Sitting at a short table across from the princess in the most ornate room I had ever been in, I eyed the servant remaining in the corner left here to observe us. She had her eyes turned away, present if needed, but providing the veneer of privacy. The Matron and Mistress Celeri had left us alone together for some purpose.

  I wondered if I could get away with murdering the princess before she could stop me. Probably not… honestly, I might be able to get her to help with the right nudge to her mind.

  My eyes turned back to the princess. I refused to believe she was the same age as me, despite her appearance saying otherwise. The look on her face did not match how old she appeared. There was curiosity at her new toy, but deeper than that, a hunger that I couldn't place.

  That hunger was likely related to her new toy as well.

  As the toy, I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, uncertain how to handle the current situation.

  “Well, are you going to pour for yourself?” the princess asked, amusement clear in her voice, pulling my attention to the pot of caelune that I had been holding over my cup.

  The instincts that this current life had given me were in absolute denial that I should be allowed to drink caelune. I had been trained in its preparation and instructed against ever taking part myself.

  I must have made a pot full at least a hundred times for staff in various positions. But those positions were never to be mine, for I was one of Matron's kids. Destined to fulfill a servile role for my entire life, even if I never truly understood who I was serving.

  This probably wouldn't be so disorienting without my second set of memories informing me of the importance of the person in front of me. Yes, my child self knew what a princess was, but not the significance she would carry within the ruling class of society. Princesses were characters from stories, not real people, in both lives, I supposed. At least in one, I had been granted greater context.

  The context that was now causing me to freeze in conjunction with my refusal to partake.

  Ignoring both sets of instincts by replacing the ignorance of one with the other on both sides, I poured myself a cup and placed the pot down. The princess poured for herself as was custom then upended the bowl of granularized boundstone crystal into her own cup.

  “So, tell me, do you enjoy stories?” she asked, picking up a spoon from the tray and slowly stirring the crystals into her caelune.

  “I do enjoy a good distraction, from, well, you know. Everything,” I replied, only realizing I was being overly casual after I spoke. The wrong life lived had taken over. I quickly switched gears back to the other set of memories. “That is to say, that yes, I do enjoy reading stories.” Not that I had ever been given a chance in this life.

  There was a shifting of weight from the servant in the corner of the room that my floppy ears picked up. I ignored her, entirely fixated on the princess, whose eyes it felt like they could see right through me.

  “It seems that's something we have in common, then. There's this story I was told a tal or two ago that I recently became rather fixated on,” the princess said with a grin, putting the spoon in her mouth, she sucked the caelune off before putting it back down on the tray. “Bottoms up.”

  Aelira lifted her drink, and I carefully raised mine as well, following her motions. I downed the cup of hot filtered mineral water. The strong, bitter taste of the liquid almost made me gag, but I swallowed it down and drank deeply from the caelune.

  As the liquid slid down my throat, I could feel something glowing inside me. It wasn't warm or cold, painful or euphoric, no, it felt like light landing on my skin but glowing outward from inside me.

  The princess reached out her hand and made a ‘come here’ motion by wiggling her clawed fingers. I held my hand out for her, and she took hold of it. I noticed her palm was warm to the touch while her fingers interlinked with mine. Her eyes locked with mine, and a soft smile crossed her face.

  I couldn’t help but melt in my seat a little at the look she was giving me. Like one of those puppies you want to squeeze to death.

  I wasn’t sure which of us was the puppy in that analogy.

  “This story is about a prince who needed power. He looked all over for it, trying to find objects that would meet his needs. First, he turned to his trusted sword, passed down from his father, but that did not work for it was not might that met his needs. Then he turned to his first coin, gifted to him by his uncle, but that did not work either, for it was not wealth that met his needs either,” she explained, her eyes alight as she stared into mine. Her red irises seemed to glow with the same light that was filling me. “To tell the story short, he worked his way through every physical object he could lay claim to, but none met his demands. Finally, he turned to his closest servant, a servant girl whom he held deeply in his heart, and he realized that he did not need to look for an object any longer. For his bound was already within his reach, and from then on he became the first bearer in this kingdom's history.”

  “Ah,” I vocalized as her light crossed from her hand into mine.

  “I've always thought that the message of that story was silly,” the princess said. Her grip on my hand was firm as her light wrapped around the light within me and squeezed it tightly. “Just like I can tell you'll be mine, the prince knew that the servant girl would be his. He didn't stop looking for an object to find a person, because he had already found his object in her. You'll be my cherished object, okay?”

  Her light crushed mine in a vice-like grip, and I could feel tendrils of it snaking through my body. I gripped her hand tighter and let out a whimper at the brightness. Unable to shield my eyes because it was coming from inside me.

  “Shh, shh, it's okay. I'll take good care of you,” she said, her other hand coming up to clutch mine. “I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you would be the perfect conduit for me.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Who are you?” I asked in a whisper.

  “I'm Princess Aelira,” she replied, her voice as passionate as it was possessive, just as the light that had been building inside me collapsed into itself, I felt it tear a hole through my chest, then ignite. The moment it started to burn, Aelira's light was suddenly no longer restricting mine. Instead, it was merging with my light and filling the hole that had been punched into me. As her very essence replaced what was lost inside me, she took my hand to her lips and gently kissed it. “And you are my bound.”

  My mind went blank, and I lost consciousness.

  …

  What felt like an instant later, I awoke buried under the softest sheets I had felt in either life. Cracking an eye open, I saw Aelira sitting on the bed beside me, a complicated expression on her face.

  “Iyora?” I tried.

  The look on her face vanished, replaced with the same smug grin she had been wearing before as she turned to me.

  “What did you say?” she asked, a note of genuine confusion in her voice.

  That made sense. Iyora should be an adult by now, assuming no weird time manipulation bullshit took place. It would be silly to assume I had randomly landed in the room of the person I was supposed to kill.

  “What now?” I repeated, maintaining an innocent look on my face. Glancing around the room, the servant who had been watching over us was gone.

  “Hmm, after Celeri gives me a stern talking to, I presume Mother will be informed and she'll decide whether to behead you,” she replied with a hum.

  “What?” I peeped out. Was I going to be forced to spend a Life already? All because a princess did something? Fuck, that isn’t fair.

  “You're being awfully casual with me. But that's alright, I'll let it pass this once,” she replied, which was a complete non-answer. I could tell she knew that as well.

  “You'd prefer I act like this anyway. If you wanted an obedient, silent underling as a servant, you wouldn't have professed how you were going to che—” I was interrupted when she slapped a hand over my mouth. Her claws dug into my cheeks, and her face had turned a shade of pink.

  I could probably overpower her with my Venust, but I chose not to.

  “Where did you even learn to think like that? Do you have felin thae as well?” she demanded in a harsh whisper.

  From her question, I connected the dots on what the heck that meant in an instant. The Matron had mentioned she had reason to think I had been born with a felin thae in addition to my apparent haelin thae. Given Aelira was asking if I had felin thae as well in the context of realizing things about her, thae was likely their word for Stats. With haelin being attractiveness or maybe body, and felin being cognition or mind.

  I recognized this because she asked if I had it as well when asking about my thought process. She clearly had a Stat that improved her mind because she was not acting like the child she looked like.

  Nodding beneath her hand, she let out a huff and let go. Standing, she walked over to her cup and took another drag from the cup that was still steaming.

  While I had a moment to myself, I glanced at the window that had popped up while I was unconscious.

  Reciprocal Thaumic Conduit Formed

  Type: Subservient

  Magic System Primary Stat Unlocked: Resonance

  +1 Resonance

  +100 Dust Created

  Dust: 6775

  I was supposed to wait until one of the others woke up, preferably Aisling, before I learned magic. They could explain how magic worked metaphysically, and probably a lot better than the locals. But I guess this worked too.

  Reading the System’s definition of what Resonance did, I was intrigued by the possibilities. I might have to think about buying this magic system when we were done here if it happened to work well for me.

  Assuming I lived long enough to be able to afford it.

  “Why would the queen be going to behead me?” I asked Aelira offhandedly, crushing the memories of my current life that were wilting at the thought of speaking like this.

  I turned to where Aelira was, but couldn’t make out her reply because I was distracted by the hole in my chest Aelira had made rapidly filling with light. I coughed, my body unsure how to respond to a ball of concentrated light appearing within itself.

  “Oh, good, it worked,” Aelira muttered to herself. The light within me surged, and I bent over the side of the bed to empty my stomach. “With some growing pains, but I’m sure we’ll move past those.”

  “Please stop,” I groaned, my muscles twitching from the light flowing through them.

  “Hmm? Oh, oops!” Aelira said. The light froze in place, and I let out a sigh in relief.

  The door opened as I was finally getting a hold of myself. Celeri entered, followed by the servant who had been in the room earlier. The moment her eyes landed on me, she froze.

  I finally got a chance to take in what Celeri looked like; she was a golden-haired rabbit girl wearing what looked like the servant’s uniform, but far fancier.

  “My Highness, do you remember what we discussed?” she asked, her voice cold.

  “I know, I wasn’t supposed to attempt forming a bond. But it was so easy! You said it would be hard, so who’s really in the wrong here?” Aelira replied with the kind of logic I’d expect from a child whose mind grew faster than their life experience.

  Mistress Celeri let out a sigh and ran a hand through her hair under her right ear, causing it to flop to the side comically, “You were supposed to just start healtheric, not completely bond with him. We may need to sever the connection if the resulting conduit is malformed.”

  “Pins fell into place,” I muttered under my breath in English, attempting to pin Celeri’s mind in place for a moment. Only for the pin to miss, flying down past her mental model. I followed it with my sight from my point of view, falling endlessly into the void between minds.

  What?! It’s not supposed to be able to miss!

  I tried to lock her in place without it, but her mind was slippery. It felt like it was wriggling out of my grasp before I could make any alterations.

  I just wanted to ask Aelira what severing the connection meant!

  What use was I if magic was going to interfere with my Aspect so much? Aisling said it got better when you learned magic, or just through practice, but I needed it now…

  I coughed again, and the light in my chest made it feel tight. As if my lungs had fluid filling them, and that fluid was the idea of luminescence.

  Rolling out of the bed, I landed in the puddle where I had thrown up, and the vomit rushed away from me like it was being pulled by a magnet. I tried to rise, but my arms gave out on me before I could lift my torso.

  Maybe I should have stayed lying down…

  The conversation had moved on, and I hadn't even caught the last half of it. Only someone lifting me off the ground by the scruff of my mantle told me it was probably over.

  “Now let's figure out what we're doing with you,” Mistress Celeri said while examining my chest closely.

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