Free In Another Life by Carys Jones Page A

sat down beside him.
     
    “I just want to understand what is going on,” she said softly. “If this is a dream, it’s certainly going on, I thought I’d have woken up by now.”
     
    “I can assure you that this isn’t a dream.” Orion clarified.
     
    Sat beside him Marie inhaled his scent. It engulfed her senses and made her entire body relax. There was something about Orion. When she was around him she felt like she could let her guard down. She rarely felt like that with anyone, not even Sebastian.
     
    Thinking about her fiancé sent a sharp pang of guilt surging down Marie’s spine and she stiffened.
     
    “I don’t belong here.”
     
    “But you do! I wish you could see that!” Orion’s expression was so earnest when he spoke.
     
    “I belong back home, in Manchester, or London. This place…I don’t know what it is. And you keep calling me your princess.”
     
    “You are our princess, you’ve just forgotten.”
     
    “How is that even possible?”
     
    Orion thought for a moment. He wished he’d had the chance to fulfil his training before having to explain how the impossible can be possible.
     
    “Azriel is a world which exists alongside the one you are from.”
     
    “Like a parallel universe?”
     
    “Exactly. But this world is the one you belong in. Years ago, there was a great war and your parents were executed by insurgents. To save you, you were sent to another world, to the world you think you belong to. We hoped you’d come back much sooner than you have. You’ve been gone so long that your memories of here have faded away to nothing.”
     
    “This is madness,” Marie rested her head in her hands.
     
    “No,” Orion insisted. “Don’t you recall as a child, feeling like you were a princess?”
     
    Marie did indeed used to believe she was a princess. She’d sit atop her bunk bed and insist that she was in her palace on top of the hill and that everyone must address her accordingly. Her parents would indulge in her fantasy for a while but then when bedtime came around they’d tell Marie to end her childish games and go to sleep.
     
    “But I really am a princess!” Marie would cry.
     
    “No, sweetheart, you’re a little girl and a tired one at that,” her mother would explain, her voice strained as she tried for the tenth time to get Marie to go to sleep.
     
    “I’m a princess!” Marie would declare stubbornly.
     
    “I’ve had enough of this, get to bed this instant! No more bed time stories for you! They are filling your head with nonsense!”
     
    Carol Schneider would eventually win and place a subdued Marie in to bed.
     
    Looking back, Marie was completely convinced she was a princess but didn’t all little girl’s feel that way? As she thought she tilted her head slightly.
     
    “We’ve waited so long for you to come back, to restore balance to Azriel,” Orion continued.
     
    “Balance?”
     
    “We’ve been ruled by Guardians, which is fine in the short term. But Azriel needs royal blood upon the throne in order to thrive. The city has already shrunk considerably in your absence. The golden buildings used to stretch out as far as the eye can see but now they stop at the beanstalk forest.”
     
    Marie fingered her dress as he spoke. The fabric felt so real.
     
    “You’re the last of your blood line, North. We need you back, to shine above us and restore us to our former glory.”
     
    “My name is Marie.”
     
    “No, it’s not. You are our Princess North. Finally you’ve woken up and made your way back here.”
     
    “Woken up?” Marie asked, her gaze drifting towards the door where the hospital gown had been discarded.
     
    “Yes, in order to return to Azriel you had to wake up from the dream of the other world you were in. We just didn’t think it would take this long.”
     
    “So this isn’t a dream?” Marie asked with uncertainty.
     
    “No, far from it. This is the real world, North. The world that you belong in, as our