Part One: The Academy Days
1. A Life Reset
I was a prisoner. I sat on the bare stone floor. The prison room was without a scrap of furniture or carpet, and it was dark…so dark and cold.
Clank - Clank - Clank…
I could hear the sounds of clanking armor. The guards were coming.
I instinctively covered my ears as the sounds grew louder.
No, no, no…
“Come on out!”
The door to the next cell was yanked open with an angry growl, and the man inside was dragged out. I leaped to my feet and sprang toward the door of my cell, peering through the iron bars of the small window.
“Ed…”
I could see him in the gloom, being dragged under the armpits by two guards. He glanced at me and gave his head a small shake. He was warning me to stay quiet. I watched with wide eyes, hands pressed over my mouth to stifle my urge to sob out loud.
He was leaving. Everyone was leaving me.
Going far away, beyond my reach.
“No…!”
I couldn’t keep silent any longer.
“No, please! No, no!!!”
Please…don’t take anything else precious away from me…
“Hah! Hah…hah…”
I awoke drenched in sweat. My nightgown was soaked, and my blond hair was sticking to my forehead and neck in dripping tendrils. The sheets on the bed beneath me felt cold and damp.
“…Bed?”
I was taken aback by the soft plushness of the mattress underneath me.
Yes, I was lying on a bed. A real bed…not a sickbed or a cot made from rough-hewn stone or wood, but a gorgeous four-poster canopy bed.
What was going on? And what had happened to my dank jail cell?
As I sat there trying to process, I heard a knock at the door, followed by a voice calling out.
“Princess Annabel, are you quite all right?”
The door opened with a click, and a young woman poked her head around the door frame, concern etched on her face.
“Yes… Yes, I’m fine…”
I quickly smoothed down my hair and clothes, answering as nonchalantly as possible.
“I am glad to hear it.”
I stared with surprise at the young woman who was still peering around the door frame. She was a kind-looking, freckle-faced girl with her long brown hair neatly captured in a bun. It was Ellie, my maid from back in my homeland of Najir. She breathed a sigh of relief and then started to walk over to me.
Ellie seemed composed and cheerful, while I sat there in utter disbelief.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Princess Annabel, you’ve overslept again! It’s well past time to be getting up.”
“Uh…what time is it?”
“Why, it is almost eight o’clock.”
“Er…then I guess I’ll get up…”
“Very good, Princess.”
Ellie gave me a twinkling smile, walking past the end of the bed to the window, where she drew back the curtains.
Morning sunlight flooded the bedchamber, brightening the entire room. I looked all around me, head turning this way and that.
The wooden bedside table that was nestled snugly against the wall had an intricately carved trim. The white, expensive-looking wardrobe had cute little cat feet. And there was also a matching dresser with a large mirror attached…
It was unmistakably my very own bedroom, in the castle of Najir. I’d never forget a single detail of it.
What is going on?!
Nothing made sense. I was supposed to be locked up in a smelly dungeon cell in the bowels of the Sunruta castle right now.
Ellie finished opening all of the curtains and then returned to my bedside. “Oh dear, you’re soaked with sweat!” she said, her face showing concern.
“Are you thirsty? I shall fetch you a glass of water.”
“Oh, thank you so much.”
“Your screams just before… Well, they were quite dreadful!”
“I’m sorry…I was having a frightful nightmare.”
Ellie gazed at me, wide-eyed, while I fought to hide my discomposure with a winning smile. As I stared back at Ellie’s expression, I began to worry. Had I said something wrong?
“…Er, is something wrong?”
“Ah… I was just thinking…you have become such a splendid young woman while losing none of your cuteness.”
“What? What do you mean, Ellie?”
“Teehee, please don’t misunderstand… I intend it as a compliment! Our princess is already as fine a lady as any and still as cute as they come!”
I blinked rapidly. Wasn’t it a bit weird to be referring to me, an eighteen-year-old, fully grown woman, as “cute”…? I narrowed my eyes at Ellie.
“…Really?”
As I looked suspiciously at her, she chuckled and nodded. “But of course! Now, we had better get you out of that sweaty nightgown. How about this for today’s outfit?”
Ellie walked over to the closet and pulled out a light-blue dress, which she then held up in front of me.
“Huh?”
I was hit by a wave of surprise and nostalgia as I stared at the dress.
The dress had pure-white bows on the breast and on the full skirt. It was one of the dresses Father had gifted to me so long ago.
That was on—what was it? Yes…my twelfth birthday. I was so enamored with the dress, I wore it until the sleeves began to unravel and those around me begged me to give it up.
“Where did you find that old thing?”
“Old…thing? But you’ve barely had it a month...”
Ellie tilted her head to one side, looking at me curiously.
“What?”
I looked at the dress again in surprise. It was definitely the dress I remembered receiving on my twelfth birthday. But the dress in Ellie’s hands was clearly brand-new. It looked nothing like the sun-faded dress of my memories with the trailing threads on the sleeves.
Without thinking, I lifted both hands, staring at them in the bright morning sunlight.
They were the small, dainty hands of a child.
What’s the meaning of this?!
A lot of crazy things had happened to me recently, but this was entirely outside the realms of anything I could have imagined. As I sat frozen, unable to process the situation, Ellie knitted her brows and peered closely at my face.
“Princess Annabel? Are you feeling unwell?”
“No, I…I wonder if I can still fit into it?”
“Hmm? But of course you can.”
Ellie encouraged me to get out of bed, then helped me out of my sweat-drenched nightgown and into the dress. As I threaded my arms through the sleeves, I realized that it fitted me like a glove.
In the corner of the room sat my dresser, which I’d had for longer than I could remember. A large round vanity mirror was affixed to it. I walked over to the dresser and stared at my appearance.
There it was, the same face I’d looked at every day in the mirror: blond hair, light-green eyes, fair skin. But something was different. I was short and small, and my face was the face of a child.
…How?
This kind of thing shouldn’t be possible. After being imprisoned by the Sunruta Kingdom’s royal family, my magical powers had awakened far too late, and I had used the very last dregs of my strength…
Ellie frowned with concern again as I stood frozen in front of the mirror, gazing at my own stiff expression.
“Princess Annabel? Are you quite sure there’s nothing amiss?”
I snapped out of my haze and quickly composed my features.
“I’m perfectly well. I simply had a most frightful dream. It disturbed a great deal. Um…how are Mother and Father, and my brother? Are they…quite well?”
“Are they well? Yes, of course, as ever. But if we don’t get you dressed soon, you’ll be delaying them at the breakfast table. I shall fetch fresh water and a towel so you can wash your face.”
Ellie left the bedchamber with a smile, carrying my soaked nightgown in her arms. As I watched her go, a giggle escaped my lips.
“Hehehe…”
It was a dream.
It was all just a dream!
Dreaming such an awful dream…what was wrong with me? Najir was preserved, and my parents and brother unharmed. Everything was just as it should be.
As I twirled this way and that in front of the mirror, my spirits soaring, I glimpsed a dark red spot on the bedsheets behind me.
“Oh, what a bother. Is it that time of the month? Or have I hurt myself somehow…?”
But when I thought about it, I remembered that I’d only just turned twelve and ought not to be having monthly bleeding yet. I walked over to the bed, wondering where I might have scratched myself, but then stiffened when I saw what the red spot really was.
It was a small, round stone. Blood-red and beautiful in the light. The magic gem Ed had given to me at the end of it all. To the eighteen-year-old me.
“It can’t be…”
I picked it up and turned it over and over in my cupped palm, dumbfounded. It was a deep, blood-red color…clearly still brimming with magical energy.
Why was this here? After all…
“…Wasn’t it all just a dream?”
But my words rang hollow in the empty bedchamber. There was no one there who could answer me.