Chapter 2 – Whispers in the Slums
Morning came slowly, spilling pale light through the high windows. The world outside the palace glittered faintly with frost, but inside my chamber, everything felt still—too still, like a painting that had forgotten how to move.
Three days had passed since I’d awoken in this world. Three days of pretending, smiling, nodding at courtiers who looked at me with pity they didn’t mean. Three days of piecing together the cracks in Princess Amethyst’s life and stitching them with my own instincts as Laurine Samaniego, doctor of logic, of science, of reason.
Yet even logic could not explain why someone wanted this princess dead.
Ana entered quietly, carrying a tray of tea. “Your Highness, the physician says you should rest another day. Your body—”
“My body is fine,” I said, perhaps a little too firmly. “What I need is air.”
“Air?” She blinked.
“Yes. I’ve been sleeping for days; I’m not a corpse.”
Not yet, I added inwardly.
Before she could argue, I stood and began to braid my hair. The reflection in the mirror still startled me—golden curls, violet eyes, a porcelain doll’s face that hid a soul who’d once held scalpels steady through twelve-hour surgeries.
I changed into a simple lavender gown and wrapped a thin cloak over my shoulders. “I’ll only be gone a few hours,” I told her. “No one will notice.”
Ana fretted but eventually handed me a small purse of coins. “At least take this. And please, Your Highness, don’t draw attention to yourself.”
I smiled. “You worry too much.”
But as I slipped out of the side gate of the palace, a hood pulled low over my head, I knew she wasn’t wrong to worry.
The capital of Aurellia was larger than I remembered from the book—alive, chaotic, imperfect. Carriages clattered down cobbled streets; merchants shouted prices from their stalls; the air smelled of baked bread, horse sweat, and distant smoke.
For a moment, I simply walked—absorbing, analyzing. In the palace, the world was all silk and etiquette; here, it was survival. Children ran barefoot through puddles; women bargained over bruised fruit.
I found a small medicinal shop tucked between a bakery and a blacksmith’s forge. Its wooden sign read “Alchemia & Herbs.”
Inside, the scent hit me like a memory—dried herbs, camphor, something akin to ethanol. Jars lined the shelves, labeled in elegant script: mandragora, bellwort, silverleaf, sunroot.
The shopkeeper, an elderly man with ink-stained fingers, looked up. “A young lady of refinement here alone? How unusual.”
“I’m studying medicine,” I said quickly. “Or… healing.”
“Ah. A scholar then.” His smile softened. “What are you looking for?”
“Antipyretics. Something for infection. And a bit of sedative root.”
He blinked, impressed. “You know your herbs.”
“I read a lot,” I said lightly.
When he turned to pack the items, I scanned the shelves. If infection spreads through stagnant water, I thought, this place would be breeding ground for disease when the rebellion hits. My mind kept running in diagnostics—habitat, symptom, remedy.
He handed me a small pouch. “You’re quite the curious one. Be careful, young lady. Knowledge invites trouble these days.”
“Trouble doesn’t frighten me,” I murmured.
Outside, the streets had grown louder. I tucked the herbs into my bag and started back toward the main road—until I heard shouting.
“Thief!”
The word sliced through the crowd. People scattered as two armored soldiers dragged a small boy by the collar. He couldn’t have been more than ten, skinny as a reed, clutching a half-eaten loaf of bread.
“I wasn’t stealing!” he cried. “I was gonna pay, I swear! Please!”
One soldier laughed cruelly and kicked him in the ribs. The boy fell, gasping.
I froze. Don’t get involved, reason hissed. You’re supposed to stay hidden.
But another voice whispered louder—the voice that had guided my hands through hundreds of emergency rooms. If you turn away now, you’re not a doctor anymore.
Before I realized it, my feet were moving.
“Stop that!” I shouted.
The soldiers turned. “And who might you be, miss?”
I straightened, heart hammering beneath my cloak. “Someone who knows you’re overstepping your authority. He’s just a child.”
“He’s a thief.”
“He’s hungry,” I snapped. “If hunger is treason now, perhaps you should arrest half the city.”
The men hesitated. My accent was too refined, my stance too calm. They saw something noble in me, but not whichnoble. Perhaps my simple cloak helped. Perhaps my face was too unfamiliar to place. The perks of being the royal family’s forgotten daughter.
I tossed a few silver coins onto the ground. “That should cover the bread—and the pride you bruised.”
The soldiers exchanged glances, muttered curses, and walked off.
I knelt beside the boy. “Are you all right?”
He flinched, then stared up at me with wide gray eyes. “I… I’m fine. You shouldn’t have helped me, miss. They’ll get mad.”
“I’ve made worse people mad before.” I smiled faintly. “What’s your name?”
“Robert,” he whispered.
“Well, Robert, let’s get you something to eat that you don’t have to steal.”
We walked through the twisting alleys until the market thinned into dirt paths and broken shacks. The air here smelled of smoke and sickness. Children stared at me from doorways, their faces smudged with soot.
“This is where you live?” I asked softly.
Robert nodded. “In there. Ma’s sick.”
Inside the tiny shack, a woman lay on a straw mat, her breathing shallow and labored. One look and I knew—fever, dehydration, infection.
I dropped to my knees beside her. “How long has she been like this?”
“Three days,” Robert said, eyes glossy. “Pa tried to get medicine, but the soldiers took him ‘cause he couldn’t pay taxes.”
Rage flared low in my stomach. Corruption at its finest.
I opened my pouch, taking out a vial of crushed sunroot and a small flask of clean water. “Here. She needs this.”
Robert watched as I mixed the herbs, my hands steady with familiar purpose. I pressed the cup to the woman’s lips, helping her drink.
“You’re a healer?” he asked quietly.
“Something like that,” I said.
When I finished cleaning the wound on her arm and covered her with a patched blanket, color had already returned faintly to her cheeks.
“She’ll be all right if she rests,” I told him. “Make sure she drinks plenty of water.”
Robert’s eyes shone. “Thank you. Nobody ever helps us. Not nobles, not soldiers.”
I hesitated. “Do you hate them that much?”
He looked away. “They took my Pa. Said he didn’t pay enough. But they keep raising it! We don’t even eat most days. They say the King needs more gold for the war, but… we’re the ones dying.”
The rebellion, I realized. It wasn’t just politics. It was hunger. Desperation.
I touched his shoulder. “Stay strong, Robert. Things might change sooner than you think.”
He nodded, still too young to understand promises like that were dangerous.
By the time I stepped back outside, the sun was bleeding into the horizon. Shadows stretched long across the streets, and the slums began to empty as people retreated indoors.
I adjusted my cloak and started toward the palace. The streets were quieter now—until someone collided with me at the corner.
“Oh! I’m so sorry—”
Herbs spilled from my bag, rolling across the dirt. I knelt instinctively, gathering them, when a gloved hand reached down to help.
“It’s not safe for a young girl to wander here after dark,” a deep voice said.
I looked up—and met a pair of piercing gray eyes beneath the shadow of a hood.
For a heartbeat, I forgot how to breathe. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his presence quiet but commanding. Something about him radiated danger—the kind that came from discipline, not cruelty.
“I’ll be fine,” I managed. “I’m used to handling myself.”
His gaze lingered, assessing. “You’re no commoner.”
My pulse spiked. “How can you tell?”
He tilted his head slightly. “Your hands. Too clean. And your voice—you speak like someone who’s never missed a meal.”
I cursed inwardly. He wasn’t wrong.
“Please,” I said quietly, “don’t tell anyone. I was only helping someone. A sick woman and her son.”
He said nothing. Simply handed me the last bundle of herbs, our fingers brushing briefly.
“You have courage,” he said finally. “But courage doesn’t always mean safety.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips, though I couldn’t see much beneath the hood. “Then take this advice—go home. The city changes when the sun sets.”
“I’ll remember that.”
I hesitated. “Thank you… um, what’s your name?”
He straightened. “Names are dangerous things to give freely.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Then what should I call you?”
He paused, then murmured, “Lucas. Call me Lucas.”
And before I could say another word, he turned and disappeared down the dark alleyway.
I stood there for a long moment, heart pounding. The echo of his voice lingered in my mind—low, smooth, commanding. Something about it stirred a strange familiarity.
“Lucas…” I whispered.
Then I shook my head and gathered my things. The night air had grown colder. I needed to return before anyone noticed my absence.
As I walked back toward the palace gates, I couldn’t shake the thought that those gray eyes had seen straight through me—past the cloak, past the title, into the truth I hadn’t spoken aloud.
For the first time since waking in this world, I felt something shift inside me.
The people’s suffering. The corruption. The whispers of revolt.
And now, the stranger named Lucas.
The threads were beginning to weave together, pulling me toward a story I thought I already knew—except this time, the ending might change.