The new world was anything but a palace.
Charlotte woke up on a sagging straw cot under a leaky roof. The odors of smoke, sweat, and mold assailed her nostrils. Her new body felt smaller than her seven-year-old self. Possibly five. Bones frail, limbs adorned with bruises not earned from battle—but inflicted out of cruelty.
She had been reborn to the lowest rung of society. Rural. Remote. Neglected.
Her new name was Lina.
Her new father was an alcoholic.
And her new mother—timid, soft-spoken, and perpetually fearful—wore bruises concealed beneath rough sleeves. On her first night, Charlotte attempted to speak as herself. The man struck her across the face and told her to "stop pretending to be better."
She did not shed a tear.
She had endured worse.
Yet it was the mother who puzzled her.
For when Charlotte—Lina—looked into the woman's empty eyes, she recognized her former life's Queen. Her mother, proud and radiant. Who once sang lullabies in Elvish and stroked Charlotte's hair with fragrant fingers. Who had ruled kingdoms with her words.
This one couldn't bear to meet her daughter's gaze.
Charlotte endeavored to assist in small ways. Repairing the floorboard by the hearth. Foraging for berries before dawn. Pretending to be asleep whenever the man stumbled home, so her mother wouldn't try to shield her.
She even once took the woman's trembling hand and whispered, "You don't have to be afraid. You're still someone. You still matter."
That was the night her mother slapped her.
Forcefully. Panic blossoming in her eyes immediately afterward, but the harm was done.
"You don't understand anything," she snarled. "You think you're better? You think I chose this?"
Charlotte didn't flinch. She merely stood there.
No crown. No guards. No Mira. No Elias.
Only the body of a child and the cracked voice of a monarch striving to learn how to be loved.
That night, her mother vanished.
No note.
Just the back door swinging open. The scent of pine and the distant hoot of an owl.
She was gone by dawn.
Forever.
The villagers murmured that she had finally fled to the town up north, attempting to escape the man's fury. Some speculated she had fallen prey to bandits. Others believed she had taken her own life.
Her father raged for days. Shattered everything. Screamed at the sky. Then collapsed in a drunken stupor.
And throughout it all, Charlotte swept the ashes from the hearth and boiled roots for her own bruises.
She kept the past to herself.
She did not weep.
But that night, while gazing at the stars, she softly spoke the names of her true family. Not the ones here.
Mira. Elias. Eladin.
"I'll return to you," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "I promise."
And for the first time in this life—
The stars seemed a bit closer.