I was born in a slum within the Custodian Kingdom, where the sun rarely reached the narrow alleys winding between crammed wooden shanties. My parents were thieves not by choice, but because honest work was scarce and hunger was a constant, unrelenting companion. They taught me everything they knew: how to move silently through shadows, how to read faces for signs of danger, how to take what we needed without being caught, and how to fight to defend myself. Whether you fought for the right side or the wrong side, you had no choice but to fight and survive. In this cruel world, fighting even when you had nothing else was the only way to stay alive.
Perhaps that is exactly why I managed to survive the war for as long as I did.
When I was thirteen years old, they were killed during a botched attempt to steal grain from a merchant's wagon. I found them lying in a dark alley, blood pooling around their bodies, with the very bag they had risked everything for spilled across the mud. That day, I learned just how cruel the world could be, and how little human life meant to those who already had more than enough. That moment of cruelty shaped the course of history and fate for a child who only wanted to eat, play, and be with his family.
Pain and anger emotions no young heart should ever have to carry consumed me entirely.
I became a boy who had no choice but to fend for himself. I slept in empty crates or beneath bridges, ate scraps scavenged from market stalls, and fought off other street children who tried to take what little I possessed. I believed fate had forced me into its cruel game, that I was born only to suffer, to struggle, and to be treated as nothing more than dirt beneath the feet of nobles who had never known a day of hunger. I cursed fate itself. If it thought I would simply accept such a miserable lot in life, it was wrong. I fought to survive, pushing back against every blow it dealt me. Eventually, I learned to strike back harder and play the game by becoming cruel myself.
I was sixteen when a recruiting officer spotted me fighting off three boys twice my size, armed with nothing but quick feet and a sharp piece of broken pipe. He gave me a clear choice: join the army and receive three meals a day, or remain in the slums and likely die before turning twenty-one. It wasn't much of a choice at all.
At the time, I told myself: Finally. A chance to change my life. A chance to turn fate's own game against it. But I realize now that I only dug my own grave by believing I had finally won against destiny. I was wrong.
At seventeen, I drew my first blade and stood in the front lines. Battle was worse than anything I could have imagined back in the slums. The noise, the blood, and the raw fear blurred together into a nightmare from which there was no waking. Yet, I was good at it. My years on the streets had taught me to move fast and think faster, and to use every possible advantage I could find. After that, I was always placed at the front, where the fighting was thickest. Boys like me were cheap, disposable, and easily replaced we were nothing more than cannon fodder.
I run my fingers over my palm, tracing the place where a scar once sat the mark from that very first battle, when an enemy's dagger sliced through my glove. Even now, in Prince Vernom's body, I can still feel its sting sometimes, as if the memory has been carved deep into my soul. That man was the first person I ever killed. The act is etched into my mind like a curse I cannot shake one that eventually turned into a grim obsession. I remember that enemy soldier begging me to spare him, saying he had a family waiting for him at home. At that moment, I despised the very word family, because someone out there had stolen mine from me.
The mirror shows me Vernom's gentle, refined features, yet my hands though slimmer and softer now move with the practiced ease of a soldier who spent half his life holding a blade. I look out the window of the prince's chambers, gazing at the manicured gardens and gleaming towers of the Callibean palace, and feel like a stranger trespassing in a world built specifically to keep people like my old self far away.
Why did this happen? I ask myself again, turning away from the glass. Why did I survive that arrow only to wake up in the body of an enemy prince? Is this a curse, or some twisted blessing?
If this is just another of fate's cruel games… should I play along willingly this time? And then what? Suffer all over again? Because in the end, no one truly wins against fate. That is the hardest truth I have ever stumbled upon.
A soft knock at the door pulls me from my swirling thoughts.
"Your Highness?" A young servant boy peeks his head inside, eyes wide with nervousness. "Did you have a good dream, Prince?"
Define 'good dream', I think bitterly. I cannot remember the last time I slept peacefully without scenes of the battlefield seeping into my rest. Can I even call my current situation a good dream? Is this reality, or just another nightmare dressed up like a pleasant daydream?
Ten days have passed since I woke up here, yet I still cannot fully settle into this body. Faint, vague memories flicker at the edges of my mind: glimpses of a quiet boy tending flowers in the palace gardens; harsh words spoken by nobles who barely acknowledged his existence; a mother who held him close when no one else would. The whole experience feels like waking up as a toddler again a blank slate despite the fact that I am twenty-eight years old.
All I know for certain is that Prince Vernom hit his head very hard in an accident, and suddenly… here I am. Playing the role of a prince with amnesia is easy enough. We are the same age, yet I doubt we shared anything else in common. A slum child and a prince worlds apart in every way. I am sure Vernom was soft-spoken, gentle, and raised with care, even if he was never favored by the court. Meanwhile, I was raised in filth and died on a battlefield. By comparison, I must seem like a barbarian.
Every memory I hold is vague, like fog drifting over still water. It is as if whatever force placed me here did not want to complicate things, only granting me small fragments from both my past life and Vernom's. Perhaps it was done to keep me from getting tangled up in what was, so that I could simply live as I am now.
But how? How does one learn to live as a prince? I have no idea, and right now, I do not even want to know. Part of me just wants to run away.
I nod to the attendant but say nothing about my thoughts or my nightmares. Words feel heavy in my throat, and I dare not raise any suspicion. Instead, I watch him set down a tray, steam rising from warm porridge, with fruit glistening like jewels upon the plate. Back in the slums, this single meal would have fed me for days. In the army, we would have fought over scraps far worse than this… or gone hungry entirely.
The boy's name is Cael; he is new here, roughly the same age I was when I became a soldier. He once told me his family had sold him to work in the palace. Now he lingers by the door, his eyes darting between the untouched food and my face. He looks worried, and I realize that Vernom must have been the kind of person who noticed when his servants were troubled. That is so different from who I was a man who only ever cared about surviving, never about anyone else. Yet, this quiet warmth feels strangely familiar… perhaps the prince truly was a kind soul.
"Is something wrong?" I ask, my voice coming out quieter than I intended. If this were my old body, I would have shouted the question with anger. But something about being inside this frame makes raising my voice feel wrong, almost painful. I tried holding a sword once, just to see my hand trembled, and the weapon felt impossibly heavy, foreign to me now.
He jumps slightly and bows his head quickly. "No, Your Highness! Nothing at all. I just… you've barely eaten anything these past few days. The physician says you need to regain your strength."
"I am not very hungry," I say simply, letting out a deep sigh. Who could possibly have an appetite when they wake up living a stranger's life with no understanding of why?
I look from the food to him. noticing the worn patches on his tunic, and the way he shrinks into himself as if afraid to take up too much space. It all reminds me so much of myself at thirteen. I know that feeling far too well.
"Sit," I say, gesturing toward a small stool beside the table.
I was a soldier of Custodian; brutality was once second nature to me. But seeing boys like him stirs something different inside my chest now.
His eyes go wide with shock. "Your Highness, I couldn't possibly"
"It is alright," I say, trying to shape my face into the kind, gentle smile I think Vernom would have worn. "I do not like eating alone. And you look as though you could use something warm in your stomach."
He hesitates before slowly pulling the stool closer, sitting right on the very edge as if ready to flee at any moment. I push the cup of hot cocoa toward him and tear off half the loaf of bread.
"As I said, I am not very hungry," I repeat. "Sharing is better than letting good food go to waste, isn't it?"
Cael stares at the meal, then back at me. Tears well in his eyes, and he bows his head to hide them but I have already seen. Life is hard for every unfortunate soul like us, I think to myself.
"Thank you, Your Highness," he whispers. "No one has ever… no one has ever done something like this for me before."
I pick up my spoon and stir the porridge slowly, watching him eat. Sharing a simple meal feels more natural and right than anything I have done since waking up here. Maybe this is where I should start not by learning royal etiquette or court protocol, but by remembering what it truly means to be human, rather than a killing machine or a brutal soldier. I want to remember how to care for others, even while carrying my own heavy burdens. I do not know what tomorrow will bring, but today… today I want to be far removed from the brutal person I was in my past life.
And this boy reminds me so much of my old self… it hurts.