I stared at the lavish white ceiling above, tracing the ornate moldings with eyes that didn't quite feel like mine.
So it wasn't a dream after all.
There should be limits to what the mind can conjure in sleep, some boundary between nightmare and impossibility. But no dream could account for the weight of these memories, Lumiel's and Earth's memories, now lodged in my skull like shrapnel. They sat there, foreign and intimate all at once, a life I'd lived but never chosen.
I hauled myself upright and surveyed the bed, then the room beyond. Silk curtains. Marble floors. Gold leaf catching the morning light like it had something to prove.
These were my royal quarters. Had been my whole life, technically. The part of me that remembered Earth, that small, impossible fragment recoiled at the opulence. This place felt like a museum, beautiful and suffocating in equal measure.
"How did this even happen?" I muttered, raising my hand before my face. I clenched it. Unclenched it. Watched the fingers move with a sluggishness that made my chest tight. The hand was pale, soft, decorated with rings I'd never chosen to wear.
This was real.
But that wasn't even the worst of it.
I wasn't just in some random fantasy world, I was inside a Game. Actually inside it.
Kingdom of Helios. The name alone made something in my brain light up with recognition, unwelcome and certain.
And those women I'd seen yesterday, my wives, supposedly, though the word tasted bitter, I recognized some of them. Character portraits from loading screens. Sprites with dialogue trees. NPCs with predetermined storylines, except now they were flesh and blood, looking at me with actual concern instead of scripted responses.
I reached up and clutched my head, fingers digging into my scalp.
"This fucking hurts..."
It felt like my brain was trying to sort through two lifetimes at once, filing memories that didn't match, reconciling contradictions that shouldn't exist. The process was about as pleasant as chewing glass.
"Lumiel!"
The door crashed open with enough force to rattle the frame. I saw my mother the Queen and recently widowed, Eliana, rushing toward me with an expression of pure relief.
I'd lost my mother early in my past life. Cancer, quick and merciless. So seeing her now, this woman who wore Eliana's face and carried Eliana's grief, stirred something uncomfortably warm in my chest. Or maybe that pain came from Lumiel's memories, from losing a father just days ago. Either way, it hurt. A tight, crushing sensation right behind my ribs.
"You're awake. Are you okay, my sweetheart?" She was already on the bed, pulling me into an embrace that smelled of lavender and sleeplessness.
"I'm fine, Mother," I said, patting her back with mechanical reassurance. The word Mother came easier than I expected. "More importantly, what happened after I so pathetically fainted during my own coronation ceremony?"
Just thinking about it made me want to crawl under the sheets and never emerge. What kind of man collapses at his own coronation? What kind of king-to-be makes such a spectacular display of weakness before the entire court?
My father, the previous King, the strong one, the capable one had been everything I wasn't. And after his death, I was supposed to show strength, supposed to prove I could fill the void he'd left. Instead, I'd crumpled like wet parchment. Before regaining these Earth memories, Lumiel had been terrified of the throne. Almost paralyzed by the weight of it. Incompetent. Scared. All the things a crown prince shouldn't be.
And now, after this fresh display of inadequacy, the nobles would be circling like sharks. Questioning my fitness to rule. Whispering about alternatives.
This needed to be dealt with.
Immediately actually.
Because if I really was inside that Game and every moment made me more certain I was, then I couldn't afford mistakes. My character hadn't survived long. That much I remembered with crystalline clarity.
"It was yesterday, but don't worry about that now. The most important thing is that you're okay." She pulled back, offering a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
I looked at her haggard face, at the shadows beneath her eyes and the new lines around her mouth, and felt that pain intensify. She'd always been strong. Seeing her like this, diminished, grieving, barely holding herself together was paining me.
I reached out, cupping her cheek with a gentleness that surprised me.
"It will be fine, Mother. I promise."
Eliana's eyes went glassy with unshed tears. She nodded, composing herself with visible effort, then patted my hair the way she must have done when Lumiel was small.
"Rest as long as you need," she said, standing. Her voice had regained some of its usual firmness. "I'll call for a healer immediately."
I watched her leave, the door closing with a soft click that felt far too final.
Then I pushed myself up from the bed.
"What the—?"
My eyes widened as I felt my body move with all the grace of waterlogged furniture. Everything was sluggish and heavy.
Fuck.
I'd forgotten about this particular detail.
I was fat.
Not just slightly overweight or carrying a few extra pounds, properly, substantially fat. I looked down and couldn't even see past the swell of my belly to where my legs presumably were. My precious jewels were completely obscured by flesh that had accumulated over years of comfort eating and avoiding anything resembling physical activity.
"This sucks..."
I'd always been this way, in this body at least. But after receiving the memories of my Earth self, someone who'd been athletic, who'd actually enjoyed running and feeling strong, let's say the contrast was unbearable. This body felt like a prison, like I'd been stuffed into someone else's skin.
But at least now I was certain.
Absolutely, irrefutably certain.
I was inside a game.
The feeling was surreal, nauseating. Had I grown up all this time inside a game world? Had every moment of Lumiel's childhood been coded, predetermined? Or was my previous life on that peaceful world called Earth the fake one, some elaborate delusion conjured by a dying mind?
Either way, philosophical questions would have to wait.
Because in that Game, if my memories served, and I prayed they did—the story began about a month after my death. I was background noise. A footnote. A cautionary tale mentioned in passing dialogue: The previous king? Oh, he died under suspicious circumstances shortly after his coronation. Tragic, really.
My death came just weeks after the coronation ceremony.
Which meant I had less than a month. Maybe three weeks if I was lucky.
What kind of joke was this?
I stumbled out of bed, legs threatening to give out.
"I can't die yet..."
The words came out quite like a scoff. In the Game, I didn't know the exact details of how I died, just that the Black Sun had attacked the castle and I'd been killed in the chaos. Murdered, though by whom and why remained frustratingly vague.
But knowing my previous self, weak, indecisive, pathetically timid, it wasn't surprising. That version of Lumiel would have hidden in his chambers, paralyzed by fear, making himself an easy target.
I wouldn't be weak when that time came. I refused.
There was a solution, one way to close the gap between what I was and what I needed to be. The Ritual of the Sun. Every heir underwent it eventually, a ceremony that awakened the divine power of Helios within their blood. It was dangerous, potentially lethal, which was exactly why I'd never done it before.
My father hadn't forced it on me during what should have been my official investiture as heir. He'd seen how fragile I was, body and mind both, and knew the ritual would kill me. So he'd postponed it. Waited for a strength that never came.
I doubted the Game version of Lumiel ever underwent the ritual. I knew that coward, my cowardliness too well now, understood his every weakness intimately. He would have wallowed in grief after Father's death, sobbing in his quarters while Mother ruled as Queen Regent, too afraid to take the risks necessary for power.
But this time was different. Thanks to my Earth memories, I had something Lumiel never possessed: perspective. The ability to feel grief without being consumed by it. The understanding that sometimes the only way through pain is action.
I felt the loss of my father like a blade between my ribs. The trust he'd placed in me, naming me heir despite my countless protestations of inadequacy, despite knowing how thoroughly I doubted myself. He'd believed in me until the very end.
I wouldn't disappoint him. Not this time.
I smiled, the expression feeling foreign on these soft features, and headed for the door.
I had to do it now, before Mother returned with her healers and her reasonable objections. Before anyone could stop me from taking the only path that might keep me alive long enough to matter.