I woke up the next morning feeling like someone had stuffed sand into my eye socket and shook me around like a dice cup.
Jerry tried to pep talk me.
"Language Arts isn't that hard. You read books. Sometimes."
I threw a pillow at him.
He dodged.
We walked—well, I walked, he hitched a ride on my shoulder—to Language Arts. The classroom was bright and airy, sunlight flooding through high windows. Rows of desks filled with nobles, a few commoners, two beastfolk, and one girl from the Hidden Kingdom pretending to be a noble with all the grace of a drunk baby deer.
I slumped into my seat.
The teacher—a man in his mid-forties with a long green cloak and stern eyebrows—cleared his throat.
"Good morning, students. My name is Professor Quinlan. You may address me as Professor Quinlan. Today we begin with a review of rhetorical structure—"
And that was the last thing I heard.
Not because I wasn't paying attention.
Because I fell asleep.
Instantly.
The moment his voice settled into the comfortable monotony of someone who loved grammar a little too much, my head drifted forward, my eyes shut, and I slipped right into unconsciousness as if gravity had a personal vendetta against me.
And then—
I was home.
Back in the Hidden Kingdom.
Back where everything smelled like cold earth and pine needles and distant ocean.
Back when the world was small, trapped inside the fog.
Back when my parents were alive.
My mother sat on a stump, weaving tiny frozen flowers into a crown with patient fingers. Her laughter warmed the air like a spark. My father swung a wooden sword in slow arcs, demonstrating the form for me to mimic.
"Again," he said with kind firmness. "You're gripping too tightly."
I giggled and tried again.
There was struggle even then—our kingdom always lived on the knife's edge—but there was warmth. There was the quiet certainty that even though the fog enclosed us, there was hope.
That we were together.
Snowflakes drifted around us.
My mother placed the flower crown on my head.
My father tapped my forehead lovingly with the blunt of his sword.
And then—
"Mavis?"
The memory shattered like glass.
I jerked awake so fast my neck cracked.
Professor Quinlan was staring at me, unimpressed.
"Miss Van Buqeat. What is the answer to the question?"
I blinked.
Question?
The entire class stared at me.
My mind scrambled—and then, oddly, the answer came instantly, perfectly, as if the knowledge had been dropped directly into my skull.
"The theme reflects the moral tension between societal expectation and individual truth," I said automatically. "It highlights the conflict of identity."
Professor Quinlan raised a brow.
"…Correct."
Jerry whispered proudly, "Genius."
I slumped in relief.
But then—
My head throbbed.
Hard.
Images flashed again—my parents laughing, the sword, the flower crown—but the fog was gone. Peeled away like a curtain.
And behind that fog—
A different day.
A different memory.
One I had never remembered before.
My parents standing outside our home.
Alive.
Talking in low tones.
Concern shadowing their faces.
The Captain of the Guard approached them—a large man with armor too polished for a starving kingdom.
He spoke.
I couldn't hear it.
I could only see.
Something felt off. My dream-self—my adult self—followed them with her eyes.
The captain walked behind my parents…
And struck.
Struck my mother first—
a blow to the head that sent her collapsing.
Then my father—
a blade to the ribs, blunt side or not, he crumpled.
No struggle.
No warning.
No mercy.
They fell like cut strings.
Then the captain dragged their bodies—unconscious, injured—across the snow, toward what had once been our kingdom's lake. Before it dried up. Before everything changed.
And tossed them in.
My breath seized in my throat.
The classroom warped around me.
The desks blurred.
The floor rolled beneath my feet as bile rose sharply in my throat.
I felt sick.
Horribly, violently sick.
My stomach lurched, and I barely managed to choke out, "Professor—may I go to the nurse—?"
He frowned but nodded.
I fled.
The hallway tilted as I stumbled through it, legs weak, vision flickering between the academy's stone walls and the frozen memory of my parents sinking beneath icy water.
The betrayal.
The captain.
The truth I had never known.
Why?
Why did he—
Why did they—
What did this mean?
My breath came shallow, uneven.
Jerry whispered urgently, "Mavis? Mavis, stop—your face is white—Mavis—"
I didn't hear him.
I collided with someone.
Hard.
I fell to the floor, landing on my palms. My breath hitched.
"O–Oh— I'm so sor—"
When I looked up, the words died in my throat.
A woman stood above me, her brown hair cascading in soft waves past her shoulders, her blue eyes startlingly gentle yet sharp around the edges… familiar, somehow, though I couldn't place why. Her expression shifted—something flickered across her face, an emotion I didn't recognize—then it vanished.
She knelt instantly.
"Are you alright?" she asked, voice warm, steady. Concern softened her features. "You're pale. Very pale—are you hurt?"
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
My lungs contracted as if the air had turned to knives.
I tried again.
Still no words.
"Mavis," Jerry hissed, "you're hyperventilating—Mavis—"
The woman didn't hesitate.
Without warning, she lifted me easily into her arms—princess-carry, bridal style, humiliatingly effortless.
"I'll take you to the nurse," she said. "Just breathe."
Her scent—jasmine and something oceanic—was oddly calming. My head lulled against her shoulder as my vision darkened around the edges.
Before I slipped under, I managed to whisper, "W–What's your… name?"
She glanced down at me, lips parting.
"My name is Rian," she said softly. Then she hesitated. "…A Baroness from the Ipse kingdom."
But as she spoke—
Black fog drifted from her mouth.
Thick.
Dark.
Curling at the edges like smoke from a dying fire.
A lie.
A lie so heavy Odin's Eye burned beneath my eyelid.
And the last thing I saw before losing consciousness—
was that fog wrapping around her like a shadow that didn't belong.