Terrin sighed heavily, resting his head against his pillows. It’d been a stressful day. His mother, Queen Lira of Tipet, had put him in charge of one of the outer districts to give him a feel for leadership, and all he’d learned thus far was ruling a kingdom was a headache.
I don’t belong here. I want to go home.
Technically, he was home where he belonged. But while others in this world remembered his Tipetan upbringing, Terrin only recalled a dull life under the shadow of a healer in the woods of Amora. When he met Elurra, Princess of Lur Alava, everything about his life had changed as the pair embarked on a crazy quest to save the world. But they’d failed, shattered their timeline, and fallen into a strange, alternate reality. He’d lost his entire world in an instant, and despite coming from a blood-soaked world where time had literally ripped itself apart, he felt like his current home was his living nightmare.
In this reality, none of the friends he’d met during his journey with Elurra even knew who he was. According to rumors, the pirates of the Dwarf still sailed the high seas, but their paths would never cross with his, especially given the widened age discrepancy. Although Terrin was still technically only fourteen years old, the rift had thrown himself and Elurra into a reality where they were five years older.
Prince Kai of Amora was the worst case. In Terrin’s world, the man had fallen in love with Elurra’s governess, Aleah, and thanks to an ingenious political move crafted by the princess, he and Aleah were engaged and set to get their happy ending. In the current timeline, they’d never met, and Kai had married a random Lur Alavian duchess for duty instead of love. And this world’s Aleah was still single. Still, Terrin couldn’t do anything to remedy the situation without sounding like a babbling madman.
He took a few deep breaths to combat the panic and despair threatening to overwhelm him. He just wanted to reset the world, but he knew it was a selfish wish. The reality he came from was doomed. So many people had been murdered or corrupted by grief and greed, the land had been crippled by Nitiri’s tyrannical proxy rule, and Demons had roamed Incari.
But at least he’d had Elurra by his side.
In this existing world, they were engaged, but everything felt strange. The pair scarcely saw one another. In fact, they’d only seen each other once. Nine months before, when they first arrived. The next time they saw each other would probably be their looming wedding day, a date they both dreaded, considering their true mental ages of twelve and fourteen.
Terrin’s heart ached for Elurra, who still struggled to cope after losing her title of princess of Lur Alava. In their reality, her aunt Nitiri had been exiled, and Elurra’s father had taken the throne. But in this one, Nitiri had gone on to be queen, wife, and mother to two children: Roden and Caden. Elurra’s parents, who were murdered by Nitiri in Terrin’s timeline, were alive and well, and had given birth to a second daughter. In the blink of an eye, Elurra had gained numerous relatives and lost her title.
Though Elurra’s family had discovered their reality-hopping origins soon after the pair’s arrival, and though they tried to be understanding, life proved difficult for all parties. Elurra still felt leery of her aunt, and she didn’t remember the close relationships she’d had with her relatives. In the frequent letters she wrote to Terrin, she told him she was finding it hard to adjust after spending years as the sole heir to the Lur Alavian throne.
Terrin had the opposite problem. As the heir to the throne of Tipet, and at the age of responsibility, his commands now held the same weight as his mother’s, but he only had a month of training from his previous timeline to rely on. His twin sister, Raeya, did her best to help. In a state of vulnerability and desperation, he’d opened his mind to her, revealing memories from his life before. In return, she’d shared years of lessons on etiquette and statecraft to help him adjust. The two were apparently very close in this reality, and guilt coursed through him after she let him see the wonderful childhood they’d shared, because he couldn’t remember any of it. After all, his mother had sent him away as a baby in his reality to protect him from the Demons. He hadn’t even known his princely lineage until Elurra pieced it together.
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Queen Lira, on the other hand, had not been as accommodating. Even after seeing his memories, she treated him like an imposter who’d taken her capable son and left her with a useless boy. She expected him to fulfill duties the other Terrin could easily handle but he couldn’t even begin to cope with. He had no idea how to live up to her standards or how to get her to accept him as her son. A soft knock on his door yanked him out of his dismal thoughts.
“Come in,” he called.
A guard opened the door and ushered in Raeya, his remarkably beautiful sister. Her brown hair flowed over her shoulder as her blue eyes scanned him critically. The guard bowed and shut the door behind him.
“Terrin, were you thinking again?” she demanded as she plopped down on the bed beside him.
He smiled wearily. “I do tend to do that.”
“You must let go of the past to move forward,” Raeya said with gentleness in her voice. “It binds you like heavy shackles.”
Terrin groaned and sat up. “I cannot help but feel like I do not belong here. Mother is right. I accidentally stole the person you loved and replaced him with an inferior copy. I should not be in line for the throne. It is like I have amnesia, only I know my memories will never return.”
“You are not inferior. You are my brother. And now, from your childhood as a commoner, you have knowledge of the people’s struggles. That gives you a kindness and a strength I’ve never seen in you before,” she told him. “You will eventually get used to this reality, but not until you accept that there is no going back.”
Terrin leaned against his sister’s shoulder and welcomed her embrace. He knew she was his closest ally. Pushing her away would do nothing but hurt him in the long run.
“It’s just…” He closed his eyes. “It’s so hard to feel like I belong when Mother treats me like a stranger.”
“I am here for you.”
She ran her fingers slowly through his hair in a comforting fashion. Just as Terrin began to drift off to sleep, a strange feeling came over him. He sat up abruptly, startling his sister.
“Are you alright?” she exclaimed.
He looked down at his tingling body. “No, I know this feeling, it’s—”
He looked up with desperate eyes as his surroundings began to fade and his body phased out of existence.
“Terrin!” He watched the shocked face of his sister vanish as the spell took hold and forcefully teleported him.
How is this happening? The castle is protected from Magic, he thought as nothingness consumed him.
He rematerialized in a familiar, sterilized room. He recognized the Amorian defensive bunker immediately, placed by the Prath during the war between the Demons and Guardians. He’d been here on a few occasions, the first during his desperate trip to save Elurra from her aunt, and the second when he fulfilled his promise to help the sentient computer, Anchor, construct an android body for herself a few months prior.
Anchor stood before him, waiting for his arrival. Her golden hair, facial structure, and pale skin reminded him of Elurra, but her pitch-black eyes clearly distinguished her from any biological being.
She beamed at him as he solidified. “Welcome back.”
“Creator’s breath, Anchor! Why did you just kidnap me without warning? How did I even get all the way here without passing out?”
“Emergencies require immediate action, and I provided your nanites with supplemental energy during the transfer.”
“Emergency?” he asked, his anger dissipating. “What’s happened?”
The android studied him with a grave expression. “Hypothetically, if I required your assistance as a member of the Prath race, would you comply?”
“May I remind you I ended up dead for a solid hour the last time I did you a favor? Hypothetically, I would like to know what I’m getting into this time,” Terrin stated.
Anchor offered him a dazzling smile.
“According to my calculations, there is a 92.4% chance that you will accept my offer, regardless of the details of the mission.”
Terrin hated how smug Anchor was when she could predict his actions, but she was right. He would do almost anything to avoid going back to Tipet.