It's been three months and four days since I arrived in this world.
Here, they treat me like a true princess. They dress me in silk, serve me banquets, and call me "Your Highness" at every turn.It sounds wonderful… or at least it would be, if I didn't know that in a few days, I'll turn fourteen.
The day I'm meant to meet those five men.
Five princes.Five heirs.Five charming monsters.
Each one more brilliant, more perfect… and more lethal than the last.All of them ready to play the game of love, diplomacy, and assassination to seize the throne of the Kingdom of Aurel. And to do so, they all need one thing: me.
Ever since I learned the truth, sleeping has become a luxury.How could I sleep knowing that five psychopaths disguised as angels were trained since childhood to seduce me, marry me… and then silently kill me?
Now that I think about it…My previous life, as boring as it was, had something valuable: I wasn't being hunted by a cursed fate.
But in these three months, between escorted walks through imperial gardens, poisoned banquets, and reading ancient political treaties, I've discovered this world. I've seen its cities, its people… its lies.And more importantly, I've seen the future.
One where everything—the throne, the kingdom, the world—turns to dust.Where everything I once loved is lost because of a single decision.
My decision.
And I still don't know which one it was.
Who did I choose?Who shouldn't I have trusted with my heart?What mistake did I make to bring about the end?
And most important of all: How do I avoid making it again?
As with every morning, the maid came in with my breakfast.According to the memories we share, I used to have breakfast in the royal dining hall, among marble columns and musical fountains.But I changed that.
I preferred to be alone.
The reason was simple: my own nation wants me dead.
The fact that the only princess remains alive means the Council of Nobles can't elect a new king. And judging by the number of times they've tried to kill me in past lives, I'm sure they find that extremely inconvenient.
The memories showed it clearly: poison in the soup. Poison in the cup. Poison on my favorite governess's lips.I died many times.And the pain… I still feel it.
That's why now, I only eat after my personal maid has tasted every bite first.Not out of paranoia.Out of experience.
And it was this morning that I realized something.A revelation.A crack in the lie.
I stood up from my gold-trimmed velvet seat, walked to the window, and gazed out over the imperial gardens. Crimson flowers, soldiers in black, bright birds. Everything perfect. Everything… false.
Because the memories weren't from just one Elizabeth.They were fragments of many.Many girls.Many deaths.Many versions of this same story.
I'm not the first.I'm not the only "Elizabeth" who has fallen into this world.And probably… I won't be the last.
This macabre game has already happened before. Many times.
But that… that might be an advantage.
My memories aren't complete, nor in order. But if I meditate carefully, if I examine them like scattered pieces of a bloody puzzle, I can reconstruct something:The profile of each kingdom, of each prince… and of each threat.
So I began to mentally go over what I knew:
Aurelthane. My golden prison."Where blood shines brighter than gold."
My kingdom… or so they say.A place founded by an ancestral house, the Rousendahals, who aren't entirely human. Eyes red like poisoned roses. Hair as black as coal. Skin like moonlit marble. A cursed and beautiful appearance all at once.
Here lies the mountain of Blousthirl, the source of the Blood Stone… the most powerful resource in the world.Everyone wants it.Everyone wants me.But not for who I am.
For that stone that beats like a heart and can heal, destroy, or alter fate itself.
The five kingdoms coveted it for a thousand years. And after a war that nearly wiped out humanity, a treaty was signed:If there is a daughter, she must choose the new king.And yes, guess what: that daughter is me.
Velmoria. The kingdom where magic is law.They're not wrong when they say that there, knowledge is a weapon. Its capital, Lunethra, floats suspended in a dance of towers and gravitational bridges. They don't raise swords there; they conjure equations.
And their prince…Mayron.The prodigy of gravity.
A boy with a gentle face, huge glasses, and the expression of a bored scholar. He seems harmless, even fragile…But he's not.
He can make you as light as air…Or as dense as a collapsed star.
And the worst part: he enjoys watching everything fall slowly under his control.
Tharnhold. Where strength is the only law.A nation forged in living steel. Men whose blood burns like lava and whose bodies heal before they bleed. No royalty by blood. Only by combat.
Every thirteen years, the boys fight. The last one standing becomes prince.
Dren Backstell.The youngest ever to defeat a king.He didn't want the throne. Left it behind like a boring toy.Now he sets his eyes on Aurelthane with a predator's hunger.
He doesn't lie.He doesn't scheme.He just crushes anything in his path.
Vereon. The soulless nation.The scientific kingdom. Cold, precise, emotionless. Its royal family exists only in name: true power lies in the hands of the Council of Scholars, beings who no longer consider themselves human.
Their ideal: to create the perfect human.
And from that ideal… came the monster.
Zarek von Vireon.The Cold Saint.The only survivor of Project Genesis.He killed all the others. Without rage. Without pain. Without witnesses. He left only numbers. And ashes.
He has no heart.No doubts.And he studies me as if I were a formula to be solved.
Vhalmir. The immortal kingdom.Time suspended. Beauty frozen. Beings who no longer live—they simply remain. Ancient, eternal, indifferent.
And their prince,Narel Vhalen,is the personification of perfection.Or so he believes.
He's never lost.Never struggled.Nothing excites him.
Except, perhaps… this.This absurd game of suitors.And me.Though I don't know if as a prize…or a toy.
Solarys. The empire hidden on the moon.They aren't human. They only take human form when necessary.Their presence is sacred and terrifying. Their power, unreachable.And their prince…
Azrael von Fan Caelestis.
He doesn't want the throne. He doesn't want power.He wants blood.Zarek's blood.
They say that soulless demon murdered his brothers during a diplomatic mission.Since then, Azrael has studied him. Hunted him. Planned.
And me…?I'm just the excuse he needs to stay close to him.
He watches me like an actor watches the stage.Everything about him is calculated. Beautiful. Lethal.
Well. That's all I can remember.Six kingdoms. Six paths to ruin.And me, the foolish centerpiece of this cursed board.
The only variable that could change the outcome.
Or repeat the tragedy.
—Your Highness.A voice came from behind the door, soft and trembling.—The… the young princes have arrived.
My legs faltered.That wasn't possible.There were still days to go.I don't remember this happening—not in any of the previous lives.
What does it mean?What has changed?
A shadow crossed my soul.For the first time in weeks, I felt something slipping out of my hands.
To be continued…