Chapter 1

As Hawkridge's only princess, I was stealing from the Regent's residence when the Skyveil first appeared.

More precisely, I was stealing Elias Crowell's treasury sigil.

The token was carved from dark greenstone with the hidden mark of Hawkridge's treasury, proof that the royal household and Regent shared authority over grain and funds.

Elias kept it inside the third concealed drawer of his writing desk.

While he attended council at the palace, I crouched in his study and worked at the lock.

The lock clicked open just as the Skyveil lit across the heavens.

Before I could hide the sigil properly, the study door opened from outside.

Elias stood in the doorway.

White coat, dark hair, cold eyes.

His gaze dropped first to the sigil in my hand, then lifted toward the sky.

The Skyveil had divided itself into four panels.

In the first, I wore a Frostmoor fur cloak and sat inside King Ronan Blackwood's war tent, obediently sharpening his sword.

In the second, white silk covered my eyes as I leaned beside a counting board in a Rivermark waterside pavilion and softly called King Sebastian Redfield "my husband."

In the third, dressed entirely in black, I knelt beside Crown Prince Adrian Locke's bed in Willowspire, coughing blood as I swore to protect him with my life.

And in the fourth panel, there I was, crouched in Regent Crowell's study with a treasury sigil in my left hand, a lockpick in my right, and guilt written all over my face.

Elias stared at me for a very long time.

Long enough that I expected guards to drag me away and execute me on the spot.

Then he laughed once.

"Your Highness went to Cedar Chapel to pray and somehow came back as Frostmoor's queen, Rivermark's royal merchant bride, Willowspire's covert guard, and an expert lockpicker in my own house?"

Silently, I pushed the sigil deeper into my sleeve.

The live comments racing across the Skyveil had already gone insane.

[Frostmoor viewer: Isn't that the Snowbound Queen our king searched for three years to find? She's alive?]

[Rivermark viewer: What queen? That's the blind wife who conned our king out of three treasure ships!]

[Willowspire viewer: Move aside! That's the Crown Prince's dead covert-guard wife! Her memorial stone is still standing in his own house!]

[Hawkridge viewer: Wait. So while our princess was supposedly away from court, she was out restocking?]

Elias tapped one knuckle against the doorframe.

"Mara Whitlock."

He almost never used my full name.

Whenever he did, it meant I was in serious trouble.

I forced the most harmless smile I could manage.

"Regent, I can explain."

Elias looked down at me.

"Good."

He closed the door with infuriating patience.

"You'd better explain faster than the Skyveil."

I had barely opened my mouth when the system's sweet, merciless voice sounded overhead.

"Realm Survival Review: commencing now.

"Act One: Frostmoor."

I was finished.

It was faster than me.

In the first year of the Dawn Reckoning, when I transmigrated into this novel, Hawkridge had achieved an almost artistic level of poverty.

The palace roof leaked, mice ran freely through the treasury storehouses, and government officials drew lots to see who would receive a salary.

Those who won got half a sack of stale grain.

Those who lost received an officially stamped IOU.

On my first day awake in that world, the system gave me my mission.

"Host bound to Realm Survival Mission. If Hawkridge falls within three years, Host dies with it. If Hawkridge prospers, Host may return to the original world with ten billion in assets."

I latched onto one part.

Ten billion.

I sat straight up in my sickbed.

"I'm in."

The system was delighted.

The next day, it sent me to Frostmoor.