My head was spinning.Not like when you've had too much to drink—no… this was worse.As if my thoughts had been ripped from their roots and transplanted into another body, another world.
The last thing I remembered was going down the stairs.My ankle twisted. I fell. I felt the impact.But then… another image.A horse.Wild. Uncontrolled. A violent jolt. A marble floor and distant screams.A horse?But I've never ridden one in my life.
A sharp pain pierced through my skull, knocking me to my knees.I curled up, trembling, feeling my mind shatter into a thousand fragments.And then… something opened.
Two lives.Two souls.Two consciousnesses trying to occupy the same place.
A downpour of unknown memories invaded my mind.Names, faces, battles, secrets, castles, rituals, bloodlines, crowns…And then, nothing.A vast white void that covered everything.
From the center of that void, a figure of light emerged.It had no face, but its voice was as soft as the wind and as heavy as time.
—I'm sorry… but you're the only hope we have left.
—Who are you? Where am I? What's happening?
—There's no time to explain. All of my memories… are now yours. Be careful with all of them… none of them are who they say they are.
Before I could respond, the white was devoured by shadow.Darkness. Alive. Pulsing. With eyes that were not eyes and claws that needed no form.A deep, guttural voice echoed through the void:
—Princess… what are you trying to do… again?
The figure of light placed its hand on my forehead.And then, everything exploded.
Images, voices, languages, secrets, spells, ancient chronicles, unfulfilled prophecies, forbidden names, and words that made the soul bleed.All of it was hurled violently into my being…Too much.Too fast.
The light was swallowed.Its cry of failure lost in the dark.
It hadn't managed to give me all the information.And without all of it… I wouldn't survive.
I opened my eyes.
I was no longer the ordinary girl who had tripped down the stairs.No longer someone the world would forget.
Now, I was Princess Elizabeth Rousendahal.The sole heir to the Kingdom of Aurel.Guardian of the most powerful mineral in existence.
A prisoner of a treaty that would force me to choose one of five princes to save —or doom— all of humanity.
I knew I didn't have all the memories.But what I had seen… the little I had felt…Terrified me.
Because now I understood something I never could have imagined:This world didn't need a princess.It needed a liar, a strategist… or an assassin.