Not My World
The Scot’s gaze held her captive.
Isla could still feel the lingering weight of water clinging to her skin, the ache in her muscles from fighting against the tide, and the strange, thrumming pulse beneath her ribs—present, insistent, yet fading like the echo of a bell in a deep canyon.
Her breath slowed, though her mind hadn’t yet caught up to what had happened.
She should be grateful. She should be thanking him.
But something didn’t feel right.
The silence unsettled her first. No distant traffic, no murmurs of voices, no humming streetlights—just the whisper of wind through leaves, the low rustle of branches shifting, the rhythmic lap of water against the shore.
The air smelled wrong—thick with earth and woodsmoke, laced with something wild and pungent, like moss, loam, and the faintest hint of iron. It clung to her tongue, sharp and foreign, making her stomach churn.
And then, the clothing—the way the Scot’s kilt seemed too rough, too irregular in its weave, the hand-stitched seams, the intricate pattern that looked less like a mass-produced tartan and more like something passed down through generations.
She blinked up at him, trying to make sense of what her eyes saw and what her mind whispered—something is wrong.
“Can you—” Her voice cracked. She coughed, shivering, forcing herself to sound steadier. “Can you call my parents?”
His brow furrowed as if she’d spoken a language he didn’t know.
She expected him to pull out a phone, nod, ask for a number, something normal, something safe.
Instead, he glanced over his shoulder, scanning the treeline as if expecting wolves or bandits instead of cell reception.
“I can fetch someone to help,” he offered. His voice was deep, steady, but there was an odd cadence to it—an accent that tugged at something buried in her memory. Not Edinburgh, not even the Highlands as she’d heard them before, but older. More guttural, a hint of something lost to time.
Her stomach tightened, a cold knot forming in the pit of her belly.
She turned quickly, eyes darting over the shoreline, scanning for a sign of civilization—power lines, road signs, streetlights. There was nothing. Just the endless stretch of dark water, the dense press of trees, the sky overhead so clear, so bright with stars it made her dizzy.
Her hand shot to her pocket.
Empty.
Her phone.
Her keys.
Her wallet.
Gone.
Her pulse stuttered, a sudden sharp thump-thump in her ears.
“Where’s my phone?” she whispered, barely aware she’d spoken.
The Scot’s eyes flicked to hers, narrowing slightly. A faint line creased the corner of his mouth—not quite a smile, but not confusion either.
She felt it then—a thread pulling taut between them.
Does he feel it too.
Before she could press him, a sharp crack—like a branch breaking—snapped her attention back to the woods.
Figures emerged from the trees, moving with an ease that sent a shiver down her spine. They weren’t walking so much as striding, each step deliberate, confident, as if they owned the land.
Their clothes were wrong—tunics of heavy wool, leather belts slung low on their hips, cloaks draped over their shoulders. Some carried swords. Real, worn, heavy-looking swords.
She froze.
Her breath hitched.
One of them stepped forward, his eyes locking onto hers with a sharp, almost relieved recognition.
“Princess!”
Her mind blanked, a crackling static filling her head.
Princess?
The older man spoke again, his voice resonant with authority, roughened by years of command. “Your parents are waiting at the castle. We feared you’d been taken by raiders.”
Castle.
The word crashed against her like a rogue wave, cold and impossible.
She stared at him, rooted to the ground, unable to move as the others approached.
They didn’t question her presence. They didn’t ask who she was or how she’d gotten there. They simply accepted her.
Her voice trembled. “I… I’m not—”
Before she could finish, a woman swept forward, bustling with the energy of a mother hen. She clucked her tongue disapprovingly, draping a thick cloak over Isla’s shoulders with a firm tug that nearly knocked her off balance.
“Utterly mad, this one,” the woman muttered under her breath, smoothing Isla’s damp hair back with brisk, practiced hands. “Out in the woods alone, soaked through—do you know how worried your parents have been? Gallivanting off like this, scaring everyone half to death!”
Isla couldn’t breathe.
Her skin felt too tight, her lungs too small, her vision tunneling around the edges.
The cloak, the carriage, the castle.
Her body trembled as she clutched the heavy wool tighter around her, as if it might anchor her to something real.
A terrible, impossible thought bloomed in her mind, sharp as a blade’s edge.
She had traveled.
She had fallen into the story.
And she was the princess.