I woke with a start, gasping as if I'd been drowning.
There was no water—only the dry, cold bite of the air. My throat scraped raw, my lungs clawed at breath. I rolled onto my side, shivering in the grass where the three girls had been before we… vanished.
Regina was there. Relief hit me like a stone to the chest, sharp and grounding.
The others stirred as the sun shoved itself toward noon, spilling hard light over the clearing. Alpha—black as a raven's wing—was already upright, posture taut, eyes bright and calculating. She scanned the horizon with the precision of someone reading a contract line by line, hunting for the loophole that would damn or free us. There was a quality to her stare that unsettled me—predatory patience, like she was watching reality itself for mistakes.
"What happened?" Omega, the snow-haired one, murmured, smoothing her gown with slow, careful hands as she rose. Her voice carried the faint tremor of someone not fully awake—or not fully convinced the world around her was real.
Regina came awake next, eyes darting across the clearing, her brow furrowed in that thoughtful, troubled way of hers. Mésos didn't so much rise as appear. One blink she wasn't there; the next, she stood at my side as if she'd been waiting all along.
"Some time has passed since we were last here," she said flatly, her tone almost bored. She brushed a hand against the grass. "It's colder."
"You girls care to shed some light?" I asked, my voice tighter than I'd meant it to be. Questions stacked inside me like tinder waiting for a match. My eyes caught on Omega's pale hair—sunlight turned it almost blinding, like a snowfield at noon.
We drifted toward the distant silhouette of the palace. Alpha, Mésos, and Omega fell in behind us: one casual, one visibly bored, one faintly eager.
"Those girls might cause trouble if we walk in there with them," Regina murmured, her voice low, eyes locked on the horizon. Then she turned to me. "Why are we even bringing them?"
The question hit like a cut on the inside of my skull. My answer tumbled out hollow, unchosen. "I… don't know." The words felt stolen, like someone else had spoken through me. "It just feels… natural."
Regina's eyes narrowed, flicking to Alpha. "Do you think the tattoo on her hands—and the way you all don't resist following her—is tied to our memory gap?"
Alpha's gaze didn't waver. She nodded once, deliberate. "Likely."
My pulse stumbled. "What tattoo?"
Mésos moved again—one second apart, the next beside me. She caught my wrist, tilting it upward. A spiral of ink crawled across my skin, black and intricate, as though a quill had carved a sentence I should understand but couldn't.
"What is that…?" The thought sparked, alive, electric. "System?" I tried to summon, to draw out even the smallest piece—but nothing came. Empty air, empty hands.
"Interesting." Regina's fingers traced another faint mark further up my arm. The skin there burned faintly beneath her touch, warmth alive and pulsing. "Your ability is still here. The tattoo reacts. So why can't you summon?"
Before I could answer, a sound split the stillness. The crunch of footsteps in the brush.
"Well, what a lucky find," a guttural voice boomed.
Omega stiffened as a hand clamped over her mouth, a blade whispering cold against her throat.
A man stepped from the trees. His armor was battered steel, edges dented, plates patched, but the great axe swinging at his side looked lethal enough. More followed—shadows hardening into steel, blades catching sun.
Regina drew her sword in one smooth, practiced motion—only to watch it crumble to rust between her fingers, the weapon dissolving like wet parchment.
"Adorable… and foolish," one of the strangers sneered. His words bent strangely, twisted by a dialect my mind fumbled to catch.
Regina's face tightened. "A language shift." Her tone was sharp, deliberate, as if she were anchoring herself with logic. "That means something."
My thoughts fractured. Who were these men? Why did my memory feel thin, moth-eaten? Where was the prince? The forest? Where were the anchors that held the world together?
Mésos tilted her head, utterly disinterested. Omega glared down at the dirt smeared across her gown, her fury focused there instead of the blade at her throat. Alpha smiled, slow and precise, like a blade finding its first seam in flesh.
A thought that wasn't mine whispered across my mind: maybe we should accept this man's invitation.
My breath stuttered. Invitation? This was no invitation. This was chains. Slavery. Worse. Not in my second life.
I forced myself to take count. They weren't just muscle. They were organized. They had numbers. And the other girls… they weren't resisting. Their calm was unnatural, rehearsed.
I dropped to my knees first, slow, deliberate. Submission, painted as choice. The others followed in eerie silence, like we'd practiced it.
The axe-man's smirk spread wide as he gestured to his underlings. Ten men in cheap brown armor stepped forward, cuffs and ropes clattering in their hands. The steel of their short swords stayed bare, ready for any spark of defiance.
We were bound and herded toward a waiting carriage.
Inside, the air was thick, sour with sweat and metal. We weren't alone.
In one corner, a cat-eared girl sat curled, tail twitching weakly. Leather armor clung to her frame, scuffed and torn. Exhaustion clung to her worse than the chains. Her golden eyes flicked to us, sharp but tired.
Across from her, an elf sat rigid, spine a rod of iron, ears twitching at every sound. His eyes, narrow and hard, burned hate toward our captors.
My chest tightened. Beastkin. Elves. In all the books I'd studied at Regina's mansion, their kind hadn't existed. Not in this world. Yet here they were—breathing, watching, as bewildered by us as we were by them.
Alpha smirked as if she'd found her favorite new toy. Mésos leaned back, eyes closed, detached. Omega's fury still smoldered, pinned on the man who'd dared to touch her.
The carriage jolted forward. Through the wooden slats, the world blurred—until it sharpened again on ruins rising ahead.
Once-palace towers clawed at the sky, jagged skeletons of stone patched with scavenged plates and crude beams. Smoke bled from chimneys hammered into place, carrying with it the bitter scent of oil and charred wood.
It wasn't a palace anymore. It was a fortress—grandeur gutted and replaced with rust and scavenged steel.
And now, like offerings on a platter, we were being delivered into its heart—whether to live as prisoners or die as nothing more than kindling for its fire.