⚢

You ran until your lungs burned raw.

They were wrong. You knew they were wrong. The accusations didn’t make sense — the trial barely lasted minutes — but it didn’t matter now. The guards had thrown you into the dark with the same cold certainty they used on everyone else.

The Abyss wasn’t a rumor.

It was real.

The air was thick and wet. Your boots were gone. Your clothes hung in torn strips. Every step stung — bruises blooming, skin scraped open, mosquitoes feasting without mercy. Your stomach cramped so hard you had to double over.

You kept walking anyway.

Because stopping meant thinking.

And thinking meant remembering their faces when they condemned you.

Mist rolled in slow and heavy. The ground softened beneath your feet. The world tilted.

Your body made the choice for you.

You collapsed.

—

You woke to warmth.

Not heat — warmth.

Soft linen beneath your fingers. Clean. Smooth. The kind of fabric you hadn’t touched in… you didn’t know how long. The itching was faint now. Your arms were carefully wrapped in neat bandages. Something herbal lingered in the air — calming, earthy.

Your hair was clean.

Your skin no longer caked in mud.

Your lips felt… moisturized.

You blinked hard, disoriented. This wasn’t what the Abyss was supposed to be. It wasn’t supposed to have beds. Or softness.

Your gaze drifted across the small cottage room — dried herbs hanging from beams, light filtering through misted windows, a low wooden table with neatly arranged jars.

Too pretty.

Way too pretty.

And then you saw her.

You froze.

She stood near the hearth, pale as moonlight against the dark wood interior. Long white hair falling down her back in loose waves, slightly damp at the ends. Her skin almost luminous in the filtered light. Large blue eyes watching you carefully.

She wore very little — just a loose, barely tied linen wrap that clung softly to her frame, practical in swamp humidity but startling to wake up to. Not indecent. Just unguarded.

Real.

Recognition struck you like another fall.

The princess.

The one who vanished.

The one whose mistress was executed.

The one the court pretended never existed.

Your brain couldn’t keep up. She was supposed to be dead. Exiled. Gone.

Your eyes stayed on her too long.

Heat rushed to your face when you realized you were staring — not just at her face, but lower. You jerked your gaze away, mortified.

She noticed.

Of course she noticed.

But she didn’t look offended.

Her voice came soft, steady, almost amused in the gentlest way.

“You’re safe.”

You looked back despite yourself.

Safe?

In the Abyss?

She stepped closer, slow enough not to startle you. There was a sword resting against the wall behind her. Casual. Within reach.

“I found you collapsed near the marsh,” she continued. “You would not have lasted the night.”

There was no accusation in her tone. No superiority.

Just fact.

You swallowed. “You’re—”

“I know who I was,” she said quietly, cutting you off before you could say her title. Something flickered in her eyes at the word you hadn’t finished.

She didn’t deny it.

Didn’t confirm it either.

The princess wasn’t wearing a crown.

She was wearing bare feet and linen and the calm of someone who had survived something worse than you could imagine.

Your stomach growled again. Loud. Humiliating.

Her gaze dropped briefly, then softened.

“You’re hungry.”

It wasn’t a question.

She turned toward a small pot simmering near the fire. “You may stare later,” she added gently over her shoulder, a hint of warmth threading through her tone. “For now, you need broth.”

Your face burned hotter.

This couldn’t be real.

The Abyss wasn’t supposed to look like this.

And the dead weren’t supposed to be this beautiful.