Alina stood frozen, her breath shallow and tight in her lungs, as the stranger's gaze bore into hers. His emerald robes, the colour of a deep forest moss, shimmered under the soft, pervasive glow of the starlight, making him seem less like a man and more like a figure carved from magic and moonlight. He was striking in a way that deeply unsettled her, not just because of his commanding presence, but because of the nagging, insistent familiarity in the sharp line of his jaw and the intensity of his eyes.
Sarah had described him almost exactly. A man who looked like he'd stepped out of a fairy tale.
But that didn't mean she was about to believe him. The words he had spoken still lingered in the cool, fragrant air, thick with a meaning she refused to accept.
"Princess Elyria."
Alina's spine stiffened, a surge of defiant energy allowing her to break her paralysis and force herself to look him directly in the eye. His expression was utterly unreadable—calm, measured, like a placid lake hiding unfathomable depths. It was as if he had expected her reaction before she even had it. There was no amusement in his gaze, no hint of a trick; there was only a profound and unnerving certainty. He was completely, unshakably assured that she was Elyria, whether she accepted it or not.
That absolute confidence made her profoundly uneasy. It was a direct assault on the only thing she truly owned: her own identity.
"I'm sorry," she said finally, her voice coming out sharper and colder than she intended. "I think you've got the wrong person."
The man didn't react immediately. He didn't blink or shift his weight. He simply studied her, his gaze so penetrating that she felt as if he were peeling back the layers of her mundane life to see something she herself had never known was there.
Alina continued, feeling the irrational need to explain herself, to defend her reality, even as her mind screamed at her to stay quiet, to not engage.
"My name is Alina. Alina Gray. I live in a small, cramped apartment in a city you've never heard of. I work an exhausting nine-to-five job filing paperwork, and I have never in my life worn a crown, nor do I have any plans on starting."
She deliberately, instinctively, didn't mention the ring. A cold knot of certainty in her gut told her he already knew about it. It was likely the very reason she was standing here.
Still, he remained silent, his stillness a powerful counterpoint to the storm of confusion and fear raging inside her.
She exhaled sharply, the sound loud in the tranquil clearing. Frustration began to bubble up beneath her confusion, hot and sharp. "Look, I don't know what kind of elaborate joke this is, or if I'm hallucinating, but I am not a princess. I'm not part of whatever kingdom this is, and I sure as hell don't belong here."
A strange, fleeting glimmer crossed his dark eyes then, something she couldn't quite place. It wasn't quite amusement, but perhaps intrigue. As if her vehement denial was an interesting, unexpected facet of a truth he already considered absolute. But he said nothing.
Alina didn't give him a chance to. She couldn't stand in front of that unnerving silence for a second longer.
She turned on her heel, her bare feet making no sound on the mossy earth, and walked away.
The further she moved from him, the more her surroundings unraveled into pure, breathtaking wonder. Her internal, cynical name for this place—Emeraldia, or maybe Esmeralda—felt both fitting and woefully inadequate. This was not simply a kingdom.
It was a living, breathing dream.
The trees with their shimmering silver leaves seemed to whisper ancient songs on the breeze, a melody that tingled beneath her skin and resonated in her bones. The ground beneath her feet was not dirt or stone, but something smooth like marble, yet warm and soft, pulsing with a gentle, rhythmic energy as though it carried the heartbeat of the world itself. Lanterns of captured starlight floated in the air, suspended by nothing but the will of the breeze, their crystalline shells flickering in mesmerizing hues of sapphire and amethyst.
The rivers did not simply run with water. They glowed—thin, elegant streams of liquid light twisting and turning through the landscape, their surfaces reflecting constellations that did not belong to her sky. And above it all, that impossible sky stretched endlessly, a deep and infinite canvas of midnight. Its stars were so impossibly close she felt she could reach up and pluck one. It was not a static night sky like the one she was used to; it was alive, swirling with nebulae of violet and gold, shifting slowly, forming patterns that pulsed like luminous veins.
Alina found herself breathless, the air catching in her lungs not with fear, but with something else entirely.
Wonder. A deep, childlike awe she thought had been extinguished in her years ago.
She had never seen anything like this. It was too perfect, too profoundly enchanting to be anything but a fantasy, a product of a sleeping mind.
Yet here she was. Walking through it. Feeling the cool, magic-infused air on her skin. Smelling the scent of night-blooming jasmine and damp, ancient earth.
She shivered, hugging herself tightly, a desperate, physical attempt to keep hold of her skepticism. She had always been someone who approached life with logic, with caution, with the resigned acceptance of a dull and predictable reality. This place, this man, this entire situation, was testing the very foundations of everything she believed in.
How could it be real? How could she be here?
Her fingers ghosted over the emerald ring, still snug and warm on her finger.
Magic?
She had entered this world through magic. It was the one fact she couldn't rationalize away. She had tried to ignore it, tried to push away its terrifying implications. But as she walked through this impossible kingdom, she could feel it humming all around her, a tangible energy in the air, whispering secrets she wasn't ready to hear.
What if… what if he was right?
She stopped herself from completing that thought, shaking her head as if to physically dislodge it.
No. She was not going to start believing in prophecies and lost princesses.
She was not Elyria.
She was just Alina. A woman with a boring job, a tiny apartment, and a crush on a man who barely knew she existed. Just a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Wasn't she?
Something shifted beside her. A small, warm breeze tickled her shoulder.
She turned instinctively—only to freeze completely, her blood turning to ice in her veins.
A dove had landed on her shoulder.
But this was no ordinary dove. Its feathers were not white, but the colour of pure, spun gold, shimmering under the starlight with an ethereal radiance. Its eyes were not simple beads, but like tiny, polished obsidian, holding a knowing, ancient intelligence that rooted her to the spot.
Alina's heart pounded a frantic, heavy rhythm against her ribs. She should have been startled, should have flinched away, but the bird simply stared at her, its presence calm and deliberate. It felt… regal.
And then—it spoke.
Its voice was not a squawk or a coo. It was a soft, melodic sound, like wind rustling through the silver leaves, yet every word was perfectly, impossibly clear, carrying a weight that felt too ancient to ignore.
"You've grown into a thing of beauty, Princess Elyria."
Alina inhaled sharply, a gasp that stole all the air from her lungs.
Her blood ran cold. The world narrowed, the beautiful, magical landscape fading into a blur. All that existed was the impossible weight of the golden bird on her shoulder and the sound of its voice echoing in her soul.
She wasn't breathing. She wasn't thinking. She was simply a vessel for a single, shattering realization.
And worst of all—she wasn't denying it anymore. The man could have been a madman. Her mind could have been playing tricks on her. But a talking, golden dove? That was a truth her logic could not fight. This was a magical place.
And she, impossibly, terrifyingly, might just be royalty.