The world ended in fire and agony.
Sir Alistair's final memory was the searing heat of dragon's breath, the smell of his own scorched plate mail, and the terrifyingly beautiful sound of Princess Elara's scream being cut short. He had failed. His oath, his life, his purpose—all consumed in a single, catastrophic failure.
Then, nothing.
A void of silence and cold.
And then… not cold. Warmth. The rough texture of a wool blanket. The scent of straw, leather oil, and… stale beer.
Wait. Smell?
Sir Alistair's eyes snapped open. He expected the golden halls of the Eternal Halls of Valor, or perhaps the grim darkness of the underworld. He did not expect to be staring up at a low, wooden ceiling, thick with dust and cobwebs. He was lying on a stiff cot in a small, Spartan room. A single, grimy window let in the pale light of dawn.
Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through him. This was the barracks. His old barracks, from a decade ago, when he was just a new recruit in the Royal Guard of Aethelgard.
He pushed himself up, his body groaning in protest. But the pain was wrong. It was the deep, familiar ache of overworked muscles and old training injuries, not the phantom pain of being incinerated. He looked down at his hands. They were strong, calloused, but… younger. The scar across his knuckles from his first duel was there, but the deeper one from the Battle of the Crimson Ford, earned years later, was gone.
His heart began to hammer against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of confusion. He stumbled to a small, polished steel mirror hanging crookedly on the wall. The face that stared back was his own, but a version he hadn't seen in years. He was perhaps twenty, his jawline still sharp with youth, his eyes—the same steel-grey—wide with a confusion that his younger self had never possessed.
This is the past. The year before the… before it all…
The thought was insane, impossible. And yet, the evidence was in the muscle memory of this younger body, in the familiar, rough-spun tunic he wore.
A torrent of memories, not his own, yet inextricably his, flooded his mind. Sir Alistair, the loyal, somewhat dull-headed knight, devoted to the Crown. And then, another set of memories, layered over them like a shroud. Memories of a man from another world. A man who had read a book. A tragic, brutal, and wildly popular fantasy epic called A Song of Ash and Crimson.
In that book, Sir Alistair was a minor character. The steadfast knight of the tragically fated Princess Elara. His sole purpose in the narrative was to die pointlessly, torn apart by a wyvern, two months from now, during the Royal Hunt. His death was meant to showcase the rising danger in the kingdom, a footnote to propel the real main characters into action.
Princess Elara herself, kind-hearted and fiercely intelligent, was doomed to a far worse fate. Betrayed, captured, and used as a sacrificial pawn in a dark ritual a year from now, her death unleashing the very apocalypse that Alistair had just… experienced?
He braced himself against the wall, vomiting onto the straw-strewn floor. It wasn't just time travel. He was in the story. He was the cannon-fodder knight. And the horror he had witnessed was not a final failure, but a future that was still to come.
The door to his quarters creaked open. A burly man with a red beard stuck his head in. "Alistair? You alive in there? You were drowning your sorrows pretty hard last night. Captain's doing inspection in an hour. Look sharp."
It was Brynden, another guardsman. A character who, in the book, would die of a fever in six months, off-page.
Alistair—the soul within him—stared, his mind racing. The knowledge of the book was a map of doom. A guide to every coming disaster, every betrayal, every monster that would crawl from the dark.
The initial terror began to recede, burned away by a new, fierce emotion. Purpose.
He had been given a second chance. Not as a king, a mage, or a hero. But as himself. As a knight. His oath was not void. It was more vital than ever.
He would not die to a wyvern. And Princess Elara would not be a sacrifice.
But how? He was just one man. A low-ranking knight with no lands, no great wealth, and, in the eyes of the court, no remarkable talent beyond swinging a sword with decent skill.
The man-from-the-other-world's knowledge provided the answer. He knew things. He knew of lost training manuals, forgotten elven techniques that enhanced strength and speed. He knew where a fallen star, a shard of celestial iron that could forge a blade capable of harming creatures of darkness, had landed in the Whispering Woods. He knew of hidden dungeons containing artifacts of power, and which courtiers were secretly plotting with the enemy.
Strength. He needed strength. Not just the strength of his arm, but the strength of influence, of resources, of magic. He had to grow stronger, faster than the plot could unfold.
He looked back into the mirror, and the eyes that stared back were no longer confused. They were hardened with resolve, burning with the fire of a man who had already died once and found the experience lacking.
"Today," he whispered to his reflection, his voice a rough promise. "Today, I begin."
He cleaned up his mess, splashed water on his face, and dressed in his guard uniform. The routine was familiar, a anchor in the storm of his new reality. As he fastened his sword belt, he didn't see the simple steel longsword of a guardsman. He saw the first, crude tool of his salvation.
An hour later, he stood at attention in the barracks yard with two dozen other men as Captain Vorlik, a grizzled veteran with a perpetual scowl, walked the line. The Captain stopped in front of Alistair, his eyes critical.
"Sir Alistair. You're with the Princess's detail today. She's taking her morning walk in the Royal Gardens. Don't slouch. And try to look like you're actually paying attention for once."
A jolt went through him. The Princess. Elara. His charge. His failure. His purpose.
He snapped a crisp salute, sharper than he had ever managed in his first youth. "Yes, Captain!"
The Captain's scowl deepened slightly in surprise at the uncharacteristic fervor, but he just grunted and moved on.
Alistair fell into step behind two senior knights as they marched towards the royal apartments. His mind was no longer on the past or the impossible future. It was on the now. On the gravel path of the garden. On the first step of a very long road.
They reached the ornate marble archway leading into the gardens. And there she was.
Princess Elara was even more vibrant in life than in his memories or the book's descriptions. She was sixteen, with hair the color of sunlight and eyes like summer sky. She was listening intently to an elderly tutor, a smile playing on her lips. She was the picture of innocent nobility, utterly unaware of the dark clock ticking down toward her doom.
She turned, and her gaze swept over the guards. It settled on him for a fleeting second, a polite, absent-minded acknowledgment of her protectors.
In that moment, Sir Alistair, the man who had died and been reborn, made a new vow, silent and more profound than any oath sworn on a stone.
I will be the shield that does not break. I will be the sword that does not falter. I will grind the gears of fate itself to dust to keep you safe. This, I swear.
The walk in the garden was beginning. For everyone else, it was a tranquil morning. For Alistair, it was the first day of a war.