PLEASE READ THE PROLOGUE FIRST
PROLOGUE: The Vanishing
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The basement air hung thick and cold, smelling faintly of old concrete and burnt sage.
"Are you ready?" Adam, their self-proclaimed witchcraft guy, asked.
He stood over Trova, who was laid out on a bare wooden plank, looking less like a willing volunteer and more like a reluctant ritual sacrifice in her threadbare jeans and oversized, gray sweatshirt. The plan, hatched in a haze of ambition and questionable occult textbooks, was audacious: a new soul-shifting technique blended with time travel. Their target? A recently deceased, ultra-famous celebrity whose vast estate was now ripe for the stealing. Trova was supposed to shift inside the corpse and "acquire" the riches.
The narrator didn't have to glance at Adam to reply, "Yep, send me in there!"
A tense pause followed.
"Trova, you should rid yourself of the headphones."
The voice belonged to Bluey, Trova's overly pessimistic cousin, and the critical edge in her tone was enough to make Trova's tightly shut eyes snap open.
"No, Bluey. Wherever I go, I will definitely need music," Trova insisted, tugging the worn earcups more securely over her brown hair.
"You wouldn't even need this there," Bluey scoffed, crossing her arms tighter across her chest.
"Can you just shut up and let him start his incantation?" Trova scolded, her voice sharp with annoyance.
Adam cleared his throat, adjusting his stance over the plank. He began to chant, his voice surprisingly deep and rhythmic in the quiet space:
"Ome kweyan kokuan, shor na ha anayka ora vidi nor, iremi rema..."
He repeated the strange, throaty phrase three times. Nothing happened. The air didn't shift, the lights didn't flicker, and Trova remained irritatingly present.
Bluey let out a loud, theatrical sigh. "That sounds sinister," she said, her voice laced with obvious satisfaction.
Adam frowned, sweat beading on his forehead. "Let me see. I wonder why it's not working." He knelt, flipping frantically back through the pages of his heavy, leather-bound book of incantations, the brittle paper rustling loudly.
"Oh, no," he whispered, his face going pale. "I was supposed to say—Ome kweyan koku an shor na ha anayka oyi vidi nor, assovi iremi—"
He never got to finish the crucial correction.
With a sound like static electricity rapidly collapsing in on itself, Trova didn't just disappear—she dissolved. One moment, she was fully there: the gray sweatshirt, the frayed jeans, the determined set of her jaw, and the bulky headphones. The next, she was a shimmering, rapidly shrinking distortion of light and air, like a drop of water evaporating off a hot surface.
Then, there was only the smell of dust and the faint click of her clothing falling onto the wooden plank.
Bluey stared at the empty space. Adam was frozen, his mouth agape over the half-spoken word.
What the actual hell just happened?
Where is Trova?
CHAPTER 1 - TRANSMIGRATION GONE RONG
"Princess Perdita!"
The shout hammered through the fog of Trova's consciousness like a slap. Then another, closer and more frantic.
"Princess Perdita, wake up!"
Trova's eyes were still closed, but her ears registered a cluster of roughly dressed maids hovering like nervous pigeons around a massive, four-poster canopy bed. The air was cold, scented with stale incense and the deep mustiness of old stone. It was a royal bedroom—velvet curtains, thick tapestries, the whole medieval drama.
Said princess, however, was wrapped like a human burrito, aggressively ignoring the historical theatrics.
Suddenly, a delighted, high-pitched screech cut through the room.
"It's time!"
A girl in an explosion of sparkly princess attire bounced inside and, without ceremony, poked the lump under the blanket—specifically, at her feet. "Your wedding day!"
'The fuck are these people yelling about?'
The person they are referring to as princess—Trova, actually—groaned and covered her head, trying to smother the noise.
The sparkle princess poked her again. Harder this time.
Trova shot upright, eyes wide and lethal.
"Can I PLEASE be left alone?!"
A deafening chorus of gasps burst around the room. The maids froze, hands clutching their simple aprons. Princess Anya, the girl in sparkles, stopped mid-bounce. Even the gargoyles carved into the heavy oak furniture seemed shocked.
"Princess Perdita," one of the maids cooed, her voice trembling.
"Who are they calling Princess… Pu-what?" Trova muttered, scowling. She glanced behind her, then back at the cluster of staring faces. "Who are you—"
And then the cold, horrifying reality hit.
Adam. Bluey. The stupid incense-smelling basement. The INCANTATION.
Her eyes blew open, wider than the maid's shocked faces combined.
'I am not in the basement. I am NOT in my body. I am probably NOT even in 2026.' Her thoughts spiraled, crashing into the stone reality of the room.
"Where in the hell am I?!" Trova—currently inhabiting Princess Perdita—demanded, her voice rising to a shriek of panic. She had been aiming to transmigrate into a dead celebrity's body to steal his twenty-first-century wealth, and instead, she woke up… in a princess? A princess named Perdita. In what looked like…
'Is this some medieval cosplay land? What country is this? The UK? Medieval Disneyland? What?!'
"Are all of you mute? Where am I? What is happening?!" she snapped, the urgency of her confusion overriding any caution.
They stared at her like she was a bizarre, suddenly talking alien. One of the maids sniffed, dabbing at a tear. "We are most certainly not mute, Your Highness. You were."
Trova froze.
"…I what?"
Princess Anya stepped forward, her eyes shiny with a manic excitement. "Perdy, sweetheart, what happened?"
"I'm not—" Trova stopped herself abruptly, the word catching in her throat. Telling them she wasn't Perdita, the mute princess, would probably earn her a swift, uncomfortable date with a sharp axe. "I need to leave," she muttered instead.
She scrambled out of the great bed, ignoring their renewed chorus of horrified stares. The heavy velvet nightdress felt like a ridiculous costume.
"They're all weird," she whispered, mostly to herself.
Princess Anya followed her, nearly vibrating with joy.
"Perdita, you found your voice on your wedding day! I'm so happy!"
Trova paused mid-step.
"…I was mute?"
Anya nodded eagerly, her sparkling tiara bobbing. "You haven't said a single word since you were born!"
The maids vigorously bobbed their heads in agreement.
Trova blinked, processing the nightmare of being a voiceless puppet. "Well, that would've been shit."
She lifted her hands to gather her hair—and her fingers brushed against something plastic and familiar nestled beneath her curls.
Her headphones.
"My babies!" she gasped, clutching the battered plastic shell. A genuine, unrestrained smile broke through the panic.
Princess Anya tilted her head, her curiosity overcoming her wedding fervor. "What is this strange dark thing?"
Trova laughed awkwardly, clutching the relic of her former life. "What do you mean… what is this?"
"I've never seen anything like it. How did you get it? Where did you get it?"
"What?!" Trova clutched the headphones tighter, confusion replacing relief. Don't they have earbuds? Do they not know what Bluetooth is?
The head maid, seeing the ceremony time slipping away, stepped in. "Princess Anya, we don't have time for toys. She's only just learned to speak—probably not enough to explain anything properly. We must prepare her for the ceremony. The prince will soon arrive."
The maids reached for the headphones like they were demonic relics sent to corrupt their mute princess.
Trova yanked them protectively to her chest. "This is MINE."
"Yes, yes, of course, Princess," the maid said, her voice dripping with forced soothingness. "But we must get you ready for your wedding."
Perdita's brain stalled. "Wedding… ceremony?"
Princess Anya clapped joyfully, the sound echoing off the stone walls. "With the warrior prince!"
Perdita stared blankly at the two princesses. Her whole body felt cold.
'…WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY MEAN I'M GETTING MARRIED TO A WARRIOR PRINCE?!'
Trova, trapped in Perdita's skin, took a slow, deliberate breath and tried again, her voice cracking with disbelief.
"Am I really getting married?!"
The head maid blinked rapidly, as if the princess had suddenly grown two extra heads. "Princess Perdita, are you… well? Did you injure your head? Why are you asking all these strange questions?"
"You need to be ready," Princess Anya insisted, grabbing Perdita firmly by the arm. That's when Perdita noticed the ultimate anachronism—beneath the velvet nightgown, she was still wearing her slightly scuffed, very recognizable sneakers.
Sneakers. Under a royal nightdress. On her forced medieval wedding day.
"No, no, no—I gotta go," Perdita said quickly, snatching her arm back.
She forced a wide, aggressively unbothered smile, bunching up the heavy nightgown to slip past them.
"Okay, ladies. I love that you're all super passionate about… whatever this is—"
"Your wedding," a maid supplied, utterly bewildered.
"Yes. That." Perdita rolled her eyes. "But I have business to take care of. Very important, very private business. In a different century."
Princess Anya looked at her like she'd just announced she was a fire-breathing dragon.
"Perdita, you have no business! You've never spoken to anyone outside the palace walls! What business?!"
"I'm sorry, but—nope. Leave me alone. I can't get married," Perdita said, already edging toward the arched wooden door.
Anya's face turned bright red with betrayal. "That is impossible! You are marrying this prince to save this kingdom! You cannot simply… back out!"
Perdita scoffed, her hand finding the cold iron door handle. "Okay. Bye."
And before any of them could squeak another protest, she bolted—the velvet nightdress flying behind her, her modern sneakers slapping a loud, rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack against the stone floor, the precious headphones bouncing around her neck.
She left a room full of dumbfounded, frozen faces and a trail of medieval confusion.
Princess Perdita never protested.
Princess Perdita never had opinions.
Princess Perdita never even spoke.
What in the ever-loving heavens was happening to their mute princess?
Anya snapped out of her shock, her sparkling gown rustling sharply. "I will go and inform Father of the… good and terrible news. You—go after her! Quickly!"
"Yes, Princess Anya!" the maids cried, scrambling to obey.
>
Princess Perdita—Trova—burst out of the royal chambers and into the adjoining hallway, immediately smacked by a wave of brutally icy air.
"What the hell…" she muttered, hugging herself tight. Just yesterday she'd been sweating in the muggy, humid summer heat of 2026. Now the sky pressing down outside the narrow windows was a solid, oppressive gray, the wind was a sharp, cutting blade, and the stone floors were cold enough to send an ache straight up her bare-socked calves.
She hurried through the quiet, torchlit hallway, past old iron sconces that dripped oil and heavy, dust-caked tapestries depicting battles and forgotten kings. With every primitive detail she saw—the arrow slits instead of windows, the lack of electric light, the smell of damp earth and woodsmoke—the horrifying realization solidified.
This wasn't the UK. This wasn't even the 1800s.
"Medieval? Renaissance? Adam, you absolute idiot, what did you do?" Her voice was a desperate rasp. Her heart hammered against the headphones pressed to her chest.
How was she supposed to get back? More importantly, how was she supposed to get married in a world where women didn't even have basic rights, let alone pockets?
"Nope. Nope." She shook her head fiercely, her breath fogging in the cold air. "I'm not marrying a warrior prince. Me? Never. Laughable, I'm so running away."
She darted past startled maids, dodged two bewildered-looking guards with oversized axes, managed to blend in by pretending to belong for three terrifying seconds, then broke into a sprint again.
Eventually, she reached the back gardens. A tall, formidable stone wall rose ahead of her like a permanent prison boundary, topped with jagged, uneven stones. Trees clustered around it, their branches skeletal and stiff in the biting cold.
"Thank God I was spontaneous back home," she whispered, eyeing the height. She used to climb fences for fun—and questionable, highly ill-advised dares.
Miraculously, a thick, old rope, frayed and dangling from a massive branch, hung against the wall, suggesting someone had once attempted swinging or climbing here.
Perfect.
She grabbed the rough hemp, ignoring the pain in her palms, and began to climb immediately.
The heavy velvet nightdress wasn't too restrictive, but damn—it was flimsy, and the freezing wind cut right through it, raising goosebumps on her skin. Her sneakers were a lifesaver, the rubber gripping the rough bark and stone, but the fence was absurdly, impossibly tall.
"I'll figure out the landing when I get up there," she muttered, adrenaline pushing her higher, pulling herself over the thick, icy rope.
Just as her fingers found the ledge of the wall, a deep, resonant baritone broke the silence directly below her. It was a voice that commanded attention, sharp as steel.
"I didn't know this kingdom had monkeys."
The comment startled her so sharply she lost her grip on the final scramble.
She slipped—but her adrenaline-fuelled reflexes kicked in instantly. Instead of falling, she grabbed the rope with a desperate, two-leg clutch, and the momentum of her slide flipped her completely, violently upside down.
And that's when catastrophic disaster struck.
The heavy, loose velvet nightdress slid straight over her torso and head, like a sack being pulled up. The fabric trapped her arms instantly, leaving her completely blinded. Her legs dangled above her head like some confused, helpless, upside-down scarecrow swinging madly on a vine.
"Oh no. No no no—" she muffled, struggling blindly against the velvet suffocating her face.
Then, with a sickening jolt of memory, she remembered the history books. They didn't wear underwear, let alone pants, beneath their gowns in this era.
'My ass is outside! My entire, bare ass is hanging in the cold!'
A cold, vicious gust of wind confirmed the appalling realization, stinging her skin.
"FUCK!"
She dangled there, upside down, blinded, freezing, helpless, and fully—horrifyingly—exposed to whoever that deep, authoritative baritone voice belonged to.