Orla:

  A wedding?

  I sat frozen as an attendant tightened the intricate knot at my bust. My mind couldn’t catch up. A wedding. My wedding. The words didn’t make sense. How could this be happening?

  The morning light streamed through the lattice windows, casting golden patterns on the polished floors. Servants moved around me in quiet efficiency, their hands layering fabric over my skin like I was being wrapped into someone else’s life. The robes were rich, heavy, deep red and embroidered with gold, nothing like the casual clothes I had always known. I felt suffocated under their weight. Like this wasn’t real.

  But it was.

  The older woman who had been tending to me for days stood nearby, her expression unreadable as she oversaw the younger attendants. They worked quickly—brushing my hair, tying ribbons, securing delicate silk in precise folds. My limbs felt disconnected from my body, my mind spiraling as I tried to grasp what was happening. None of it felt real.

  Then the door slid open, and a new servant entered, carrying a tray filled with cosmetics—powders and pigments I had only seen in historical dramas. My breath hitched. My chest tightened.

  Nara.

  It was her. It had to be. My best friend, the one person I had been desperate to see, to wake up beside after this nightmare. My heart leaped. "Nara?" My voice cracked with desperate hope.

  The servant flinched, her eyes going wide. The other attendants gasped and stepped back. She gripped the tray like a shield, her face pale, uncertain.

  "Nara!" I shot up from my seat, pushing past the others. I grabbed her arm, clinging to it like an anchor. "It’s me! Orla! Don’t you recognize me?"

  The room turned deathly silent. The girl trembled under my touch, her gaze darting around the room in panic before she dropped to her knees, pressing her forehead to the floor. The whispers started immediately—hushed, frantic, horrified.

  "No, no, no. Nara, don’t do that." I crouched beside her, gripping her shoulders, desperate to make her look at me. "This has to be a mistake! You know me! We were just together! Please, say something!"

  Before I could get another word out, the older woman yanked me back, her grip iron-tight. "Enough!" Her sharp voice cut through the room. "You must learn your place. This behavior is unacceptable."

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  I struggled against her hold. "That’s my best friend! She knows me! This is all a mistake!"

  The woman’s expression hardened. "She is a servant," she said coldly. "And you are not in your world anymore. You are in the royal palace, and you will behave accordingly, or face the consequences."

  The words stung like ice. I stared at Nara—her trembling form, her face turned away, her silence. She wouldn’t even look at me.

  The older woman’s grip loosened, but her eyes drilled into mine with warning. "You are barely even a consort yet, let alone royalty. Do not forget where you stand. You are lucky to have been chosen."

  Lucky? My head spun. I felt sick.

  Before I could process anything, a sharp voice rang out.

  "Announcing Her Majesty, the Queen."

  The air in the room shifted. The tension was instant. Every servant dropped to the floor in a deep bow, their foreheads nearly touching the ground, their bodies rigid with submission. A weight settled over my chest, thick and suffocating.

  The doors slid open with careful precision. A figure stepped inside, her crimson and pink robes trailing behind her like flames. Her maids followed in perfect silence, like shadows attached to her presence.

  I barely breathed as her gaze swept over the room, cold and indifferent, as if she owned every inch of space and the air we breathed. The servants remained frozen in place, not daring to lift their heads. The pressure in the room was suffocating.

  Then, her gaze landed on me.

  My stomach dropped. I knew that face.

  Anna Lee.

  No. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. But it was.

  My ex-bridesmaid. The woman I had found in a closet with Logan. The one who had shattered my world.

  But she wasn’t Anna. Not exactly. The resemblance was uncanny, but this version of her was sharper, more imposing. More dangerous. She wore power like it was woven into her very being. Her dark hair pinned in an elaborate chignon with golden hairpieces glinted in the light. She looked like Anna, but she wasn’t. This woman was colder. More calculating. And her presence sent a chill through my bones.

  The queen’s lips curled into something venomous. "So," she mused. "This is the new whore the king has chosen."

  I felt the floor drop out from under me. My skin burned at her words, but my mind barely kept up with the insult. I could only stare. How was she here? Why did she look like Anna? Was this another trick? A twisted reflection of my world?

  She stepped closer, and I forced myself to stand tall, though my hands clenched at my sides.

  "You think you’re special?" she sneered. "That you will be anything more than a temporary amusement? You are nothing. Just another pretty little thing to be played with and discarded."

  The room spun. I felt the anger rising, the helplessness curling in my chest like a slow-burning fire. This was unreal. It had to be. And yet, it wasn’t.

  The queen leaned in, her breath warm against my skin. "You will never bear him a son," she whispered, her words sinking in like a curse.

  Then, with a final look of disdain, she turned sharply and strode out, her maids following like a ghostly procession.

  The doors slid shut. The silence that followed felt heavier than before.

  I swallowed hard, my breath coming too fast. My head swam. None of this made sense. None of it.

  If that wasn’t Anna... if that servant wasn’t Nara, then who were they?

  Was this world rewriting my past, twisting familiar faces into something else? Or was I just losing it?

  My mind spiraled, grasping for answers, but all I found was the sinking feeling that I was slipping further away from reality.

  And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  ?Sky Mincharo