Chapter 5 The Amnesia Gambit

Chapter 5: The Amnesia Gambit

POV: Lina Hale

The heartbeat was wrong.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

It was too slow for a panic attack and too heavy to be mine. I’ve lived inside my own ribs for twenty-three years, and I know the rhythm of my own heart. This felt deep and weighted, like there was more mass behind it than I’d ever had before. I tried to lift my arm, but it moved like it was underwater. It was sluggish and way heavier than it should be.

When I finally got my hand in front of my face, I stopped breathing.

Those weren't my hands. My hands are a mess from the diner with scarred knuckles, skin like sandpaper, and nails bitten down to the quick because I can’t help myself. These fingers were long, pale, and perfectly smooth. The nails were shaped like glass. They were the kind of hands that had never scrubbed a floor or ducked a punch in their entire life.

I didn't scream. Screaming is just a loud way of telling people exactly where to find you.

I lay perfectly still and listened. Wind whistled through a crack in the masonry. Rain hit the stone outside with a heavy, rhythmic thwack. Footsteps moved downstairs. There were two sets, one heavy and deliberate, and the other light. It was like someone had turned the volume knob on the world all the way up to eleven. Every sound was sharp enough to cut.

I opened my eyes.

The ceiling was vaulted stone, draped in silver silk that looked like it cost more than I’d made in a year. I sat up, my head swimming, and dragged myself over to the tall mirror in the corner. I needed to see the damage for myself.

The woman looking back wasn't me at all.

She had long, pale hair and eyes the color of a winter sky. It was a face that looked like it had been sculpted out of fine china. It was composed, delicate, and entirely alien to me. I touched my jaw, feeling the heat of my fingertips on skin that belonged to a total stranger.

Okay. Okay.

Lina Hale went into the river, and some cosmic glitch sent her out wearing a different body.

Then the smell hit me. There was lavender from the sheets. And underneath that, there was cedar, cold rain, and a heavy, dominant scent that made my inner alarm bells go off immediately. A man had been here recently. There was a third scent, too, buried under the lavender. It was jasmine, but it had a sour, rotten edge to it. It smelled like a grudge that had been left out in the sun for too long.

Cedar means danger. Jasmine means tension.

I didn't know how I knew that. The information just clicked into place like I’d been born with it.

The door handle turned.

I didn't flinch. I just stood there with my weight balanced on the balls of my feet, waiting to see who it was.

A girl in a grey dress hurried into the room carrying a basin. She almost dropped it when she saw me standing by the mirror instead of huddled up in the bed.

"My Luna!" She dropped into a shaky curtsy, and the water in the basin sloshed right over the side. Her face went completely white. "You're awake. You should be in bed. If the Alpha sees you up before the healers come, he'll—"

Luna. Alpha. Healers.

It sounded like I was at the top of a food chain. And apparently, I was supposed to be fragile.

I let my eyes go a little glassy, tilting my head like I was trying to solve a difficult puzzle. "Who are you?"

She froze like a deer in headlights. "My Luna. It's me, Elara. I’ve been your maid since we were kids. Since before your first shift."

"Elara," I repeated. I let the word sit on my tongue to test it out. I let my gaze wander around the room, looking completely confused. I needed a cover story, and I needed it before someone with a bigger title than a maid walked through that door.

The river had handed me the perfect lie.

"Where am I?" I made my voice sound thin and reedy. "Everything is so loud. It hurts. It feels like the world is too bright."

She set the basin down and rushed over to me, grabbing my arm. She smelled like lye soap and pure, unadulterated fear. "You're in the palace, My Luna. You fell into the river. Kael brought you back himself. Don't you remember?"

I let my shoulders slump, making my breath shallow and hitching. "I remember water. Cold, black water. But everything else is just smoke. I looked in that mirror and I didn't know who that was." I paused, letting the silence get heavy between us. "I think I’ve lost something, Elara. A lot of things."

"Oh mercy," she whispered, steering me back toward the bed. "The healers said the river's blessing could be heavy, but to forget your own face—"

"I know the name," I said, because the name Selene kept popping up in the back of my head like a prompted search result. "Selene. I know that’s me. But I don't know the rules. I don't know who this Alpha is, or why I can hear the rain like it’s inside my head."

"Kael is your betrothed," she said softly, like she was talking to a glass doll. "The Alpha King. The coronation is in three days. You were doing the ritual walk with Lyra when you slipped."

Kael was my betrothed and the King. He was the cedar and rain scent, the center of the world. And Lyra, the one who smelled like jasmine and old grudges, was the one who claimed I slipped.

I filed all of it away for later.

Amnesia is the ultimate cheat code. I could ask all the dumb questions I wanted. I could watch everyone without them wondering why I was staring at them. I could learn the layout of this trap from the inside out, and they’d just think I was a poor thing who’d hit her head.

"Three days," I said, rubbing my temples. "If the Alpha sees me like this, if he knows I can't remember, what happens?"

Elara’s hands shook as she tucked the blankets around me. "He is a hard man, My Luna. He cares about duty. Only duty." She paused, her eyes darting quickly toward the door. "But he is your mate. He’ll protect you."

I caught it. There was a tiny shift in her scent, and the way her voice went hollow. She didn't believe a single word of that last part. She was just saying what she was programmed to say.

I looked her dead in the eye. I didn't look at her like a queen, but like a woman making a back-alley deal. "Then help me. Don't tell the healers yet. If anyone asks, I'm just exhausted. Give me time to figure this out."

She stared at me. For a second, I could see her weighing the massive risk.

"I’ll do it, My Luna." Whatever loyalty she had for the girl I was replacing, it was stronger than her fear of the King. At least for now. "I’ll get food. You need to be strong before he gets here."

"Thank you, Elara."

She slipped out, clicking the door shut behind her.

I leaned back against the headboard and let my mind race.

I had no idea how I’d ended up in this body, or where the real Selene was. I didn't know the laws of this place or what a Luna actually did. In three days, I was supposed to stand in front of a whole nation and fake my way through a coronation.

But I knew how to survive in a room full of people who had more power than me. I'd been doing that since I was six years old.

Shut up. Watch. Listen. Wait.

I closed my eyes, focused on the sound of the rain against the stone, and waited for the smell of cedar to tell me the King had arrived.