Alaric sensed someone calling him.
“Your Highness, please wake up…”
He turned his head away, but the voice didn't fade. Instead, it grew louder, more insistent. Then, he felt a gentle tug on his sleeve.
“Your Highness, my Royal Prince!”
Alaric’s eyes snapped open. His familiar world was gone. The work desk, the computer, the walls plastered with post-it notes—all of it had vanished, replaced by a strange and unsettling landscape. He was in a round public square ringed by small brick houses. Dominating his view, erected in the center of the square, was a gallows. He found himself seated at a table, facing it. The soft, rotating office chair was gone, and in its place was a cold, hard iron one. A group of people sat with him, their eyes fixed on him. Several, dressed like medieval nobles from a historical drama, were poorly suppressing their giggles.
What the hell? Wasn't I just racing to finish my mechanical blueprints? Alaric thought, completely at a loss. He had been working overtime for three days straight, pushing himself to his mental and physical limits. He could vaguely recall his heartbeat growing unsteady, the overwhelming urge to just lie down on his desk and rest for a moment…
“Your Highness, please declare your ruling.”
The speaker was the man who had tugged on his sleeve. His face was old and lined, perhaps in his fifties or sixties, and he wore a simple white robe. At first glance, he reminded Alaric of Valerius from The Lord of the Rings.
Am I dreaming? Alaric licked his dry lips. Ruling? What ruling?
His gaze swept across the square, and the confusion began to clear. Everyone around him was staring toward the gallows. A crowd of townspeople had also gathered in the plaza, waving their fists, shouting, and occasionally hurling stones at the grim structure and the lone figure upon it.
Alaric had only ever seen such an ancient instrument of death in movies. Two pillars, nearly four meters high, rose from a raised platform, connected by a thick crossbeam. A coarse, yellow hemp rope was slung over the center of the beam, one end tied fast, the other cinched in a noose around a prisoner's neck.
In this bizarre dream, his vision was unnervingly sharp. Normally, he needed glasses to see the words on his computer screen, but now, from fifty meters away, he could make out every splintered detail of the gallows.
The prisoner’s head was covered by a rough hood, their hands bound behind their back. They were dressed in dirty gray rags that hung on a frame so thin a hand could have easily encircled their exposed ankle. From the slight curve of her chest, Alaric judged the prisoner to be female. She was shivering in the chilly wind but still trying to stand straight, as if to meet her fate on her feet.
Alright then, he thought. What crime could this woman have committed to provoke such outrage, to make so many people wait with such hostile anticipation for her death?
As if a switch had been flicked, memories that were not his own flooded his mind. The cause of the situation, the answer to his question, surfaced in the same instant.
She was a “witch.”
An agent of the devil, an incarnation of evil itself.
“Your Highness?” the Valerius lookalike prompted cautiously.
Alaric glanced at the old man. The new memories supplied a name. He wasn't Valerius; he was Balthazar, an Assistant Minister of Finance sent by Alaric's father to help govern the territory.
And Alaric’s new identity was Alaric, the fourth prince of the Kingdom of Ironspire, sent here to rule this border town. The locals had captured the witch and handed her over to the city guard. There had been no questioning, no trial. She had been sent directly for sentencing. The execution of suspected witches was normally handled by the local lord or a bishop, but since he had assumed control of this territory, the duty was now his.
The memories answered his questions as they formed, not as a library to be searched, but as experiences he had always possessed. He was momentarily dizzy. No dream could be this detailed. Was it possible this wasn't a dream? Had he actually traveled through time, to some dark medieval age, and become this Prince Alaric? Had he gone from a beleaguered mechanical engineer to a royal prince overnight?
This barren, backward territory was part of the Kingdom of Ironspire, a name he had never encountered in any history book.
So, how was he going to handle this?
Whatever had caused this unscientific leap through time and space could be investigated later. His immediate concern was the farce unfolding before him. Blaming witches for every disaster and misfortune was the work of ignorant barbarians. He couldn't bring himself to commit such a stupid, brutal act just to appease a mob.
He snatched the formal written orders from Balthazar’s hand, tossed them to the ground, and said slowly, “I’m tired. We will render judgment another day. Court is dismissed. Disperse the crowd.”
He knew he couldn't be reckless. Rummaging through his new memories, he tried to mimic the former prince’s behavior: arrogant, roguish, and impulsive. That’s right, the fourth prince was a mess, with a nasty character and no regard for consequences. Besides, Alaric mused, what good behavior could anyone expect from an uncontrollable twenty-something, anyway?
The nobles seated with him remained composed at his unexpected declaration, but a tall man in a suit of armor stood up to object. “Your Highness, this is no joke! All known witches must be put to death immediately, lest others be tempted to rescue her! Do you want the church to intervene when they learn we’ve allowed a witch to live? This is not a choice!”
This was Gideon, his Knight Commander. Alaric frowned, his voice dripping with a mockery that wasn't entirely an act. “Why? Are you scared? A man with arms thicker than that woman’s waist is afraid of a prison raid?” He gave a dismissive smirk. “And if they did try, wouldn't it be better to catch more witches than to settle for just one?”
Seeing the knight fall silent, Alaric waved a hand to summon his personal guards and turned to leave. Gideon hesitated for a moment before striding down to fall in step beside the prince. The other nobles rose and bowed as he departed, but from the corners of his eyes, Alaric could see their undisguised contempt.
Back in the keep, which stood south of the border town, he dismissed the anxious Minister Balthazar outside his chambers. Alone at last, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
For someone who spent ninety percent of his life dealing with people through a computer screen, that public confrontation had pushed him far past his comfort zone. Using his new memories to find his bedroom, Alaric sat on the edge of the bed, trying to still his violently beating heart. The most important thing now was to get his bearings. Why was a prince, who should be in the capital, Aethelgard, sent to this godforsaken land?
The answer, when it came from Alaric’s memories, left him stupefied.
Alaric Thorne was here to compete for the throne.
It had all started with a proclamation from his father, King Thorne III of Ironspire. “You want to inherit the kingdom?” he had declared to his children. “The first-born has no special right. Only the one who proves most capable of governing shall inherit the country.” He had assigned his five children to different territories, with the promise that in five years, he would choose his successor based on their performance.
While turning the succession into a meritocracy that ignored birth order and gender sounded enlightened, the implementation was a disaster. There was no guarantee of equal starting conditions; this wasn't some real-time strategy game. To his knowledge, the second son had received a territory far richer than this border town. In fact, of the five regions, his was by far the worst. His starting point was simply inferior.
And how, Alaric wondered, was “governance” to be measured? Population? Military might? Economic strength? Thorne III had mentioned no standards, nor had he placed any restrictions on the competition. What was to stop one candidate from simply assassinating the others? Would the queen just stand by and watch her children kill one another? Wait… He delved deeper into the memories. Ah, another piece of bad news: the queen had died five years ago.
Alaric sighed. This was a barbaric, feudal age, no doubt about it. The casual willingness to execute witches was proof enough. And why would he even want to be king? There was no internet, none of the comforts of modern civilization. He would have to live like the locals, entertaining himself by burning witches, residing in a city where people dumped their filth in the streets, and probably dying of the Crimson Scourge.
Still, being a prince was an incredibly high starting point. Even if he failed to become king, he was still of royal blood, a titled noble. As long as he survived, he would be one of the lords of the realm.
Suppressing his wandering thoughts, Alaric walked to his bedroom mirror. The man looking back at him had light gray hair, the most distinctive feature of the royal family. His face was a bit pale, his features regular but unremarkable, completely lacking in any defining traits. He was clearly out of shape, and the prince’s memories recalled a regular indulgence in both wine and women. He’d had several lovers back in the King’s City, but it had all been consensual; he’d never forced anyone.
As for how he had crossed over… Alaric could only guess. The company's inhuman deadlines, the endless overtime his boss demanded—it had probably led to his sudden death at his desk. The victims in these cases were always the coders, the programmers, the mechanical engineers like him.
In the end, he had been given the equivalent of a second life. He really couldn't complain too much. In time, perhaps he could slowly improve things. But his first task was to play a convincing 4th Prince, lest someone decide his strange new behavior was a sign of demonic possession and have him burned at the stake.
“So, in order to live well…” Alaric took a deep breath, looked his reflection in the eye, and whispered, “from now on, I’m Alaric.”