ana. “Tell me something else. The night I was found… what really happened?”
She hesitated, her hands twisting in her apron. “They said you were seen near the Queen’s Palace, Your Highness. Then—then someone heard a scream. When the guards arrived, you were already floating in the lake. Sir Rion pulled you out. You were bleeding from the head.”
My stomach turned. “Someone pushed me.”
She nodded slowly. “That’s what Sir Rion believed. But the court prefers the story of… of an accident. Or despair.”
Despair. Right. Convenient.
“Thank you, Ana,” I murmured. “You may go now.”
When she left, I moved toward the window, letting the cold air wash over me. The capital sprawled below—a glittering maze of marble spires, gold roofs, and winding streets. Beautiful, yes. But I could already see the rot beneath the glamour.
Corruption. Poverty. Injustice.
The same disease I had treated in another form in my old world.
Only this time, the infection was systemic.
“I’m not Amethyst,” I whispered. “I won’t die like her.”
I turned back to the room, scanning every detail again with sharper eyes. A doctor’s precision. A survivor’s instincts.
Wardrobe. Writing desk. Mirror. Bedpost. Walls. I tapped each, testing for hollow spaces. I found a small loose panel near the bedframe—a hidden compartment containing a folded parchment and an ornate silver dagger. The blade gleamed faintly under the setting sun.
I unfolded the note.
“If you ever remember, hide this. They are watching.”
My breath hitched. It was her handwriting. Amethyst’s.
The past and present blurred for a moment. She had known. Somehow, she had known someone wanted her dead.
I gripped the dagger tightly. My reflection in the polished metal stared back—a girl with violet eyes and soft golden curls, looking nothing like the weary doctor I once was. But her gaze… my gaze… was resolute.
“All right,” I whispered. “If this is my second life, then I’m going to live it on my terms.”
I sat at the desk and began to write—plans, maps, theories, names. Everything I remembered from the book, everything that could be used to change the ending.
Three months.
Three months to prevent a rebellion.
Three months to uncover who tried to kill me.
Three months to survive the Duke’s arrival.
Outside, the last light of sunset bled into the horizon, painting the sky in shades of amethyst and rose.
“I am not Princess Amethyst,” I said softly, my voice steady and clear.
“I am Laurine Samaniego.”
And as the first stars began to appear above the capital, I made my vow:
“I do not die here.”