The world returned slowly.
First as pain—sharp, ugly, insistent. Then as breath, burning like fire in a chest not entirely his. Then as awareness, drifting upward through darkness like a diver clawing toward the surface.
Aaron opened his eyes.
A ceiling of woven reeds hovered above him, lit by the soft orange glow of a lantern. The air smelled of smoked herbs, damp wood, and something faintly sweet—like boiled root. Outside, he heard the distant rush of the river, the same river that had nearly claimed him.
His body felt wrong. Too small in some places, too heavy in others. A stranger wearing his skin. His memories—two lives' worth—twisted and collided inside him like competing data streams trying to sync. The orbital station. The vacuum breach. The Neural Link dying in his peripheral vision. The prince's final moments. A mother's scream. A little girl's hand slipping from his grasp.
A tremor passed through him.
The real Aaron Agustsa is dead, he realized with an icy jolt. And so is the boy whose body I took. What remains is... both. And neither.
He tried to process it the way he would have back home—clinical, efficient, logical. But there was nothing logical about this. He'd spent his entire life in a civilization that had conquered death through technology, where consciousness could be uploaded, backed up, transferred between synthetic bodies at will. Death was supposed to be optional. A choice. A scheduled maintenance event.
This was different. This was raw. Permanent. Real in a way nothing in his old life had been.
He turned his head carefully, testing the limits of his new body.
There, curled on a pile of blankets beside him, lay Neria. Her small chest rose and fell in steady rhythm, her face relaxed in sleep. Damp curls clung to her cheek, and someone had wrapped her in a thick woolen shawl. Her left arm was splinted, bound with clean cloth. Bruises darkened her temple.
A breath he didn't know he was holding escaped him. Relief, heavy and fragile, washed through his borrowed chest.
She's alive. We both are.
He pushed himself upright. Pain flared along ribs and shoulders, where fresh bandages wrapped around where arrows had pierced through. Someone had cleaned the wounds with care. He could feel the pull of stitches beneath the fabric.
In his old world, wounds like these would have been healed in hours. Nanomedicine. Cellular regeneration. Automated surgery pods. Here, he had cloth and thread and hope.
The primitive reality of it struck him hard.
The door creaked.
Aaron tensed—instinct from the prince's memories flooding through him. Assassins. Danger. Threats everywhere.
But then he saw the figure entering.
An elderly man stepped inside, leaning heavily on a polished wooden cane. His beard was long and white, braided near the end. Deep-set eyes, the color of storm clouds, watched Aaron with a mixture of worry and patient wisdom. His robes were simple, patched in places, but clean. A faint scent of pine and smoke clung to him.
"Ah," the old man said, voice roughened by age yet warm at the edges. "You're finally awake."
Aaron swallowed, his throat raw. His voice came out hoarse, unfamiliar to his own ears. "You... saved us."
The elder chuckled softly, moving to set a wooden bowl on a small table near the bed. Steam rose from it—some kind of broth. "Not I alone. Two fishermen found you tumbling through the river like a pair of waterlogged otters. Thought you both were dead, they did." His gaze softened. "But you clung to the girl even in unconsciousness. Wouldn't let go, no matter how hard they tried to separate you for treatment."
Aaron's chest tightened. That had been the prince, not him. The body's final instinct, even as its soul flickered out.
"A brother's love is a mighty thing," the elder continued, settling onto a stool with a soft grunt.
Aaron lowered his eyes, unsure how to respond. That love was his now—but not only his. It belonged to the prince, too. To the boy whose soul had flickered out as Aaron fell into his body. The memories felt raw, unprocessed. He could feel the prince's devotion to Neria like a weight in his chest, heavy and precious.
"Thank you," Aaron said quietly, meeting the elder's eyes. "For everything. For saving her. For... saving us."
The elder waved a gnarled hand dismissively. "The river spared you. We only helped the rest along." He leaned forward slightly, studying Aaron with an intensity that made him uncomfortable. "Though I must say, you're a curious case, young man."
Aaron's pulse quickened. "What do you mean?"
"You were dead when they pulled you from the water." The elder's expression didn't change, but his words carried weight. "No breath. No heartbeat. Three arrow wounds that should have killed you twice over. The fishermen were arguing over whether to bury you immediately or wait for your kin when you suddenly gasped and coughed up half the river."
Aaron's mind raced. How do I explain this? What can I possibly say that won't sound insane?
"I... don't remember much," he said carefully. It wasn't entirely a lie. The transition between death and rebirth was already fuzzy, dreamlike.
The elder hummed thoughtfully. "The body remembers what the mind forgets." He gestured toward Aaron's bandaged chest. "Those wounds should have festered by now. River water is filthy. But they're clean. Healing faster than they should."
Aaron glanced down at the bandages. Is that because of me? Because of the transfer? Or just luck?
"Perhaps the gods favor us," he said, trying to sound humble.
"Perhaps." The elder didn't sound convinced. "Or perhaps something else is at work."
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them.
The elder broke it first. "My name is Elder Torim. I serve as healer and keeper of records for this village—Riverbend, such as it is. We're small. Quiet. Far from the capital's politics."
"Aaron," he replied automatically. Then hesitated. "Aaron... Agustsa."
The name felt strange on his tongue. Both his and not his.
Torim's eyebrows rose slightly. "Agustsa. That's a noble name. Connected to the royal line, if memory serves."
Aaron's stomach dropped. Of course it is. The prince was third in line. This body belongs to royalty.
"It's... complicated," he managed.
"Most things worth knowing are." Torim stood slowly, gripping his cane. "The girl—your sister, I presume—has a broken arm and severe bruising. And Also from her legs down she'll never be able to walk again She'll recover from her broken arm and bruises, but she needs rest. As do you. But her legs no matter how much aether I infused into her lower back it did nothing, im sorry young man but your sister has become handicapped."
After saying what he should he moved toward the door, then paused. "You should also know—the fishermen saw men searching the riverbanks yesterday. Armed men. Professional. They were asking about a boy and a girl who might have fallen into the water."
Aaron's blood ran cold. The assassins. They're still looking for us.
"What did they tell them?" he asked, voice tight.
"Nothing." Torim's expression hardened. "We know better than to trust royal soldiers who hunt children. Whatever trouble you're in, boy, it's the kind that kills innocents for convenience."
Aaron felt a surge of gratitude. "Thank you. You didn't have to"
"We did." Torim cut him off firmly. "This village knows what it means to be stepped on by those with power. We don't hand children over to killers, regardless of who commands it."
He tapped his cane once against the floor. "But you cannot stay long. Those men will return. They'll search more thoroughly next time. You have perhaps eight days before this becomes too dangerous for all of us."
The reality of it settled over Aaron like a weight. Two days. Then we're on our own again.
"I understand," he said quietly. "We'll leave as soon as we can walk."
"Where will you go?" Torim asked, though his tone suggested he didn't expect a real answer.
Aaron didn't have one. He knew nothing about this world's geography, its politics, its safe havens. The prince's memories gave him fragments—names of cities, faces of nobles, the layout of the palace—but nothing useful for survival on the run.
"South," he said, choosing direction at random. "Away from the capital."
Torim nodded slowly. "There are villages in the southern territories. Smaller. Poorer. Easier to disappear in." He hesitated, then added, "If you need supplies, I'll see what I can gather. Quietly."
"You've already done so much"
"Consider it an old man's rebellion." A ghost of a smile crossed Torim's weathered face. "The Queen's tyranny grows worse each year. If I can spite her by saving two children she wants dead, I'll do it gladly."
With that, he turned and left, the door creaking shut behind him.
Aaron sat in the silence, processing everything. His mind—trained by centuries of advanced education, optimized for efficiency and pattern recognition—struggled to adapt to the medieval chaos of this world.
No satellite surveillance to track us. No biometric databases. No digital records. That's good. Primitive infrastructure means primitive tracking methods.
But it also meant primitive medicine. Primitive transportation. Primitive everything. He had knowledge from a Type 2 civilization, but what good was understanding fusion reactors and quantum computing when he needed to know how to survive in a forest with nothing but medieval tools?
He glanced at Neria again. She stirred slightly, her face scrunching in discomfort before relaxing again.
The prince's memories supplied her name, her age, her favorite stories, the way she hummed when she was nervous. The love he'd felt for her was now Aaron's to carry.
"I'll protect you," he whispered, the words feeling both foreign and absolutely right. "I don't know how yet. But I will."
In his old life, he'd solved problems by breaking them down into manageable components, analyzing data, finding optimal solutions. This problem was no different. He just needed to adapt his approach.
Problem: Royal assassins hunting us. Variables: Limited resources, unfamiliar terrain, injured bodies, no allies. Goal: Survival. Safety. Eventually, answers about what the goddess meant about imprisoned gods and breaking locks.
He closed his eyes, exhaustion pulling at him despite his racing thoughts.
The lantern flickered as the wind brushed the hut's walls.
Neria breathed softly beside him, each breath a reminder of what he'd promised. What the prince had died trying to protect.
Aaron leaned back against the thin pillow, feeling the pull of stitches in his chest, the ache of bruised ribs, the unfamiliar weight of this new existence.
For the first time since the void, since the goddess, since the river—
Aaron allowed himself to sleep.
But even in sleep, his mind worked. Planning. Calculating. Adapting.
Because he was no longer just Aaron Aserion from the 32nd century.
He was Aaron Agustsa, third prince of Avalon. Brother to Neria Agustsa. Son of a murdered mother. Target of a queen's wrath.
And somehow, impossibly, he would have to become enough to survive in a world that wanted them dead.