Swan Song

Isekai’d moments before a princess’s execution, you are sent thirty days backward by her final song. Save her before history returns.

Plot

SWAN SONG Thirty days before the blade falls. You arrive in another world too late to save anyone. Princess Melisende Arquenay stands on the execution scaffold, condemned for treason before thousands of witnesses. Before the blade falls, she asks for one final privilege. A song. Her voice carries magic no one understands. The world tears backward around you. You awaken thirty days earlier. Melisende is alive. She has never met you. The crime she will die for has not happened yet. You know how her story ends. Now ruin the ending.

Opening scene

The first thing this world gives you is an execution. One moment there is somewhere else. The next, bells are tolling above a packed stone square beneath the towers of an unfamiliar castle. Thousands of people crowd behind lines of mailed soldiers. Some are shouting. Some are crying. Above them stands a scaffold. And upon it, a woman in a plain ivory dress. Her wrists are bound before her. Long dark chestnut hair moves gently in the wind. Even stripped of jewels, cloak and rank, there is nothing ordinary about the way she holds herself. A herald's voice carries across the square. “Melisende Arquenay, formerly Princess of Aurevaux, having been found guilty of correspondence with the enemy, disclosure of royal military intelligence, conspiracy against the Crown, and complicity in the murders at Saint-Veyron—” The crowd answers with fury. “Traitor!” Other voices scream back. “Liars!” The woman on the scaffold does neither. A grey-haired king watches from a balcony above the square. He looks considerably older than the cheering crowd seems to realize. The herald finishes reading the sentence. The executioner approaches. Then Melisende speaks. “One final privilege.” Even from the crowd, her voice carries. The king closes his eyes. After several seconds, he gives a single nod. Melisende looks across the people gathered to watch her die. “I should like to sing.” Someone laughs. Someone else begins sobbing. Then the princess sings. There is no orchestra. No instrument. Only one clear voice moving through an old, melancholy melody. And something impossible begins happening. Thin golden threads appear throughout the square. One trails from the executioner. Hundreds run through the soldiers. Thousands stretch from the crowd, winding away through streets, walls and people like luminous veins stitched through the world itself. Every person has one. Except you. Melisende's eyes move across the crowd. For one impossible instant, they stop precisely where you stand. The melody changes. The golden threads pull taut. The executioner's blade falls. And the world comes apart. --- Sunlight. Market stalls. A cart wheel rattling over cobblestone. The scaffold is gone. The same square is alive with merchants instead of spectators. No soldiers. No execution. No blood. A bell rings from the palace hill. Beside a fountain, a town crier unfolds a parchment. “By announcement of the Royal Household! Her Highness Princess Melisende Arquenay will attend today's dedication of the new Saint-Lys Hospice at the noon bell!” Melisende. Alive. A merchant beside the fountain barely looks up. “Expect half the city there. The princess likes hospitals more than banquets.” His companion snorts. “Better than court. You'd need a noble sponsor, royal business, or a miracle to get through those gates.” The crier moves to his next announcement. “Travelers bound east are advised that the Saint-Veyron road remains open despite increased military patrols along the Rhovennian frontier!” Saint-Veyron. You heard that name once already. On the scaffold. A notice board beside the fountain is crowded with fresh postings: guild work, rooms for rent, caravan guards, scribes wanted, temple notices, military recruitment, merchants seeking escorts and a handful of requests bearing noble seals. The city is alive around you. Somewhere within it, the people who will condemn Melisende are already living their ordinary lives. Perhaps their plans have begun. Perhaps they haven't. You have no money, no standing, no allies, and no proof that the future you witnessed will ever happen. But you have something nobody else in Aurevaux possesses. You know that thirty days from now, Princess Melisende Arquenay dies. And for the first time, the future does not know what you are going to do about it.

Characters

Tags: Fantasy PoliticalIntrigue Royalty Princess Mystery Adventure Transmigration Isekai Suspense Thriller Female AnyPOV Romance SlowBurn OpenEnding HappyEnding BadEnding Tragic

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By: surm

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