Darkness.
Then light.
My lungs caught a breath I didn't know I was missing. I opened my eyes to pale dawn filtering through sheer curtains, soft and unfamiliar. I sat up slowly; the sheets slipped from my grip, and the world felt wrong — everything too quiet, too clean.
I looked around. Polished wood floors, carved beams overhead, a heavy rug underfoot. No metal walls. No alarms. Just a room with high windows and soft echoes. My legs wobbled under me. I reached out for a chair, steadied myself, and stood.
There, in the corner, was a mirror.
My reflection stared back. Black hair falling in slight waves. Violet eyes — deep, intense, unyielding. A face I didn't know. Youthful, unscarred. Handsome in a way I had no place being.
Who am I? I breathed.
My fingers trembled as I touched the glass. The eyes looked back, full of recognition I did not feel. My mind reached for familiarity but found nothing. A flash: ashes drifting across a battlefield under a dark sky. A figure stood with sword driven into the earth, one arm gone, alone in ruin. I flinched.
Then another flash — metal ringing, whispering voices, someone calling me "trash of the family." My breath caught. But the memory fled.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and tried to steady my mind. Thoughts faded, then something else came: a subtle hum beneath my skin, a faint electrical pulse. I flexed my fingers. They moved quickly. The body felt… strong. Not mine. But powerful.
Opening my eyes, the face in the mirror seemed more real. More familiar. The black hair. The violet gaze. A name whispered in my mind, soft but certain: Sebastin Knight.
I shook my head. No. Cannot be.
And yet piece by piece I remembered —
A crest carved into an oak door: a sword with wings.
Shadows in a family hall, hushed words of "third son" and "worthless heir."
A lavish chamber I never occupied, as if I were on display.
The memories were incomplete — broken shards of someone else's life — but they pressed on me with clarity.
My heart pounded so loud I could hear it in my ears.
This body once belonged to someone else. Someone marked. Someone scorned. Someone whose end was already written.
And then the truth slid into place:
I took over his body.
My reflection remained in the mirror — still handsome, still youthful, still wearing that face with the violet eyes. I could not hold back the chill that crawled up my spine.
I stepped away, letting the mirror fade from sight. The room felt smaller now, the air heavier. I inhaled slowly, exhaling sharply.
I didn't fully understand how or why this had happened — or what came before now.
What I did remember — faintly, like a dream from childhood at fifteen — the nights I stole away into reading.
A web novel, The Rise of the Common King.
I read it when I was young, hungry for escape. I only made it through Volume 1 before everything changed.
And yet… even after ten years, I remembered that much.
Because the final piece settled in my mind like a verdict:
Sebastin Knight was dead in the novel.