Sweet Romance14 min read
I Got Dragged into a Fantasy, Signed a Fox, and Ruined a Prince
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I woke up with a headache like somebody had beaten my skull with a mallet.
"Hey, is that the Ye family miss?" a woman laughed nearby. "How did she end up here? Fits her."
I blinked my eyes open. Silk and song. Perfume thick as soup. Women with painted faces circled me like bees.
"Where am I?" I asked myself. "I was on a stage. I had a trophy. I was—"
"Shh," one of the women hissed, tapping me on the cheek. "You look terrible. Good for gossip."
My head hurt and my memories came in like flashes. I remembered being an actress in another life, cameras, awards. I remembered a title I could never keep because I had no family name. And then a different map: a place called Tianqi Realm where people used elemental power—玄力—and skills were rare. I remembered my father, the only Grand Mystic of the Ye family, cold and distant. I remembered a grandfather who was a founding hero. Then the blank.
A horse thundered outside.
"Is that—" someone whispered.
"That is Commander Galileo Moretti!" another voice cried, and the crowd parted like wet paper when he rode in.
Galileo Moretti climbed down from his horse with a presence like a wall. He swept his gaze over the courtyard, over the laughing women, and landed on me.
"No matter what," he said, his voice hard as iron, "the miss of House Ye is House Ye's alone. Anyone who harms her stands against the Ye."
The women froze. The crowd murmured.
They stared at me like I had sprung from a legend. I wanted to laugh. I wanted my award back.
Galileo had the cold face I remembered from memory fragments. He reached down, helped me to my feet, and we went home in a carriage that felt too smooth to be real.
When the carriage stopped, I peered out. Red lacquer gate. A sign said YE MANOR.
An old man sat in the main hall. When he saw me he stood, trembling with such joy he looked like he might burst.
"You're home," he cried, and his voice cracked. "If the second prince backs out, we will back out. He is not worthy."
He called me "child" in a way that made something inside me ache and bloom.
They called the prince Archer Baker, second in the royal line. Archer had been the reason my original self had gotten into trouble—following him to a brothel and fainting like a puppet.
I sat up in my room and tried to gather the realm-power the old stories said should be inside me. Nothing held. The power slid through my fingers like wind.
"You're not getting any," a voice in my head said.
"Who?" I demanded.
A white mist rose from my chest and shaped into a man. He was wrong in a fantastically right way: white hair, crystal eyes, a smile that said mischief and truth at once.
"Your contracted beast—Nine-Tail," he said.
"That's your name?" I asked.
"Call me Johann when you wish formality," the spirit said. "But Nine-Tail is simpler."
He lifted my hand and kissed it dramatically. I swatted him away.
"Don't be gross," I said. He flared, then shrank into a small, red fox that fit in my palm.
"Fine," I said to the fox. "What is wrong with my power?"
"You didn't finish the blood-bond," Johann said, pouting childishly. He looked like seven years old in fox form. Then he turned serious. "Finish it, and your energy will stay. Finish it, and I will be your true bond."
I bit my finger and let a little blood fall onto Johann's forehead. Patterns lit the floor. That was unpleasant and also, oddly, satisfying.
"Done," Johann chirped. "You can grow now."
Energy came flooding into me. I felt it settle like new clothes. My body hummed. I was a Rank Three Mystic—beginning of a master.
"Good fox," I muttered and tucked him back in. He was warmer than I expected.
A knock came. My servant girl said, "Miss, you are summoned. The second prince is here."
I walked into the main hall. Archer Baker stood with a smile like a polished blade. Archer was fine-looking, as expected, but acting like royalty was the only thing he did seriously.
"Ye child," he said, "I wish to end our engagement."
"Why should I care?" I said, sitting with my back straight. I had learned more from other life: self-respect wins scenes.
"You have no power," he said. "You are not fit to be my wife. I love another."
I reached down and handed him his jade token. He palmed it like someone accepting a debt.
"I'm returning this," I said. "Goodbye, Archer Baker."
He left, lips pinched. The crowd gossiped. I felt light. The second prince had been a weight disguised as throne gossip.
"People will talk," Johann said when we were alone.
"Let them. I have a roof and now a fox and more power. I liked being an actress. I will be myself here too."
At Yiyun Academy—called Yiyun—that week I signed up as a student of alchemy. I used a disguise and a man’s clothes to avoid the simple-minded rich boys. The academy was full of people arranged like stars. It smelled of parchment and strange herbs.
"You're late," a gentle teacher said as he saw me watching a demonstration. He had kind hands and warm eyes.
"I'm Lucille Garcia," I said. "Can you teach me the simplest alchemy?"
The teacher introduced himself, "Giles Campbell. Sit. Grind the herb finer."
Giles was patient. He let me fumbling hands work. The final pill I made glowed green and sat in my palm.
"What?" Giles breathed. "Is this your first time?"
"Yes," I said.
"It is ninety-five percent fused," Giles said, eyes wide. "I will recommend you to the exam council."
He told me my hands and eyes were quick with heat and timing. He called me "talented" and "oddly patient as if you've done this lifetime-times over."
In the academy courtyard I got into trouble. A boy called Ling Feng—Gunther Crawford in my head when I swapped names—picked on me because I looked like a poor boy. He shoved me. He meant to show I was nothing by his standards.
"Move," I said.
"Who are you, beggar?" Ling Feng sneered.
"Move," I said again. He threw a punch. He expected I would flinch. He did not expect what happened next.
A purple spark sealed his wrist. A gentle woman with fans named Julio Cline—no, sorry, Julio was a man; I had to remember the list—no, my friend with a fan was Julio Cline. He stepped in, irreverent and theatrical.
"Is this the trouble?" he asked, fanning. "You picked the wrong fish."
"Who are you?" Ling Feng hissed.
"Julio Cline," he said with a grin. "And you will find my friend is not to be toyed with."
The bully left, and everyone whispered that I had enemies and protectors now. Julio was ridiculous but effective.
I practiced at the academy. I learned to read herbs like news. Giles was a soft land. Julio was a storm in silk. I met the fierce Flower Master—Martin Fitzgerald—who later would become my teacher in secret. Martin was cold at first, then smile-warm, the sort who grabbed tea like a duel.
"Why do you teach?" I asked him once.
"I like to shape a future," he said. "And this time, I chose you."
I did not expect to be chosen. I expected dull training and a tidy life. Fate liked to be messy.
A month later the academy announced a trial: dark fog forest exercise to mark the "Sky Path" rankings. The top contestants would go to the Cold Lake for ten days of rare training.
"Sign up," Martin said. "You should go."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you will need strong allies, and you will need to show you are not the house fool," he said.
I went into the Mist Forest with a small map and Johann in my palm. I found and fought creatures and, mostly, lost patience with animals that ran. I chose to fight only the monsters that wanted to kill. I wanted the points. I wanted to practice.
Then I saw a man crashing across the sky, fighting a blue dragon.
Who would have thought such a thing existed outside of the old songs?
He moved like thunder and frost. He had dark eyes like stars with iron inside them. When he looked at me I felt seen, the way you feel when someone reads your favorite book and laughs at the same line as you.
He was Pedro Crow. He called himself "the Lord of North Scourge" when a follower bowed.
"Who are you?" I asked later, hiding behind a tree.
"Pedro Crow," he said, watching the sky. "Do not be here when I fightdragon."
He was dangerous, and I liked dangerous things the way I liked spicy food: one bite and I would regret and crave more.
When he fought the dragon and then the dragon crashed near me, I took off running because dragons and I were not friends. I ran until I could run no more.
"Stop," Pedro's voice said unexpectedly beside me. He had landed like a shadow and then softened.
"Stay away," I said, and tried to hide my racing heart.
"Bet." He smiled like a cat. "I bet I can touch you first."
"You're a loud man." I attempted a snarky line. It landed thin.
We raced in a child’s way. I set a trap using the Ninefold Binding I remembered from a book I read in another life. It slowed him. He stepped into my circle and laughed.
"You're persistent," he said. "You have spirit."
"I have to bribe you," I said. "If you lose, you must serve me three years."
"Really?" His laugh was soft. "Then I lose."
He remained, and it became a strange companionship that grew like vines.
Back at school, trouble was brewing. Ling Feng and his cronies—backed by a wealthy family—plotted to ruin me. Archer Baker, the prince, had a group of gossiping nobles and had been humiliated by me earlier. They plotted a lie connecting me to the assassin of a noble girl, a girl named Julia Cash, who was the pretty white-lotus type in my school.
They created a scheme: on a public day in the academy's hall, at the cord of the Sky List announcements, they would accuse me of sending killers after Julia to get Prince Archer's love. It was convenient: I had walked close to the brothel once, I was seen with the prince, I was different.
They planned to make me fall. They planned to make me humiliated so nobody would challenge the Ling family again.
I had a choice. I could run. I could let my old life’s instinct hide me back in silence. Or I could stand.
On the morning of the public ranking, the great hall filled. Students, teachers, advisors, scribes with ink. A banner announced the rankings. I walked in with Martin and Martin's students—and with Pedro Crow appearing at the doorway. His presence made people breathe faster.
The accusations fell like arrows.
"Miss Lucille Garcia," a herald intoned with perfect court rhythm. "You stand accused of ordering killers to attack Miss Julia Cash. How do you plead?"
The hall fell silent, brittle as winter ice.
"No," I said. "I did not."
"Words mean nothing," Ling Feng said, smirking. "We have witnesses."
"Bring them," I said.
He had expected me to break. He did not expect me to be calm.
"Giles," I whispered to my teacher. "Can you bring the ledger?"
Giles left. He came back with a battered book from the academy herbarium. "This book records the motion of herbal orders and messenger lists to field trips," he said.
On his pages were records. There were merchant seals, courier names, and an unmistakable ink slip with a crest that matched the Ling house.
"I found this when an order came back wrong," Giles said. "It shows the order was sent by Household Ling, not by Miss Lucille."
Gasps swelled like a tide.
"What?" Ling Feng said, his smile stuttering.
Archer Baker's face went a strange pale. He had predicted applause. Instead he found himself in a room where the witnesses looked at him like a boy caught stealing.
"Who else could have access to the servants and the courier?" I asked aloud and watched the hall.
At that moment a scribe stepped forward. "Your Honors, I took notes of a messenger seen leaving with a scroll. He had Ling House crest."
Ling Feng's face hardened. He leaned forward.
"Prove it," he snapped. "You have nothing. Those scribes are ours."
"Do you remember," I said, eyes cold, "the guard who fell off the carriage in court district last month? He confessed to me under oath. His final note named Ling Household."
"You're lying," Ling Feng hissed. He sounded small. "You cannot name them—"
"I can name them," I said. "And I have proof."
I signaled Giles to hand the ledger to Martin. Martin nodded and stepped to the center, raising his voice.
"This ledger is forged by the Ling heirs," Martin declared. "Their servant marked the stamp to look like their own, but the ink traces show a second touch. Even so, the courier signature tells the truth."
It didn't matter that the crowd had expected a tidy scandal. The truth acted like salt in a wound.
Ling Feng's eyes darted. He moved from confident to pale. Archer Baker paled too.
"You're in my seat," Ling Feng spat and suddenly lunged toward me in rage. His hand found air and instead landed on a scribe's shoulder, who screamed and tripped.
The hall erupted.
"Stop them!" someone shouted.
"Guards!" others called.
Ling Feng tried to speak, his throat dry. "This is false! This is slander! You—Ye family—" He turned to his family but found the faces there were closed mouths. The wealthy always close their mouths first.
"You're lying!" he cried louder. He sounded like a child in the dark.
Then a hush. A tutor stepped forward with a paper and said, "We recorded everything. Ling Feng had ordered a sum to the courier and the ledger shows a duplicate signature. The evidence is thorough."
A ripple moved out. People began to mutter. "He stole." "They forged." "The Ling House?"
Ling Feng's color left his face. He began to plead.
"No, no, you must believe me—" His voice cracked.
"Look at them," a spectator whispered, and suddenly the crowd was a chorus.
"You lied, you schemed," another said. "How many others did you lie about?"
Ling Feng's eyes bulged. He staggered like a puppet whose strings cut.
"Archer Baker," I said calmly, "why did you decide to press this at the hall?"
Archer's jaw tightened. He had thought to use the scandal to push me out of any place near power. Now the tables turned.
"If you were so sure you loved Miss Julia," I said, "then why contrive a scheme to blame me?"
Archer's mouth opened. "I—" he tried to pull himself together. "I was advised. I was told—"
"By whom?" I asked.
He looked at Ling Feng. "We were told she would embarrass the court," he said weakly.
Then the room watched Archer change. He went from slick pride to a confusion like a man whose reflection is a stranger. "This isn't—this isn't true," he said, eyes wild. "You can't do this to me. I am a prince."
"Yet you were willing to ruin a girl's life for your pride," I said.
Archer's face crumpled. He stood small underneath the banners.
"No," he whispered. He stepped forward and then fell to his knees in the packed hall. The sound of his knees thumping on the marble echoed like a drum.
"Please," he whispered, "forgive me."
People whipped their heads. A woman gasped and scribes scurried to write. The crowd's whispers turned to astonishment, then to cruel delight.
"Prince Archer kneel?" someone laughed. "The prince kneels!"
"Shame," someone else cried. A young woman snapped a drawing of the prince with a charcoal—many hands began to record the moment with sketches and ink. In a place hungry for scandal, a prince on his knees was a feast.
Archer reached out a hand, trembling. "I beg your pardon. Miss Lucille. I—"
Ling Feng's composure failed entirely. He went from a sneer to terror in five breaths. "I didn't mean—" He clawed at the air. Sweat poured down his face.
"Enough," Martin said. He had been patient. He was the judge today in many people's eyes. "You will both stand trial before the academy elders. For dishonesty, conspiracy, and forging documents, you will be stripped of rank and publicly rebuked."
The hall made a sound like a storm breaking. Some cheered. Some gasped. Some scribes whispered "scandal" in ink. People came forward and snapped quick charcoal portraits. Even the servants watched with wide eyes, and a few clapped.
Ling Feng's expression crumbled from arrogance to shock, to denial, to collapse, and finally to begging.
"Please!" he wailed. "Please, I didn't— I'm sorry. I will repay. I will—"
No one reached out. The laughter and whispers kept him alone.
Archer was smaller than his status. "No," I said. "Archer Baker, you intended to use me. I will not accept your plea until you admit your wrongdoing."
He cried. He confessed his folly in a halting, raw voice. He begged forgiveness. Coins and status fell away. He begged.
People recorded the moments in ink sketches and oral retellings. Students copied the scene into their notebooks. Some hooted. Some covered their mouths in shock. A few stood and applauded quietly. The girl's face—Julia Cash—did not smile. She looked hollowed, like a person who had been fed lies until she had no taste.
The academy elders declared the verdict: Archer would be fined, stripped of honors, and made to perform duties for the academy for a year. Ling Feng would be expelled.
The crowd cheered as if the sun rose.
It was public. It was brutal. It was a perfect unmasking.
I left the hall with my head held high, my cheeks wet. I had said little. The truth had been the loudest voice.
After the trial ended, word spread like glitter. People spoke my name with awe. Some called me reckless. Many called me brave. My life became a different current entirely.
After the storm, life at the academy returned to a new normal. I trained under Martin and Giles. I practiced alchemy and combat until my hands were callused. Johann, in fox form, grew fatter and more indulgent. Pedro Crow appeared with improbable ways to irritate me and help me. Julio Cline kept showing up in silk and timing so precise that even the academy tutors rolled their eyes.
Weeks later, the Sky Path tournament came. I went into the Mist Forest again, this time better, faster, and smarter.
"You will be careful?" Martin asked.
"Yes," I said.
Johann chirped, "Don't be reckless or I'll—
"—I'll bite you," I finished.
I found a white rabbit in the forest. It was huge and gentle. My heart softened.
"Can it come?" I whispered.
Johann hesitated, then his little fox face softened. "I will look after it."
"Promise?" I cradled the rabbit like a stuffed toy with a heartbeat.
"Promise," Johann said, but he said it like a child who imagined all the wild things.
Events moved like painted warhorses. The tournament crowned winners, I climbed, and the academy shifted its attention to people who could act under pressure.
One night in the forest I found a hidden temple: a ruined palace guarded by silent traps. I stepped inside and found rooms full of treasures—herbs, pills of power, and a strange chest that felt like a heartbeat. There was a purple sakura emblem woven into a cloth in the last chamber.
Pedro Crow walked into the room beside me.
"What is this place?" I asked.
"A temple of the East Reign," he said softly. "You should not be here."
"I am here," I said.
He pulled out a small silver ring—an artifact humming with space inside. "Take this," he said, surprising me. "Keep what you need."
He put the ring on my finger like a trinket and then looked at me and did something I never expected. He waited.
"This was yours?" I asked.
"It is yours now," he said.
There is a strange, intimate power in receiving something without demand in return.
I touched the purple sakura token. It flashed like a memory and slipped inside me. Pain gripped my gut like cold iron. I thought I would pass out.
"Hold my hand," Pedro said.
He put his hand over mine and pulsed his energy into mine. The pain dropped like ice melting. The symbolism of his help was not lost on me.
After a long stillness, the spirit of the temple spoke to me with a woman's voice that smelled like snow and old wood.
"You have inherited the sakura," she said. "It will appear when you are hurt and heal you. Do not show it to those who hunt relics, or they will come for you."
"A saint?" I asked, breathless.
"Yes," the voice answered. "I was a saint of this place. I cannot return. I give my guard to you."
She faded. The palace, the chest, the ring—all became mine to call at will. My life now had secret rooms and a safe place that smelled like moonlight.
I took the rabbit home. I named it Big White. Johann sulked and then adored it.
"How many surprises does life hold?" I asked one night, as I rubbed Big White's ears and watched Pedro cook by the fire with the roughest gentleness.
"Enough," Pedro said, looking at the dark.
"Will you stay with me?" I asked, foolish and honest.
"I will be where I want to be," he said. "If that is beside you, then yes."
"I'll take it," I said.
Time bent. I trained. I learned the rules of the ring Pedro had given me. I read the spells in the old herb books Giles handed me. I stitched my life with small joys: the rabbit, Johann's ridiculous child-face, Giles' steady patience, Martin's quiet pride, and Pedro's occasional, terrible grins.
We cracked old riddles in the palace and I felt the power of the sakura bloom when I hurt myself and then heal.
Months later, on a sun that smelled of jasmine, I stood in my palace—my small world—and wound the tiny, quiet medal in my palm. Johann circled my head like a little red comet.
"Do you ever think," Johann asked, "that you are too loud for a noble life?"
"Maybe," I said. "But I like being loud. It gets things done."
"Promise me one thing," Pedro said suddenly, and I heard a softness in him I had not before.
"What?"
"Do not hide who you are to please anyone. Keep the sakura in your life as a secret of your battles."
"I will," I said.
He looked at my wrist where a faint purple sakura mark pulsed once in memory and then faded.
"That flower knows you," he said.
So I wind the jewel on my finger and close my fingers around Johann's fox-slept head and Big White's soft ear.
I do not know if I will ever be an actress again. I do not know if Archer Baker's pride will mend into something kinder. I do know this: my ring holds space for the things I take from the world, my fox will tell me secrets in a child's voice, and the purple sakura on my wrist will burn bright when I fall and close like a secret when I rise.
I am Lucille Garcia. I am a student, a thief of relics, an apprentice of masters, the bonded of a fox named Johann, and the woman who stopped a prince from making a ruinous bet with someone's life.
I tuck the sakura token into the innermost pocket of the palace chest and whisper, "Tianming—rise."
The old palace answers with a breath, and the purple bloom on my wrist hums like a promise.
The End
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